British Bondholders and the Roosevelt Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine Standing from the present we inhabit, it can be easy to look at the grander moments in history past and forget that they were as much driven by the same interests and complexities that drive similar moments in contemporary politics as well. It is the presence of these such interests that the author J. Fred Rippy hoped to document in his paper The British Bondholders and the Roosevelt Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine, published in 1934 by the Academy of Political Science. In it, he proposes that one of the major driving forces which pushed then-President Theodore Roosevelt to establish his Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine was the pressure put on the State Department
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According to Rippy, the story begins with the San Domingo Improvement Company, which had been granted control of Dominican customs and loans, and had become “heavily indebted” to British investors (Rippy, pg. 196). Upon being “deprived” of said control of Dominican customs and loans, both the Company as well as its British bondholders appealed to the U.S State Department (pg. 196-197). The U.S government backed the San Domingo Improvement Company and its bondholders, supporting them in arbitrations, with the Dominican Republic eventually being promised “four and one-half million dollars for its properties, rights and claims in the Dominican Republic,” (Rippy, pg. 197). This sparked outrage among the creditors of France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Germany, who saw the U.S’s involvement in the arbitration as untoward favoritism, and as unfairly using the protection afforded to Latin American countries under the Monroe Doctrine to choose for itself which nations America’s sister republics could expect just dealings and which ones the Latin Americas could avoid meeting their obligations to (Rippy, pg 197). Diplomatically backed into a corner, Roosevelt had little choice but …show more content…
The cause-and-effect sequence both follows logically, and is extensively backed up with plentiful evidence, including State Department papers and correspondence during the events in question. Rippy also draws from financial and business sources seldom seen in other papers on the topic as evidence, primarily the Council of the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders. The author demonstrates an obvious familiarity with both the diplomatic and business sides of the Roosevelt Corollary, and while he does rely somewhat on terminology and concepts likely unfamiliar to those without an intermediate understanding of the topics discussed, particularly the business side of his analysis, he does provide enough context to grant a basic picture of things even if the casual reader does not fully grasp all the nuance of it. While the assertion that something as important to America’s development into a world power was the direct result of British bondholders trying to protect their profit margins is certainly a bold one, Rippy is fully able to back his claim; in fact, he does so with a somewhat endearing modesty, deeming his analysis naught more than “a small contribution… [to a] complicated subject” (Rippy, pg. 195). I do perhaps wish Rippy had been able to make an assertion or broader argument, or otherwise
According to Rippy, the story begins with the San Domingo Improvement Company, which had been granted control of Dominican customs and loans, and had become “heavily indebted” to British investors (Rippy, pg. 196). Upon being “deprived” of said control of Dominican customs and loans, both the Company as well as its British bondholders appealed to the U.S State Department (pg. 196-197). The U.S government backed the San Domingo Improvement Company and its bondholders, supporting them in arbitrations, with the Dominican Republic eventually being promised “four and one-half million dollars for its properties, rights and claims in the Dominican Republic,” (Rippy, pg. 197). This sparked outrage among the creditors of France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Germany, who saw the U.S’s involvement in the arbitration as untoward favoritism, and as unfairly using the protection afforded to Latin American countries under the Monroe Doctrine to choose for itself which nations America’s sister republics could expect just dealings and which ones the Latin Americas could avoid meeting their obligations to (Rippy, pg 197). Diplomatically backed into a corner, Roosevelt had little choice but …show more content…
The cause-and-effect sequence both follows logically, and is extensively backed up with plentiful evidence, including State Department papers and correspondence during the events in question. Rippy also draws from financial and business sources seldom seen in other papers on the topic as evidence, primarily the Council of the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders. The author demonstrates an obvious familiarity with both the diplomatic and business sides of the Roosevelt Corollary, and while he does rely somewhat on terminology and concepts likely unfamiliar to those without an intermediate understanding of the topics discussed, particularly the business side of his analysis, he does provide enough context to grant a basic picture of things even if the casual reader does not fully grasp all the nuance of it. While the assertion that something as important to America’s development into a world power was the direct result of British bondholders trying to protect their profit margins is certainly a bold one, Rippy is fully able to back his claim; in fact, he does so with a somewhat endearing modesty, deeming his analysis naught more than “a small contribution… [to a] complicated subject” (Rippy, pg. 195). I do perhaps wish Rippy had been able to make an assertion or broader argument, or otherwise