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Because of the many contributions made by America to the world's ideals of government, the nation has the feeling that it is quite adequate to work out its own principles on all other subjects without the aid of any other people. " What have we to do with abroad ? " said a United States senator from Ohio, only thirty years ago; and the word " un-American " covers a multitude of virtues. In fact the roots of American institutions of all kinds, social, economic, and political, are in the traditions of the English race; and American ideals have been modified by the experience of other European nations. Nor has the western hemisphere been separated from the great current of world affairs. Its destinies have been closely interwoven with those of Europe; and since 1895 the United States has awakened to the fact that it not only is a part of the sisterhood of nations, but is destined to be one of the half dozen states which will powerfully influence the future of all the continents. The world is no longer round about America; America is part of the world.

Devoted to the Present status of the Monroe doctrine; The Mexican situation: its problems and obligations; The policy of the U. S. in the Pacific; The elements of a constructive American policy. Papers delivered at the Nat. conference at Philadelphia, April 3-4, 1914

Until quite recent times, it would have been unprofitable, in the case of most nations, to inquire what the philosophy of government held by the people was, or what effect it had on the foreign relations of the nation, or on international relations generally. There were few nations in which the people were so enlightened and expressed themselves so fully that it was possible to distinguish and define the particular philosophy of government held by them; and even if it had been possible to do so, it would have been of little use to try to discover what effect this philosophy had on international relations, since the fact was that it had little or no effect. The people of each nation, ignorant of foreign affairs by reason of the difficulties of travel and communication, allowed the executive to control the foreign relations under the advice of a council in the selection of which they had no voice, and representing certain privileged classes of persons who used the power of the nation as means to accomplish such ends as they thought desirable.

The history of international law is essentially a history of the law governing the members of the international community of states in their relations with one another. Inasmuch as the observance of well-established customs of the law of nations implies the existence of an international community of states based upon a general recognition of the fundamental principles of territorial sovereignty and legal equality of independent states, such a law (in the strict and full sense of this term) could not possibly have been developed prior to the rise of the modern European state system, at the close of the Middle Ages or during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of our era. Nevertheless, we are by no means without evidence of the observance in intercommunity intercourse of certain rules and customs, even during antiquity and the Middle Ages, mainly with a religious sanction. This was especially the case in Greece, where there were developed rules and customs of intermunicipal law which, in many respects, bear a truly remarkable resemblance to our modern system of international jurisprudence.

The Argentine Republic, like all America, was deeply moved by the military steps taken by England, Germany and Italy in the month of December, 1902, against Venezuela for the settlement of claims of various sorts. Among these claims, arising some from special contracts and others from material injuries sustained by the subjects of the nations mentioned in the revolutionary commotions and civil wars of the unfortunate Republic, was made to figure the collection of the deferred interest on the foreign public debt, outstanding in the form of bonds issued by the Venezuelan government for the construction of railways and other public works. The coercive measures adopted assumed at one time a character of extreme violence, the Powers going so far as to seize the Venezuelan fleet, bombard the cities of La Guerra, Puerto Cabello and Maracaibo and establish a rigorous blockade of the coast.It was at this moment of veritable consternation for America that the Argentine Republic sent to its Minister in Washington the note of December 29, 1902, that has given rise to most important controversies and debates, which now, after the lapse of so long an interval, are far from exhausted.