No. 34
American Legation,
Copenhagen,
October 23, 1905.
[Inclosure—Translation]
[From the Hamburger Nachrichten
of October 18,
1905]
New York, October 7. A great excitement has once more taken
possession of the imperialistic circles of the Republic, as
though the United States were threatened by a frightful danger.
The American Consul C. H. Payne on the Danish West Indian Island
St. Thomas has reported to Washington that the Hamburg-American
[Page 551]
Line desires to
lay out a coaling station near the island. It has bought or
rented from the Danish Government its approach to a reef, which
has enough room for a pile of coal. In order to attach an
exaggerated importance to the affair, it is stated that the
island selected for the coaling station is the key to the Danish
West Indies, and besides the American Government is disturbed by
the fact that the “Hamburg-American Line receives a subsidy from
the German Government, that their steamers may be changed into
auxiliary cruisers in time of war and that therefore its coaling
stations would doubtless be used as a basis from whence to
conduct hostile operations.” At the same time a demand is made
to the Washington Government to protest immediately and prevent
this dangerous plan. As a ground for this demand an enormous
strategic importance is ascribed to the small island. It
“controls” not only the entire Danish West Indian group of
islands, but also the passage to the Panama Canal. Only in the
German-American and in part of the Democratic press is it
pointed out that up to now no one has for a moment considered
Water Island as the key to St. Thomas, or even to the Panama
Canal, that it is too ridiculous too consider that German
warships could seize the coaling station of a private German
company without warning. If there should ever be war between
Germany and the United States, the latter could then easily take
possession of the unfortified and unprotected coaling station,
and if they were not capable of this undertaking, then their
fleet would soon be entirely destroyed. The German Government
has nothing to do with the buying or renting of land by the
Hamburg-American Line and it should be remembered that the
German Government did not lift a finger when the United States
endeavored to purchase the islands from Denmark.
These considerations however, are only expounded by the smallest
portion and least influential of the American press. The great
mass of the Republican papers have blustered forth in, although
harmless, yet none the less pointed excitement, which again
proves what small an impression the effort for American
friendship has made in the United States. But this event also
shows to what dangerous foolishness the new application of the
Monroe Doctrine leads. The United States quietly permits Great
Britain to flank its Atlantic and Gulf coasts, to lay out
everywhere fortified harbors, to hold strong garrisons in the
Bermudas and other places, and its men-of-war to secure as many
protection places as possible. Nevertheless, the Panama Canal
does not appear to them for that reason to be threatened,
although the Britons could attack not only from their countless
West Indian islands, but also from the Mosquito coasts and from
the mouths of the Orinoco. On the contrary the American patriots
burst out in incomprehensible anger when Germany, whose war
fleet is scarcely a quarter as large as the British, would also
like to secure a landing place in the Western Hemisphere.
