Theodore
Roosevelt had put the emphasis on force, military force if necessary and
a continuous
and reckless competition between the great powers that would try to civilize
the world,
each in its own way. The American way would be by threatening, intervening,
and violating
international law. Although his immediate successors still had a longing
to better the
world in spreading American civilization, they did no longer believe that
Roosevelt’s emphasis
was right. They hoped to find more subtle forms of American influence that
would then
compel the ‘barbarians’ to adopt the American role-model. The Presidents
Taft and Wilson
hoped to realign U.S. foreign policy to the principle President Cleveland
had expressed
in 1896:
„The United States has...
a character to maintain as a nation, which plainly dictates that right
and not might should be
the role of its conduct,“[123] -
at least not Roosevelt’s ‘Big Stick’ might.
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