National Expansion
commercial interests in all parts of the world was effected under Republican direction. It was under Republican administrations that the United States participated prominently and influentially in both of the international Peace Congresses at The Hague. It was a Republican Secretary of State, John Hay, under a Republican President, who enunciated the great principle of the “open door” in China and secured the acquiescence of all other nations therein. It was under a Republican government that the United States participated in the international expedition into China to rescue the beleaguered legations and to save that ancient empire from anarchy. It was a Republican President who successfully offered mediation between Japan and Russia for the termination of their war, and thus won the gratitude of both those countries and secured for the United States a commanding prestige in in the far East.
In the Western Hemisphere, too, Republican policies have been inestimably advantageous in international affairs. The Pan-American movement which led to the formation of the Pan-American Union, or Bureau of American Republics, and which has been of the greatest possible service in promoting cordial and profitable relations between this country and the other American Republics, was conceived, founded and developed to its present great usefulness by Republican statesmen. It was a Republican President, Mr. Hayes, who first enunciated the policy of making whatever canal should ever be constructed across the American Isthmus an American canal under American control; and it was another Republican President, more than a score of years later, who successfully executed that
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