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THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN.
The course of events in certain of the republics in and around the Caribbean Sea warned the Hispanic nations that independence was a relative condition and that it might vary in direct ratio with nearness to the United States.

After 1906 this powerful northern neighbor showed an unmistakable tendency to extend its influence in various ways.

Here fiscal and police control was established; there official recognition was withheld from a President who had secured office by unconstitutional methods.

Nonrecognition promised to be an effective way of maintaining a regime of law and order, as the United States understood those terms.
Assurances from the United States of the full political equality of all republics, big or little, in the western hemisphere did not always carry conviction to Spanish American ears.