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America's Foreign Policy Non-interference CHAPTER III Rescue by the United States TWO declarations by two presidents of the United States, in regard to the foreign policy which our Government ought to follow, have been so generally accepted by the people as to gain about as much force as a provision in the Constitution. One of these is against our meddling in the affairs of foreign nations, and the other is against allowing them to meddle in our affairs. In the most important suggestion of his " Farewell Address ''and the only one which is commonly rememberedPresident Washington impressively recommended that we entirely abstain from interfering in European affairs. This advice has been uniformly followed. Even under severe temptation we have never gone further into any foreign issue than to protect our own independence and to insure the development of free institutions upon this Western Continent. While, on several occasions in the past, our navy has been sent into foreign waters to enforce certain demands of the United States, those demands have always been made necessary by some menace to our interests or by some defiance of the legitimate authority of the United States. Until Commodore Dewey sailed from Hong Kong for Manila, no vessel of the Washington's Advice Monroe Doctrine United States ever went over seas upon a warlike errand which was not inseparably associated with American rights. The doctrine that we should mind our own business, and that our business was all within the bounds of the Western Continent, has been thoroughly fixed in the thought of the people, and as firmly established in the diplomatic policy of the Government. The last words of Washington to this effecthave always been regarded as very wise and entirely sacred. President Monr...