William Lindsay Scruggs - Venezuela Lobbyist

Venezuela Lobbyist

In 1893 Scruggs was recruited by the Venezuelan Government to operate on its behalf in Washington D.C. as a lobbyist and legal attache. As a lobbyist, Scruggs published the pamphlet entitled British Aggressions in Venezuela: The Monroe Doctrine on Trial. In the pamphlet, he attacked "British aggression" claiming that Venezuela was anxious to arbitrate over the Venezuela/British Guiana border dispute. Scruggs also claimed that British policies in the disputed territory violated the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. It was this relationship that eventually led to his service as Special Counsel before the Boundary Commission, three years later.

Scruggs collaborated with Georgian compatriot Congressman Leonidas Livingston to propose House Resolution 252 to the third session of the 53rd Congress of the United States of America. The bill recommended Venezuela and Great Britain settle the dispute by arbitration. President Grover Cleveland signed it into law on February 20, 1895, after passing both houses of the United States Congress. The vote had been unanimous.

By December 17, 1895, President Cleveland delivered an address to the United States Congress which was perceived as direct threat of war with Great Britain if the British did not comply with Venezuelan demands (now openly championed by the United States). Almost immediately after Cleveland's statement to the United States Congress, the US military were put on combat alert for a potential war with Great Britain.

On December 18, 1895, Congress approved $100,000 for the United States Commission on the Boundary Between Venezuela and British Guiana. It was formally established on January 1, 1896. Jose Andrade, the Venezuelan Minister to Washington, on February 26, 1896 announced that Scruggs had been appointed by the Venezuelan President as his "agent charged with submitting information" to the United States Venezuela Boundary Commission, and to present "reports relative to the titles and rights of Venezuela." An Arbitration Tribunal was agreed between the US and Britain in 1896, and this concluded in 1899. The Schomburgk Line was re-established as the border between British Guiana and Venezuela, which had been set in 1835. The Anglo-Venezuelan boundary dispute asserted for the first time a more outward-looking American foreign policy, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, marking the United States as a world power. This is the earliest example of modern interventionism under the Monroe Doctrine in which the USA exercised its claimed prerogatives in the Western Hemisphere.