Concern in the United States over latin American politics had been heightened by the Venezuela-British Guiana border dispute of December 1895, when President Grover Cleveland sent a tough warning to Britain: "Today the United States is practically sovereign on
Concern in the United States over latin American politics had been heightened by the Venezuela-British Guiana border dispute of December 1895, when President Grover Cleveland sent a tough warning to Britain: "Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition." Cleveland's challenge set off a brief war scare, to the gratification of Theodore Roosevelt, who had just left the U.S. Civil Service Commission to become New York City's police commissioner. "Let the fight come if it must," TR wrote his good friend Henry Cabot Lodge, then in his first term in the Senate. "I don't care whether our sea-coast cities are bombarded or not; we would take Canada...Personally I rather hope the fight will come soon. The clamor of the peace faction has convinc