With the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt and the emergence of the celebrated “Bully Pulpit”, the executive branch of government began to break from the traditions of the past and establish a dialogue and a direct relatonship with the people. It was not however, until Woodrow Wilson took office in 1913 that the rhetorical presidency was established and institutionalized. Wilson argued that the President “has no [other] means of compelling Congress” and that the office should be used to sway public opinion. Wilson now saw the President as a national leader and spokesman, “the only national voice in affairs,” who could be irresistible in dealing with Congress so long as he understood and led public opinion.

 Both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were able to provide strong leadership because their techniques of leadership and their ability to assert the position of the President as the spokesman of the people and to use public opinion as a spur on Congress. The President must give voice to the highest aspirations of the American people first, and then to the people of the world.

 Prior to the Roosevelt and the Wilson administrations, the isolationist tendency prevailed in American Foreign Policy. The rapidly expanding American power, and the gradual collapse of the international system centered on Europe

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were the two main factors that projected America into world affairs.

 George F. Kennan was Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. when he, at a dinner given in recognition of his ninetieth birthday and the author of these lines in an article written for Foreign Affairs “On American Principles” ventured to say that what our country needed at this point was not primarily policies,”much less a single policy.” What we needed, he argued, were principles -- sound principles --”principles that accorded with the nature, the needs, the interests, and the limitations of our country.”

 Faced with demands for support from rebellious Spanish colonies in South America following the Napoleonic Wars, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams enunciated a principle of American foreign policy that is still relevant today: the best way for a larger country to help smaller ones is by the power of example. To go further, Adams warned, would be “to involve America beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue.”

 John Quincy Adams was the Secretary of State during the presidency of James Monroe (1817-1825) when he realized that the United States historical experience left no choice but to welcome and give moral support to all peoples in their struggle for the recogonition and consolidation of their

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independence. Adams was enunciating a principle of American foreign policy: namely, that while it was “the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all,” America was also “the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

 Oddly enough, herein lies a misunderstanding. America’s current predicament has yielded up a yearning for what the editor of Foreign Affairs has called “the perennial hangover cure” for American foreign policy--realism. There is an unrealistic quality of realism to be found in this oft-quoted dictum, as it was expressed by the former career diplomat, and author of the now famous Long Telegram that outlined the dangers of Soviet expansion, which formed only a tiny part of a July 4th speech that Adams delivered in 1820. The rest of the speech is mostly ignored by Kennan. In his July 4th speech of 1820, Adams continued by saying that the Declaration of Independence was “the first solemn declaration by a nation of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the corner stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe....It stands, and must for ever stand alone, a beacon on the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhabitants of the earth may turn their eyes for a genial and saving light till time shall be lost in eternity, and this globe itself dissolve, nor leave a wreck behind.” With both statements considered, Adams is confronting Realism with Idealism. Conventional wisdom seeks

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to simplify our history and codify as doctrine what is, in fact, only a part of a much more complicated truth, and that truth is that American foreign policy has an interest in both realism and idealism, and always has. Jefferson shared Franklin’s belief that idealism and realism should both play a role in foreign policy. In this nation our leaders are realists without illusion or at least they should be if they are not. We must instill this nation with ideals and principles, while fully understanding that we can not fall prey to illusion. We must believe without becoming cynical, we must be cynical without becoming cynics.

 The debate over the fundamental question of what direction American foreign relations will take in the future seems to be an old one, as old as the country itself. Will the United States choose to play a continuing role in world affairs? The recent frustations of American involvement in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that America’s mission has been ill-defined. Merely standing for certain principles is insufficient. Now we face the task of trying to implement those principles in the hostile environment of the world outside of our own sovereignty.

 History has always played an important role in finding answers or at least a certain wisdom necessary for guidance in involvement and intervention. Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan found themselves faced with the choice of imposing the will of the United States, through occupation

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and control, in the early days of their administration as they dealt with problems in Mexico and the Caribbean and other Latin American countries. Wilson abhorred the very thought of using force in international relations, yet he became the first President in American history to employ violent means upon nations that were somewhat free and soverign.

 In the words of Arthur S. Link, in his five volume biography of Woodrow Wilson, “In all these episodes the story is remarkably the same in its larger outlines and meaning. It is one of men with noble motives being lured on by their own good intentions and sometimes by foolish or interested advisers, being influenced by subtle pressures and subconcious motivations that they did not recognize, and finally being trapped by events that they could not control. In short, it is a tale of what happened when evangels of democracy set out to teach other peoples how to elect good leaders and govern themselves well.”

 At the end of the day, this nation must harken back to the words and the one principle of American Foreign Policy enunciated by John Quincy Adams, that while America is “the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all” it is the “champion and vindicator only of her own."

 Notes: A. S. Link, Wilson, Volume III, The Struggle for Neutrality, Princeton University Press 1960, pages 495-496.