SCHOOL OF HISTORY, CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIONERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM

An Informal Imperialism

U.S. Foreign Policy 1898-1912

Student Name: Lochlann Egan

Student Number: 364145

Email address: lochlannegan@yahoo.com

Supervising Lecturer: Dr. F.M.M. de Goey

Second Reader: Dr. B. Wubs

Contents Outline of Thesis Chapter Structure

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Defining Imperialism .............................................................................................. 4

1.2 Existing interpretations of American Imperialism ………………………........ 8

1.3 Role of Germany ……....…………………………………………………………………… 13

1.4 Historiography on Roosevelt’s Diplomacy ……………………………………… 14

1.5 Historiography on Taft’s Diplomacy ………………….……………………………. 18

1.6 Research Question(s) ……………………………………………………………………….. 21

1.7 Method & Sources …………………………………...……………………………………….. 21

1.8 Thesis Structure ……………………………………………………………………………… 22

2. ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN FOREIGN POLICY FORMULATION …. 24

2.1 The Domestic Context ……………………………………………………………………… 24

2.2 Pre-Roosevelt ………………………………………………………………………………….. 26

2.3 Rooseveltian Statecraft ……………………………………………………………………. 31

2.4 Post-Roosevelt ………………………………………………………………………………… 34

2.5 Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy …………………………………………………………………. 37

3. THE NAVY- AN INSTRUMENT OF AMERICA’S STRATEGIC VISION…44

3.1 T.R.’s Motivations …………………………………………………………………………….. 44

3.2 State of the Navies/Spending Figures ……………………………………………… 46

3.3 The Great White Fleet ……………………………………………………………………… 49

4. CASE STUDIES ………………………………………………………………………….. 53

4.1 The Panama Canal …………………………………………………………………………… 54

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4.2 Cuba ………………………………………………………………………………………………... 57

4.3 The Philippines ………………………………………………………………………………. 60

5. INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEAN AND PACIFIC POWERS ……………. 65

5.1 Britain ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 65

5.2 Germany ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 66

5.3 Japan ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 71

6. CONCLUSIONS …………………………………………………………………………. 74

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………… 80

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Chapter 1: Introduction

To suggest that the United States was “expansionist” in the nineteenth century does not

spark much controversy. America’s history of expansion, from the push overland to the

Mississippi, further sprawls to the Western continental limits and then beyond, to the north

and the acquisition of Alaska from Russia in 1867 is clearly representative of an era of

expansion. To suggest that the United States has been “imperialist” for much of its history is

entirely different however, and is not a tag that the American people have been willing to

acknowledge or embrace. Americans have long espoused a belief that their nation is

different, an assumption that also infers that the United States is better. Take for example

the following offering from The National Review Online, in relation to American

exceptionalism:

‘Our country has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more

democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth. These

qualities are the bequest of our Founding and of our cultural heritage. They have

always marked America as special, with a unique role and mission in the world: as a

model of ordered liberty and self-government and as an exemplar of freedom and a

vindicator of it, through persuasion when possible and force of arms when

absolutely necessary’. 1

It is the intention of this thesis to seek to disprove the prevailing assertion that the United

States has enjoyed a history devoid of imperialism, to disprove the consensus that regards

the United States as having behaved in an upstanding and conscientious manner towards

lesser states while other ‘Great Powers’ plundered and colonized vast tracts of the globe.

However it will also seek to demonstrate in what ways, if any, this American brand of

imperialism differed from the preceding European models.

1Richard Lowry & Ramesh Ponnuru, “An Exceptional Debate: The Obama administration’s assault on American identity,” National Review Online URL : http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/article/?q=M2FhMTg4Njk0NTQwMmFlMmYzZDg2YzgyYjdmYjhhMzU=

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While it would not be wholly unreasonable to suggest that the “Continental expansion” into

Louisiana, the Floridas, Texas, California, and Oregon and the elimination or incarceration

of Native Americans was an imperialist era, I do not subscribe to this train of thought. The

period may have demonstrated some imperial characteristics but this cannot be classed as

a carefully plotted, conscious phase of imperialism, in my view.

It is a later period, namely events occurring at the dawn of the 20th century, which will be

the primary concern and object of focus for this master thesis. While this period was

technically not imperialist in the sense of a limited definition- one that encompasses only

the formal colonization of areas not part of the American continent- the hypothesis that

this project worked with and towards is that the United States did behave in an imperialist

manner during the presidencies of William McKinley (1897-1901), Theodore Roosevelt

(1901-1909) and William Howard Taft (1901-1913). Therefore, a key element to this

debate is definition. There has been an abundance of theories and definitions pertaining to

imperialism, spanning generations. One of the central goals of this introduction is to

analyze some of the perspectives and theories offered so far, and to precisely determine

which definition is most apt and will be utilized in my treatment of the research material. I

will first outline the method, sources and structure of the thesis.

1.1 Defining Imperialism

Before approaching the primary and secondary sources at my disposal for this project, it is

essential that I clarify the analytical framework and precisely define what I mean by

‘imperialism’. This is not as straightforward a task as it might first appear given the array of

interpretations offered on the topic. The word imperialism has seen its meaning shift many

times. Understanding these shifting meanings is made doubly difficult by the many theories

of imperialism which have been invented in the twentieth century. A theory of imperialism

is an attempt to find in the apparent chaos of international relations a regular pattern

which arises from one or a few basic causes.2 In this section, I will explore a variety of texts

that have all dealt with the issue of imperialism and its offshoot theories. They offer

differing interpretations and analyses. However, they are broadly united in acknowledging

2 Norman Etherington, Theories of Imperialism: War, Conquest and Capital (London, 1984) pp.3-4

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that the common element in almost all the present and past uses of the word “imperialism”

is a reference to domination- domination of man over man, country over country.

The aim of this thesis is essentially twofold. It is to demonstrate that the United

States international conduct at the dawn of the 20th century was of an imperialist nature,

thus shattering the illusion of American “exceptionalism”. It will also ask whether this was

a unique form of imperialism, different from the classical methods carried out by earlier

metropoles, namely Britain during the 19th century. To facilitate this, I will now proceed to

explore some differing perspectives on the study of imperialism, including the economic

and capitalist. Alternative theories- including Marxist theories amongst others- are not

included in this paper. That should not suggest that I deem these theories invalid but that

they are not as suitable as others for this particular thesis.

An analysis of imperialism would be lacking if it did not explore the writings of John

A. Hobson, who published his celebrated Imperialism in 1902. Some scholars decree that no

other book has been so influential in spreading the doctrine of economic imperialism.3

While scholars universally acknowledge the influence of the text, there are contrasting

interpretations of Hobson’s work. This is attributable to the fact that Hobson never offers a

categorical definition of imperialism but rather offers a number of statements which

appear to be definitions but which differ among themselves. For instance, at one juncture,

he says imperialism ‘is a depraved choice of national life, imposed by self-seeking interests

which appeal to the lusts of quantitative acquisitiveness and of forceful domination

surviving in a nation from early centuries of animal struggle for existence’. Yet at another

point he says that imperialism represents the growing tendency of the wealthy classes to

‘use their political power as citizens of this state to interfere with the political conditions of

those States where they have an industrial stake’.4 Sometimes he writes of imperialism as

virtually the same thing as the drive to acquire and retain colonies yet just as often he

writes as though imperialism as a policy could be practiced without any territorial

acquisitions. Etherington ultimately attempts to paraphrase Hobson by offering the

following definition of imperialism, which he sees as embracing all of Hobson’s various

uses of the word. It asserts that ‘imperialism is the deliberate use of the power of the state,

including its military power, in order to advance alleged economic interests in the world at

3 See E.M. Winslow’s The Pattern of Imperialism: A study in the theories of Power (New York, 1948) pp. 94-95 4 J.A. Hobson, Imperialism, A Study (London, 1902) pp. 379-381

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large. This includes not only grabbing colonies but a great deal of other aggressive and

coercive activity.’5 Winslow suggests that to Hobson, economic imperialism was merely one

kind of expansion, and represents a particular type of motive, of which there can be many-

including military, religious and other “non-economic” motives.6 Interestingly, some

proclaim that Hobson did not regard finance as the “motor-power” of imperialism, but

instead regarded patriotism, adventure and political ambition as the engine of expansion.7

This would seem a misinterpretation however as there can be little doubt that the core of

Hobson’s message was that the fundamental causes of imperialism and international

conflict are economic.

Etherington argues that Hobson contributed two new theses to the theoretical

discussion of imperialism. The first pertained to the past growth of the British Empire,

which is of lesser importance to this thesis. The second however, concerned the future and

the possibilities for imperialism at the dawn of the 20th century, the period in which this

topic is steeped. In contrast to those who said that surplus investment capital made

imperialism a present and future necessity, Hobson offered his thesis that a redistribution

of income and a diversion of more money to worthwhile state projects at home would

relieve most of the pressure for aggressive foreign policies.8 In retrospect, such a thesis

may appear utopian, for we now know that the coming decades would see carnage on an

almost unimaginable scale. The nucleus of Hobson’s economic imperialism theory –stating

that capitalists will benefit from imperialism- will remain of use in this master thesis

however given the undeniable importance of economic factors in shaping U.S. foreign

policy in the period.

Given the nature of this thesis topic, it is also worth exploring Etherington’s analysis

of what he titles “America’s first Capitalist Theory of Capitalist Imperialism”, in which he

dissects the editorials of the United States Investor during the period of the Spanish-

American War of 1898. The Investor was a weekly newspaper that he regards as being an

ideal source for contemporary American notions about imperialism.9 Given that their

editorials had a sudden change in their tone as regards imperialism, this can be seen as

mirroring the shift in wider U.S. policy. As Etherington notes, the editor of the Investor

5 Etherington, p 826 Winslow, p 947 Ibid. p 988 Etherington, p 829 Ibid, p 6

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changed his mind about imperialism when he realized that contrary to almost everyone’s

expectations it was good for business.10 In May of 1898 the Bostonian editor of the paper

announced his sudden conversion to the cause of ‘imperialism.’ The Investor re-iterated

that imperialism was a ‘necessity’ -given the surpluses of goods and capital generated by

industrial development- and the case it made for necessity deserves to be called a theory of

imperialism to Etherington.11 While acknowledging that a Boston financial paper with a

small circulation cannot be regarded as the beginning of an imperialist sentiment in

America, Etherington is correct in highlighting the path taken by the Investor. It was

symbolic of an alteration in mood and mindset amongst Americans to imperialism in a

changing world, an era when businessmen and politicians began to search for a new

frontier, now that continental expansion was complete. With fears heightening that the USA

would face a shrinking home market for products, penetration of Latin America and the

broader Pacific region assumed an even greater urgency. Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893

publication “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” had been an important

stimulant to this view.

With the entire international relations landscape dramatically altered by World War

I, discussions on imperialism took a new course. Imperialism came to mean little more than

colonialism.12 Leonard Woolf’s Empire and Commerce (1920) stands as an important

addition to the field of economic imperialism. Though he restricted his study to colonial

questions, his definition of ‘economic imperialism’ is of interest to this thesis:

‘Economic Imperialism’: Under this term I include the international economic policy

of the European States, of the U.S.A., and latterly of Japan, in the unexploited and

non-Europeanised Territories of the world. The policy of Economic Imperialism

includes colonial policy and the acquisition by the Europeanised State of exploitable

territory, the policy of spheres of influence, and the policy of obtaining economic

control through other political means. These various kinds of policy are all

distinguished by one important characteristic; they all aim at using the power and

the influence of the European form of the State in the economic interests of its

inhabitants in lands where the European form of State has not developed. I call it

imperialism because the policy always implies either the extension of the State’s

10 Ibid, pp. 7-911 Ibid, p 1412 Ibid, p 178

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territory by conquest or occupation, or the application of its dominion or some form

of political control to peoples who are not its citizens. I qualify it with the word

economic because the motives of this imperialism are not defense nor prestige nor

conquest not the ‘spread of civilization’, but the profit of the citizens, or some of the

citizens, of the European State.13

While Woolf’s study primarily revolved around the role of the European metropoles in the

race for acquisitions in Africa, his theory also name checks the American position at the

outset of the 20th century and is thus applicable to my analysis.

Before concluding, it is also worth noting the definition offered by the Dictionary on

American Foreign Affairs. It remarks that ‘Imperialism is a concept in international relations

of the forcible extension by a nation of its control over foreign areas and their peoples. The

term is often used more broadly to describe any significant extension of a nation’s

influence and power over other societies through such means as economic exploitation and

cultural domination.’14 This definition, in tandem with those offered by Woolf and Hobson,

encapsulates my concept of imperialism for this master thesis. Henceforth, this thesis will

regard imperialism as being: ‘the deliberate use of the power of the state, including its

military power, in order to advance alleged economic interests in the world at large, to

extend that state’s power over peoples who are not its citizens and to safeguard and/or

create spheres of influence’. The broader, overarching question of this research topic asks

whether the United States exhibited imperialist traits under Theodore Roosevelt and

William H. Taft. It is against this definition of imperialism that the question will be gauged.

1.2 Existing interpretations of American imperialism

Given that he central research question of this master thesis asks whether the foreign

policy endeavors of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were of an imperialistic

nature, it is therefore necessary to consider what has already been written on the subject.

There exists a vast quantity of secondary literature on this topic, especially on the career of

Theodore Roosevelt given his lofty standing in American history. Unsurprisingly, Taft’s

administration has been the subject of less focus, though there remains a wealth of

secondary source material on aspects of his presidency. In this section, it will only be

13 Leonard Woolf, Empire & commerce in Africa : a study in economic imperialism (London, 1920) pp. 14-1514 Stephen A. Flanders, Carl N. Flanders, Dictionary of American foreign affairs (New York, 1993) p 281

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possible to mention a fraction of the literature that pertains to this research area. However,

the titles and authors I have read and examined represent a fair cross-section of the field.

Warren Zimmermann’s First Great Triumph (2002) is an analysis of five figures that

he regards as the instigators of America’s ascendency to the status of a world power at the

turn of the 19th century. Theodore Roosevelt is a key player in the book, and Zimmermann

actually labels his tenure as ‘The Imperial Presidency’.15 The book is notable because while

it is critical of American atrocities in the Philippines conflict and of the questionable ethics

of Roosevelt in relation to Panama’s separation from Colombia, Zimmermann doubts

whether any of the peoples affected would have been better off in the long run had the

United States not interfered. Zimmerman ultimately states that the era saw the creation of

an authentic American imperialism “that was confident in its objectives but modest in its

application”,16 thus asserting that the USA was imperialistic, but different. The book is also

of particular interest to this thesis because it brands Theodore Roosevelt “a sphere of

influence realist”17, suggesting that he had a broader strategic blueprint for the U.S.

Akira Iriye (1977) castigates Theodore Roosevelt’s handling of the Panamanian

uprising as an embarrassment to the U.S., ‘which seemed to engage precisely in the same

kinds of gun-boat diplomacy and secret machinations that were associated with European

imperialism.’18 He later concludes that U.S. interventionism in the Caribbean ‘was a

particular form of imperialism, without involving colonization or territorial seizure.

Instead, the United States turned the region into its sphere of influence through its military

presence, canal construction and economic influence. While the use of force and the

establishment of colonies were kept to a minimum, there was a distinct departure from the

traditional approach which had generally emphasized informal control of the Caribbean

region. The United States was little different from the other imperialist powers in thus

having various kinds of approach and maintaining several levels of control over foreign

lands…..The United States was now a full-fledged member of the community of

imperialists.’19 It also bears noting that for Iriye there was no European style imperialism,

because it was much varied and diverse in reality.

15 Warren Zimmermann, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (New York, 2002) p 41816 Ibid, p 49317 Ibid, p 50018 Akira Iriye, From Nationalism to Internationalism: U.S. Foreign Policy to 1914 (London, 1977), p 17719 Ibid, pp. 181-182

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Iriye’s assessment of U.S. imperialism is not shared by all in the scholarly

community however. The central argument of Richard H. Collin’s Theodore Roosevelt’s

Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context (1990)

is essentially that encouraging capitalist development was not ominous but a means of

applying North American principles to other cultures as a way of ending the region’s

revolutions, wars, and instability.20 Collin uses “context” as a historiographical device

through which to defend the ideological determinants of United States policy. The book

therefore represents a point of view, and is one in a long line of texts that have as their

central goal the defense and justification of U.S. policy in the period. His study is derived

from a single context: the North American one. Latin historiography is almost universally

ignored. Latin American archival records are largely left ignored, except for a few token

references. The reader does not therefore get a truly useful representation of the Latin

American context. This is also true of a great deal of the literature pertaining to this topic.

Too often, they offer only one vantage point- the North American- and ignore the

indigenous perspective. This has meant that the historiography in this area has often been

partisan and concerned with justifying U.S. conduct.

Sentimental Imperialists (1981) by James C. Thomson is further evidence of this.

When seeking to trace the roots of later American expansionism, it states that by the final

decades of the 19th century, imperialism had become normal for the major Western

powers-and even Japan.21 It was this, he argues, that gave America its impetus for overseas

expansion and that the U.S. foray into the imperial stakes was justified by earlier European

endeavors. This text also broadens the debate on whether the United States newfound

interest beyond its own continental limits was driven by economic factors, stating that it

would be mistaken to conclude that from the late nineteenth-century ‘American

expansionism was wholly- or even primarily- economic in motivation. The returns are not

yet in from the historiographical debate on this question. For every scholar who ranks

economic causes first, there is another who finds the picture more complicated.’22 Indeed,

Sentimental Imperialists goes much further than most when suggesting that ‘morally,

politically, and strategically, the heart of the new expansionism was the acquisition of a

20 Richard A. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context (Baton Rouge, 1990)21 James C. Thomson Jr., Sentimental Imperialists: The American Experience in East Asia (New York, 1981) p 9622 Ibid, p 101

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large colonial empire, the projection of American military and naval power into Asia and

Latin America on a permanent basis, and the deliberate emergence of the United States as

one of the key forces in the international balance of power.’23 This assertion goes further

than the majority of writers on this topic, most of who dispute that America ever had any

real designs on accruing vast colonial acquisitions.

It’s not a totally isolated viewpoint however. William Appleman Williams led the

revisionist charge, authoring a dozen books including The Tragedy of American Diplomacy

(1959) and Empire as a Way of Life (1980). His portrayal of the United States as an

imperialist power bent on forcing its economic and political will around the world was a

seismic shock to the traditionalist accounts which emphasized the role of political factors

such as hemispheric defense, public opinion, the new navalism and the rise of racist

expansionist ideologies as being the chief motor of overseas acquisitions.24 In his 1980

work Empire as a Way of Life, Williams sets out to attack American militarism as the

product of a drive for empire, first over Indians and blacks, then over Mexicans, and finally

over the whole world excepting the USSR and Eastern Europe. Imperialism, he argues, has

been the main force in American history. His disdain for American conduct against Spain in

the war of 1898 is made plain by his description of the conflict as a “crusading, punitive,

and imperial war”, a “gratuitous attack” upon the Spanish Empire, motivated by a desire for

the Philippines.25 Until that point, historians had traditionally viewed American ascendancy

as haphazard, a chance product of Manifest Destiny or of events beyond American control,

such as the Spanish-American War. However scholars increasingly began to argue that

expansion was a rational, pragmatic response to internal tensions and conflicts dramatized

by the Panic of 1893, when America was hit by an economic depression, the greatest to

have affected the country in its history to that point.26

Appleman William’s works were a dramatic rebuttal of the traditional exceptionalist

narrative that had been dominant in the historiography on American imperialism.

Traditional exceptionalism had determined that America’s unique values of democracy,

liberty, and self-government had led the United States to be a distinctive global power,

compelling the American state to behave differently than European powers: America’s

23 Ibid, p 10224 See Julius William Pratt, Expansionists of 1898: the acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish islands (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press 1936)25 William Appleman Williams. Empire as a Way of Life (Oxford, 1980), pg. 11226 See Thomas J. McCormick China Market: America’s Quest for Informal Empire, 1893-1901 (Chicago, 1967)

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values and democratic institutions thus meant that the United States never constructed an

empire.27 The influence of Appleman William’s writings would become one of the primary

motors behind the emergence of a new counter trend in the historiography on American

imperialism. This revisionist school, aptly branded by Go (2011) as Liberal

Exceptionalism,28 stressed that while the United States practiced imperialism, it was a

special and unique form, benign and liberal in comparison to the preceding European

metropoles. Liberal exceptionalist historiography thus surmises that the U.S. empire has

been distinctly democratizing, liberal and tutelary rather than repressive because that is

how America does things.29

According to others, the connection drawn in the 1890s between expansion and

naval power was central to the emerging American imperialism. Influential naval strategist

Alfred Thayer Mahan and other exponents of an imperialist foreign policy held that

America’s dynamic economic growth demanded new overseas markets, sources of raw

materials, and investment opportunities- partly in response to the shock of the Turner

Thesis, as mentioned above. The United States, they contended, needed a large merchant

marine protected by a great navy to compete commercially with the European powers,

which were busy acquiring colonies in Africa, Asia, and among the islands of the Pacific. To

support its expanded sea power, the argument continued, America would also need to

acquire overseas strategic bases and colonies and construct an isthmian canal in Central

America to ease naval and commercial movements between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The Spanish-American War was thus the translation of these imperialist ideals into action.

Imperialists defended the decision to annex the Philippines on the grounds that the

Filipinos needed enlightened U.S. rule and that the island chain’s proximity to China would

facilitate American commercial penetration of what was anticipated to be a vast market in

the future.30

Flanders also states that it was the ‘extension of U.S. influence, rather than

territorial aggrandizement, that characterized American imperialism after 1900’31, largely

due to the fallout from the bloody Filipino campaign. In the early 20th century, this

27 Julian Go. Patterns of Empire The British and American Empires 1688 to the Present (New York, 2011) pg. 1528 Ibid, pg. 6829 Ibid.30 Flanders, p 28231 Ibid, p 283

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approach focused on the Caribbean region, where U.S. policy was concerned with

safeguarding the strategically key Panama Canal (completed in 1914) and preventing the

expansion of European influence. The United States feared that the chronic fiscal and

political instability of the Central American and Caribbean nations would invite European

intervention. The Roosevelt Corollary then asserted pre-eminent U.S. influence in the

America’s and invested the United States with a right of intercession in the Western

Hemisphere to keep order and repel foreign interference. U.S. military interventions and

the establishment of American financial protectorates in Cuba, Panama, the Dominican

Republic, Haiti and Nicaragua expanded American hegemony in the Caribbean up through

WW1. Washington installed U.S. customs collectorships in several Latin American

countries, placing their government revenues under American control, and pursued a

policy of dollar diplomacy to secure economic and political leverage.32

What these texts help to highlight is that there remains a debate within the

historiography on this topic. Debate still rages over whether the United States was truly an

imperial player in this era and if so, what its motivations and intentions were. As

demonstrated earlier, the traditional exceptionalist school was largely dominant in the

subject’s historiography until the intervention of the revisionists, whose charge was chiefly

led by the writings of Appleman Williams. Resultantly, the liberal exceptionalist school was

borne as a reaction. This school has had a substantial effect on the historiographical debate

and “remains a central paradigm in American imperial studies.”33 And while American

conduct in Iraq post-9/11 has led to an increase in radical accounts of American foreign

policy- claiming that America has always been an imperial power intent on accruing an

empire- the traditional exceptionalist school remains the chief challenger to the dominant

liberal exceptionalist paradigm.

1.3 Role of Germany

Another issue pertaining to this thesis that has been the subject of much debate and

disagreement is the role played by Germany in shaping U.S. policy in this period. David

Healy remains convinced that German actions played a pivotal role in the formulation of

32 Ibid, p 28333 Modern Imperial Formations and the End of American Exceptionalism. Clara Altman (Brandeis University); Published on H-Empire (May, 2012) Retrieved on 7/7/12 from http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=35292

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American policy in the Caribbean, writing that Roosevelt feared the Germans would find

ways to acquire the Dutch and Danish possessions in the Americas to use as bases for the

insertion of their power.34 Healy also suggests that ‘between 1897 and 1905, German naval

staff officers elaborated a series of war plans involving an attack upon the east coast of the

United States.’35 This interpretation contrasts starkly with Raimund Lammersdorf’s, who

believes that Roosevelt viewed the Kaiser at this time as ‘a nuisance rather than a danger’

and that the idea of a contiguous development of German-American antagonism from

1889-1917 is the result of a teleological vision of foreign relations developing inevitably

towards World War I.36

1.4 Historiography on Roosevelt’s diplomacy

Historiography on American foreign relations was for most of the 20th century divided

amongst three major groupings: “traditionalists”, “realists” and “New Left”. The

traditionalists were near-unanimous in assessing nineteenth-century American diplomacy

as "successful," and, if having more doubts about the twentieth century, still felt that the

United States had achieved world leadership while simultaneously following policies

supportive of other nations' aspirations to self-determination, democracy, and prosperity.

The realists gave nineteenth-century American diplomacy high marks for the pursuit of

generally limited and attainable objectives, but lamented the tendency in the twentieth

century to embrace abstract and universalistic goals without regard to power realities. The

rise of the New Left school in the 1960s would cut a wide swath through the study of

American diplomacy. Reacting in part to the catastrophes of the Vietnam War, their model

emphasized economic factors as the driving force behind American foreign policy. The

major thrust of New Left revisionism has been toward rewriting the history of the Cold War

to place major responsibility upon the United States, but there was also an accompanying

reading back into the past to enhance the image of an expansionist and aggressive

America.37

34 David Healy, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean 1898-1917 (Wisconsin, 1988) p 7235 Ibid, p 7436 Raimund Lammersdorf, The Advantages of Cooperation: German-American Friendship as a Fundamental Principle of German Weltpolitik and Theodore Roosevelt’s Big Stick Diplomacy; in Confrontation and Co-operation: Germany and the United States in the Era of World War I: 1900-1924 ,edited by Hans-Jürgen Schröder,(Oxford 1993) pp. 90-9137 John Braeman, The New Left and American Foreign Policy during the Age of Normalcy: A Re-Examination The Business History Review , Vol. 57, No. 1 (Spring, 1983), pp. 73-104

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The dominance of these three groupings was challenged in the twilight of the 20th

century however, as the historiographies of Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft

demonstrate. In 1990, it was judged that William Appleman Williams’s economics-oriented

“Open Door” thesis was the “dominant interpretive paradigm in American diplomatic

history”38 and that a hegemony paradigm had emerged as the consensus in relation to the

literature on Roosevelt and Taft. This paradigm was regarded as originating from the

common emphasis on Roosevelt’s “big stick” method of diplomacy and placed a keen

emphasis on dependency theory.39 Yet as the twentieth century drew to a close, there

began to emerge a challenge to the consensus.

Richard H. Collin was one of the chief proponents of this challenge. In a 1995 article

of significant importance to the debate on Roosevelt/Taft historiography, he identified

weaknesses with the hegemony paradigm and put forward his own competing concept of

“symbiosis”, which emphasizes cultural affairs more than strategic and economic ones and

looks for contextual interrelations in a broad international perspective to help explain

conflicts between specific nations.40 Collin actually argues that scholars of the hegemony

paradigm recognize the importance of cultural relations between peoples but choose to

emphasize power contests either among great powers or between imperial powers and

weaker ones. His concept, by contrast, more centrally emphasizes cultural interaction and

corrects what he sees as a blemish in the hegemony approach.41

Collin judges that his “symbiosis” approach is perfectly suited to considering the

context of crisis and global change that confronted Taft and his predecessor. Having

remarked that he regards David Healy’s Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the

Caribbean, 1898-1917 as being the “high point of the hegemonic framework”, Collin

suggests that this overly determinist interpretation of conscious empire can be better

explained by going beyond the hegemonic concepts of power- economic, strategic and

military.42 While economics, strategy and power may explain much in the history of U.S.

relations with Latin America, to Collin these explanations are incomplete and unsatisfying.

38 John Lewis Gaddis, “New Conceptual Approaches to the Study of American Foreign Relations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” Diplomatic History 14 (Summer 1990): 407.39 See Vincent Ferraro, "Dependency Theory: An Introduction," in The Development Economics Reader, ed. Giorgio Secondi (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 58-6440 Richard H. Collin, Symbiosis versus Hegemony: New Directions in the Foreign Relations Historiography of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft Diplomatic History, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Summer 1995): 47341 Ibid42 Ibid, pp. 474-475

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In an excellent example, he cites the Caribbean’s love for baseball and Latin America’s

fondness for U.S. comic books. While earlier scholars had regarded this as an instance of

cultural imperialism43, Collin chooses to see it as a natural happening that occurred without

conscious design.

The historiography on the Panama Canal – a much discussed legacy of the Roosevelt

presidency- is regarded by Collin to be a prime area for implementation of his symbiosis

concept. He believes that his new approach can revise the standardly hegemonic consensus

on the subject. The historiography on the Panama Canal had been overwhelmingly

condemnatory of Roosevelt throughout the 20th century, with a 1940 publication even

comparing him to Hitler.44 The standard, hegemonic interpretation was summed up as

follows: Roosevelt and the United States wanted a canal, Colombia objected to giving up its

rights in Panama, and Roosevelt encouraged, fomented, or caused a “revolution” in Panama,

which then was “free” to negotiate its own canal treaty with the United States. The result

gave the United States what it wanted, left Panama in a state of permanent dependency as

an American protectorate, and made Colombia an example of what happens to a small Latin

American nation that tangles with the Colossus to the North. Collin’s symbiosis framework

leads to a radically different interpretation in which he argues that the conflict was cultural,

driven by Colombia’s President Marroquín.45 In choosing to avoid the overemphasis on two

nations in diplomatic conflict that is inherent in the hegemonic framework, he argues that

the religious character of the conflicts between the U.S. and Spain, Latin America and the

Philippines has been overlooked so far. To him, the U.S. position as a Protestant nation

protecting the Catholic majority of Filipinos from a militant Muslim minority was perhaps

naive progressive paternalism, but it was far different than simple economic or strategic

expansionism.46 Edward Crapol’s essay is further evidence of a broader trend during this

period, one that sought to craft a less moralistic historiography of imperialism.47 His work

is reflective of an attempt to advance the primacy of moral responsibility as a motive,

43 Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattleart, How to read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic, ed. and trans. David Kunzle (New York, 1975)44 Allan Nevins, Introduction to Dwight C. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route: The Story of the Spooner Act and the Hay-Herran Treaty (New York, 1940)45 Collin, pp. 477-47846 Ibid p 47947 Edward P. Crapol, “Coming to Terms with Empire: The Historiography of Late Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 16 (Fall 1992) pp. 573-597

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rather than the economic and strategic policies so stressed by proponents of the hegemonic

network of scholars.

The most substantial disagreements on Roosevelt/Taft-era historiography center on

Latin America and Central America, where the memory of the big stick and of later U.S.

interventions has created a sense and historiography of victimization. There is a consensus

that the United States was paternalistic and insensitive in the region.48 In stressing the

cultural exceptionalism that lay at the heart of Latin American nationalism and its

resistance to foreign domination, these scholars were instrumental in shifting the

historiography on Roosevelt-era diplomacy away from the dominant materialist,

hegemonic framework that had for decades been unchallenged.

It is also worth noting a further splinter group in the historiographical debate over

American diplomacy. This is the corporatism school, which moved away from the

hegemonic diction with its linkage of domestic, diplomatic and economic policies in an

internationalized context. While corporatism’s primary focus is still economic, Collin’s

“symbiosis” uses whatever defines the interactive elements at a particular time, be they

economic, domestic politics etc.49 His is a fluid framework that is not rigidly aligned to

material concepts like the hegemony school. As he concludes, “symbiosis can accommodate

a wider cultural corporatism, internationalized not only in its economic focus but also in its

eagerness to emphasize domestic politics of all nations, imaginative culture, and

intellectual change… Symbiosis is a framework for the new internationalist, modernist,

cultural community that began in earnest with Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency and

influenced more of the events and peoples in the world than the receding nineteenth

century’s nationalist economic interest conflicts”.50

Interpretations on the motives and legacy of Roosevelt are still the source of

dispute. While some rush to label Roosevelt an imperialist with an appetite for conflict,

there are scholars who counter with the fact that the country experienced no major war on

his almost eight year watch, a record rarely mentioned by his enemies who represented

him as always bellicose and belligerent.51 Ninkovich refers to the touchstone of Roosevelt’s

48 Collin, p 48549 Ibid, p 49450 Ibid, pp. 495-49751 Graubard, p 125.

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diplomacy as being right rather than might.52 There remains no consensus on his

presidency, which is not surprising given the magnitude and fallout from it.

1.5 Historiography on Taft’s diplomacy

There is a widespread acceptance amongst scholars that William Howard Taft was an

inactive president who largely confined himself to the White House and refrained from

vigorous public engagements.53 This relative unpopularity was reflected in his third place

finish in his presidential re-election campaign of 1912. He failed to escape the shadow of

his titanic predecessor and was succeeded by Woodrow Wilson, another colossus of 20th

century American politics. Given that his largely unremarkable presidency was wedged

between the epochal administrations of two figures whose legacies still resonate today,

Taft has resultantly been reduced to the margins of 20th century U.S. history, his tenure

roundly condemned as being lethargic and directionless. Much criticism centered on his

administration’s approach to foreign affairs, which stressed the importance of the nation’s

rapidly growing capital resources and downplayed Theodore Roosevelt’s emphasis on

military force.54 While Taft argued that such a policy would assist in the creation of orderly

societies by helping to develop the unindustrialized nations while simultaneously earning

profits for American investors, opponents offensively dubbed it ‘Dollar diplomacy’.

However, a journey through the historiography of Taft’s administration reveals a more

nuanced picture and suggests that the portrait of him as a failed president with no tangible,

enduring legacy is not wholly accurate.

Dexter Perkins appraisal of Taft provides a much more layered analysis of the

administration. Published shortly after World War II, Perkins Hands Off: A History of the

Monroe Doctrine states that “At the distance of more than a quarter of a century, it can

readily be seen that Mr. Taft, in discharging his high office, was by no means the ghastly

failure which party spirit, and the venom of his predecessor, was to make him seem; his

52 Frank Ninkovich, Theodore Roosevelt: Civilization as Ideology. Diplomatic History, Vol. 10, Issue 3 (Summer 1986): pp. 221–245. 53 There are many examples, amongst them: Stephen Graubard, The Presidents: The Transformation of the American Presidency from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama (London, 2009); Walter LaFeber The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad since 1750 (New York, 1989) pp. 241-24254 Walter LaFeber, The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad since 1750 (New York, 1989) p 242

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constructive achievements were many..”55 He also applauds the policy of ‘Dollar diplomacy’

for bearing “no sinister financial aspect”, unlike earlier policies pursued by Roosevelt.56

There were other notable reappraisals of Taft’s foreign policy record as the 20th century

progressed. An analysis of The American Historical Review is a further instance of a

revisionist interpretation of the Taft era. This passage from a 1974 review article- written

at a time when the United States was still reeling from its draining and futile engagements

in Vietnam- offers a fresh take on Taft’s diplomatic dealings; “It remains refreshing, now

that American presidents have got the habit of assuming absolute power to deploy the

military abroad, that Taft felt inescapably constrained by the absence of a formal, legal

sanction. Despite some gross sabre rattling and a personal readiness to intervene….Taft

refused to move because Congress gave him no authority to do so.”57

Paolo Coletta’s narrative from the same period largely follows this tone. His work

offers a gently critical interpretation of the Taft administration, and surmises that Taft “was

not a bad president but a rather good one”58, failing to achieve greatness because he was

incapable of playing the shrewd political games that his predecessor reveled in. In a

publication three years later, Akira Iriye has praise for Taft’s foreign policy, suggesting that

it was universalistic in imagination as well as application and paved the way for the coming

of Woodrow Wilson’s internationalism. Iriye goes further and concludes that the criticism

of dollar diplomacy “tells as much about the accomplishments as about the problem of that

diplomacy. Wilsonian foreign policy was not so much a rejection of Taft’s approach as an

attempt to overcome some of these problems without throwing away the

accomplishments.”59 While not a categorical endorsement of all of Taft’s foreign policy

decisions, these writings indicate that in an age of catastrophic diplomatic failures, the

historiography of Taft’s administration was more favorable than many would expect.

Favorable appraisals of the Taft administrations diplomacy are in the minority

however. For Walter LaFeber there is little ambiguity regarding Taft’s dollar diplomacy. He

rejects Iriye’s assertion completely when arguing that rather than seeking to protect order

and the status quo abroad, trade and economic opportunity was the chief engine driving

55 Dexter Perkins, Hands Off: A History of the Monroe Doctrine (Boston 1946) p 24856 Ibid57 Richard M. Abrams, United States Intervention Abroad: The First Quarter Century; The American Historical Review , Vol. 79, No. 1 (Feb., 1974), pp. 72-10258 Paulo E. Coletta The Presidency of William Howard Taft (University Press of Kansas, 1973) 59 Akira Iriye, From Nationalism to Internationalism: U.S. Foreign Policy to 1914 (London, 1977) p 231

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U.S. policy, regardless of the chaos and revolution that may result. For him, Taft’s policies

“perfectly illustrate the quest for overseas markets that were needed to deal with the

requirements of the Second Industrial Revolution….and how that quest led to disorder and

even revolution”.60 In essence, Taft’s dollar diplomacy used dollars not as a substitute for

bullets –as he’d claimed- but as a supplement.

Like Roosevelt, the historiography on Taft’s diplomacy has been widely dominated

by the hegemonic framework favored by scholars for most of the 20th century. However,

Richard Collin argues that the failure of Dollar Diplomacy in conception and practice may

owe more to clumsiness than hegemonic expansiveness.61 This clumsiness was

demonstrated in his overpopulating of his inner circle and cabinet with lawyers who

favored active intervention and American economic primacy.62 In a damning summation,

Collin states that by replacing Roosevelt’s use of power and responsibility and his

commitment to internationalism with open American economic motives, Taft obliterated

much of their predecessors’ attempts to establish friendlier relations with Latin American

countries. Taft’s clumsy economic initiatives would only reinforce the Latin stereotypes of

materialism and insensitivity.63

More contemporary readings on Taft’s presidency have also been largely unkind.

Stephen Graubard regards Taft as having been Roosevelt’s ‘dauphin’ and remarks that the

world order he proposed to achieve through the growing economic interdependence of

nations never materialized.64 Others regard his dollar diplomacy in Central and Latin

America as a farce and an ill-fitting disguise for Yankee imperialism.65 So while there have

been notable instances of scholars re-appraising and defending Taft’s diplomatic efforts,

the broader historiographical consensus remains dominated by the hegemonic paradigm

who stress a sinister, economic driven plot as Taft’s ultimate motivation.

60 Walter LaFeber, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations. Volume 2, The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913 (Cambridge, 1993) p 23361 Collin, p 49162 David Healy, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898-1917 (Madison, 1988) pp. 145-16363 Collin, p 49264 Stephen Graubard, The Presidents: The Transformation of the American Presidency from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama pp. 127-14765 Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations (Oxford University Press, 2000) pp. 56-57

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1.6 Research Question(s)

Before proceeding further, I will clarify precisely the research questions that the master

thesis seeks to answer. The broader, overarching research question asks whether the

foreign policy of the United States in the period 1898-1912 can be classed as being

‘imperialist’ and how this American brand of imperialism differed from the preceding

European models, namely that of Britain. In addition, a number of sub questions arise from

this. The following are the most pertinent:

- What was the impact of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency on the process of

foreign policy formulation in the White House? (Chapter 2)

- Why did the USA want to develop a robust, modern navy and was it an

instrument in achieving America’s foreign policy aspirations?(Chapter 3)

- Were the foreign policies of emerging powers such as Germany and Japan

important motivators in the strategic decision-making of Washington?

(Chapters 4 and 5)

1.7 Method & Sources

The methods of research used during this master thesis were qualitative. Both primary and

secondary sources were utilized throughout the research process, although the balance

was more in favor of secondary sources. These secondary sources included a wide array of

secondary literature such as books, review articles and electronic journals. Primary

sources were largely obtained from the Roosevelt Study Centre in Middelburg, The

Netherlands. These include a collection of Theodore Roosevelt’s papers, which catalogue

his personal correspondence, speeches and diaries. A similar, albeit smaller, collection

pertaining to William Howard Taft is also housed at the study center. I also examined

multiple reels of microfilm relating to both presidents, from before, during and after their

tenures. In addition, the digitalized archives of the New York Times were a valuable tool in

gauging the media and public mood during my periodization. Finally, detailed transcripts of

speeches such as Annual Messages to Congress and State of the Union addresses were

accessed online.

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1.8 Thesis Structure

Chapter 2 is entitled ‘The Role of the President in Foreign Policy Formulation’ and is an

assessment of the impact that Theodore Roosevelt had on American foreign policy

formation. It also contains a section on the domestic context, with a short analysis of the

domestic factors that most influenced the imperialist debate. The chapter then proceeds to

introduce the foreign policy doctrine of William H. Taft, dubbed as ‘Dollar Diplomacy’, a

significant deviation from his predecessor’s policies. Chapter 3 outlines how the navy was

an integral instrument of America’s strategic vision during my periodization, a pillar of

American diplomacy without which their international exploits would not have been

possible. Chapter 4 is centered on three cases that are amongst the most pivotal diplomatic

engagements of the McKinley and Roosevelt presidencies. These are the Panama Canal

acquisition, the role of the United States in Cuba and American oversight of the Philippines.

A thorough examination of these cases will help to answer the overarching research

questions, as outlined in this chapter. Chapter 5 then addresses the question of whether the

United States foreign policy endeavors throughout the period were motivated by

competition from other Great Powers and emerging powers. The chapter includes analyses

of the American relationship with Germany, Japan and Great Britain. The final two chapters

comprise a conclusion- in which I attempt to draw parallels and distinctions with the

European models of imperialism’ and a bibliography of all relevant materials utilized

throughout the research process.

Concluding Remarks

As I have sought to demonstrate, there still exists a debate within the historiography on

this subject. The historiography of the Roosevelt/Taft presidencies has shifted throughout

the 20th century. However, while challenges to the hegemonic paradigm emerged –most

notably Collin’s symbiosis and to a lesser extent corporatism- it remains the dominant

concept in relation to the historiography on American diplomacy. William Appleman

Williams ‘The Tragedy of American Diplomacy’ remains the most influential basis for

interpretations of the period and for much of American diplomatic history.66

66 Crapol, p 589

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There also remains a debate over whether the United States does have an imperial

past. Exceptionalist literature still regards the events and aftermath of 1898 as an

aberration, while the revisionist school remains steadfast in the belief that it was the

universal pursuit of overseas export markets for American products that was the defining

feature of U.S. global power in this era. While the area has been covered in great detail by

an abundance of articles and secondary literature, I still feel that there are aspects that are

ripe for research. There is something of a historiographical gap as to the role of Germany in

America’s path to imperial player. In addition, the Taft administration has attracted only a

fraction of the attention garnered by the Roosevelt administration, though understandably

so. In conclusion, I believe that there remains the potential for me to bring a new

understanding of the subject to this master thesis, or at least to offer a new

perspective/interpretation. As my analysis of the historiography has shown, there remains

a distinctly ‘North American’ flavor to much of the literature on the subject, with a great

deal of energy going into justifying the ideology behind the American actions. My analysis

will suffer from no such issues and will seek to offer a distinctly non-American context,

which will hopefully produce a fresh and alternative understanding to the subject.

Chapter 2: The Role of the President in Foreign Policy Formulation

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“The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole

representative with foreign nations.”67

-John Marshall, March 7th, 1800

6th Congress

The primary purpose of this chapter is to examine the impact that Theodore Roosevelt had

on the office of the Presidency, and more specifically his possible impact on the formulation

and implementation of American foreign policy. Did Roosevelt’s ascension to power mark a

significant shift in America’s diplomatic conduct? The chapter will address this question

and is divided into four sections. The first section offers a concise contextualization of the

periodization being treated in this analysis. There then follows three distinct subchapters

that examine the evolution of the president’s role in foreign policy formation. The first of

these will explore the foreign policy machinery that existed during Grover Cleveland’s

second term (1893-1897) and William McKinley’s ill-fated spell in office (1897-1901). The

second subchapter will deal with Theodore Roosevelt’s two terms (1901-1909), with the

third section analyzing the presidencies of William Howard Taft (1909-1913) and

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921). The aim is to determine whether Roosevelt’s presidency

marked a decisive shift from his predecessors as to how American diplomacy was crafted

and executed. Did the role of the Secretary of State diminish in line with an increase in the

power of the Presidency? In addition, it is intended to explore whether Roosevelt’s style of

diplomacy was carried on by his immediate successors, Taft and Wilson.

2.1 The Domestic Context

This subsection is intended to provide a brief contextualization of the most prominent

domestic developments in the United States during the parameters of this master thesis,

issues that may well have been vital in policy formation in the highest echelons of

government. It is clearly not intended to be a detailed discussion but a necessary overview

of some of the important factors that were partly attributable to the shaping of American

foreign policy during this era, factors integral to the debate on American imperialism.

Perhaps the most important such development within the United Sates was the ‘end of the

67 Louis Fisher, The Law: Presidential Inherent Power: The “Sole Organ” Doctrine. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 37: 139–152. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-5705.2007.02589.x

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frontier’ in the west, meaning that there were no longer large tracts of land unbroken by

settlement. The existence of the frontier was supposed to relieve America of the

overcrowding, scarcity and inequality that plagued Europe. But in 1890 the Census Bureau

had declared the frontier “closed”.68 That news had immediately aroused fears that

something distinct and precious in American life had been lost. Scholars and writers

mourned the closing of the frontier by arguing that the availability of vast expanses of open

land and pioneering opportunities had been essential to the development of political

democracy and individual self-reliance.69 The need to reclaim an adventurous heritage in

the face of new industrial conditions formed the link between domestic concerns and

foreign policy issues for political leaders. For many of them, America’s greatest need was a

new frontier, which they meant in the most literal way.70 Domestic concerns over the

closing of the frontier therefore need to be considered when analyzing the engine of

American imperial history.

Another contemporary issue of broad importance to the colonial debate was that of

Social Darwinism and its offshoot theories. Efforts at applying Darwin’s theories of

biological evolution to human behavior and institutions had begun from the 1870s

onwards. The English sociologist Herbert Spencer’s writings had been particularly

influential and resonated with American society. He argued that human society had

evolved through the same processes as biological species-through a “struggle for existence”

characterized by “survival of the fittest”.71 That these ideas could potentially permeate the

thinking of American political leaders from the era is therefore possible. The imperialist

situation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries contained most of the ingredients likely to

appeal to a mind sympathetic with the philosophy of natural selection, based as it was on

force and involving competition in obvious form, contrasting superior and backwards

peoples, white and non-white, European and non-European, and producing what most

western observers insisted was progress for mankind.72 Like many thinkers of his day

Theodore Roosevelt imbibed Darwinian theory to demonstrate that society could—and

68 John Milton Cooper Jr. Pivotal Decades: The United States 1900-1920 (New York, 1990) pg. 769 Ibid. pp. 7-870 Ibid. pg. 871 Ibid. pg. 1572 David H. Burton. Theodore Roosevelt's Social Darwinism and Views on Imperialism Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1965), pp. 103-118

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must—evolve.73 Some have suggested that Roosevelt’s foreign policy was in part driven by

his Social Darwinist beliefs, his firm desire to ‘civilize’ developing nations.74 Burton (1965)

writes that “in the apologia he offered for imperialism were mingled elements of the

pragmatic and the moral; of history and Darwinism…If evolution in Roosevelt’s imperialist

thought is not its sole and underlying principle, it nonetheless is a singularly valuable

guideline for understanding Roosevelt the Imperialist”.75 The prominence and widespread

acceptance of Social Darwinism in Western political circles during America’s Progressive

Era should thus be carefully considered in any analysis of U.S. foreign policy at the turn of

the 19th century and beyond. In addition, the Panic of 1893 should be noted. The

consequent social upheaval of that economic depression was a frightful specter to the

political-economic elite of the day76and prompted a heightened debate on overproduction

and the need for new markets. Together with the ‘closure’ of the frontier, these issues best

explain the context and internal discourse that existed within America before and during

the periodization of this thesis.

2.2 Pre-Roosevelt

In his first Inaugural Address77, Grover Cleveland informed the American people that there

would be no “departure from that foreign policy” which had ensured the safety and

prosperity of the nation over the previous century. “It is the policy of neutrality, rejecting

any share in foreign broils and ambitions upon other continents and repelling their

intrusion here. It is the policy of Monroe and of Washington and Jefferson—‘Peace,

commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliance with none.’”78

These remarks are indicative of the relative unimportance of foreign policy to the

White House administrations that existed up to and including Cleveland’s. Indeed,

Cleveland gave only limited time to matters of foreign policy throughout his time in office,

with his major interests being administrative reform, Indian and land policy, the currency

73 Jeffrey A. Engel (2008): The Democratic Language of American Imperialism: Race, Order, and Theodore Roosevelt's Personifications of Foreign Policy Evil, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 19:4, 671-68974 See Burton (1965), above.75 Ibid. pp. 105-10676 McCormick, pp. 24-2577 To date, Cleveland is the only President to serve non-consecutive terms: (1885-1889, 1893-1897)78 Grover Cleveland’s inaugural address of March 4th 1885; Accessed online via: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25824#ixzz1u0qAmSrg

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and the tariff.79 It was Cleveland’s wish that America pursue a conservative, old-fashioned

foreign policy, a foreign policy marked by a respect for tradition. This tradition had its

roots in the perceived anti-expansionism laid down by George Washington and the later

doctrine of President James Monroe. It was a tradition which provided for a qualified

isolationism and anti-imperialism, a policy rooted in a conviction that U.S. diplomatic

traditions required that the United States shun overseas territorial expansion.80

When analyzing the formulation of foreign policy, a key indicator lies in the

relationship between the President and his Secretary of State. This was as revealing in

America’s ‘Gilded Age’ as it is today. During his second term, Cleveland had two secretaries

of state. The first was Walter Q. Gresham (1893-1895) who died in office two years into the

administration. Richard Olney (1895-1897) was then promoted and inhabited the office for

the remainder of Cleveland’s stint in power. While Cleveland valued the advice of both men,

he never permitted them to usurp his presidential prerogatives, and he took an active role

in all important questions of foreign policy. If his secretaries were often the initiators of

particular policy positions, it was Cleveland who gave or with-held approval for their

implementation and who had the final word on all major diplomatic appointments.81

One of the oldest conflicts in the American system of government is that between

Congress and the President over the right to formulate and implement foreign policy. Is the

President solely responsible for the conduct of external relations? Is the Congress an equal

partner? Or does Congress have the right to shape U.S. policy by enacting legislation which

proscribes a President’s flexibility?82 In analyzing the foreign policy processes of these

various administrations, it is thus important to highlight the state of play on Capitol Hill

that accompanied their terms in office.

Grover Cleveland was the only Democratic President elected in the period between

Lincoln’s 1861 triumph and Woodrow Wilson’s rise to power in 1913. In the 53rd Congress

(1893-1895), both chambers had a Democratic majority, with the Republicans having

seven fewer senators and ninety-four fewer members of the House of Representatives.

However, the midterm elections of 1895 witnessed a seismic shift, with the Republican

79 Richard E. Welch Jr., The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland pg. 15880 Welch Jr., pg. 158.81 Ibid, pg. 160.82John G. Tower. Congress versus the president: The formulation and implementation of American foreign policyForeign Affairs (pre-1986); Winter 1981/1982; 60, 002; ProQuest pg. 229.

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Party reversing the trend and taking healthy majorities in both chambers.83 It is

unsurprising therefore that Cleveland’s second term was not without difficulties when it

came to convincing Congress on diplomatic matters. The issue of the annexation of Hawaii

was a notable example. Unsure of his position on the matter but inclined to ignore the calls

for annexation of the island, Cleveland submitted the Hawaiian problem to Congress. In

effect, Congress advised Cleveland’s administration to recognize the white minority

government there and Cleveland reluctantly obeyed their advice.84 Towards the

denouement of his second term, Cleveland also encountered fierce resistance from Capitol

Hill over the sensitive issue of Cuba’s desire for independence from Spain. Some have even

suggested that Cleveland “found Congress more troublesome than the Cuban junta.”85

While he was determined to keep Cuban policy in his own hands, Congress was equally

determined to participate in its formulation. While Cleveland was content to remain

isolated from the growing strife in Cuba, senators and congressmen from both parties saw

the Cuban insurrection as a battle against monarchical tyranny and as a sturdy stick with

which to beat the unpopular Cleveland administration. They sought to force Cleveland to

abandon his pro-Spanish neutrality policy in favor of a policy of open support for the

insurgents by adopting a resolution in the Senate in February 1896.86 Such a flagrant

rebuttal of the President’s position would become uncommon in the future decades with

the escalation of Presidential power.

While Grover Cleveland was undoubtedly driven by his own beliefs and was not a man to

blindly accept unthinkingly the advice of his close colleagues, his relative submissions to

Congress on matters of foreign policy demonstrate that the stature of the presidency was

not ultimately comparable to what it would become in the decades to follow. It also

highlights the relative unimportance of the foreign policy brief at this juncture in American

history. Cleveland displayed only sporadic interest in foreign policy and his chief concerns

were domestic.87 He pursued no grand geopolitical strategy.88 His was in essence a pre-

83 Figures obtained from website of the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives via; http://artandhistory.house.gov/house_history/84 Welch Jr., pg. 174.85 Ibid, pg. 196.86 Ibid, 196.87 Ibid, 198.88 Ibid, 160.

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modern Presidency in the diplomatic sense, a time when the role of president was to be an

administrator and clerk as much as a commander-in-chief.

“It has been the policy of the United States since the foundation of the Government to

cultivate relations of peace and amity with all the nations of the world, and this accords

with my conception of our duty now. We have cherished the policy of non-interference

with affairs of foreign governments wisely inaugurated by Washington, keeping ourselves

free from entanglement, either as allies or foes, content to leave undisturbed with them the

settlement of their own domestic concerns. It will be our aim to pursue a firm and dignified

foreign policy, which shall be just, impartial, ever watchful of our national honor, and

always insisting upon the enforcement of the lawful rights of American citizens

everywhere. Our diplomacy should seek nothing more and accept nothing less than is due

us. We want no wars of conquest; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression.

War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed; peace is

preferable to war in almost every contingency.”89

It seems astonishing that only a year after uttering these words- spoken at his

inaugural address of 1897- William McKinley would lead the United States into war with

Spain. Though McKinley’s tenure as President was cut short by an assassin’s bullet in

September 1901, he had already served his first term in full and is therefore worthy of

inclusion in an analysis of the evolution of Presidential power and foreign policy formation,

all the more so in light of the fact that his intervention against Spain in Cuba has been

highlighted by some as the genesis of American imperialism.90 McKinley’s term in office is

of particular relevance to this chapter because of the historiographical tug-of-war over his

relationship with Congress and the role of this relationship in the eventual decision to go to

war with Spain. The elections of 1897 had confirmed the Republicans as the dominant

party in Congress, with 206 members to the Democrats 124, ensuring a majority in both

chambers.91 However, those expecting a tranquil, harmonious relationship between the

White House and Congress on matters of foreign policy would be gravely mistaken.

89 First Inaugural Address of William McKinley, March 4th 1897; Accessed online via: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres40.html90 See for example H. Wayne Morgan’s America's Road to Empire: The War with Spain and Overseas Expansion (1965); Julius Pratt’s Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (1936)91 Figures obtained from website of the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives via; http://artandhistory.house.gov/house_history/

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There is little consensus among the historical community as to the precise dynamic

between McKinley and Congress and whether it was the President or Capitol Hill that

ultimately navigated the United States towards war in 1898. This is perhaps partly

attributable to the fact that McKinley kept no memoirs and thus his papers of

correspondence are minimal. There has been a general interpretation amongst historians

that McKinley was a pragmatic, if morally weak, politician who eventually deferred to an

increasingly warlike Congress on the issue of Cuban intervention.92 However, a closer

examination of McKinley’s dealing with Congress in the crucial period in the run up to the

declaration of war in the spring of 1898 reveals a more nuanced picture. Following the

sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15th, McKinley asked for, and

received, a suspension of judgment pending the report on how the vessel was destroyed.

Following McKinley's transmission of the report to Congress on March 23, McKinley

informally requested that Congress forbear from making any warlike resolutions until he

had adequate time to formulate an appropriate response to Spain. This request was

granted. McKinley led Congress to believe that it could expect a message from him on April

4. He then twice requested, and was granted, extensions—first until April 6 to complete his

draft, and then once more until April 11, supposedly so that American citizens in Cuba

would have adequate time to leave safely. Congress only moved toward war after

McKinley's April 11 message explicitly granted it leave to do so, and even then, McKinley

and his allies in Congress were able to squelch the Turpie-Foraker amendment that would

have forced Spain into war by recognizing Cuban belligerency.93

There can be little doubt that McKinley was under considerable pressure during

these two months. However the fact that Congress moved so rapidly to make war on Spain,

but only after it had secured McKinley's stamp of approval, and after acceding to all of his

stated wishes, illustrates that McKinley maintained a strong personal control over not just

his administration, but the entire U.S. government during that time.94 The actions of the

government during these weeks flowed from decisions made by McKinley, which

demonstrate that the general perception of a president being totally steered by a dominant

Congress is misleading. An earlier instance of Congressional defiance does however

92 See H. Wayne Morgan's William McKinley and His America (1963), Gerald F. Linderman's The Mirror of War (1974), Lewis Gould's The Presidency of William McKinley (1980), John L. Offner's The Unwanted War (1992).93 Nick Kapur; William McKinley's Values and the Origins of the Spanish-American War: A Reinterpretation. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 41: 18–38. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-5705.2010.03829.x94 Ibid

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highlight the prominent role enjoyed by Congress in this period. In January 1897,

Cleveland's secretary of state, Richard Olney, and British Ambassador Sir Julian Pauncefote

signed a treaty committing the United States and Great Britain to arbitrate all of their

disputes for the next five years. As a passionate arbitrationist, McKinley urged Congress to

approve the treaty upon his entry to the Presidency. To his dismay, the 1897 arbitration

treaty was rejected by conservatives from his own party in the Senate, who would not

accept any limitations on what they saw as a national right to force of arms.95

While William McKinley made a radical departure from the traditions of American

foreign policy in initiating the war with Spain in 1898 and laying some of the groundwork

for the long-term U.S. engagement with European and world affairs, it is difficult to detect

from his tenure an overarching idea or vision for the diplomatic sphere. The fact that his

foreign policy was almost totally reactive in nature, and was of course cut short by his

assassination, means that while he was undoubtedly a transitional figure, his tenure was

not seminal.96 Like his predecessor, foreign policy was not at the forefront of McKinley’s

agenda, given that he made the economy the central platform of his election campaigns. Yet

while the manner of his foreign policy formulation was ‘traditional’ and essentially didn’t

deviate from that of his immediate predecessors, his passion for arbitration was certainly a

modern trait in the office, a trait not entirely shared by his successor.

2.3 Rooseveltian Statecraft

Catapulted into highest office at the age of just forty-two by the act of an assassin, few

might have predicted the impact Theodore Roosevelt would have and the legacy he would

leave, especially in diplomatic affairs. Yet, when his background is considered, it is perhaps

less of a surprise. For Theodore Roosevelt was probably the first truly cosmopolitan

president, his childhood having imbued him with cultural links to, and appreciation for, and

an understanding of Europe that few other Presidents have had, more so than his

immediate predecessors and successors. This is of course partly attributable to the fact that

he travelled extensively throughout Europe in his formative years, where he laid the

foundations for an impressive network of diplomatic contacts. Unlike his immediate

95 Ibid96 See Lewis L. Gould, “The First Modern President,” in The Presidency of William McKinley (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1980), 231-253. John M. Dobson, Reticent Expansionism: The Foreign Policy of William McKinley (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1988)

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predecessors, Roosevelt had a passion for global affairs, his interests and background

making him much more equipped for robust diplomacy than Cleveland or McKinley.

The tenure of Theodore Roosevelt undeniably appears to mark a turning point in

the evolution of the powers of the presidency, in particular in the workings of foreign

policy. Indeed, some suggest that “the roots of twentieth-century US foreign relations, and

particularly US foreign relations as of 1939, lie firmly in the century’s opening decade, in

the diplomacy of President Theodore Roosevelt.”97 Both before and after his time in office,

few chief executives have consistently been their own secretaries of state. Theodore

Roosevelt was one of them. Notwithstanding John Hay’s and Elihu Root’s invaluable

assistance, the twenty-sixth president shaped and managed foreign policy almost single-

handedly.98 His secretaries of state were longtime friends whom Roosevelt trusted but who

knew when to yield to his leadership in foreign affairs.99 Together with Secretary of War

William H. Taft, they provided a restraining influence on the often impetuous president,

offering invaluable expertise and assistance in foreign affairs. These trusted friends saw to

the details of major negotiations and efficiently took care of “minor” ones, such as the

Alaskan boundary dispute with Canada. However, there is no doubt that Theodore

Roosevelt was the one meticulously shaping and directing foreign policy at large.

The relationship between Roosevelt and Congress offers a further glimpse of his

effect on foreign policy formulation. Though his Republican Party controlled both

chambers of the House during all four sessions of his presidencies, Roosevelt never came to

rely on their blind support. To him, the chief executive of the nation ran the show. His post-

presidency autobiography was revealing for his castigation of former President Buchanan’s

“narrowly legalistic view that the President is the servant of Congress rather than of the

people”.100 Contrast this with his own stated position that the president has a “duty to do

anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the

Constitution or by the laws”.101

Given that he is on record as regarding Congress to be “indecisive and irresolute as

an institution”, it is not at all surprising that Roosevelt chose on occasion to bypass Capitol 97 William N. Tilchin. For the Present and the Future: The Well-Conceived, Successful, and Farsighted Statecraft of President Theodore Roosevelt Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 19: pp. 658–670, 200898 Hay served as Roosevelt’s Secretary of State from 1901-1905, Root from1905-1909.99 Serge Ricard, “Foreign Policy Making in the White House: Rooseveltian Style Personal Diplomacy”, in Artists of Power; edited by William N. Tilchin and Charles E. Neu (Connecticut, 2006), 3-31.100 Theodore Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, pg. 198101 Ibid, pg. 197

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Hill.102 The dramatic increase in executive orders during his administrations is

symptomatic of his ratcheting up of presidential power. The device to which Roosevelt

gave particular new force was the international compact entered into by the president of

his own motion and authority- the executive agreement. These were essentially

agreements made by presidents in areas where they possessed constitutional authority to

act without consent of Congress. Thus the president as organ of foreign relations could

recognize foreign governments and settle foreign claims without congressional

intervention; as Commander-in-chief he could arrange cease-fire or armistice agreements.

He could in addition make what were not quite agreements but rather unilateral

commitments on the order of the Monroe Doctrine.103 Though these conditions existed for

Roosevelt’s predecessors, he would undoubtedly interpret them as a template for sole

control of foreign policy. His presidency saw the executive agreement rushed into its own.

Thus, in 1905, when the Senate declined to ratify a treaty with Santa Domingo placing its

customhouses under American control, Roosevelt, as he himself described it, “put the

agreement into effect, and I continued its execution for two years before the Senate acted;

and I would have continued it until the end of my term, if necessary, without any action by

Congress.”104

Roosevelt’s own words, written after his time in office, are a neat summation of his

attitude to Congress and his unshakeable belief in the power of the chief executive; “I did

not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I

acted for the public welfare; I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever

and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or

legislative prohibition . . .”105 In addition, he wrote a few days before he left the White

House in 1909 what was a ringing statement of his executive outlook, “The biggest matters,

such as the Portsmouth peace, the acquisition of Panama, and sending the fleet around the

world, I managed in consultation without anyone, for when a matter is of capital

importance, it is well to have it handled by one man only.”106

102 Lewis Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, pg. 11.103 Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, pg. 86104 Roosevelt, An Autobiography, pg. 510105 Roosevelt, pg. 198106 (T.R. to H.C. Lodge, January 28, 1909, Roosevelt, Letters, Elting Morison, ed. (Cambridge, 1951-1956), Vol. 1, 1497-1498

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2.4 Post-Roosevelt

Given that his presidency was lodged between the momentous Roosevelt and Wilson

administrations, William Howard Taft’s impact upon foreign affairs is often regarded as

minimal. In truth however, his style may have been precisely what America craved after the

frenetic diplomatic sparring of the Roosevelt years. The New York Times editorial that

followed his election triumph of 1908 indicates weariness with the Rooseveltian style of

diplomacy, stating that “The patient needs now, not more dosing, but the ministrations of a

careful nurse. The advent of Mr. Taft will be opportune…We may confidently look forward

then to a quiet administration. We shall not live in the midst of alarms; we shall not read

quite so many proclamations and pronunciations from the White House; politics and

business will not be quite so embarrassingly intermingled.”107 Broadly speaking, Taft’s

administration would prove to be a quiet one, at least in the area of grand diplomatic

engagements, the type that Roosevelt had relished. A study of the same newspaper’s

editorial on Taft’s presidency in the aftermath of him leaving office is notable for its almost

complete lack of mention for diplomatic affairs. Instead, it commends him for the more

withdrawn style he brought to the role of president- “he has been a Constitutional

President. He has not undertaken to make laws by Executive acts, he has sought faithfully

to enforce those he found upon the statute books, and that is the truest conception of the

Executive…….history will be just to Mr. Taft.”108

Though William H. Taft came to the highest office in the land promising “a

progressive development of that which has been performed by President Roosevelt” it

would soon become apparent that he had a fundamentally different understanding of what

his role-as president- would be in policy formulation and promotion.109 Taft was troubled

by what he viewed as Roosevelt’s aggressive use of the presidency, but he did not see his

role as being simply an administrator or a constitutional clerk. To be sure, in Taft’s view,

the presidency should not be the driving force in the political system. However, Taft’s

actions as president and his writings after leaving the office suggest that he did believe a

president had an important role to play in the system, a role that fell somewhere between

that of a mere administrator or constitutional clerk and a modern, rhetorical leader.110

107 “Mr. Taft in the White House”, New York Times (1857-1922); Nov 5, 1908; ProQuest Historical Newspapers, pg. 8108 “William H. Taft”, New York Times (1857-1922); Mar 4, 1913: pg. 12109 Ibid.110 Michael J. Korzi; Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers: A Reconsideration of William Howard Taft's "Whig" Theory of Presidential Leadership; Presidential Studies Quarterly , Vol. 33, No. 2 (Jun., 2003), pp. 305-324

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There is little doubting that it was Roosevelt who stoked the public demand for dramatic

leadership of Congress by the president. But Taft would have none of it: it conflicted deeply

with his faith in constitutional and, particularly, party government. A president should be

an important figure within the party but should not sacrifice party unity and strength to

excessive ambition and demands.111

Given his legalistic background, it is not surprising that Taft proved to be such a

judicial president with a keen emphasis on upholding the constitution. This stance, coupled

with the fact that a splintered Republican Party lost control of the House of Representatives

in the mid-term elections of 1909, would ensure that Taft’s administration was not ripe

with complex diplomatic struggles or proclamations. While he discreetly continued the

Roosevelt foreign policy of expanding American influence in the world and added a special

twist by pushing commercial expansion through what came to be termed “Dollar

Diplomacy”, his impact on the evolution of foreign policy formulation was limited.112 For

Taft wholeheartedly believed in “the rule of law” rather than the rule of man, his emphasis

on constitutional democracy and passion for the tripartite system of government radically

different to his predecessor, who had so heightened the power of the presidency.

Taft’s successor, Woodrow Wilson, understood-as Taft did not-that the president

must necessarily take the lead on some important matters, that there are times when

deference to Congress and one’s political party could spell disaster for the party and the

nation. Still, Wilson was probably closer to Taft than Roosevelt in his conception of

presidential leadership because Wilson recoiled at the excessive popular leadership of

Roosevelt.113 Wilson had his suspicions of Roosevelt’s style of popular leadership, writing in

1907 that presidents should stay in their constitutional place and let the courts and

Congress exercise their rightful powers (Wilson was, like Taft, an expert on international

law and law professor before he became President).114

In a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape, Wilson saw no need for a foreign policy

apparatus that would provide information about other governments and their objectives

111 Ibid112 Donald F. Anderson, The Legacy of William Howard Taft; Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 1, (Winter, 1982), pp. 26-33113 Korzi, pg. 322114 Terri Bimes and Stephen Skowronek. Woodrow Wilson’s critique of popular leadership: Reassessing the modern-traditional divide in presidential history. In Speaking to the people: The rhetorical presidency in historical perspective, edited by Richard J. Ellis. (University of Massachusetts Press, 1998)

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and that would include mechanisms for the execution of his policies.115 Like Roosevelt,

Wilson expected to dominate foreign policy but given the complex range of international

issues that would confront his administration, he would have no choice but to share the

burdens of diplomacy with others. His dynamic with his Secretaries of State reveals much

about the hands-on role that Wilson sought in the diplomatic arena. His first Secretary of

State was in fact a political adversary- William Jennings Bryan- whom Wilson had been

forced to court in order to win the nomination in 1912. Their working relationship was

subsequently unproductive, with Bryan resigning in June 1915. The process for choosing

his replacement further enhances the idea of Wilson as the chief architect of his

administration’s diplomatic affairs. In contemplating Bryan’s successor, Wilson initially

rejected the man who would later fill the post-Robert Lansing, believing that he “would not

do, that he was not a big enough man, did not have enough imagination, and would not

sufficiently vigorously combat or question [the president’s] views, and that he was lacking

in initiative.”116 After consulting with his closest diplomatic adviser (Colonel Edward M.

House, a Texan political operator) and pondering the alternatives however, Wilson

dramatically altered his opinion. Lansing, House advised, “could be used to better

advantage than a stronger man…..I think the most important thing,” House continued, “is to

get a man with not too many ideas of his own and one that will be entirely guided by you

without unnecessary argument…”117 With Lansing’s appointment, Wilson’s inner circle of

foreign policy advisers had essentially narrowed to House, an unelected individual who

enjoyed much greater sway than cabinet members. Lansing’s limited access to the

president saw him abandoned to the margins of diplomacy, leaving no-one in any doubt as

to who was formulating foreign policy.

Wilson’s difficulties with Congress have been well documented and the fallout from

his eventual inability to find consensus with Capitol Hill would have lasting ramifications

for the wider world. During the war he neglected to cultivate support in Congress and had

failed to draw prominent Republicans onto his side. Having come to power at a time of

Democratic control over both chambers, by the elections of 1917 the Republicans had more

Representatives, leaving the Democrats to rely on the Progressive Party for support. After

115 Charles E. Neu, “Woodrow Wilson and His Foreign Policy Advisors”, in Artists of Power (Connecticut, 2006), 77-94116 Ibid, pg.81117 Ibid.

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grueling negotiations at Versailles, an ailing Wilson would pay the price for the absence of

an inner network of foreign policy advisers and for failing to cultivate relations with

Congress. He could not understand the concerns of the opposition in the Senate and make

reasonable compromises leaving his vision for a more stable, arbitrationist world order in

tatters.118

2.5 Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy

“The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to modern ideas of

commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for

bullets.”119

William Howard Taft, State of the Union Address

December 3, 1912

In theory, William Howard Taft was impeccably qualified to continue the Rooseveltian style

diplomacy of his predecessor. Having served as Governor-General of the Philippines for

almost three years, Secretary of War for over four years and a spell as Governor of Cuba

during Roosevelt’s administrations, Taft seemed an ideal fit to provide leadership in

foreign affairs. However, as demonstrated in chapter two, he was a rather strict

constitutionalist who liked to maintain a sense of institutional regularity and integrity,

letting various organs of the Executive branch handle their affairs in an orderly fashion

without interference by the White House.120 And despite Taft’s keen interest in foreign

affairs, they would occupy a minor part of his tenure in comparison to his predecessor.

Domestic affairs such as the control over the trusts, conservation and the Negro question

became more prominent during the Taft years.121 Indeed, his acceptance speech of 1908 is

notable for its distinct lack of onus on foreign policy matters, with only casual sections

pertaining to diplomatic questions, though importantly he did state his predecessor’s

118 Ibid, pg. 91119Taft’s 1912 State of the Union Address; Accessed online via http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29553#axzz1vdTjylxB120 Iriye, From Nationalism to Internationalism, pg. 213121 Ibid, pg. 214

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support for “the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace

with other nations.”122 In a further warning against a reduction in armaments he declared:

“In the international controversies that are likely to arise in the Orient growing out

of the question of the open door and other issues the United States can maintain her

interests intact and can secure respect for her just demands. She will not be able to

do so, however, if it is understood that she never intends to back up her assertion of

right and her defense of her interest by anything but mere verbal protest and

diplomatic note.”123

This declaration of intentions was the first avowal of the policy which, under the Taft

administration, would earn the title of ‘Dollar Diplomacy’. Taft’s policy would result in a

significant deviation from his predecessor’s diplomatic style, with the emphasis now

shifting towards the State Department assisting American investors overseas, essentially

employing them as intermediary instruments in achieving foreign policy goals. Shortly

after his inauguration, an opportunity to test the policy arose.

In May, 1909, the Chinese government made an agreement with German, British and

French bankers for a loan to construct the Hukuang railways. Immediately a group of

American bankers was organized to finance any concessions for railroads which American

capitalists might obtain from the Chinese government. At once however, they began to

struggle for admission into the international group of bankers which was to float the

Hukuang loan.124 Their difficulties led Taft and his Secretary of State Knox to aid them in

seeking American entrée to the British, French, and German consortium negotiating the

loan.125 Knox brought diplomatic pressure to bear upon China, with stern demands to the

American Chargé d’Affaires to issue warnings to China.126 Such diplomatic efforts appeared

to be futile, with the Chinese government hoping that the Powers would quarrel amongst

themselves. 127 It was at this point that Taft intervened. Breaking all diplomatic precedent,

he sent a personal message to Prince Chun, regent of the Chinese Empire, in which he

stated: “I am disturbed at the reports that there is certain prejudiced opposition to your

122 Inaugural address of William H. Taft; retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres43.html 123 Ibid.124 Scott Nearing & Joseph Freeman. Dollar Diplomacy; a study in American imperialism (London, 1926) pg. 43 125 Paterson, American Foreign Policy, pg. 242126 Nearing & Freeman, pg. 44127 Ibid.

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Government’s arranging for equal participation by American capital in the present railway

loan…I have resorted to this somewhat unusually direct communication with your Imperial

Highness, because of the high importance that I attach to the successful result of our

present negotiations.”128 Partly as a result of this pressure, a quadruple agreement was

signed in November 1910 to expand the consortium to include the American bankers, with

the loan eventually floated the following June.129

Simultaneously, the State Department would help American financiers to entrench

themselves in Nicaragua, Honduras and elsewhere in Latin America. Taft declared that “the

Monroe Doctrine is more vital in the neighborhood of the Panama Canal and the zone of the

Caribbean than anywhere else…It is therefore essential that the countries within that

sphere shall be removed from the jeopardy involved by heavy foreign debt and chaotic

national finances and from the ever present danger of international complications due to

disorder at home. Hence the United States has been glad to encourage and support

American bankers who were willing to lend a helping hand to the financial rehabilitation of

such countries….”130

However, the failings of this policy were cruelly exposed in Nicaragua. The

Nicaraguan President Zelaya had persistently challenged U.S. policy in the region, with

concerns in Washington growing that he was going to give a non-American power the right

to build an isthmian canal through Nicaraguan territory, thus challenging American

hegemony on the isthmus. Before long, a revolutionary movement appeared on Nicaragua’s

east coast, helped along by U.S. diplomatic officials and Marines, who landed to protect the

rebels.131 The ensuing conflict saw Zelaya’s forces execute two Americans who had been

captured aiding the rebel effort. Under intense diplomatic and domestic pressure, he

resigned and was succeeded by José Madriz. Farce and chaos ensued with Washington

refusing to recognize Madriz, considering him as no less responsible than Zelaya. The

presidency would change hands frequently in the turbulent months following Zelaya’s

overthrow, with Washington recognizing Estrada when he agreed to certain conditions

such as the holding of free elections and the reconstruction of Nicaraguan finances on the

basis of American loans to be secured on customs revenues. However, Estrada was soon

128 Ibid.129 Paterson, pg. 242130 Nearing & Freeman, pg. 265131 LaFeber, pg. 246

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succeeded by Adolfo Diaz, once an employee of an American firm doing business in

Nicaragua. An agreement was then signed between the new government and the United

States for adjudicating all existing loan claims held by Americans, and for establishing a

customs receivership.132 When revolt threatened, American troops were sent to control

Nicaraguan railroads, allowing only Diaz’s troops to use them.

American military intervention in Nicaragua went a step beyond Rooseveltian policy

in that neither the security of the Canal Zone nor alleged intervention by European powers

was involved. Rather, Taft took action in order to restore political and financial stability in

a country that was apparently falling into the control of reckless and irresponsible men.133

So U.S. intervention was very far from the transforming force that its exponents had

claimed. Rather, it meant a symbiosis of local politics with American finance, which was

always likely to bring out the worst attributes of both. More grossly perhaps than any of its

neighbors, Guatemala exhibited the blighting effects of the protectorate system. After a

hopeful era of liberalism and progress the country fell under the regime of Manuel Estrada

Cabrera, who ruled from 1898 to 1920. Not fortuitously, it was in these years that the

United Fruit Company got its stranglehold on Guatemala and turned it into the ‘Banana

Republic’, with control of all railways and ownership of half a million fertile acres.134

A critique of ‘dollar diplomacy’, written in 1912 as a publication addressed to the

U.S. Senate, members of the House of Representatives and the American public, exhibits the

brutal reputation that the policy earned itself, at the very time it was being carried out. The

writer- Juan Leets- makes a number of damning assertions against the policy, most notably

that:

“Recently, under the Taft administration, the Secretary of State, Mr. Knox, has seen

fit to add to the supposed right of tutelage over the Latin-American Republics, an

assumption even more pernicious and objectionable, that of policing these

countries, and further, has sought to impose, especially on Central America, a

financial protectorate which would deprive these countries of the administration of

their own fiscal affairs.”135

132 Iriye, pg. 221133 Ibid.134 A. Bauer Paiz, ‘Imperialism in Guatemala’, Science and Society, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 (1970), pp. 146-147 in V.G. Kiernan’s America: The New Imperialism pg. 130135 Juan Leets, United States and Latin America; dollar diplomacy (1912) pg.13; accessed via http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=image;size=100;id=loc.ark%3A%2F13960%2Ft4bp0w737;page=root;seq=9

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He further excoriates the policy by stating that “under the pretext of giving aid to the small

Central American republics, the State Department has used ‘Dollar Diplomacy’ to force

upon these peoples loan contracts which would give to a coterie of Wall Street bankers not

only millions of dollars tainted with illegitimacy, opportunity for immense graft, but an

absolute license to exploit the vast resources of the countries and even administer their

governmental affairs.”136 Lees then describes the terms of the loan contracts which

Secretary Knox has so assiduously sought to fasten upon Nicaragua and Honduras as

“vicious” before accusing Mr. Knox as having “adjudged Zelaya a dictator in Nicaragua and

drove him from power, setting up a government which has brought poverty instead of

prosperity…despotism instead of liberty”137

Concluding Remarks

As I believe my analysis in this chapter has shown, Theodore Roosevelt had an undisputed

effect on the evolution of foreign policy formulation in the United States, his tenure

heralding a seismic shift in the power struggle between Congress and the White House. As

episodes like the acquisition of the Panama Canal (treated in depth in chapter 4) would

demonstrate, Roosevelt oversaw a diminution of Congressional authority and influence

throughout his period in office, in the process fundamentally changing the institution of the

office. In stark contrast to Taft and Wilson in particular, Roosevelt regarded Congress as a

foe to be vanquished rather than a partner to be treated respectfully.138 Comparisons with

his immediate predecessors are complicated by the fact that diplomatic matters were much

less of a priority during the administrations of Cleveland, in particular, and McKinley,

neither of whom had the sort of overarching foreign policy visions of Roosevelt. As we have

seen, William Taft chose to abandon the favored methods of his predecessor for a more

judicial, legalized framework of policy formation and execution. And though Woodrow

Wilson has been labeled an “idealist” on account of his Fourteen Points, an analysis of his

foreign policy techniques demonstrates him to resemble his great rival Roosevelt in more

ways than either man would care to acknowledge. Wilson’s tenure was perhaps the first

during which Americans began to consider the possibility of long-term engagement with

136 Ibid, pg.4137 Ibid, pp. 4-5138 Korzi, pg. 323

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international politics, particularly with Europe, and Europeans came to expect such

involvement from the United States. This would likely not have been possible were it not

for Roosevelt’s trailblazing diplomacy which, rightly or wrongly, ushered America onto the

world stage as a confident, leading actor.

In respect of Taft, his outlook undoubtedly placed less emphasis on geopolitics and more

on universalistic concepts. It upheld an image of the world that was not divided

geopolitically in terms of power but was integrated through the unifying forces of economic

interests. In stark contrast to his predecessor, national interests were linked more to

economic expansion than to power politics. By advocating a style of free trade, his

institutional-liberalism thus marked a sharp distinction from the realist lens through which

Roosevelt had conducted his diplomacy. To Taft, peace and stability in the world would

depend less on a temporary balance of power than on the nations’ pursuing economic goals

and opening up further opportunities for expansion. Thus compared with Roosevelt’s

world policy, the Taft administration was far more interested in universalizing American

foreign relations. The United States would be less a great military power than a leader in

promoting world order and unity through prosperity and interdependence.139 What it

meant during the administration of President Taft was, in his own words, “that while our

foreign policy should not be turned a hairs-breadth from the straight path of justice, it may

well be made to include active intervention to secure for our merchandise and our

capitalists opportunities for profitable investment which shall inure to the benefit of both

countries concerned.” If the lesser country in the bargain could not see the benefit then

Washington sometimes sent the fleet down and landed Marines as an extra argument.

The idea that American goods and capital could create happier, more stable

societies in the Caribbean and Central America- even in distant Asia- was undeniably naïve

and largely impractical. By clinging to certain principles- the open door in China, order in

Latin America, and the belief that enough money could secure both- he ensured near

catastrophe for broader U.S. strategic interests. As the diplomat E.T. Williams wrote to

Knox in 1910, ‘Our policy in Manchuria has won us the ill will of Russia, irritated Japan, and

failed of support in France and Great Britain…’140 This contrasts starkly with Roosevelt who

139 Iriye, pg. 216140 Michael Hunt, ‘Frontier Defence and the Open Door’, in Akira Iriye, Nationalism and Internationalism: US Foreign Policy to 1914, pg. 225

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was largely the model diplomat when it came to dealing with fellow global powers. It was

Taft’s belief that more constructive foreign affairs could be achieved by using the nation’s

rapidly growing capital resources and downplaying Roosevelt’s emphasis on military force.

The goal was the establishment of workable arrangements to provide a framework

for economic and political stability. This deviation from Roosevelt’s realistic policy to a

policy of peace through strength to protect the nation's economic interests may have been

admirable when taken at face value. However, while Taft’s tenure may have seen the United

States temporarily return to a tradition of geopolitical isolation which had been largely

abandoned by Roosevelt and McKinley, it was also an administration that oversaw the

economic penetration of Latin America in a much cruder form than previous

administrations had allowed. While Taft may have taken a backseat in diplomatic

engagements and did not pursue territorial aggrandizement for his country, his brand of

diplomacy was inherently imperialistic. It remains an irony that Taft, a close disciple of

Roosevelt for a considerable period, should abandon his master’s foreign policy doctrine

when many later 20th century chief executives treated it as a diplomatic template.

Chapter 3: The navy- an instrument of America’s strategic vision

When focusing on American diplomatic engagements at the dawn of the twentieth century,

one should not neglect to analyze the role and importance of naval matters. For the navy

had an unmistakable effect on Theodore Roosevelt’s strategic thinking and foreign policy

decision-making. Scholars have suggested that “the precept of US power is anchored to the

recognition of the reality that power is the single most significant factor determining the

course of international relations… a nation needs to be strong militarily in

order to defend its inhabitants and uphold its interests.”141 The remarkable naval buildup

by the United States during my periodization is thus essential to my analysis. In this

chapter, I seek to explore the backdrop to Roosevelt’s naval passion, and the navy’s

prominence in the military affairs of the era. I have also chosen to include a section on the 141 William N.Tilchin. For the Present and the Future: The Well-Conceived, Successful, and Farsighted Statecraft of President Theodore Roosevelt Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 19, 2008, pg. 659

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deployment of the U.S. naval squadron –later branded “The Great White Fleet”- and discuss

the strategic factors behind the ambitious decision. This chapter will also analyze the

motivations behind the decision, and include a section on the state of other metropoles

navies, with a comparison of spending figures from the period.

3.1 T.R.’s Motivations

It is little secret that the writings of Alfred T. Mahan had a seismic impact in making the

case for increased American involvement in world affairs, and in particular in calling for a

modernized and robust Navy. His 1890 work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History,

which linked the power of nations to their ability to control the sea, became an immediate

classic. The timing of the publication was even more significant given that it occurred in a

period when modern technologies had essentially shrank the oceans and leveled the

playing field between traditional naval super weights, such as Great Britain, and ambitious

aspiring powers, such as Germany and Japan. No one before Mahan had explicitly made the

link between naval strategy, military strategy, and national greatness.142 Indeed, such was

its effect that the German Kaiser required every German ship to carry a copy of the text.143

Unsurprisingly, Mahan’s work had a significant impact on Theodore Roosevelt’s world

view. The relationship was also symbiotic however, with young Roosevelt’s writings also

influencing Mahan. Theodore Roosevelt’s study, written mostly while he was an

undergraduate student at Harvard, caught Mahan’s eye because it propounded a thesis that

coincided with and perhaps even influenced Mahan’s own thinking. Mahan, like Roosevelt,

was critical of the decisions made by the U.S. in the aftermath of the War of 1812, primarily

the decision to build “a navy of cruisers, and small cruisers at that; no battle-ships nor

fleets….We wanted a navy for coast defense only, no aggressive action in our pious

souls.”144 Just as Mahan and Roosevelt agreed with this analysis of American error, they

also agreed on what had to be done: The United States needed a big navy with large ships

and a global reach. They established not only a friendship but an alliance. Mahan would

supply the brain and Roosevelt the brawn, and together they would set out to reform the

U.S. Navy and, with it, American foreign policy in general.145

142 Paul T. McCartney, Power and Progress; American National Identity, the War of 1898 and the Rise of American Imperialism, pg. 177-178143 Zimmerman, pg. 117144 Ibid, pg. 92145 Ibid

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A study of Theodore Roosevelt’s First Annual Message to Congress in December

1901 is perhaps most revealing for its remarkable onus on naval matters and the

fundamental importance he placed on strengthening America’s navy:

“The work of upbuilding the Navy must be steadily continued. No one point of our

policy, foreign or domestic, is more important than this to the honor and material

welfare, and above all to the peace, of our nation in the future. Whether we desire it

or not, we must henceforth recognize that we have international duties no less than

international rights. Even if our flag were hauled down in the Philippines and Puerto

Rico, even if we decided not to build the Isthmian Canal, we should need a

thoroughly trained Navy of adequate size, or else be prepared definitely and for all

time to abandon the idea that our nation is among those whose sons go down to the

sea in ships.”146

And in what could be construed as a telling reminder to the metropoles of Europe,

Roosevelt added- “The Navy offers us the only means of making our insistence upon the

Monroe Doctrine anything but a subject of derision to whatever nation chooses to

disregard it…..There should be no cessation in the work of completing our Navy”. Further

dissection of the speech indicates that Roosevelt was aware of the shifting geopolitical

situation of the period and possibly foresaw tumultuous times ahead. Take, for example, his

quite dramatic call for an establishment of a National Naval Reserve, which almost suggests

he was readying America for a war footing- “In addition we should at once provide for a

National Naval Reserve, organized and trained under the direction of the Navy Department,

and subject to the call of the Chief Executive whenever war becomes imminent.”147

A section from his closing remarks highlights the supreme importance the Navy would play

in Roosevelt’s strategic maneuvers and foreign policy, and the tactics he would use to sell

that policy to the wider public: “The American people must either build and maintain an

adequate navy or else make up their minds definitely to accept a secondary position in

international affairs, not merely in political, but in commercial, matters.”148

3.2 State of the Navies/Spending Figures

146 Theodore Roosevelt’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 3rd 1901; Accessed via http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3773147 Ibid148 Ibid

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A study of the naval expenditures and policies of both the traditional metropoles, such as

Great Britain and France, and up-and-coming powers like Germany and Japan in the period

leading up to Roosevelt’s presidency and beyond reveal why his focus on naval might was

unsurprising. In a sign of their increased ambition on the world stage, the Japanese

government had authorized the doubling of its army and navy in 1896. Unsurprisingly, this

precipitated a series of responses from the European powers, with Russia commencing an

extraordinary naval program in 1898 and Britain compelled to match this buildup despite

pressing commitments in waters nearer home. Simultaneously, there was a rapid growth of

the other European navies, including those of France and Germany.149

Germany’s program of rapid naval development had particularly alarmed the United

States. It also highlighted the need for increased investment. Admiral Tirpitz had urged

Kaiser Wilhelm to build a big navy so that Germany would be one of the “four World

Powers: Russia, England, America and Germany.”150 The 1898 Flottengesetz, or naval law,

saw a commitment to the construction of a first class navy and German naval aims

expanded significantly on June 14th 1900 when the Reichstag approved a second

Flottengesetz that doubled the size of the authorized fleet.151 The German Navy Bill of that

year involved an additional expenditure during twenty years of nearly $460,000,000.152

These systematic outlines for naval expansion would be extended and enlarged by further

resolutions in 1906, 1908 and 1912, boosting Germany to second place, after Britain, in the

naval competition. German development was all the more remarkable for its precision and

efficiency. Every detail of the expansion, repair and replacement of ships, men and

dockyards, was thought out in advance for each year with due regard to the capacity of the

country to bear the expenditure.153 This efficiency- reflecting that of Germany’s

industrialization- was in marked contrast to Great Britain and would allow Germany to

rapidly narrow the naval gap that existed between the two nations. The rapid buildup

overseen by Tirpitz would transform the German navy from having the sixth-largest fleet in

the world to being second only to the Royal Navy.154

149 James R. Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, pg. 1150 Cited in P. Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy 1860-1935: Eight Essays (London, 1983), pp. 157-158151 Holger H. Herwig, ‘Luxury’ Fleet, The Imperial German Navy, 1888-1918, pg.42152 Carlyon Bellairs, “British and American Naval Expenditure”, The North American Review, Vol. 179, No. 577 (Dec., 1904), pg.889 (accessed via http://www.unz.org/Pub/NorthAmericanRev-1904dec-00887)153 Ibid.154 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York, 1987) pg. 214

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Britain’s situation was more perilous than that of an emerging and ambitious

Germany. Having enjoyed naval supremacy for most of the 19th century, Britain would

soon have to accept that her command of the seas was no longer undisputed. When

Gladstone declared in 1878 that “the strength of England is not to be found in alliances with

great military Powers, but is to be found henceforth in the efficiency and supremacy of her

navy- a navy as powerful now as the navies of all Europe.”, he spoke in the realization that

naval supremacy is based on economic supremacy. At the time, Britain’s economic

dominance was uncontested. However, at the turn of the century this was no longer the

case. By 1904 Britain’s total naval expenditure had risen to over $200,000,000 a year and

the admiralty were informed that the limit had been reached.155 With her colonies capable

of accounting for only one percent of her naval outlay, Britain would be forced to scale back

her investments in the sector and ultimately accept the end of her dominance. That the

total number of British military and naval personnel fell by fifty-three thousand between

1900 and 1910 (the comparative figures for Germany and the United States saw a rise of

170,000 and 31,000 respectively) and her growth figures in warship tonnage for the same

period were considerably lower than her rival powers demonstrate that Great Britain was

beginning to lag in the arms race and her strategic influence was waning.156

So it was against the backdrop of dramatically heightened naval spending programs in the

‘traditional’ metropoles and emerging powers that the United States belatedly chose to take

her place amongst the finest navies of the world. The outbreak of hostilities with Spain in

May 1898 resulted in congressional authorization for ambitious shipbuilding programs

(1898-1900) that included eight new battleships. Although the naval expansion program

was initiated before Roosevelt’s ascension to power, his administration would oversee a

second burst of authorizations. Pursuing his desired aims with determination and vigor, he

would achieve significant results in his drive for expansion, gaining congressional

authorization for ten additional battleships in his first term.157 By March of 1905, he had

apparently decided that further growth was not necessary. He made the decision public in

his fifth annual address to Congress in December 1905. Such had been the staggering

proliferation of new naval technologies in the intervening four years since he boldly

announced his quest for programs of expansion, he announced that from that time

155 Ibid, pg. 894156 Ibid, pg. 203157 Harold Sprout & Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 1776-1918, pp.259-261

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onwards, it would be necessary to only add one battleship per year to replace superseded

or outworn vessels.158 The years 1906 and 1907 had seen the fruition of the battleship

authorizations made in the early years of Roosevelt’s first term. Between 19 February 1906

and 1 July 1907 ten battleships joined the fleet, while three others were nearing

completion.159 However, by the time of his annual address to Congress in 1907, Roosevelt

had dramatically altered his view that further development was unnecessary and again

sought approval to further build up the nation’s navy. In an address dominated by the topic

of the navy, Roosevelt declared that “it would be most unwise for us to stop the upbuilding

of our Navy. To build one battleship of the best and most advanced type a year would

barely keep our fleet up to its present force. This is not enough. In my judgment, we should

this year provide for four battleships.”160 So Roosevelt’s zeal for increased naval investment

and development remained steadfast. And precisely two weeks after his address to

Congress came an action that would demonstrate America’s increased assertiveness on the

global stage under Roosevelt’s stewardship.

3.3 The Great White Fleet

Perhaps the most celebrated and enduring manifestation of Roosevelt’s naval policy was

his decision to dispatch a fleet of U.S. battleships on a global voyage, an action that would

become known as “The Great White Fleet”. In truth, a study of Roosevelt’s letters from the

period in question makes it difficult to interpret the precise motivations that lay behind the

decision. His Autobiography leaves little room for conjecture however, with Roosevelt

stating that the major purpose of sending the battleships on the world cruise was to

impress the American people (presumably to obtain more funds more the navy) and to

afford practice for the fleet maneuvers. “Practice” was also the explanation he gave to naval

officers and to Congress in his annual address.161 Yet in a letter written two years after

vacating the White House, he explained his motivation in very different terms, outlining

that while doing his best to be polite and courteous to Japan, he had begun to detect a “very

very slight undertone of veiled truculence in their communications in connection with

158 Theodore Roosevelt’s Fifth Annual Message to Congress, Dec 5th 1905; accessed online via http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29546159 Recker, pg. 1160 TR’s Seventh Annual Message (December 3, 1907); accessed online via http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3779,161 Ibid; http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3779

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things that happened on the Pacific slope…It was time for a show down. I had great

confidence in the fleet.”162

Given the difficulties experienced with Japan that year over the supposed

mistreatment of Japanese immigrants in California, there had been an undoubted increase

in tensions between Washington and Tokyo. 1907 had seen an outbreak of serious anti-

Japanese discrimination on America’s west coast, with Californians venting their anger at

the increasing influx of oriental labor by requiring Japanese students to attend segregated

schools. There were also mob assaults on Japanese persons and property163, attributing

further to the heightening of tensions between Tokyo and Washington. It thus seems most

likely that Roosevelt’s primary aim in sending sixteen frontline battleships on a

circumnavigation of the globe was to impress upon the Japanese that the United States

would not be dictated to and that she was ready to defend her vital interests and safeguard

national honor. He was also sending a direct message to the Japanese that the U.S. battle

fleet, entirely concentrated in the Atlantic, could be transferred intact as a fighting force

from one ocean to the other if the need arose, something Roosevelt knew the British and

Germans (and presumably the Japanese as well) did not believe possible. Roosevelt was

convinced of the fleet’s almost immediate success, later writing that “every particle of

trouble with the Japanese government and the Japanese press stopped like magic.”164 And

the diplomatic concessions from Japan that arose in the months following the fleet’s

journey there certainly indicate that the endeavor was a strategic triumph. Such

concessions included an arbitration agreement (May 1908), full compliance with the

previously established Gentlemen’s Agreement, and, in November, the Root-Takahira

Agreement, which confirmed America’s position in the Philippines.165

The triumph of the fleet did not just lie in the diplomatic concessions that it helped

to wrestle from Japan however. By docking in locations as diverse as Sydney, Naples and

Suez amongst others the tour indisputably impressed upon the world America’s ascendant

naval power. Unprecedented in many respects, including distance steamed and number of

ships participating, the cruise commanded the world’s attention.166 The tour also focused

domestic attention on the country’s expanded foreign interests and the need for additional

162 (Morison) Roosevelt to Trevelyan, 1 October 1911, Letters, Vol. 7: 393163 Frederick Marks, Velvet on Iron, (London, 1979) pp. 55-56.164 Ibid.165 Marks, Velvet on Iron, pp. 57-58166 Reckner, pg. 1

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battleships, which Roosevelt had championed almost ceaselessly. In addition, the cruise

was a highly successful exercise in national public awareness, greatly expanding popular

understanding of American foreign relations and defense considerations, particularly in

regard to the Pacific Basin.167 Indeed the impact of the fleet exceeded even the President’s

expectations, by helping to liquidate the crisis that had brought the two countries to the

verge of war.168 It was also something of a public relations triumph for Rooseveltian

diplomacy. So it is a mistake to examine the tour solely within the context of U.S-Japanese

relations of the era and America’s defense strategy in the Pacific, even if that appears to

have been Roosevelt’s most likely motivation.

Concluding Remarks

As I have sought to demonstrate, the American navy was the fulcrum on which Theodore

Roosevelt’s strategic vision turned. Roosevelt believed in the modern battle fleet not only

as the cornerstone of military capability but also as a visible manifestation of power vital to

national unity and international diplomacy.169 The importance of increasing the rate of

development and modernization of the U.S. Navy and subsequently using that robust navy

as an instrument to achieve his wider diplomatic and geopolitical objectives is undeniable.

In many ways, the Great White Fleet was the perfect symbol of Roosevelt’s pioneering style

of diplomacy. With their white painted hulls displaying the nations supposedly pacifist

intentions, the convoy of battleships advertised the big stick which Roosevelt’s diplomacy

would later be caricatured as.

A consideration of the dramatic strides taken by the American navy during my

periodization demonstrates how important naval matters were in the emergence of the

United States as a credible world power. Arrogance had underlain America’s humanitarian

interest in the prewar Cuban crisis. Since Americans defined themselves as the champions

of civilized humanity, they felt that sitting idly by as the Cubans suffered reflected poorly

on them and implied that their country was too weak to alter events. This thought rankled

167 Ibid.168 Sprout, pg. 284169 Carl Cavanagh Hodge (2008): A Whiff of Cordite: Theodore Roosevelt and the Transoceanic Naval Arms Race, 1897–1909, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 19:4, pg. 728

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them. In terms of military strength, however, this was not entirely inaccurate. The U.S.

Navy was ranked twelfth in the world, beneath those of Turkey, China (a partitioned victim

of other countries), and land-locked Austria Hungary. Even Chile, a nation that no one at

the time would have confused with being a great power, paid no respect to the U.S. military,

as a well-publicized diplomatic scuffle in 1891 had shown Chile to possess a superior

navy.170 So in less than a decade, the United States went from bowing down to Chilean

demands to routing the remnants of the Spanish Empire and forging an important place in

world affairs.

In previous years, foreign relations and international crises had frequently

influenced naval development. Under Theodore Roosevelt’s stewardship however, naval

policy began to influence the spirit and direction of American foreign relations. And so

completely did he dominate both foreign relations and naval development in the opening

years of the twentieth century that the naval policy of the United States was, in large

degree, the naval policy of Theodore Roosevelt.171 His naval policy was the primary

instrument with which he executed his strategic vision. His landmark foreign policy legacy-

the acquisition and fortification of a canal zone through the isthmus- would not have been

possible without the naval might to discourage other powers from competing and

interfering. Without an adequate navy, the isthmian canal would merely have been a

hostage to a stronger power.172 Roosevelt’s vigorous naval policy ensured that such a

showdown never arose. It was the “big stick” that undergirded Rooseveltian statecraft

throughout TR’s years in the presidency.173

170 McCartney, pg. 176171 Ibid, pg. 250172 Bellairs, pg. 892173 Tinchin (2008), pg. 661

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Chapter 4: Case Studies

In 1823, with fledgling republics across the Americas looking to blossom after achieving

independence from the Spanish Empire, the President of the United States made what

would become a landmark speech to Congress. When James Monroe declared to the Old

World powers that “we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to

any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety” it sounded like a bold

endeavor.174 Furthermore, by acknowledging the independence of these newborn nations,

the United States would no longer view any “oppressing” or “controlling” of these nations

destiny as anything less than “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the

United States.”175

In reality however, the Monroe Doctrine had little practical effect in the nineteenth

century and had no standing in international law.176 The focus throughout this period was

still on continental expansion rather than the wider issue of hemispheric relations. As a

result, the Monroe Doctrine receded into the background for most Americans during the

remainder of the nineteenth century.177 And as chapter three has shown, America lacked

174 James Monroe’s Seventh Annual Message, December 2, 1823; Accessed online via http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29465#axzz1v7vKSm17175 Ibid.176 Mark T.Gilderhus, The Monroe Doctrine: Meanings and Implications. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1, Presidential Doctrines (Mar., 2006) pg. 8177 Ibid.

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the military and naval muscle to robustly enforce Monroe’s policy in this period. It was

essentially an impractical statement of power without a strong military to enforce it. Only

in the 1890s did U.S. officials adopt a consistently forceful line based on the principle of

nonintervention by European powers in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Secretary

of State Richard Olney's 1895 claim of U.S. supremacy in the Americas marked the new

attitude most clearly; the Spanish-American War of 1898 indicated that the U.S. claim could

and would be backed by arms. 178

Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency would witness an even more aggressive

interpretation of the doctrine of 1823. It is one of the aims of this chapter to examine

whether the landmark ‘Roosevelt Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine was indeed a break

with the tradition of the doctrine. Did Roosevelt simply amend Monroe’s policy or form an

entirely new principle? The chapter also examines the cases of the Panama Canal

acquisition, the Venezuela Crisis and Cuba- namely the Platt Amendment. These cases will

be examined within the broader thesis question of whether the United States conduct in

this period can be classified as being of an imperialist nature. The cases were selected

partly because Roosevelt saw the Western Hemisphere and the Western Pacific as the two

areas of the world most vital to the United States. In particular, he perceived U.S. hegemony

in the Caribbean as a self-evident strategic imperative.179 The selected cases reflect this.

4.1 The Panama Canal

There is perhaps no single greater defining episode of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency

than his handling of the Panama Canal situation. Indeed, in certain regards, it was of equal

importance to him as the enhancement of the nation’s navy, and he would pursue it with

equal vigor and determination. In his first address to Congress as president, he would

declare that “No single great material work which remains to be undertaken on this

continent is of such consequence to the American people as the building of a canal across

the Isthmus connecting North and South America”.180

Comprehensive victory over Spain in 1898 had brought the United States spoils in

both the Caribbean and Pacific, making the desire for a canal in Central America all the

178 Serge Ricard, The Roosevelt Corollary. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1, Presidential Doctrines (Mar., 2006), pp. 17-18 179 Tilchin (2008) pg. 660180 TR’s First Annual Message (December 3, 1901) Accessed online via; http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3773

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more intense. And the eventual acquisition of the isthmian canal perfectly encapsulated

America’s increased stature on the global stage. In 1850 Britain concluded the Clayton-

Bulwer Treaty with Washington, by which the nations agreed to jointly build a canal in

Central America. They also pledged that neither would seek exclusive military control over

the canal and that both would safeguard the canal’s neutrality.181 By the dawn of the

twentieth century however, Britain would make concessions that would have been

unthinkable in previous decades. The 1901 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (the second treaty of

this name, guided through the Senate by Roosevelt) effectively revoked the claims agreed

upon over fifty years earlier.182 In essence, the British conceded that the United States could

exclusively build and operate a canal and defend it with military force.183 For the once

mighty British Empire to make what would previously have been regarded as a humiliating

climb-down encapsulates the giant strides in development that the United States had taken

in the intervening fifty years. And in Theodore Roosevelt, they had a chief executive who

was intent on capitalizing on the heightened status of the nation.

Despite securing Britain’s withdrawal of claims to a canal, America’s acquisition of the

Canal Zone would be a complex affair. With the Spooner Amendment passing through

Congress in June 1902, Roosevelt was given the right to pay $40 million to an intermediary

company to purchase a six-mile zone in Panama from Colombia.184 Roosevelt’s secretary of

state subsequently negotiated the Hay-Herrán Treaty that gave Colombia $10 million plus

$250,000 annually for the six-mile zone. 185 Anyone expecting that the negotiation of treaty

terms would ensure a calm resolution to the issue of an isthmian canal would be sorely

mistaken however. The treaty still required ratification. When the Colombian Senate

refused to ratify the canal treaty, considering its provisions an infringement on national

sovereignty and an inadequate compensation in financial terms, the United States had a

choice of either approaching Nicaragua for similar rights or going ahead with canal

construction regardless of Colombia’s opposition.186 As it happened, they would be spared

making a decision due to the Panamanian uprising against Colombian rule on November

181 Robert Holden and Eric Zolov, Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History, pp. 34-35182 Thomas G Paterson, J. Garry Clifford, Kenneth J. Hagan. American Foreign Policy; A History/to 1914, pg. 229183 Ibid, pp. 83-84184 LaFeber, The American Age, pg. 227185 Ibid.186 Iriye, From Nationalism to Internationalism, pp. 176-177

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3rd. In the aftermath of the uprising, there were rapid developments. Having prevented

Colombian troops from landing in Panama to quell the revolt, Washington then swiftly and

unequivocally recognized the newborn Republic of Panama. Roosevelt would sign a treaty

giving Panama the same amount of funds as agreed with Colombia, but for a ten-mile-wide

strip rather than the six-mile strip agreed with Bogota and gave the U.S. the right to

intervene at the two terminal cities of Panama and Colón.187

Reaction in the press to the Roosevelt administration’s handling of the uprising was

largely negative. Public Opinion claimed that the “Panama foray is nefarious. Besides being

a rough-riding assault upon another republic over the shattered wreckage of international

law and diplomatic usage, it is a quite unexampled instance of foul play in American

politics.”188 The New York Times echoed these views. Modern interpretations of the episode

have almost been largely condemnatory towards Roosevelt. Almost every account of the

incident stresses his “Big Stick” philosophy and maintains that the Colombian’s had every

right to disapprove their treaty with the United States; that they were at a distinct

disadvantage in a contest of strength with their northern neighbor; and that Roosevelt’s

personal prestige as well as the national interest was tied to the speedy acquisition of a

canal zone at Panama.189 Indeed, Roosevelt’s boast in April 1911 that “I took the Canal

Zone” certainly add weight to the idea.190 There are reasons to find this narrative somewhat

unsatisfactory however.

An analysis of Roosevelt’s letters and correspondence surrounding the Panamanian

Uprising reveal a more nuanced picture. In a personal letter written on October 10th,

scarcely three weeks before the revolt, Roosevelt stated that, in relation to Panama,

“whatever other governments can do, the United States cannot go into the securing by such

underhand means, the secession.”191 It is also by no means conclusive that the United States

discreetly facilitated the uprising. As Roosevelt would later assert, “There was no need of

any outsider to excite revolution in Panama. There were dozens of leaders on the Isthmus

already doing their best to excite revolution. It was not a case of lighting a fuse that would

fire a mine- there were dozens of such fuses being lit all the time...”192 Such was the

187 Ibid.188 Public Opinion 35 (19 November 1903): 645189 Marks, Velvet on Iron, pp.96-97190 ‘Congress may look into Roosevelt’s Panama Action’, pg. SM6, New York Times, April 23, 1911191 TR to Albert Shaw. Morison, Letters, Vol. 3; pg.628 192 New York Times, Oct 6th, 1911, pg.12: Roosevelt Defends his Panama Action; ProQuest Historical Newspapers

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splintered nature of the Panamanian independence movements that it would have been

almost impossible to covertly back such a group given the lack of unity and the diversity

amongst the revolutionary leaders. Indeed the very fact that four hundred Colombian

troops managed to land at Colón before Roosevelt acted would certainly suggest that he

had no concrete involvement in the revolt or advance knowledge of when it would take

place.193 In fact, the presence of the U.S.S. Nashville, which dropped anchor at Colón in the

days after the uprising, would spare the lives of the outnumbered Colombian army

members 194 The Colombian government proceeded to plea for American aid in putting

down the revolt and offered, in return, to approve the ill-fated Hay-Herrán Treaty either by

presidential decree or by summoning an extra session of congress with new and friendly

members.195 In the face of such an outrageous reversal of its stated position, it is little

surprise that Roosevelt supported Panamanian independence. As he wrote on November

6th, Colombia “signed their death warrant when they acted in such infamous bad faith about

the signing of the treaty. Unless Congress overrides me, which I do not think probable,

Colombia’s grip on Panama is gone forever.”196

It is also worth noting that, despite the criticisms from sections of the press, most

American’s overwhelmingly approved of Roosevelt’s actions. They cared about the canal,

not about the means he used to acquire it.197 And the new treaty required ratification by

both nations. The Panamanian government ratified it on November 18th with the U.S.

Senate voting in February 1904 to endorse the treaty by sixty-six votes to fourteen. This

certainly runs counter to the claim that Roosevelt’s handling of the uprising and its fallout

was ‘embarrassing’.198

It is not difficult to see why Roosevelt chose to place such an emphasis on the

acquisition of a canal in the isthmus. In fact, it can be linked to his passion for naval

expansion. During the War of 1898, the battleship USS Oregon, stationed in the Pacific,

embarked upon a hard 14,000-mile voyage, lasting more than two months, before it could

engage the Spanish fleet off the coast of Cuba. The importance of an isthmian canal in the

grander strategic picture was therefore paramount. An inter-oceanic canal would confer

193 Marks, pg. 102194 Paterson, pg. 222195 Marks, pg. 102196 Letters, Vol. 3; Nov 6th, 1903; TR to Albert Shaw, 197 LaFeber, pg. 230198 Iriye, pg. 177

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diplomatic, military and strategic power on the United States, tighten its hold on the sphere

of influence in the Western Hemisphere, and exclude European influence.199

4.2 Cuba

Cuba is another essential case to consider when analyzing whether the United States acted

in an imperial manner between the turn of the 19th century and the first decade of the

following century. No longer ruled by the Spanish empire following America’s crushing

victory in 1898, Cuba would become a topic of intense internal debate in America as to how

Washington should treat the newly independent island. Indeed, the Cuban question had

divided America since before the first shot had been fired. When McKinley had sought

authority from Congress to use armed force against Spain in April 1898, he found that

lawmakers were unwilling to grant him free reign in the conflict. An amendment by a

Colorado senator- Henry M. Teller- disclaimed any United States intention to “exercise

sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control” over the island and to” leave the government and

control of the Island to its people.”200 The resolution was passed resoundingly in the House

and by sixty-seven votes to twenty-one in the Senate.201 This is partly attributable to the

fact that some supported the amendment for fear that annexation would commit the United

States to assume Cuba’s large bond debt.202 McKinley’s acceptance of the Teller Amendment

showed that he did not regard explicit territorial expansion to be a necessary part of the

United States mission in Cuba. On the other hand however, his refusal to fully acknowledge

Cuba’s independence demonstrated clearly that he did consider the expansion of U.S.

international power to be a logical pre-requisite to the realization of America’s broader

aims.203

In the aftermath of America’s emphatic triumph over Spain, during his annual

message to Congress, McKinley pledged to assist Cubans in forming “a government which

shall be free and independent, thus realizing the best aspirations of the Cuban people.”204

However, moments later he added: “Until there is complete tranquility in the island and a

199 Stephen G. Rabe. Theodore Roosevelt, the Panama Canal, and the Roosevelt Corollary: Sphere of Influence Diplomacy pp. 274-292 of A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt; edited by Serge Ricard. (Chichester, 2011)200 Extracts of the Teller Amendment; Accessed via http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/teller.htm201 Paul T. McCartney, pg. 142202 Paterson, pg. 201203 McCartney, pg. 142204 William McKinley’s Second Annual Message, December 5, 1898; Accessed online via http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29539#axzz1vKnQo1RD

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stable government inaugurated military occupation will be continued.”205 Some continued

to argue for keeping Cuba indefinitely. Leonard Wood, for instance, who in 1900 was to

replace General John R. Brooke as commander of the American occupation force in Cuba,

believed that the nation should not be bound by the Congressional pledge.206 To McKinley’s

credit, he would honor Teller’s amendment. However he saw no hope of complete Cuban

independence without a period of American involvement to reform Cuban politics and

develop its economy.207 The official military occupation would therefore last until 1901, by

which time Roosevelt had ascended to the presidency.

Senator Orville Platt attached an important amendment to the Cuban appropriation

bill of 1901. Accordingly, the United States was to relinquish political control over Cuba and

end its military presence. However, America would retain the right to ‘guarantee’ Cuban

‘independence’. More specifically, the United States would have the right to intervene in

Cuba should its independence be threatened by internal turmoil or foreign invasion.208

Furthermore, the island republic would pledge not to cede part of its territory to a third

power, while leasing to the United States some naval bases in perpetuity. The United States

navy was particularly interested in using Guantanamo Bay as a key naval base for its

Caribbean strategy, and its lease to the United States would be a vital condition for ending

their military presence. These terms were duly accepted by the provisional Cuban

government, and the brief period of American suzerainty over Cuba came to an end in

1901.209

Cuba was also the scene of one of the most bitter and protracted struggles of

Theodore Roosevelt’s political career. His fight for congressional enactment of a tariff that

would place the Cuban and Philippine economies on a more prosperous footing

encountered virulent opposition.210 When the six-month-old Cuban republic approved its

first treaty- a reciprocal trade agreement with the U.S. - in December 1902, formidable

sugar interests mobilized in Washington to oppose the agreement. The matter required

Roosevelt’s personal intervention, with him reminding Congress of his predecessor’s

205 Ibid.206 Iriye, pg. 162207 Ibid, pg. 163208 Text of the Platt Amendment accessed via: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1901platt.asp [Quoting "The Platt Amendment," in Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949, vol. 8, ed. C.I. Bevans (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 197 1), pp. 1116-17.]209 Ibid.210 Marks, pg. 94

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commitment to a trade reciprocity agreement with Cuba. Invoking the responsibilities

attending the growing American presence in the Caribbean region, he stressed the “special”

nature of Cuban-American relations, before adding that “We expect Cuba to treat us on an

exceptional footing politically, and we should put her in the same exceptional position

economically.”211 Following interminable wrangling on Capitol Hill, Roosevelt convened a

special session of Congress in November 1903 and exhorted legislators to ratify the treaty.

A year after completion of negotiations for the treaty, and a year after extraordinary

pressure from the White House, the Senate approved the convention on December 16th.212

The pact thoroughly integrated the U.S. and Cuban economies. Cuba’s sugar and mineral

wealth moved north, as American farm and industrial products moved south. U.S.-Cuban

trade skyrocketed from $27 million in 1897 to over $300 million in 1917.213

The United States restored order to Cuba in the aftermath of Spanish rule but

ultimately assumed few direct responsibilities. The divisive nature of the Platt Amendment

ensured that nationalist opponents to American influence would direct their anger towards

the United States when poverty or difficult economic times hit the island. As early as 1906,

U.S. officials had to land troops in order to maintain order.214 Yet the decision to never

formally annex the island reflects America’s uneasiness to accrue significant colonial prizes,

unlike the classical European metropoles. As a confidential memorandum to the Secretary

of the Navy in 1901 had stated: “Nothing so much astonishes the Europeans as the fact that

Cuba has not been annexed.”215

4.3 The Philippines

The third case that I have chosen to examine in this chapter is that of the Philippines. Like

Cuba, the United States would essentially acquire the islands as a result of the emphatic

victory achieved over the Spanish in 1898, with Admiral Dewey inflicting a catastrophic

defeat on the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay. Though Spanish diplomats were aghast at

American claims on the Philippine islands, the United States offer of $20 million would see

them acquiesce. Unlike Cuba however, Washington ultimately chose to formally govern

211 Louis A.. Pérez Jr. Cuba Between Empires, 1878-1902; (Pittsburgh, 1982) pg. 362212 Ibid. pp.364-365213 LaFeber, The American Age, pp. 197-198214 Ibid, 198.215 Confidential memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy from Captain Sigsbee, Nov. 16, 1901; in Alfred Vagts, Hopes and Fears of an American-German War, 1870-1915 Political Science Quarterly , Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec., 1939), pg. 526

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over the Philippines in the aftermath of the war. The decision was largely a pragmatic

response to the situation brought about by the war. McKinley reasoned that having fought

battles and expelled Spanish forces from various islands, the United States could not simply

leave them once the fighting was over.216 Nobody seriously supposed that an independent

Philippine government could survive by itself in that age of high imperialism. In both

Washington and London, it was widely held that if the United States should leave, Japan or

Germany would move in; and the British, who would have found German control of the

island a serious threat to their own position in East Asia, informally urged the United States

to keep the Philippines for itself.217 McKinley himself wrote that “we could not turn them

over to France or Germany- our commercial rivals in the Orient- that would be bad

business and discreditable…”218

The mishandling of the aftermath of the war was perhaps America’s gravest

misstep. The war had ended in conditions of extreme uncertainty. The Spanish were no

longer a major factor there, but the Philippine rebels who had done so much to assure the

American victory were seething with discontent.219 Having fought for two years to capture

Manila, they saw it turned over to a foreign power and were not even allowed to attend the

surrender ceremony. They would swiftly transform from being allies of the Americans to

adversaries.220 In an atmosphere where the rebel leader Aguinaldo and his men were

ordered to stay out of Manila, gradually isolated from decisions, and insulted by racial

slurs, an insurrection was again inevitable.221 In open defiance of Washington, Aguinaldo

and other prominent Filipinos organized a government at Malolos, wrote a constitution,

and proclaimed the Philippine Republic in late January, 1899.222 The resulting fallout was

bloody and placed huge doubt on the idea that the American mission in the Philippines was

a moral, civilizing one. Before the insurrection collapsed in 1902, over 5,000 Americans

and 200,000 Filipinos had died. One hundred and twenty-five thousand American troops

216 Iriye, pg. 148217 James C. Thomson Jr., Peter W. Stanley & John Curtis Perry. Sentimental Imperialists, (New York, 1981) pg. 112218 Charles S. Olcott, The Life of William McKinley (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916) 2:109-111; in Paul T. McCartney, Power and Progress, pg. 200219 Zimmermann. First Great Triumph, pg. 308220 Ibid.221 Paterson, pg. 208222 Ibid.

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had to be used to quell the insurrection, which cost the United States at least $160

million.223

Before the end of 1900 a civil commission was set up in the Philippines alongside

the military authority, with powers enlarged a year later. Its head, and then first governor-

general, was William H. Taft.224 A telegram sent by Taft to the recently elected Roosevelt in

response to the offer of a return to domestic politics is revealing. Taft writes that while

honored to be offered the position, he must decline for the situation is “most critical” and

that from an economic standpoint the change proposed “would create much

disappointment and lack of confidence among people; two years now to follow of greater

importance in development of islands than previous two years.”225 So there was an

undoubted will on the part of the administrative hierarchy within the Philippines, led by

Taft, to stay the course and institute meaningful reform on the islands. His championing of

the Philippines Tariff Bill was further evidence of this. The measure, which proposed to

remove or reduce the rates of duty between the Philippines and the United States passed

the House in 1902 but was held up for months in the Senate despite Taft’s urgings.226

The bill also enjoyed the support of Roosevelt’s administration but would prove to

be an occasion where the Senate was not overridden by the chief executive. A cable

received by Roosevelt from Governor Taft outlined his fears that starvation will result from

the delays in the passing of the Bill and that “We have assumed great responsibility toward

the Philippine Islands which we are in honor bound to fulfill. We have the specific duty of

taking every measure in our power to see to their prosperity. The first and most important

step in this direction has been the accomplished by the joint action of the military and civil

authorities in securing peace and civil government” before adding that if the Bill does not

pass “it is feared that outbreaks will occur in consequence of the idleness that prevails

among the industrial classes.”227 This was a sentiment echoed by General Wood in a letter

from the headquarters of the Philippines Division in Manila to Roosevelt in the summer of

1906. Though he declares that the civil government and the military authorities are

cooperating “very harmoniously” and that the “general conditions of the Islands are quiet”, 223 Ibid.224 Kiernan, pg. 119225 Taft to Roosevelt 28/10/1902 (Microfilm retrieved from Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Series 1: October 4th-November 7th 1902, Reel 30; Roosevelt Study Center Middelburg)226 ‘Mr. Roosevelt Urges Relief for Filipinos’, New York Times (1857-1922);Feb 28th, 1903 ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2008) pg.1227 Ibid.

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he echoes Taft’s earlier concerns, stating that “Idleness, due to discouraged agriculture,

which, in turn, is directly due to the absence of reciprocity arrangements with the United

States, is at the root of all the trouble. These people are not a warlike or troublesome

people naturally, but there is so little doing in the country agriculturally that idleness is

very general, and out of idleness grows ladronism. I fully believe that, when reciprocity is

established and agriculture takes the start which it then will, you will find that conditions

of ladronism will disappear.”228

The congressional impasse over the Philippines Tariff Bill was not resolved and the

issue festered into Roosevelt’s second term. Late 1905 saw proposals for a new bill,

providing for free entry into the United States of Philippine products and also opening up

the islands to investment, with the existing restrictions to be swept away. It would mark a

shift from the previous policy aimed at excluding outside capital and keeping “The

Philippines for the Filipinos”, a policy that had singularly failed. Taft, by then Secretary of

War, was again in favor of free trade. This was impossible however until the expiration of

the ten years’ provision in the peace treaty with Spain, by which her ships and commerce

enjoyed the same privileges as those of the United States.229 The treaty did not expire until

April, 1909 and it was not until then- under Taft’s presidency- that Congress would act on a

tariff bill that provided for free trade with the Philippines.

By 1907 the Philippines could safely be granted a National Assembly, as well as local

government councils; though behind this façade all key administrative posts were kept

firmly in American hands.230 Compared to the bloody heights of the Filipino-American

conflict, namely events before 1902, Roosevelt’s presidency did not witness wide scale

rebellion on the islands that had occurred in earlier years. Accusations that the decision to

retain control of the Philippines was fuelled by a desire for commercial conquest are

difficult to support. A 1901 report quoted in the New York Times is revealing. The report is

declared to show “that the United States shared in the Philippines trade last year to the

extent of $5,427,506, representing profits of about $1,085,541. This paltry sum,” says the

report,” is insignificant when we consider the other side of the account. It has cost us more

than $85,000,000 to maintain our army in the Philippines for the past year. Other nations,

228 General L. Wood to Theodore Roosevelt, 26/6/1906 (Microfilm retrieved from Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Series 1 May 19th-July 8th, 1906 ,Reel 65; Roosevelt Study Center Middelburg)229 ‘Will Open Philippines to the Big Investors’, New York Times (1857-1922); Oct 22, 1905; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2008) pg. 14230 V.G. Kiernan, America: The New Imperialism pg. 119

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without incurring the expense of a dollar towards that end, are getting $48,000,000 worth

of the Philippine trade. We will have expended, when the next year closes, at the very

lowest estimate for the maintenance of our army in the Philippines and our operations in

the Orient not less than $450,000,000. And this does not include the immense increase in

naval expenditures and the $20,000,000 paid to Spain under the treaty of 1899.”231 So if the

fruits of economic imperialism were the immediate goal, the United States conduct in the

Philippines must be classed as a miserable failure.

Concluding Remarks

The three cases in this chapter were chosen because of their importance in the wider

strategic climate of the period of my study and because I feel that the diversity of the

selected regions provides a rounded analysis of American diplomatic conduct at this

juncture. The Panama Canal, Cuba and the Philippines represented distinct theatres: the

Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific, each of which would become integral to the

United States security strategy and hemispheric sphere of influence. Though Cuba and the

Panama Canal lie on the United States relative doorstep, their incorporation into America’s

sphere of influence should not be taken for granted given the scramble for their acquisition

at various junctures throughout history. The proximity of Panama to the U.S. had not

stopped French efforts at building an isthmian canal in the 1880s. Victory over Spain in

1898 brought America spoils in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. With the establishment

of a quasi-protectorate over Cuba with the Platt Amendment and the more straightforward

incorporation of Puerto Rico under the terms of the Treaty of Paris in the aftermath of the

Spanish-American War, the United States established a firm foothold in the Caribbean.

These new Caribbean possessions greatly enhanced the U.S. ability to patrol sea lanes to a

potential isthmian canal, the strategic importance of which was undisputed. And the

somewhat muddled decision to govern the Philippines was driven by a similar motive- a

strategic desire to halt the advance of competing Powers and heighten American influence

in the Pacific theatre. Three distinct but pivotal cases, all linked by a common goal- to

establish the United States as the eminent power in the Caribbean, the Isthmus and the

Pacific.

231 ‘PHILIPPINE TARIFF BILL IS REPORTED’, New York Times (14/12/1901) PG.8

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Chapter 5: Influence of the European and Pacific Powers

“We do not wish to see any Old World military power grow up on this continent, or to be

compelled to become a military power ourselves.”232

Theodore Roosevelt, First Annual Message to Congress

December 3, 1901

It is the intention of this chapter to explore further the motivations behind the events

analyzed in the preceding chapters. It will therefore study the relations between the United

States and three countries- Germany, Japan and Britain- and ask whether rivalries of power

politics and global influence were motivations for the American conduct in the Caribbean

and Pacific as earlier outlined. The chapter primarily relates to the parameters of Theodore

Roosevelt’s presidency, although not exclusively.

5.1 Britain

Having opted for a policy of neutrality, that was in essence a pro-American stance, Britain

entered the 20th century on amicable terms with Washington. This would soon be tested by

opposition to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of February 1900, which prohibited U.S.

fortification of a future canal through the Americas. One of the chief opponents of the treaty

was Vice President Roosevelt. McKinley’s assassination in 1901 however would give

Roosevelt the platform to renegotiate the treaty and craft something that was more in line

with his vision. A revised second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was agreed and Roosevelt

subsequently took an active part in the effort to secure Senate ratification, which succeeded

in a lopsided vote in December.233 However, the cordial relations between the nations

would face a stern challenge in the form of the Venezuela Crisis of 1902-03. The

232 Theodore Roosevelt, First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1901; Accessed online via http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29542#axzz1vWT4kd6T233 William N. Tilchin, Anglo American Partnership: The Foundation of Theodore Roosevelt’s Foreign Policy (Ricard: A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt) pg. 316

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Venezuelan government had floated large loans to London and Berlin, which went into

complete default in 1901.234 Interestingly, when the German government was considering

forcible measures in response, they sought clearance from Roosevelt. While Roosevelt

would warn against any attempt at territorial aggrandizement, he offered no objection to

punishment of the Venezuelan government’s actions. Writing to Hermann Speck von

Sternburg of the Kaiser’s diplomatic service, he wrote: “If any South American State

misbehaves towards any European country, let the European country spank it; but I do not

wish the United States or any other country to get additional territory in South America.”235

In the summer of 1902, London agreed to a joint naval intervention that had been

proposed by Germany. On December 20 the powers implemented a full coastal blockade,

while the government of Italy presented its own demands and withdrew its diplomats from

Caracas. Roosevelt would soon regret giving prior approval to the intervention and would

push for arbitration, as requested by the Venezuelan leader Castro.236 Quickly realizing its

error and facing serious criticism at home to boot, the British government moved swiftly to

find an honorable way out, and would readily accept the American recommendation to

submit its claims against Venezuela to arbitration.237 By the following February, the

protocols were signed and the blockade lifted. When Roosevelt formally issued his

corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in June of 1904 the British government would actually

become an early advocate of it. Their acceptance of America’s assertion of its right to police

the Western hemisphere was a remarkable reversal from its bold blockade in Venezuela

scarcely eighteen months before. The genuineness of Britain’s acquiescence in and even

encouragement of American hegemony in the Caribbean was demonstrated when Sir John

Fisher, upon becoming Britain’s first sea lord in 1904, moved promptly toward a near total

withdrawal of British naval power from the region, leaving the protection of British

colonial and other interests there in American hands.238

5.2 Germany

While Britain increasingly came to be seen as an ally to Washington in this period, the same

cannot be said of Germany. American suspicions of Germany’s expansionist impulses were

234 David Healy, Drive to Hegemony, pp. 100-101235 Morison, Letters. Roosevelt to Sternberg, July 12, 1901; Vol. 3, Pg. 116236 Healy, pp. 102-103237 Tilchin, pg. 317238 Ibid.

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longstanding. Bismarck had identified the south-western Pacific as a potential theater for

German imperialism, with Samoa one of its chief interests. Despite the United States

negotiating a treaty for the rights to a naval station on the island of Tutuila in 1878,

German influence in the area soon gained ascendancy, with Great Britain supporting its

ambitions there in return for German recognition of British interests in Africa and the

Middle East.239 In addition, 1888 saw Germany oppose the reigning rulers in Samoa and

establish a government under its control.240 At this juncture however, America lacked the

military power or a world policy outlook to curb German ambitions.

The words of former Chancellor Bismarck in 1898 underlined the general German

derision towards the Monroe Doctrine and displayed the ambitions that the nation held.

Describing the Spanish-American War as “indefensible”, Bismarck attacked the Monroe

Doctrine as an “insolent dogma, which no single European power has ever sanctioned”

before continuing to accuse America of possessing a “pigmy navy” that was incapable of

enforcing the doctrine.241 The Junkers were not the only group in Germany contemptuous

of, or hostile to, the United States at this time. The rising tide of German nationalism at the

close of the century had been typified by the movement for a more powerful navy; the

future of Germany, the Emperor proclaimed, was on the water; and the leaders of the big-

navy movement naturally echoed this view.242 As chapter 3 of this thesis demonstrated, the

German navy saw a rapid buildup in the concluding decades of the 19th century. Between

1880 and 1900 alone, German warship tonnage grew by 197,000. The first decade of the

20th century saw an even more astonishing acceleration, with an increase of close to

700,000 tons.243 It is significant that the German decision to launch an ambitious naval

program came the very same year that the United States acquired Pacific and Caribbean

colonies for the peripheral defense of an isthmian canal. The two countries were thus

placed on a collision course, for Germany was as anxious to establish a commanding

position within range of the new canal as she was to join the worldwide race for colonies.244

Those championing an increased navy had their eyes on a variety of interesting

points which might serve as bases for the increasing forces of Imperial Germany. One of 239 Iriye, pp. 80-81240 Ibid241 Wolf von Schierbrand, Germany. The Welding of a World Power (New York, 1902) pg. 352 [downloaded online via http://archive.org/details/germanyweldingof00schi]242 Perkins, A History of the Monroe Doctrine, pg. 208243 Kennedy, pg. 203244 Marks, Velvet on Iron, pp. 5-6

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those points, for example, was the Danish West Indies.245 Their strategic position near the

approach to the proposed isthmian canal explains the German interest. It would be a

mistake to assume that they were the only location of interest to Germany in the region

however. In 1899 they also had designs on the Galapagos, also of importance if Germany

were to influence the passage of the projected canal. Curacao also attracted the eye of

Admiral von Tirpitz, with further suggestions for acquiring Dutch possessions in the West

Indies.246 The possibility of a naval station on the coast of southern Brazil was also floated, a

suggestion made even more authentic by the presence of an estimated 300,000 German

expatriates living there by the century’s end.247

The discourse within Germany in this period is also worth noting. Professor von

Schulze-Gaevernitz, writing in Die Nation in March 1898, asserted that “the most pressing

need for Germany is new markets, new land for capital and endeavor. South America lies

before them. They have growing and prosperous colonies there…”248 He continues: “The

more Germany is condemned to an attitude of passive resistance to the United States, the

more emphatically must she defend her interests in Central and South America, where she

to-day occupies an authoritative position…For this purpose we need a fleet capable not

only of coping with the miserable forces of South American States, but powerful enough, if

the need should arise, to cause Americans to think twice before making any attempt to

apply the Monroe Doctrine in South America.”249

Germany’s renewed assertiveness on the global stage was highlighted in the

aftermath of American victory in 1898. With the American Admiral Dewey having

blockaded Manila Bay in the aftermath of routing the Spanish fleet there, warships from

Britain, France, Japan and Germany had moved toward the harbor, interested in the newly

vulnerable strategic archipelago. While most of the ships observed the protocol of a

blockade, reporting to Dewey and anchoring where they would not impede his blockade

operations against the Spanish, the Germans brought in five ships comparable in power to

the American squadron and became irritated by Dewey’s position.250 They often failed to

report, anchored where they chose, and displayed ostentatious chumminess with Spanish 245 Perkins, pp.208-209246 Ibid, pg. 210247 Ibid, pp.210-211248 Quoted in Austin Harrison’s The Pan-Germanic Doctrine (1904) pp.232-233; Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/stream/pangermanicdoct00harrgoog#page/n253/mode/2up249 Ibid.250 Zimmermann, First Great Triumph, pg. 301

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officials in Manila, even exchanging visits with the Spanish captain general. The situation

became even tenser when a German warship interfered with the Filipino rebels’ operation

against the Spanish, a move that enraged Dewey.251 Though the unrest was defused, the

skirmishing in Manila Bay had demonstrated Germany’s predatory interests in the

Philippines and beyond its supposed natural sphere of influence.

So belief in a German threat to American interests was growing rapidly even before

Roosevelt became president. As early as 1898, Roosevelt himself believed that “of all the

nations in Europe it seems to me that Germany is by far the most hostile to us.”252

Correspondence between the United States Naval Attaché in Berlin-Lt. Commander Barber-

and the Navy Department in the aftermath of conflict with Spain reveals the suspicions that

Washington held: “Considering that the Germans are likely to be our next antagonists and

that ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’, we cannot do better than imitating their

very thorough system so that they can see what they will have to encounter on our coast

when they attempt to attack it.”253 By 1901, Roosevelt was certain that only a major naval

building program could deter the Kaiser’s ambitions. “I find that the Germans regard our

failure to go forward in building up the navy this year as a sign that our spasm of

preparation, as they think it, has come to an end, that we shall sink back so that in a few

years they will be in a position to take up some step in the West Indies or South America

which will make us either put up or shut up on the Monroe Doctrine…”254

Germany’s increasingly daring imperialist mindset at this time is reflected in the

existence of a contingency war plan to invade the United States around the turn of the

century. The development of Operationsplan Drei demonstrates that Germany’s increased

ambitions on the world stage were not only mere rhetoric. German naval documents show

that as early as March 1889, studies existed which dealt with the possibility of a German-

American war.255 Their original concept of a direct descent upon New York, Norfolk,

Boston, or elsewhere was eventually modified to include the prior seizure of an advanced

base in Puerto Rico or Cuba. By 1901 the Army General Staff had joined the Admiralty Staff

251 Ibid.252 Morison, Letters, Vol. 1:pp. 768-769253 Barber to the Navy Department, no. 130, Oct. 1, 1898, Natl. Archives in Alfred Vagts, Hopes and Fears of an American-German War, 1870-1915 Political Science Quarterly , Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec., 1939) pg. 527254 David Healy, Drive to Hegemony, pg. 72255 H. Herwig and D.F. Trask, “Naval Operations Plans between Germany and the USA, 1898-1913. A Study of Strategic Planning in the Age of Imperialism” pp. 39-74 in The War Plans of the Great Powers 1880-1914, ed. Paul Kennedy (1979)

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in joint planning, General Alfred von Schlieffen originally estimating that fifty thousand

men would be required to take and hold Cuba. A later version of the plan substituted

Puerto Rico for Cuba, and reduced the troop strength for its seizure to something over

twelve thousand men. Finally, in 1906, the war operations plan was reduced to a mere

theoretical exercise, as rising tensions in Europe made it too dangerous to consider

committing Germany’s entire naval strength to operations in another part of the world. The

continued increase in United States naval strength also acted to discourage German

planners, and in 1909 the German navy’s Caribbean-South Atlantic squadron was

discontinued.256

It was little secret that the ambitious Wilhelm II was exploring the possibility of further

acquisitions in the imperial sweepstakes and harbored ambitions of gains in the Caribbean.

A 1902 letter addressed to the Department of State from the Dutch Consulate in Curacao

reflects this. The letter states that “there has been much activity of late in this vicinity

among German war ships. At this moment four are lying in the inner bay…” with the

expected arrival of “one or two more”257. Tellingly the message concludes with the

assertion that the ships are “ostensibly here for coal…It is generally thought that it

portends an enforcement of claims against Venezuela.”258 Wilhelm’s aggression during the

subsequent Venezuela Crisis underlined his unpredictability and underlines why

Washington could never fully discount his motives or ambitions, whatever the region. His

correspondence with Roosevelt from the months before that crisis saw him seek to

cultivate friendly relations between the two nations. Having sent his brother, Prince Henry

of Prussia, on a successful good-will tour to America and been deeply impressed by “the

splendid and cordial reception” afforded to him, Wilhelm offers a bronze statue of his

ancestor Frederick the Great to the United States as a token of his gratitude. It is his hope

that the gift will be “looked upon as a lasting sign of the intimate relations which have been

successfully fostered and developed between our two great nations.”259 A telegram sent to

Roosevelt the following month saw him accept praise for his help in “the development of

the great Harvard University”, in particular his role in the “creation of the German

256 Ibid.257 Dutch Consulate in Curacao to the Department of State, 29/11/1902; Dispatches from United States Consuls in Curacao, Netherlands and West Indies T197 Roll 12, No.49 (Retrieved from Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg)258 Ibid.259 Telegram from Wilhelm II to Theodore Roosevelt, 14/05/1902; Theodore Roosevelt Papers Series 1: April 9th-May 15th 1902, Reel 26 (Retrieved from Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg)

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Museum.” The telegram ends with Wilhelm stating that “You may be assured that as I tried

to do in the past, I shall never cease to endeavor also in future to bring our two nations

closer together by fostering mutual good feeling and understanding….I hope that we both

shall be allowed to pursue the happy task of consolidating the growing friendship between

our two nations which as I fully agree with you shall be advantageous for the future welfare

of mankind.”260 Yet within months, Wilhelm would demonstrate his lack of tact with his

stubborn aggression towards Venezuela. Such wild unpredictability made his intentions

difficult to predict and largely accounts for American suspicions towards Germany

5.3 Japan

If Germany was the big worry in the Atlantic, Japan was the strategic threat in the Pacific.

Though the United States rapidly increased its global sway and influence in the late 19th

century, in many respects Japan’s rise was even more dramatic. The figures relating to its

military and naval buildup are particularly striking. Determined to avoid being dominated

and colonized by the West, as seemed to be happening elsewhere in Asia, the Japanese elite

would initiate programs that saw military and naval personnel increase from 84,000 in

1890 to 234,000 by the end of that century.261 Even more significant was the increase in

warship tonnage from 41,000 in 1890 to an estimated 496,000 by 1910. To put this in

perspective, this twelvefold increase compares to a tripling of the U.S. navy in the same

period, though admittedly Japan were starting from a lower base.262 These increases

unsurprisingly led to a rise in status and prestige. It is also worth noting that Japan’s

victory over China in 1894-1895 resulted in large reparations of China to Japan that were

mostly channeled towards Japan’s naval and army budgets. 1902 saw a historic alliance

between Japan and Britain, which further isolated Russia in the Far East. With tensions

simmering over Manchuria, Japan launched a surprise attack against Russia in 1904 that

destroyed most of the Russian Pacific fleet.263 With its victory over a traditional ‘Great

Power’, and increasingly thought of as a European power, Japan had come of age. No one

260 Telegram from Wilhelm II to TR, 29/06/1902; Theodore Roosevelt Papers Series 1: June 27th- August 11th 1902, Reel 28 (Retrieved from Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg)261 Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, pp. 202-203262 Ibid.263 LaFeber, The American Age, pg. 237

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could do anything significant in the Far East without first considering its response.264 Like

the United States, Japan felt ready to stride on the world stage.

As chapter 3 has shown, it is my belief that Roosevelt regarded Japan as a legitimate

strategic adversary in the Pacific region, during the second term of his presidency in

particular.265 The dispatch of sixteen American battleships to Japan’s supposed sphere of

influence was an important ploy in the geopolitical mind games. This was not simply an

imagined rivalry conjured up by Roosevelt however. It also registered on the consciousness

of the wider public, the press and senior military personnel. A New York Times article in the

months before the fleet’s departure captures the mood of the time. In the article, a “well-

known navy officer” offers his views on the likely fallout from the forthcoming operation.

“The chances are,” he said “that Japan will seize the Philippines and declare war before the

fleet has been one week at sea.”266 The article continues by stating that “the vast majority of

those in the naval service have long been of the opinion that sooner or later the Japanese

situation would reach a crisis” before continuing to ponder the implications if “in the event

of war Japan intends to carry it to the American continent.”267 There then follows a forensic

breakdown of the respective naval fleets of both countries, the conclusion being that the

tables of data “will be a bit reassuring to Americans”.268

So there can be little doubt that the United States was wary of the emerging Pacific

power in Tokyo. This perceived security threat was further outlined by a bizarre episode

involving Nicaragua, shunned in favor of Panama for the Isthmian Canal Zone. In the

aftermath of Roosevelt’s agreement with Panama for a canal route, the Nicaraguan

administration realized that if they were to benefit from the enormous wealth linked to a

transit route, they would have to find an alternative to U.S. financing and technical

planning.269 This led the Nicaraguan leader Zelaya to make overtures to foreign

governments and entrepreneurs, including consultations with officials in Tokyo. There is

no indication how seriously the Japanese took the proposal, but U.S. officials suspected that

Japan was looking for an opportunity to establish a foothold on the isthmus near a canal

site.270 Washington was therefore acutely aware of the ambitions harbored by the Japanese 264 Kennedy, pg. 209265 For more see Walter LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History (New York, 1997)266 America Ahead in Fighting Strength. New York Times, 7/7/1907, pg. SM7267 Ibid.268 Ibid.269 Thomas D. Schoonover, The United States in Central America 1860-1911; pg. 136270 Ibid, pg. 141

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hierarchy and is likely to have stiffened their resolve to strengthening its position in the

Pacific realm, to avoid potential gains and challenges to American hegemony on the

isthmus.

Concluding Remarks

Justified or not, fear of Germany played a significant part in American thinking about the

Caribbean and South America as a vital security zone. Concern for the national security

blended in turn with economic objectives, status ambition, and even reforming zeal to

motivate a quest for United States hegemony in the area.271 A fear that European rivals, in

particular Germany, and Japan, might challenge American power and policies in the region

encouraged the U.S. to play a leading role in the area and seek to establish the Caribbean as

their sphere of influence. The Platt Amendment in Cuba can ultimately be construed as a

safeguard against intervention by the European metropoles, a prospect that was

unthinkable to the U.S. given its proximity to the strategically invaluable Canal Zone at

Panama. So while Britain willingly acknowledged America’s arrival as a credible world

power in this period and resultantly became an ally of sorts for Washington, the same

cannot be said for Germany and Japan. Indeed, such was the level of distrust and

competition between these two nations and Washington that they would inadvertently fuel

U.S. resolve to develop and solidify their spheres of influence. Germany’s posturing in the

Caribbean and at Manila Bay, coupled with Japan’s heightened assertiveness in the Pacific,

ultimately led to the United States strengthening its hold in both theatres.

Chapter 6: Conclusions

271 Healy, pg. 76

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Before I make my concluding remarks on the broader research question of the master

thesis, I will address some of the sub questions pinpointed at the outset of this paper.

Firstly, my studies have demonstrated that Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure precipitated a

definite escalation in the power of the presidency, in particular in the area of foreign policy

formulation. In this respect there can be little doubting his transforming legacy, as his

diplomatic zeal would provide a blueprint for a number of his successors, though pointedly

not William H. Taft. Indeed Taft’s policy is further proof that Roosevelt’s impact on the

office was not just a product of fortunate timing. If some suggest that Roosevelt’s

diplomatic standing was a result of him being commander-in-chief at a time when America

was a fledgling superpower, Taft’s reversal of Roosevelt’s position demonstrate that

America’s increased standing and global reputation alone did not make for robust

presidential diplomacy.

My studies have also sought to highlight the degree to which Germany -and Japan-

constituted a significant factor in the strategic deliberations of the U.S. government and

navy. As this thesis has shown, the U.S. was keenly aware of the increased ambitions and

strategic goals that both Berlin and Tokyo held. The challenge posed by these ambitious

new powers led to Theodore Roosevelt’s more aggressive interpretation of the Monroe

Doctrine and his ruthless stance towards the acquisition of the Canal Zone at Panama. The

transformation of Cuba into a form of U.S. protectorate as authorized by the Platt

Amendment was further evidence of Washington’s unwillingness to countenance European

interference in their sphere of influence and in the general region of the prized isthmian

canal. The acquisition of Puerto Rico augmented this policy, providing another invaluable

strategic hub near the Canal Zone. I would therefore class the United States as an ‘empire

without colonies’ in the Caribbean at this time. It can be said that America bought territory

rather than stole it. And unlike European metropoles, the United States did not seek

commerce –until Taft’s radical though short-lived policy swing- or simple conquest. The

figures show that America’s presence in the Philippines led to substantial financial losses.

And apart from the brief Philippines experiment, which was prompted by security and

moral concerns as we have seen, the United States did not govern an overseas territory

directly throughout this period. And unlike other traditional forms of imperialism, the

acquisition of Philippines was from another Empire- the Spanish.

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This master thesis has also demonstrated the integral importance of a strong navy as the

primary instrument that Theodore Roosevelt would use to achieve his broader strategic

objectives. It would be impossible to attempt an analysis of U.S. foreign policy at the dawn

of the 20th century without highlighting the essential importance of the American navy. The

research also concludes that Theodore Roosevelt was a curious mix of realist and idealist.

His realistic traits are obvious and undeniable- his dramatic escalation of American naval

power, his energy for strategic matters and his drive to expand America’s spheres of

influence. Yet in addition, there are idealistic elements to his record. His passion to

establish reciprocal trade agreements with Cuba and the Philippines so that their

economies may flourish was certainly not the actions of a cold-hearted imperialist but of a

man intent on having the U.S. play a paternalist role in those regions. There can be no

denying however that realism defined his diplomacy. Summing up Rooseveltian foreign

policy, then, it may be said that it was derived from a view of the world as made up of great

powers which would be perpetual competitors but which would also co-operate to

maintain stability and equilibrium in various regions of the globe. In terms of power, such

an approach produced a geopolitical outlook which defined America’s spheres of influence

in the Western Hemisphere and parts of the Pacific Ocean.272.

Turning to the overarching research question, I believe it is apparent that the United States

behaved in an imperialistic manner during my periodization. However, I have also

concluded that it was in many respects a distinctive imperialism, indeed a more prudent

model than the earlier European metropoles. The Philippines ‘experiment’ of formal rule

remains something of an aberration but a closer analysis shows that it was by no means a

glaring imperial misstep. An examination of the center-periphery dynamic provides an

insight into this.

The 1902 Organic Act instituted Philippine citizenship under the protection of the

United States, whose President appointed a Civil Governor as head of the islands’ executive

branch and provided for the establishment of an insular form of representative

government (with the first Philippine Assembly being elected in 1907).273 This can be

construed as an acknowledgment from Washington that, in light of the violent uprisings

272 Akira Iriye, pg. 212273 Annick Cizel (2008): Nation-Building in the Philippines: Rooseveltian Statecraft for Imperial Modernization in an Emergent Transatlantic World Order, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 19:4, 690-711

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that had greeted American occupation of the islands post 1898, attempts at rigidly

controlling the Filipino people would be doomed to failure. Contrast this with the British

response to the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The suppression of the revolt was swiftly

followed by a formal transfer of rule from the British East India Company to the British

Crown, who would directly govern the region from that point onward. While 17th century

overseas expansion had been driven by explorers, settlers, or merchants –with the Crown

sanctioning the initiatives but not playing an active role- as the 18th century progressed,

"government rather than the subject was responsible for extending the empire. “274 So

rather than transfer power and decision-making from the center to the periphery, Britain

tightened her grip on its colonial prizes, in marked contrast to American conduct in the

Philippines. Even the best known instances of British indirect rule (as in Nigeria and latterly

India) were ultimately subordinated to an overarching colonial state. Indirect rulers-chiefs,

headmen, captains, or princes in the nominally independent "princely states" of the British

Raj-were approved, supervised, tolerated, and sometimes appointed by their colonial

overlords. The colonial state claimed ultimate authority and legal jurisdiction over the

putative subjects of indigenous indirect rulers.275 And there are further indications that

TR’s claim that “the people of the islands ... never developed so rapidly, from every

standpoint, as during the years of American occupation”276 are not as exaggerated as one

might initially suspect. While in British Burma 3.3 percent of the population were enrolled

in schools in 1900 and 1 percent in Netherlands India in 1907, the Philippines could boast

about 7 percent in 1907 and close to 94 percent of the children were attending primary

school by 1913.277 TR could boast half a million pupils and primary school attendance

averaging 70 percent before Congress in 1905.278 In addition, by 1913, 71 percent of all

government positions were in Filipino hands.279

It is also worth noting that while America’s presence in the Philippines brought

extolled considerable financial losses, many of Britain’s colonial endeavors yielded

274Julian Go, Patterns of empire : the British and American empires, 1688 to the present (New York 2011) pg. 32275 George Steinmetz. Return to Empire: The New U.S. Imperialism in Comparative Historical Perspective; Sociological Theory, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 2005), pp. 339-367276Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913), p. 544. 277 Cizel, pp. 693-694278 Theodore Roosevelt Papers, The Library of Congress President’s Papers Microfilm Series (Washington, DC, 1969), reel 426, in Annick Cizel (2008) Nation-Building in the Philippines: Rooseveltian Statecraft for Imperial Modernization in an Emergent Transatlantic World Order, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 19:4, pg. 694279 Cizel, pg. 694

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significant economic reward. One need only examine the figures for sugar exports to the

colonial heartland from the British West Indies in the period 1820-1899 for evidence of the

bounty that British presence reaped.280 And the jewel of Britain’s empire-India- was even

more profitable. Between 1870 and 1913 India rose from third to first place among

Britain’s export markets, as she doubled her share from 8 to 16 percent of the whole.281

Some 60 percent of India’s imports came from Britain in 1913.282 Britain’s favorable

balance of trade with India was highly important, for India sustained a trading surplus with

countries in Asia and Europe that enjoyed surpluses with Britain.283

That United States U.S. policymakers were cognizant of imperial precedents is

undoubted. Indeed, it may well have shaped their decision-making. The British school

system implemented in Egypt was claimed as a reference for the aforementioned

American-Filipino model.284 Roosevelt’s declaration that America’s dependencies enjoyed a

democratic comparative advantage over Europe’s, since “more distinctly than any of these

powers we are endeavoring to develop the natives themselves so that they shall take an

ever-increasing share in their own government”285 supplements this view. His belief in the

superiority of America’s civilizing of the Philippines was again apparent in 1913 when he

stated that “With the possible exception of the Sudan, and not even excepting Algiers, I

know of no country ruled and administered by men of the white race where that rule and

that administration have been exercised so emphatically with an eye single to the welfare

of the natives themselves.”286 Another striking aspect of America’s foray into imperialism is

that the new overseas territories were not accompanied by the arrival of white settlers.

Except for Hawaii, white settlement was minimal. Instead, the U.S. military first occupied

the territories and were then replaced by civilian administrators from the mainland. This

was a form of administrative colonialism rather than settler colonialism.287 Contrast this

with Germany’s attempts to create a settler economy by violent force in Southwest Africa.

280 See Gad Heuman “The British West Indies”, pp. 470-493 of The Oxford History of the British Empire: Vol. 3 The Nineteenth Century [ed. Andrew Porter] (Oxford, 1999) 281 See Robin J. Moore “Imperial India 1858-1914”, pp. 422-446 of The Oxford History of the British Empire: Vol. 3 The Nineteenth Century [ed. Andrew Porter] (Oxford, 1999)

282 Ibid, pg. 441283 Ibid.284 Ibid. pg. 704285 Theodore Roosevelt, Fourth Annual Message, December 6, 1904. Accessed via http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29545286 Roosevelt, An Autobiography, p. 544.287 Go, pg. 55

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In respect of America’s other acquisitions, Guam was important for its location,

about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines and within easy sailing distance

of Shanghai, Canton, Hong Kong and Yokohama.288 It was therefore a vital refueling depot

for Washington’s favored instrument of influence- the navy. The same is also true of Wake

Island in the North Pacific Ocean. In the way of imperial powers of the past, naval bases and

coaling stations were necessary to “exercise [an] influence in foreign affairs.”289 These were

not egotistical prizes of Empire like the British had accrued but necessary coaling stations

for the security challenges that the 20th century was certain to throw at Washington. The

Philippines would become an unexpected cog in Washington’s Pacific network. Roosevelt’s

first annual message to Congress is further evidence that the U.S. had a conscious security

strategy in the Pacific theatre: “I call your attention most earnestly to the crying need of a

cable to Hawaii and the Philippines, to be continued from the Philippines to points in Asia.

We should not defer a day longer than necessary the construction of such a cable. It is

demanded not merely for commercial but for political and military considerations.” So the

importance of these acquisitions as hubs in America’s broader strategic quest for influence

should not be mistaken. This thesis echoes the later words of US War Secretary Stimson’s

description of the bases America accumulated in the Pacific in the 1940s: ‘these are not

colonies; they are outposts’.290

The presidency of William Taft is further evidence of an ‘informal imperialism’,

albeit of a different kind to his predecessors. His administration oversaw an economic

penetration that while not specifically trampling on the sovereignty of developing nations,

often ensured that officials that were conducive to the interests of the United States held

power. This was a more subtle, yet deeply insidious method of enhancing American

interests that had no broader strategic engines behind the policy. It was an inescapable

mutation of economic imperialism, the kind of which his predecessors had largely shunned.

Roosevelt was hostile to the idea of economic imperialism and never engaged in it.291 Taft’s

policies were a drastic shift from this and make the charge of blatant economic imperialism

irrefutable.

288 Zimmermann, pg. 301289 TR to Theodore Elijah Burton, February 23, 1904, Morison, The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. IV: The Square Deal 1903–1905 (Cambridge, MA, 1951), p. 737.290 http://hnn.us/articles/27021.html291 Tilchin (2008) pg. 667

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To conclude, the United States imperialism at the turn of the 19th century into the

dawn of the 20th century was distinct from Britain’s classical style, as practiced primarily

throughout the 19th century. Go (2011) encapsulates this with his expert distinction

between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ models of empire. For him, formal empires involve direct

political control over territory and the subjugation of inhabitants of that territory into a

status that is lesser, inferior, or dependent. By this measure of colonial rule, colonized

peoples are treated as inferior to citizens in the metropole both in practice and in juridical

theory or official doctrine.292 By contrast, informal empire “refers to the exercise of power

over the internal or external affairs of nominally independent states through a variety of

methods falling shy of annexation.293 Where Britain operated wide scale direct governance

over distant territories and sought both commerce and conquest, the United States

oversaw a limited suzerainty in the Philippines, which was short lived, unprofitable and

dictated by security and strategic interests. Whatever critics of American foreign policy at

the dawn of the 20th century may argue, it remains the case that no American president

ruled without consent over vast conquered territories and their populations. For Britain,

an extensive trade network and empire went hand in hand. They possessed both a

constitutional empire (as evidenced in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Africa) as

well as areas of informal influence, in South America, the Ottoman Empire and China.294 In

such stark contrast, the United States can be judged to have engaged in a distinct form of

imperialism from 1898 through to 1912- ‘an informal imperialism’.

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Online Resources:→ Richard Lowry & Ramesh Ponnuru, “An Exceptional Debate: The Obama administration’s assault on American identity,” National Review Online (March 8th 2010) URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/article/?q=M2FhMTg4Njk0NTQwMmFlMmYzZDg2YzgyYjdmYjhhMzU=

→Modern Imperial Formations and the End of American Exceptionalism. Clara Altman (Brandeis University); Published on H-Empire (May, 2012) Retrieved on 7/7/12 from http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=35292Online Resources: (continued)

→Text of the Platt Amendment accessed via: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1901platt.asp

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→ Wolf von Schierbrand, Germany. The Welding of a World Power (New York, 1902) pg. 352 [downloaded online via http://archive.org/details/germanyweldingof00schi]

→ Austin Harrison’s The Pan-Germanic Doctrine (1904) pp.232-233; Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/stream/pangermanicdoct00harrgoog#page/n253/mode/2up

→ Juan Leets, United States and Latin America; dollar diplomacy (1912) pg.13; accessed via http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=image;size=100;id=loc.ark%3A%2F13960%2Ft4bp0w737;page=root;seq=9

→ http://hnn.us/articles/27021.html

→ Presidential speeches also accessed via:

- http://www.bartleby.com/

- http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/

- http://millercenter.org/

Archival Material:

→ Theodore Roosevelt Papers; Series 1, Reels 28/ 30/ 65; Roosevelt Study Centre, Middleburg ,

The Netherlands

→ Dispatches from United States Consuls in Curacao, Netherlands and West Indies T197 Roll 12,

No.49; Roosevelt Study Centre, Middleburg , The Netherlands

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