In line with American policy in the West Indian waters was the purchase in 1917 of the Danish Islands just off the coast of Porto Rico.  The strategic position of the islands, especially in relation to Haiti and Porto Rico, made them an object of American concern as early as 1867, when a treaty of purchase was negotiated only to be rejected by the Senate of the United States.  In 1902 a second arrangement was made, but this time it was defeated by the upper house of the Danish parliament.  The third treaty brought an end to fifty years of bargaining and the Stars and Stripes were raised over St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. John, and numerous minor islands scattered about in the neighborhood.  “It would be suicidal,” commented a New York newspaper, “for America, on the threshold of a great commercial expansion in South America, to suffer a Heligoland, or a Gibraltar, or an Aden to be erected by her rivals at the mouth of her Suez.”  On the mainland American power was strengthened by the establishment of a protectorate over Nicaragua in 1916.

=Mexican Relations.=—­The extension of American enterprise southward into Latin America, of which the operations in the Caribbean regions were merely one phase, naturally carried Americans into Mexico to develop the natural resources of that country.  Under the iron rule of General Porfirio Diaz, established in 1876 and maintained with only a short break until 1911, Mexico had become increasingly attractive to our business men.  On the invitation of President Diaz, they had invested huge sums in Mexican lands, oil fields, and mines, and had laid the foundations of a new industrial order.  The severe regime instituted by Diaz, however, stirred popular discontent.  The peons, or serfs, demanded the break-up of the great estates, some of which had come down from the days of Cortez.  Their clamor for “the restoration of the land to the people could not be silenced.”  In 1911 Diaz was forced to resign and left the country.

Mexico now slid down the path to disorder.  Revolutions and civil commotions followed in swift succession.  A liberal president, Madero, installed as the successor to Diaz, was deposed in 1913 and brutally murdered.  Huerta, a military adventurer, hailed for a time as another “strong man,” succeeded Madero whose murder he was accused of instigating.  Although Great Britain and nearly all the powers of Europe accepted the new government as lawful, the United States steadily withheld recognition.  In the meantime Mexico was torn by insurrections under the leadership of Carranza, a friend of Madero, Villa, a bandit of generous pretensions, and Zapata, a radical leader of the peons.  Without the support of the United States, Huerta was doomed.

In the summer of 1914, the dictator resigned and fled from the capital, leaving the field to Carranza.  For six years the new president, recognized by the United States, held a precarious position which he vigorously strove to strengthen against various revolutionary movements.  At length in 1920, he too was deposed and murdered, and another military chieftain, Obregon, installed in power.