This is reflected in the modified construction which the president and others began to place on the Monroe Doctrine.

The great underlying idea of the doctrine remained vital, but in a message to congress delivered December 7, 1915, the president said: "In the day in whose light we now stand there is no claim of guardianship, but a full and honorable association as of partners between ourselves and our neighbors in the interests of America." Speaking before the League to Enforce Peace at Washington, May 27, 1916, he said: "What affects mankind is inevitably our affair, as well as the affair of the nations of Europe and of Asia." In his address to the senate of January 22, 1917, he said: "I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world--that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful." This was a modifying and enlarging of the doctrine, as well as a departure from Washington's warning against becoming entangled with the affairs of Europe..