Did the United States Plan an Invasion of Mexico in 1927?

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 454-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Horn

For many years the vague notion has circulated that the United States and Mexico were on the verge of war in 1927. Howard Cline (1965: 209) cited unspecified “Mexican sources” as purportedly revealing that Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and Ambassador James R. Sheffield in Mexico City were “purposely trying to provoke some Mexican act that could be used as a pretext for American intervention.” Former Mexican President Emilio Portes Gil (1964: 396) went further and insisted that American warships had actually mobilized for intervention, only to be thwarted by an “imperturbable” President Calles. These and other such assertions have never been thoroughly analyzed on the basis of available American diplomatic and military records. This article attempts to demonstrate that intervention was highly unlikely. Moreover, circumstantial evidence and logic combine to suggest that the administration of Calvin Coolidge never seriously considered such a move and that rumors of intervention were founded more upon Mexican suspicion and mistrust than upon realities in Washington.

1972 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-440
Author(s):  
Randolph Campbell

It is well known that the initial task of interpreting the Monroe Doctrine as a functional policy in international relations fell largely on John Quincy Adams. Somewhat ironically, the noncolonization principle in Monroe's famed Annual Message of 1823 for which Adams, then Secretary of State, was most responsible, received relatively little attention in the 1820's. Leaders in the United States and Spanish America alike were more concerned with the meaning of the other main principle involved in the Message—nonintervention. What were the practical implications of Monroe's warning that the United States would consider intervention by a European power in the affairs of any independent American nation “ as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States ” ? John Quincy Adams laid the groundwork for an answer to this question in July, 1824, when Colombia, alarmed by rumors of French interference in the wars for independence, sought a treaty of alliance. The President and Congress, Adams replied, would take the necessary action to support nonintervention if a crisis arose, but there would be no alliance. In fact, he added, it would be necessary for the United States to have an understanding with certain European powers whose principles and interests also supported nonintervention before any action could be taken or any alliance completed to uphold it. The position taken by the Secretary of State cooled enthusiasm for the Monroe Doctrine, but Spanish American leaders did not accept this rebuff in 1824 as final.


1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-23
Author(s):  
Roger Rouse

In a hidden sweatshop in downtown Los Angeles, Asian and Latino migrants produce automobile parts for a factory in Detroit. As the parts leave the production line, they are stamped “Made in Brazil.” In a small village in the heart of Mexico, a young woman at her father’s wake wears a black T-shirt sent to her by a brother in the United States. The shirt bears a legend that some of the mourners understand but she does not. It reads, “Let’s Have Fun Tonight!” And on the Tijuana-San Diego border, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a writer originally from Mexico City, reflects on the time he has spent in what he calls “the gap between two worlds”: “Today, eight years after my departure, when they ask me for my nationality or ethnic identity, I cannot answer with a single word, for my ‘identity’ now possesses multiple repertoires: I am Mexican but I am also Chicano and Latin American. On the border they call me ‘chilango’ or ‘mexiquillo’; in the capital, ‘pocho’ or ‘norteno,’ and in Spain ‘sudaca.’… My companion Emily is Anglo-Italian but she speaks Spanish with an Argentinian accent. Together we wander through the ruined Babel that is our American postmodemity.”


1970 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-301
Author(s):  
Wilkins B. Winn

The Republic of Colombia was the first Latin American nation to which the United States extended a formal act of recognition in 1822. This country was also the first of these new republics with which the United States negotiated a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation. The importance of incorporating the principle of religious liberty in our first commercial treaty with Latin America was revealed in the emphasis that John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, placed on it in his initial instructions to Richard Clough Anderson, Jr., Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia. Religious liberty was one of the specific articles stipulated by Adams for insertion in the prospective commercial treaty.


1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 414-432
Author(s):  
Gaillard Hunt

Having considered in former numbers of this Journal the sometime and occasional duties of the Department, including among them certain contingent duties which it has never been called upon to perform, we may now advance to a consideration of its habitual functions.The organic act of the Department prescribed that the Secretary of State should keep “ the seal of the United States.” It is the mark of the supreme authority of the United States, and before the government went into operation under the Constitution, was in the custody of the Secretary of Congress, being used to verify all important acts, whether executive or legislative; but the debate on executive departments in the first constitutional congress indicated that Congress did not contemplate keeping the seal any longer, and thought it would necessarily pass to the custody of the Executive. The President did, in fact, take it under his control as soon as he assumed office and before legal provision had been made for it.


Author(s):  
Richard F. Kuisel

This chapter details the rise of anti-Americanism in France, in particular French socialist minister of culture Jack Lang's attack against American popular culture. Lang began by refusing to attend the American film festival at Deauville in September 1981; several months later he gave a notorious address denouncing American cultural imperialism at a UNESCO conference in Mexico City; and then he tried to organize a global “crusade” to combat cultural imports from the United States. Lang was a flamboyant young politician whose movie-star good looks, iconic pink jacket, dramatic initiatives, and hyperactive ways won him both admiration and ridicule. He presided over the Ministry of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993.


Author(s):  
Christopher C. Fennell

Many instances of racism in the United States occurred through open declarations of prejudice and overt acts of malevolence and violence. Many other impacts of racism occur in more structural and indirect ways. Such structural forms of racism have been conceptualized as manifestations of “aversive” racism. In a process of aversive racism, members of a dominant social group channel social and economic activities away from a group targeted by racial prejudices. This manipulation of economic and social opportunities, resources, and interactions is typically detrimental to members of the targeted group. It is very difficult to uncover evidence of aversive or structural racism and present a detailed, persuasive account of that data. Lacking detailed evidence, most statements about structural racism are made only as broad-scale observations of the suspected impacts. The difficulty lies in the surreptitious character of aversive racism. One does not find photos of overt acts or transparent minutes of conspiratorial meetings. Instead, a large collection of separate bits of data must be woven together and dots connected to test alternative interpretations against a body of varied, circumstantial evidence. Fennell took up this task in the New Philadelphia Archaeology Project. He was intrigued at the outset with the question of why a railroad bypassed New Philadelphia in 1869.


2020 ◽  
pp. 096834452094420
Author(s):  
Vincent Trott

This article discusses how American satirical magazines responded to the First World War while the United States remained a neutral power. By focusing on these previously overlooked sources, it demonstrates that satirical humour performed two significant functions. First, it acted as a tool of persuasion through which magazines agitated for or against American intervention in the conflict. Second, it became a major means with which periodicals sought to ostracize German-Americans, fuelling nativist sentiment. Ultimately, satirical magazines suggest that while responses to the war were initially diverse, most Americans had come to support military intervention by April 1917.


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