The Monroe Doctrine, which in a few months will celebrate
its hundredth anniversary, is one of the few foreign policies
advanced by any one of the nations taking part in the World
War which bids fair to survive that great catastrophe. While
the American and British phases of the Monroe Doctrine are
familiar to students of diplomatic history, the materials have
hitherto been lacking for an adequate appreciation of the rela-
tions between President Monroe and John Quincy Adams, on the
one hand, and the Tsar, Alexander, on the other, against whose
Holy Alliance President Monroe's message of 1823 was chiefly
directed.

Mr. Cresson has laid students of history, and more especially
of international organization, under a deep and abiding obliga-
tion by his researches in the archives of the Russian Foreign
Office immediately following the Revolution of March, 1917.
He was Secretary of the American Embassy at Petrograd at
the time when Professor F. A. Golder was preparing his inval-
uable list of documents in the Imperial archives relating to Amer-
ica, and, knowing Mr. Cresson's interest in the history of Russian-
American relations, the authorities of the Provisional Govern-
ment invited him also to examine the Imperial archives. Mr.
Cresson's work more especially related to the personal dispatches
of the Tsar, Alexander, and the memoranda in his private
diplomatic papers, which had never before been open to stu-
dents.

In the midst of these labors, Mr. Cresson put aside the more
leisurely task of writing history for the more arduous task of
observing history in the making. He resigned from the diplo-
matic service, entered the army, served with the American Expe-
ditionary Forces, and ended the war as Chief of the American
Military Mission at Belgian Headquarters in Flanders. Upon
his demobilization he resumed his interrupted task, and he has
recently been able to bring his work to a conclusion by researches
in the archives of the Department of State. While Mr. Cres-
son's work is complementary to the labors of others in the same
field, it covers—as its title implies—negotiations carried on in St.

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