evident when assessing freedom of the press. The U.S. media enjoyed constitutional safeguards. The first amendment included in the Bill of Rights provides that “Congress shall make no law…. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”34 By the mid-1890s, changes in the revenue structure of newspapers—the rise of commercial advertising—had also freed editors from financial dependence on political parties.35 The German constitution failed to enshrine journalistic freedom. As a result, the government systematically wielded charges of slander, libel, and lèse-majesté against publications that it found objectionable.36 Employing the abbreviated survey of media freedom developed in the previous chapter, the United States receives a zero—a free press—while Germany receives a four—an unfree press.
Great Britain Appeases the United States
As the United States burst onto the global scene, Great Britain opted for a strategy of appeasement. Virtually all points of tension in Anglo-American relations from 1895 on resulted in unilateral British concessions.
In July 1895, the United States intervened in the long-running boundary dispute between British Guiana and Venezuela. Unhappy with the British response, Richard Olney, the American secretary of state, issued a dispatch to the British government demanding that London agree to arbitration. Replying five months later, the Cabinet not only refused arbitration, but also denied the right of the United States to interfere in Venezuela and rejected the broader validity of the Monroe Doctrine.37 Infuriated by the British response, President Grover Cleveland submitted a special message to Congress in December claiming that in light of British intransigence, the United States would establish a commission to determine the true boundary, and if necessary, impose the commission’s findings using “every means in its power.”38
In the wake of Cleveland’s bellicose statement, the British government steadily retreated from its original position on arbitration of the Venezuelan boundary claims. Initiating informal negotiations with the United States in January 1896 implicitly conceded an American right to intervene. But Great Britain went much farther, and in February recognized the Monroe Doctrine. Arthur Balfour, at the time first lord of the treasury, declared: “there has never been, and there is not now, the slightest intention on the part of this country to violate what is the substance and essence of the Monroe Doctrine … a principle of policy which both they and we cherish.”39
Moreover, serial British concessions characterized negotiations over the scope of arbitration. Privately, the British had been willing to arbitrate with Venezuela provided that all territory within a line surveyed between 1841 and 1843 by the explorer Robert Schomburgk was excluded. Yet from the outset of negotiations, the British government backpedaled from this position, and merely proposed exempting settled areas on both sides of the line. The United States refused to exclude any territory from arbitration, and Great Britain then agreed to a preliminary enquiry to determine areas of settlement. The British suggested that ten years of inhabitation define a settlement; the Americans countered with sixty years; the resulting one-sided compromise was fifty years of occupation.40 Thus, on both the salience of the Monroe Doctrine and the actual arbitration procedure, Great Britain entirely acceded to U.S. demands.
In the years after the Venezuela crisis, the British government faced increasing pressure to rescind the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which precluded the United States from singlehandedly building a canal in Central America linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. President William McKinley’s annual message to Congress in 1898 called for action to construct a solely American canal. In January 1899, Congress began to consider legislation authorizing a canal through Nicaragua. The British soon gave way. Negotiations between U.S. secretary of state John Hay and British ambassador Julian Pauncefote concluded with an agreement in February 1900.41
Although allowing the United States to unilaterally build and operate an isthmian canal, the agreement stopped short of abrogating the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. Moreover, the new Hay-Pauncefote Treaty restricted American freedom of action by banning fortifications, neutralizing the canal during wartime, and opening the agreement to third parties. Finding these restrictions unpalatable, the Senate only ratified the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty after adding several amendments. The British government refused to approve the modified treaty, but soon welcomed a new round of negotiations. The resulting agreement—the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty—effectively incorporated all the Senate’s amendments: the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was explicitly abrogated; neutralization of the canal during wartime was not formally guaranteed; and the internationalization clause was removed. Beyond these concessions, Great Britain also dropped the clause prohibiting fortification.42 By the end of the isthmian canal controversy, British capitulation to U.S. demands was complete.
The last major Anglo-American dispute at the turn of the twentieth century occurred over the ill-defined border between Alaska and Canada. The Canadians largely accepted U.S. interpretation of the boundary until the Klondike gold rush of 1896. Aiming to obtain a port giving access to the gold fields, Canada demanded that the United States submit the Alaskan panhandle to arbitration involving a neutral party. From the outset, the United States rejected arbitration. Although skeptical of the Canadian claims, the British government initially sought to extract U.S. concessions by linking the Alaskan boundary dispute to negotiations over the isthmian canal. In the face of mounting U.S. frustration, Great Britain retreated and delinked the two issues.43
Unable to agree on arbitration, the United States and Great Britain reached a temporary arrangement in 1899.44 Hay reopened the dispute in 1901 by proposing the creation of a binational commission to resolve the conflicting claims. By mid-1902, President Theodore Roosevelt was determined that Great Britain should acquiesce to the U.S. formula for delineating the border. As a show of resolve and also to keep order in an unruly frontier, he dispatched a company of cavalry to the Alaskan panhandle.45
The British government, though hoping for international arbitration, ultimately acquiesced to the U.S. formula, and in January 1903, the two sides concluded the Hay-Herbert Treaty. The agreement stipulated that each party would furnish three “impartial jurists of repute” to determine the true boundary. While Great Britain selected legal eminences to represent Canada, the United States appointed blatantly partial commissioners, including a sitting secretary of war. Nonetheless, the British government accepted the American appointments. Moreover, when the commission became deadlocked, the British representative broke with his Canadian counterparts to support the U.S. claim.46 Like the Venezuela crisis and the isthmian canal controversy, the Alaskan boundary dispute featured unilateral British concessions.
British appeasement of the United States, though continuing for almost a decade, was always a transitional strategy. The purpose of appeasement was to stabilize Anglo-American relations to the point where long-term integration became viable. Seen from this perspective, accommodating the United States on Venezuela was a first step toward eliminating sources of conflict. The next steps were agreement on an isthmian canal and resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute.47 Colonial Secretary Chamberlain’s assessment of Canadian claims to the Alaskan panhandle gives a tangible sense of the rationale underlying British appeasement of the United States. “I care very little for the points in dispute, but I care immensely for the consequential advantages of a thorough understanding between the two countries and the removal of these trumpery causes of irritation.”48
America’s Rise: Democracy Reassures
Great Britain favored a strategy of appeasement because democratic rule in an ascendant United States reduced risk and bolstered trust. Operating in an open society, the British could accurately survey U.S. intentions. Observing American politics in the years preceding the Venezuela crisis, the British diplomat Cecil Spring-Rice, having served a tour in Washington, could contextualize outbursts of Anglophobe sentiment as “not so much hatred as jealousy.”49 There was “no point on which the interests of the U.S. and G.B. are diametrically opposed, and neither wishes
