to compete with Europeans. But once again
European jealousies and fears rather than American
cleverness were responsible. When the Japanese, mis-
trusting Russian intentions in Manchuria, asked Hay
how he intended to implement his policy, he replied
meekly that the United States was “not prepared...
to enforce these views.” The United States was being
caught up in the power struggle in East Asia without
having faced the implications of its actions.
In time the country would pay a heavy price for
this unrealistic attitude, but in the decade following
1900 its policy of diplomatic meddling unbacked by
bayonets worked fairly well. Japan attacked Russia in a
quarrel over Manchuria, smashing the Russian fleet in
1905 and winning a series of battles on the mainland.
Japan was not prepared for a long war, however, and
suggested to President Roosevelt that an American
offer to mediate would be favorably received.
Eager to preserve the nice balance of power in
East Asia, which enabled the United States to exert
influence without any significant commitment of
force, Roosevelt accepted the hint. In June 1905 he
invited the belligerents to a conference at Portsmouth,
New Hampshire. At the conference the Japanese won
title to Russia’s sphere around Port Arthur and a free
hand in Korea, but when they demanded Sakhalin
Island and a large money indemnity, the Russians
balked. Unwilling to resume the war, the Japanese set-
tled for half of Sakhalin and no money.
The Treaty of Portsmouth was unpopular in
Japan, and the government managed to place the
blame on Roosevelt, who had supported the compro-
mise. Ill feeling against Americans increased in 1906
when the San Francisco school board, responding to
local opposition to the influx of cheap labor from
Japan, instituted a policy of segregating Asian children
in a special school. Japan protested, and President
Roosevelt persuaded the San Franciscans to abandon
segregation in exchange for his pledge to cut off fur-
ther Japanese immigration. He accomplished this
through a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” (1907) in which
the Japanese promised not to issue passports to labor-
ers seeking to come to America. Discriminatory legis-
lation based specifically on race was thus avoided.
However, the atmosphere between the two countries
remained charged. Japanese resentment at American
racial prejudice was great; many Americans talked
fearfully of the “yellow peril.”
Theodore Roosevelt was preeminently a realist in
foreign relations. “Don’t bluster,” he once said.
“Don’t flourish a revolver, and never draw unless you
intend to shoot.” In East Asia he failed to follow his
own advice. He considered the situation in that part
of the world fraught with peril. The Philippines, he
said, were “our heel of Achilles,” indefensible in case
of a Japanese attack. He suggested privately that the
United States ought to “be prepared for giving the
islands independence... much sooner than I think
advisable from their own standpoint.”
Yet while Roosevelt did not appreciably increase
American naval and military strength in East Asia,
neither did he stop trying to influence the course of
events in the area, and he took no step toward with-
drawing from the Philippines. He sent the fleet on a
world cruise to demonstrate its might to Japan but
knew well that this was mere bluff. “The ‘Open
Door’ policy,” he advised his successor, “completely
disappears as soon as a powerful nation determines to
disregard it.” Nevertheless he allowed the belief to
persist in the United States that the nation could
influence the course of East Asian history without risk
or real involvement.The Panama Canal
In the Caribbean region American policy centered
on building an interoceanic canal across Central
America. Expanding interests in Latin America and
East Asia made a canal necessary, a truth pointed up
during the war with Spain by the two-month voyage
of USS Oregon around South America from
California waters to participate in the action against
Admiral Cervera’s fleet at Santiago. The first step
was to get rid of the old Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
with Great Britain, which barred the United States
from building a canal on its own. In 1901 LordThe Panama Canal 603An electron microscopic photo of a mosquito that carried yellow
fever. Major Walter Reed of the U.S. army proved that yellow fever
was not spread directly among humans, but from the bites of
infected mosquitoes. The virus then multiplied in the human
bloodstream. Headache, backache, fever, and vomiting ensued.
Liver cells were destroyed, resulting in jaundice—thus the name
“yellow fever.” American surgeon William Crawford Gorgas worked
to eliminate yellow fever by destroying the breeding grounds of
these mosquitoes. The last yellow fever outbreak in the United
States struck New Orleans and parts of the South in 1905.