Thereupon the United States interposed with a suggestion that the dispute be laid before the Hague Tribunal.

Although Castro yielded, he did not fail to have a clause inserted in a new "constitution" requiring foreigners who might wish to enter the republic to show certificates of good character from the Governments of their respective countries.
These incidents gave much food for thought to Castro as well as to his soberer compatriots.

The European powers had displayed an apparent willingness to have the United States, if it chose to do so, assume the role of a New World policeman and financial guarantor.

Were it to assume these duties, backward republics in the Caribbean and its vicinity were likely to have their affairs, internal as well as external, supervised by the big nation in order to ward off European intervention.

At this moment, indeed, the United States was intervening in Panama.