Imperialism…American style

Political

Moral

White Man’s Burden

Josiah StrongOur Country: Its Possible Future and its Present Crisis

It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill is here training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour sure to come in the world’s future…the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled…this race of unequaled energy, with all the majesty of numbers and might of wealth behind it-the representative, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization…will spread itself over the earth.

Economic?

• There was a desire to expand the American market to improve economic health:“Today we are making more than we can use. Today

our industrial society is congested; there are more workers than there is investment. We do not need more money-we need more circulation, more employment. Therefore we must find new markets for our produce, new occupation for our capital, new work for our labor”

Albert Beveridge, from the American Spirit

Think this played a

role?

With new markets and strong economic health, domestic society would benefit:

“With these markets secured new life would be given to our manufactories, the product of the Western farmer would be in demand, the reasons for and inducements to strikers with all their attendant evils would cease.”

James Blaine, Secretary of State

We learned the 3 main reasons for Imperialism

1. Moral: White Man’s Burden, Rev. Josiah Strong’s arguments, Social Darwinism

2. Military/National Security/Political: Mahan’s book… The influence of Sea Power upon History. And competition from other nations-Roosevelt Corollary

3. Economic: Need to expand our national economy beyond borders…expand markets

How did that Imperialism look?• Expansion in the Pacific started with Alaska (Seward’s Folly 1867)• Samoa-competition with Germany for the port of Pago Pago• Spanish American War 1898• Hawaii-we annexed in 1898• Puerto Rico-part of the bounty of the war• Philippines-the bounty of the war• Open Door in China-No other power shall claim China• Roosevelt Corollary• Panama-we will build a canal..helped them break away from

Columbia in 1903.• Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy• Nicaragua (Marines there from 1912-1925)• Mexican intervention

Cuba and Spanish American War 1898

• Was under control from Spain and wanted independence

• Rebels fought against Spain and Spain retaliated very harshly…so we used this opportunity to step in.

• “Remember the Maine. To hell with Spain!”• Yellow Journalism-Hearst and Pulitzer, De Lome letter• Jingoism: “this country needs a war”• Teddy and the Rough Riders charged San Juan hill.• Quick “war”…430 Americans died…more died of

disease.

Philippines• Were controlled by Spain at the time, and

Roosevelt told Dewey to go and attack.• He brought in Aguinaldo from exile to fight the

Spanish and were successful. Part of the deal was a promise to him that we would help with self-determination.

• McKinley, from pressure, decides not to give up the Philippines.

• Aguinaldo then ends up fighting us!• This “insurrection” lasts for over 2 years and

costs more than 4300 American lives.

When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides—Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.

Puerto Rico and Guam

• Also part of the reward for defeating Spain• Brought up some interesting questions…

– Can we tax things produced in those places?• The Foraker Act of 1900 established gov’t & a tariff in

Puerto Rico

– Does the Constitution follow the flag?• Supreme Court “Insular Cases” said the Constitution

does not follow the flag unless Congress declares it so.

“Open Door” in China

• John Hay’s Open Door note in 1899 proposed to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis.

• Boxer Rebellion happens in China and international coalition goes to suppress. 1900

The “Open Mouth

Policy” of the Phillipines

Within the first year of the war, news of atrocities by U.S. forces—the torching of villages, the killing of prisoners—began to appear in American newspapers. Although the U.S. military censored outgoing cables, stories crossed the Pacific through the mail, which wasn’t censored. Soldiers, in their letters home, wrote about extreme violence against Filipinos, alongside complaints about the weather, the food, and their officers; and some of these letters were published in home-town newspapers. A letter by A. F. Miller, of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment, published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 1900, told of how Miller’s unit uncovered hidden weapons by subjecting a prisoner to what he and others called the “water cure.” “Now, this is the way we give them the water cure,” he explained. “Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don’t give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I’ll tell you it is a terrible torture.”

2008 New Yorker Magazine

Shall the victim be suspended, head down, over the smoke of a smoldering fire; shall he be tightly bound and dropped from a distance of several feet; shall he be beaten with rods; shall his shins be rubbed with a broomstick until they bleed? 

It sips its coffee and reads of its soldiers administering the “water cure” to rebels; of how water with handfuls of salt thrown in to make it more efficacious, is forced down the throats of the patients until their bodies become distended to the point of bursting; of how our soldiers then jump on the distended bodies to force the water out quickly so that the “treatment” can begin all over again. The American Public takes another sip of its coffee and remarks, “How very unpleasant!” 

Roosevelt’s Big Stick!

• Panama Canal• Roosevelt Corollary

– US became an international police force in Western Hemisphere

• Russ-Japanese War 1904

Taft’s Dollar DiplomacyU.S. operations in Latin America went from "warlike and

political" to "peaceful and economic".

• Rather than using the military and threats of it to achieve American interests, Taft resorted to economic means– American bankers went into Latin American

countries and took over their debt and worked to control their economies, thus creating a dependence on American interests.

• Mahan• Josiah Strong• Aguinaldo• George Dewey• John Hay• Teller Amendment