A Wise Decision.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 20, 1913:
    Sound in reasoning and faultless in Statement, President Wilson's notice that this Government withdraws from the six-Power-group arrangement for a loan to China puts an end to a policy that, though entered upon with the best of motives, should never have been entered upon at all. China was in need of money, she is still in sore need of money. European Governments concerned themselves officially with the negotiations of bankers to make the required loan; we became one of the group because of Secretary Knox's belief that such participation would be regarded by China as an evidence of our good will, and that in this way commercial and industrial opportunities would be move readily opened to American capital. He persuaded American bankers to assume a part of the loan — and was roundly abused by a certain portion of the press for permitting himself to be made an instrument of Wall Street, although it was publicly known that not Wall Street, but Secretary Knox, had made the first move in the matter. Nor was there any sense or justice in the reproach implied in the words "dollar diplomacy." If the extension of the Nation's commerce is not a proper purpose to be served by its diplomacy, then the sphere of diplomacy's usefulness becomes narrower. England's foreign policy for 250 years has been based upon her desire for trade extension. But the constitution of the six-Power group involved contingencies and responsibilities, remote it may be, but not to be ignored, which made our participation therein unwise and impolitic.
    The reasons for our withdrawal, which should originally have stood as a bar against our entry into the agreement, are stated with clearness and in a most convincing manner by President Wilson:
    The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch very nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and this Administration does not feel that it ought even by implication to be a party to those conditions. The responsibility on its part which would be implied in requesting the bankers to undertake the loan might conceivably go the length in some unhappy contingency of forcible interference in the financial, and even the political, affairs of that great Oriental State, just now awakening to a consciousness of its power and of its obligations to its people.
    It is perfectly true, as Mr. Wilson says, that the responsibilities we should assume in the encouragement of a loan thus secured and administered would be "obnoxious to the principles upon which the government of our people rests." That is reason enough, a perfectly unanswerable reason for withdrawal. A second reason is that the American bankers who had pledged their assistance in this policy have been reluctant to remain bound by an agreement which has been productive thus far of nothing but trouble and vexation. They will welcome their release.
    While we have been wise in freeing ourselves in time from this unfortunate entanglement, the necessities of China remain urgent. It is to be hoped that European bankers and our own, if they feel inclined thereto, will upon their own private initiative and responsibility come to the relief of the new Republic. China's troubles are by no means passed, they may recur, and in a grave form, at any moment. Failure to secure the money she needs will heighten the peril of internal disturbance. Nor should we cherish any delusions about extending our trade in China because of the blessing of the open door. If the remaining five Powers should now conclude the arrangements for the loan, we must expect to see them reap whatever profit may accrue therefrom through commercial ventures in China. It is highly probable that we shall be left quite outside, partly because of the preemption of trade opportunities by the English and the Germans, the Russians and the Japanese, and partly because of the apathy of our capitalists and our manufacturers in respect to foreign markets. It is the misfortune of China that her time of need is coincident with critical conditions in Europe which have made heavy demands upon the capital of the entire Western world, including ourselves.