644

PART FIVE

STRUGGLING FORJUSTICE AT HOME

AND ABROAD���

1899–1945

The new century broughtastonishing changes to

the United States. Victoryin the Spanish-AmericanWar made it clear that theUnited States was now aworld power. Industrial-ization ushered in giantcorporations, sprawling fac-tories, sweatshop labor,and the ubiquitous auto-mobile. A huge wave ofimmigration was alteringthe face of the nation, especially the cities, where amajority of Americans lived by 1920. With biggercities came bigger fears—of crime, vice, poverty, anddisease.

Changes of such magnitude raised vexing ques-tions. What role should the United States play in theworld? How could the enormous power of industry becontrolled? How would the millions of new immi-grants make their way in America? What should the

country do about poverty,disease, and the continu-ing plague of racial in-equality? All these issuesturned on a fundamentalpoint: should governmentremain narrowly limited inits powers, or did the timesrequire a more potent government that wouldactively shape society andsecure American interestsabroad?

The progressive movement represented the firstattempt to answer those questions. Reform-mindedmen and women from all walks of life and from bothmajor parties shared in the progressive crusade forgreater government activism. Buoyed by this outlook,Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson enlarged the capacity of government to fight graft, “bust” business trusts, regulate corporations, and promote fair labor prac-

tices, child welfare, con-servation, and consumerprotection. These progres-sive reformers, convincedthat women would bringgreater morality to politics,bolstered the decades-longstruggle for female suffrage.Women finally secured thevote in 1920 with the ratifi-cation of the NineteenthAmendment.

The progressive erapresidents also challengedAmerica’s tradition of isola-tionism in foreign policy.They felt the country had amoral obligation to spreaddemocracy and an eco-nomic opportunity to reapprofits in foreign markets.Roosevelt and Taft launcheddiplomatic initiatives in the Caribbean, CentralAmerica, and East Asia. Wilson aspired to “make theworld safe for democracy” by rallying support forAmerican intervention in the First World War.

The progressive spirit waned, however, as theUnited States retreated during the 1920s into whatPresident Harding called “normalcy.” Isolationistsentiment revived with a vengeance. Blessed with abooming economy, Americans turned their gazeinward to baseball heroes, radio, jazz, movies, andthe first mass-produced American automobile, theModel T Ford. Presidents Harding, Coolidge, andHoover backed off from the economic regulatoryzeal of their predecessors.

“Normalcy” also had a brutal side. Thousands ofsuspected radicals were jailed or deported in theRed Scare of 1919 and 1920. Anti-immigrant pas-sions flared until immigration quotas in 1924squeezed the flow of newcomers to a trickle. Raceriots scorched several northern cities in the summerof 1919, a sign of how embittered race relations hadbecome in the wake of the “Great Migration” ofsouthern blacks to wartime jobs in northern indus-try. A reborn Ku Klux Klan staged a comeback, notjust in the South but in the North and West as well.

“Normalcy” itself soonproved short-lived, a casu-alty of the stock marketcrash of 1929 and the GreatDepression that followed.As Americans watchedbanks fail, and businesses collapse, and millions ofpeople lose their jobs, they asked with renewedurgency what role the gov-ernment should play in rescuing the nation. Presi-dent Franklin D. Roosevelt’sanswer was the “New Deal”—an ambitious array ofrelief programs, publicworks, and economic regu-lations that failed to curethe Depression but fur-nished an impressive legacyof social reforms.

Most Americans came to accept an expandedfederal governmental role at home under FDR’s leadership in the 1930s, but they still clung stub-bornly to isolationism. The United States did little inthe 1930s to check the rising military aggression ofJapan and Germany. By the early 1940s, eventsforced Americans to reconsider. Once Hitler’s Ger-many had seized control of most of Europe, Roo-sevelt, who had long opposed the isolationists,found ways to aid a beleaguered Britain. WhenJapan attacked the American naval base at PearlHarbor in December 1941, isolationists at last fellsilent. Roosevelt led a stunned but determinednation into the Second World War, and victory in1945 positioned the United States to assume a com-manding position in the postwar world order.

The Great Depression and the Second WorldWar brought to a head a half-century of debate overthe role of government and the place of the UnitedStates in the world. In the name of a struggle for justice, Roosevelt established a new era of govern-ment activism at home and internationalismabroad. The New Deal’s legacy set the terms ofdebate in American political life for the rest of thecentury.

645

646

28

America on theWorld Stage

���

1899–1909

I never take a step in foreign policy unless I am assured that I shallbe able eventually to carry out my will by force.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 1905

Liberty-loving Filipinos assumed that they, likethe Cubans, would be granted their freedom

after the Spanish-American War. They were tragi-cally deceived. The Senate refused to pass such aresolution granting Filipino independence. Bitter-ness toward the American troops mounted. It finallyerupted into open insurrection on February 4, 1899,under Emilio Aguinaldo.

The war with the Filipinos, unlike the “splendid”little set-to with Spain, was sordid and prolonged. Itinvolved more savage fighting, more soldiers killed,and far more scandal. Anti-imperialists redoubledtheir protests. In their view the United States, havingplunged into war with Spain to free Cuba, was nowfighting ten thousand miles away to rivet shackles ona people who asked for nothing but liberty—in theAmerican tradition.

“Little Brown Brothers” in the Philippines

As the ill-equipped Filipino armies were defeated,they melted into the jungle to wage vicious guerrillawarfare. Many of the outgunned Filipinos used barbarous methods, and the infuriated Americantroops responded in kind. A brutal soldier songbetrayed inner feelings:

Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos!Cross-eyed kakiak ladrones [thieves]!

Underneath the starry flagCivilize ’em with a Krag [rifle],

And return us to our own beloved homes.

Atrocity tales shocked and rocked the UnitedStates, for such methods did not reflect America’s

better self. Uncle Sam’s soldiers resorted to suchextremes as the painful “water cure”—that is, forc-ing water down victims’ throats until they yieldedinformation or died. Reconcentration camps wereeven established that strongly suggested those of“Butcher” Weyler in Cuba. America, having begunthe Spanish war with noble ideals, now dirtied itshands. One New York newspaper published a replyto Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem:

We’ve taken up the white man’s burdenOf ebony and brown;

Now will you kindly tell us, Rudyard,How we may put it down?

The backbone of the Filipino insurrection wasfinally broken in 1901, when American soldiers clev-erly infiltrated a guerrilla camp and capturedAguinaldo. But sporadic fighting dragged on formany dreary months.

The problem of a government for the conqueredislanders worried President McKinley, who, in 1899,

appointed the Philippine Commission to makeappropriate recommendations. In its second year,this body was headed by future president William H.Taft, an able and amiable lawyer-judge from Ohiowho weighed about 350 pounds. Forming a strongattachment to the Filipinos, he called them his “littlebrown brothers” and danced light-footedly withtheir tiny women. But among the American soldiers,sweatily combing the jungles, a different view of theinsurgent prevailed:

He may be a brother of Big Bill Taft,But he ain’t no brother of mine.

McKinley’s “benevolent assimilation” of thePhilippines proceeded with painful slowness. Mil-lions of American dollars were poured into theislands to improve roads, sanitation, and publichealth. Important economic ties, including trade in sugar, developed between the two peoples. American teachers—“pioneers of the blackboard”—set up an unusually good school system and helped

The Filipino Insurrection 647

United States Possessions to 1917

make English a second language. But all this vastexpenditure, which profited America little, was illreceived. The Filipinos, who hated compulsoryAmericanization, preferred liberty. Like cagedhawks, they beat against their gilded bars until theyfinally got their freedom, on the Fourth of July, 1946.In the meantime, thousands of Filipinos emigratedto the United States (see “Makers of America: TheFilipinos,” pp. 650–651).

Hinging the Open Door in China

Exciting events had meanwhile been brewing in far-away and enfeebled China. Following its defeat byJapan in 1894–1895, the imperialistic Europeanpowers, notably Russia and Germany, moved in.Like vultures descending upon a wounded whale,

they began to tear away valuable leaseholds andeconomic spheres of influence from the Manchugovernment.

A growing group of Americans viewed the vivi-section of China with alarm. Churches worriedabout their missionary strongholds; manufacturersand exporters feared that Chinese markets would bemonopolized by Europeans. An alarmed Americanpublic, openly prodded by the press and slylynudged by certain free-trade Britons, demandedthat Washington do something. Secretary of StateJohn Hay, a quiet but witty poet-novelist-diplomatwith a flair for capturing the popular imagination,finally decided upon a dramatic move.

In the summer of 1899, Hay dispatched to allthe great powers a communication soon known asthe Open Door note. He urged them to announcethat in their leaseholds or spheres of influence theywould respect certain Chinese rights and the idealof fair competition.

The phrase Open Door quickly caught the publicfancy and gained wide acceptance. Hay’s proposalcaused much squirming in the leading capitals of theworld. It was like asking all those who did not havethieving designs to stand up and be counted. Italyalone accepted the Open Door unconditionally; itwas the only major power that had no leasehold or

648 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

The commercial interests of Britain andAmerica were imperiled by the power grabsin China, and a close concert between thetwo powers would have helped both. Yet asSecretary of State John Hay (1838–1905)wrote privately in June 1900,

“Every Senator I see says, ‘For God’s sake,don’t let it appear we have any understandingwith England.’ How can I make bricks withoutstraw? That we should be compelled torefuse the assistance of the greatest power inthe world [Britain], in carrying out our ownpolicy, because all Irishmen are Democratsand some [American] Germans are fools—isenough to drive a man mad.”

sphere of influence in China. Britain, Germany,France, and Japan all accepted, but subject to thecondition that the others acquiesce unconditionally.Russia, with covetous designs on China’s Manchuria,politely declined. But John Hay artfully interpretedthe Russian refusal as an acceptance and proclaimedthat the Open Door was in effect. Under such dubi-ous midwifery was the infant born, and no oneshould have been surprised when the child provedto be sickly and relatively short-lived.

Open Door or not, patriotic Chinese did notcare to be used as a doormat by the Europeans. In1900 a superpatriotic group known as the “Boxers”broke loose with the cry, “Kill Foreign Devils.” Overtwo hundred missionaries and other ill-fated whiteswere murdered, and a number of foreign diplomatswere besieged in the capital, Beijing (Peking).

A multinational rescue force of some eighteenthousand soldiers, including twenty-five hundredAmericans, arrived in the nick of time and quelledthe rebellion. Such participation in a joint militaryoperation, especially in Asia, was plainly contrary tothe nation’s time-honored principles of nonentan-glement and noninvolvement.

The victorious allied invaders acted angrily andvindictively. They assessed prostrate China anexcessive indemnity of $333 million, of which Amer-ica’s share was to be $24.5 million. When Washing-ton discovered that this sum was much more thanenough to pay damages and expenses, it remittedabout $18 million. The Beijing government, appreci-ating this gesture of goodwill, set aside the money to educate a selected group of Chinese students inthe United States. These bright young scholars laterplayed a significant role in the westernization ofAsia.

Secretary Hay now let fly another paper broad-side, for he feared that the triumphant powersmight use the Boxer outrages as a pretext for carvingup China outright. His new circular note to the pow-ers in 1900 announced that henceforth the OpenDoor would embrace the territorial integrity ofChina, in addition to its commercial integrity.

Defenseless China was spared partition duringthese troubled years. But its salvation was probablydue not to Hay’s fine phrases, but to the strength ofthe competing powers. None of them could trust theothers not to seek their own advantage.

The Open Door in China 649

The Filipinos

At the beginning of the twentieth century, theUnited States, its imperial muscles just flexed in

the war with Spain, found itself in possession of thePhilippines. Uncertain of how to manage this em-pire, which seethed resentfully against its new mas-ters, the United States promised to build democracyin the Philippines and to ready the islanders forhome rule. Almost immediately after annexation,the American governor of the archipelago sent acorps of Filipino students to the United States, hop-ing to forge future leaders steeped in American wayswho would someday govern an independent Philip-pines. Yet this small student group found little favorin their adopted country, although in their native

land many went on to become respected citizensand leaders.

Most Filipino immigrants to the United States inthese years, however, came not to study but to toil.With Chinese immigration banned, Hawaii and thePacific Coast states turned to the Philippines forcheap agricultural labor. Beginning in 1906 theHawaiian Sugar Planters Association aggressivelyrecruited Filipino workers. Enlistments grew slowlyat first, but by the 1920s thousands of young Filipinomen had reached the Hawaiian Islands and beenassigned to sugar plantations or pineapple fields.

Typically a young Filipino wishing to emigratefirst made his way to Manila, where he signed a con-tract with the growers that promised three years’labor in return for transportation to Hawaii, wages,free housing and fuel, and return passage at the endof the contract. Not all of the emigrants returned;there remain in Hawaii today some former fieldworkers still theoretically eligible for free transportback to their native land.

Those Filipinos venturing as far as the Americanmainland found work less arduous but also less cer-tain than did their countrymen on Hawaiian planta-tions. Many mainlanders worked seasonally—inwinter as domestic servants, busboys, or bellhops;in summer journeying to the fields to harvest let-tuce, strawberries, sugar beets, and potatoes. Even-tually Filipinos, along with Mexican immigrants,shared the dubious honor of making up California’sagricultural work force.

A mobile society, Filipino-Americans also wereoverwhelmingly male; there was only one Filipinowoman for every fourteen Filipino men in Califor-nia in 1930. Thus the issue of intermarriage becameacutely sensitive. California and many other statesprohibited the marriage of Asians and Caucasians indemeaning laws that remained on the books until1948. And if a Filipino so much as approached a

650

Caucasian woman, he could expect reprisals—sometimes violent. For example, white vigilantegroups roamed the Yakima Valley in Washington andthe San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys in California,intimidating and even attacking Filipinos whomthey accused of improperly accosting white women.In 1930 one Filipino was murdered and otherswounded after they invited some Caucasian womento a dance. Undeterred, the Filipinos challenged therestrictive state laws and the hooligans who foundin them an excuse for mayhem. But Filipinos, whodid not become eligible for American citizenshipuntil 1946, long lacked political leverage.

After World War II, Filipino immigration accel-erated. Between 1950 and 1970, the number of Fil-ipinos in the United States nearly doubled, withwomen and men stepping aboard the new transpa-cific airliners in roughly equal numbers. Many ofthese recent arrivals sprang from sturdy middle-class stock and sought in America a better life fortheir children than the Philippines seemed able tooffer. Today the war-torn and perpetually depressedarchipelago sends more immigrants to Americanshores than does any other Asian nation.

651

Imperialism or Bryanism in 1900?

President McKinley’s renomination by the Republi-cans in 1900 was a foregone conclusion. He hadpiloted the country through a victorious war; he hadacquired rich, though burdensome, real estate; hehad established the gold standard; and he hadbrought the promised prosperity of the full dinnerpail. “We’ll stand pat!” was the poker-playing coun-sel of Mark Hanna, since 1897 a senator from Ohio.McKinley was renominated at Philadelphia on aplatform that smugly endorsed prosperity, the goldstandard, and overseas expansion.

An irresistible vice-presidential boom haddeveloped for “Teddy” Roosevelt (TR), the cowboy-

hero of San Juan Hill. Capitalizing on his war-bornpopularity, he had been elected governor of NewYork, where the local political bosses had found himheadstrong and difficult to manage. They thereforedevised a scheme to kick the colorful colonelupstairs into the vice presidency.

This plot to railroad Roosevelt worked beauti-fully. Gesticulating wildly, he attended the nominat-ing convention, where his western-style cowboy hathad made him stand out like a white crow. He hadno desire to die of slow rot in the vice-presidential“burying ground,” but he was eager to prove that hecould get the nomination if he wanted it. He finallygave in to a chanting chorus of “We want Teddy!” Hereceived a unanimous vote, except for his own. Afrantic Hanna reportedly moaned that there wouldbe only one heartbeat between that wild-eyed“madman”—“that damned cowboy”—and the pres-idency of the United States.

William Jennings Bryan was the odds-on choiceof the Democrats, meeting at Kansas City. The free-silver issue was now as defunct as an abandonedmine, but Bryan, a slave to consistency, forced a silverplank down the throats of his protesting associates.Choking on its candidate’s obstinacy, the Democraticplatform proclaimed, as did Bryan, that the para-mount issue was Republican overseas imperialism.

Campaign history partially repeated itself in1900. McKinley, the soul of dignity, sat safely on hisfront porch, as before. Bryan, also as before, took tothe stump in a cyclonic campaign, assailing bothimperialism and Republican-fostered trusts.

The superenergetic, second-fiddle Rooseveltout-Bryaned Bryan. He toured the country withrevolver-shooting cowboys, and his popularity cutheavily into Bryan’s support in the Midwest. Flash-ing his magnificent teeth and pounding his fistfiercely into his palm, Roosevelt denounced all das-tards who would haul down Old Glory.

Bryanites loudly trumpeted their “paramount”issue of imperialism. Lincoln, they charged, hadabolished slavery for 3.5 million Africans; McKinleyhad reestablished it for 7 million Filipinos. Republi-cans responded by charging that “Bryanism,” notimperialism, was the paramount issue. By this accu-sation they meant that Bryan would rock the boat ofprosperity once he got into office with his free-silverlunacy and other dangerous ideas. The voters weremuch less concerned about imperialism than about“Four Years More of the Full Dinner Pail.”

When the smoke cleared, McKinley had tri-umphed by a much wider margin than in 1896:

652 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

7,218,491 to 6,356,734 popular votes, and 292 to 155electoral votes. But victory for the Republicans wasnot a mandate for or against imperialism. Many citi-zens who favored Bryan’s anti-imperialism fearedhis free silver; many who favored McKinley’s “soundmoney” hated his imperialism. One citizen wrote toformer president Cleveland: “It is a choice betweenevils, and I am going to shut my eyes, hold my nose,vote, go home and disinfect myself.” If there was anymandate at all it was for the two Ps: prosperity andprotection. Content with good times, the countryanticipated four more years of a full dinner pailcrammed with fried chicken. “Boss” Platt of NewYork gleefully looked forward to Inauguration Day,when he would see Roosevelt exit Albany and “takethe veil” as vice president.

TR: Brandisher of the Big Stick

Kindly William McKinley had scarcely servedanother six months when, in September 1901, hewas murdered by a deranged anarchist. Rooseveltbecame president at age forty-two, the youngestthus far in American history. Knowing he had a rep-utation for impulsiveness and radicalism, he soughtto reassure the country by proclaiming that hewould carry out the policies of his predecessor. Cyn-ics sneered that he would indeed carry them out—to the garbage heap.

What manner of man was Theodore Roosevelt,the red-blooded blue blood? Born into a wealthyand distinguished New York family, he had fiercelybuilt up his spindly, asthmatic body by a stern andself-imposed routine of exercise. Graduating fromHarvard with Phi Beta Kappa honors, he publishedat the age of twenty-four the first of some thirty vol-umes of muscular prose. Then came busy years,

Republican Victory 653

The contest over American imperialism tookplace on the Senate floor as well as aroundthe globe. In 1900 Senator Albert J. Beveridge(1862–1927), Republican from Indiana,returned from an investigative trip to thePhilippines to defend its annexation:

“The Philippines are ours forever. . . . And justbeyond the Philippines are China’s illimitablemarkets. We will not retreat from either. Wewill not abandon our opportunity in theOrient. We will renounce our part in themission of our race: trustee, under God, ofthe civilization of the world.”

Two years later Senator George F. Hoar(1826–1904), Republican fromMassachusetts, broke with his party todenounce American annexation of thePhilippines and other territories:

“You cannot maintain despotism in Asia and arepublic in America. If you try to deprive evena savage or a barbarian of his just rights youcan never do it without becoming a savage ora barbarian yourself.”

which involved duties as a ranch owner and bespec-tacled cowboy (“Four Eyes”) in the Dakotas, fol-lowed by various political posts. When fullydeveloped, he was a barrel-chested five feet teninches, with prominent teeth, squinty eyes, droopymustache, and piercing voice.

The Rough Rider’s high-voltage energy waselectrifying. Believing that it was better to wear outthan to rust out, he would shake the hands of somesix thousand people at one stretch or ride horsebackmany miles in a day as an example for portly cavalryofficers. Not surprisingly, he gathered about him agroup of athletic, tennis-playing cronies, who werepopularly dubbed “the tennis cabinet.”

Incurably boyish and bellicose, Roosevelt lovedto fight—“an elegant row.” He never ceased topreach the virile virtues and to denounce civilizedsoftness, with its pacifists and other “flubdubs” and“mollycoddles.” An ardent champion of military andnaval preparedness, he adopted as his pet proverb,“Speak softly and carry a big stick, [and] you will gofar.” If statesmen had the big stick, they could worktheir will among foreign nations without shouting; ifthey lacked it, shouting would do no good. TR hadboth a big stick and a shrill voice.

Wherever Roosevelt went, there was a great stir.At a wedding he eclipsed the bride, at a funeral thecorpse. Shockingly unconventional, he loved tobreak hoary precedents—the hoarier the better. Hewas a colossal egoist, and his self-confidencemerged with self-righteousness. So sure was he ofthe correctness of his convictions that he impetu-ously branded people liars who disagreed with him.As a true cosmopolite, he loved people and mingledwith those of all ranks, from Catholic cardinals toprofessional prizefighters, one of whom blinded aRooseveltian eye in a White House bout.

An outspoken moralizer and reformer, Roo-sevelt preached virtue from the White House pulpit.Yet he was an opportunist who would cut a dealrather than butt his head against a stone wall. Hewas, in reality, much less radical than his blusteryactions would indicate. A middle-of-the-roader, hestood just a little left of center and bared his mule-like molars at liberals and reactionaries alike.

Roosevelt rapidly developed into a masterpolitician with an idolatrous personal following.After visiting him, a journalist wrote, “You go homeand wring the personality out of your clothes.” TR—as he was called—had an enormous popular

appeal, partly because the common people saw inhim a fiery champion. A magnificent showman, hewas always front-page copy; his cowboyism, hisbear shooting, his outsize teeth, and his pince-nezglasses were ever the delight of cartoonists. Thougha staunch party man, he detested many of the dirty-handed bosses. But he learned, as Cleveland neverdid, to hold his nose and work with them.

Above all, Roosevelt was a direct-actionist. Hebelieved that the president should lead, andalthough he made mistakes, he kept things noisilymoving—generally forward. Never a lawyer, he con-demned the law and the courts as too slow. He hadno real respect for the delicate checks and balancesamong the three branches of the government. Find-ing the Constitution too rigid, he would on occasionignore it; finding Congress too rebellious, he tried amixture of coercion and compromise on it. Thepresident, he felt, may take any action in the general

654 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

interest that is not specifically forbidden by the lawsof the Constitution. As one poet noted,

The Constitution rides behindAnd the Big Stick rides before,(Which is the rule of precedentIn the reign of Theodore.)

Colombia Blocks the Canal

Foreign affairs absorbed much of Roosevelt’s bullishenergy. Having traveled extensively in Europe, heenjoyed a far more intimate knowledge of the out-side world than most of his predecessors.

The Spanish-American War had emphasizedthe need for the long-talked-about canal across theCentral American isthmus, through which onlyprinter’s ink had ever flowed. Americans hadlearned a sobering lesson when the battleship Ore-gon, stationed on the Pacific Coast at the outbreakof war in 1898, had to steam all the way aroundSouth America to join the fleet in Cuban waters. Anisthmian canal would plainly augment the strengthof the navy by increasing its mobility. Such a water-way would also make easier the defense of suchrecent acquisitions as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and thePhilippines, while facilitating the operations of theAmerican merchant marine.

Initial obstacles in the path of the canal builderswere legal rather than geographical. By the terms ofthe ancient Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, concluded withBritain in 1850, the United States could not secureexclusive control over such a route. But by 1901America’s British cousins were willing to yieldground. Confronted with an unfriendly Europe andbogged down in the South African Boer War, theyconsented to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in 1901. Itnot only gave the United States a free hand to buildthe canal but conceded the right to fortify it as well.

Legal barriers now removed, the next questionwas, Where should the canal be dug? Many Ameri-can experts favored the Nicaraguan route, butagents of the old French Canal Company were eagerto salvage something from their costly failure at S-shaped Panama. Represented by a young, ener-getic, and unscrupulous engineer, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the New Panama Canal Company suddenlydropped the price of its holdings from $109 millionto the fire-sale price of $40 million.

After much debate, Congress in June 1902decided on the Panama route. The scene nowshifted to Colombia, of which Panama was anunwilling part. A treaty highly favorable to theUnited States was negotiated between Washingtonand a Colombian government agent in Bogota. Itgranted to the United States a lease for a six-mile-wide zone in perpetuity in exchange for $10 millionand an annual payment of $250,000. The Colom-bian senate rejected the treaty, putting a highervalue on this precious isthmian strip. Evidence laterunearthed indicates that had Washington been will-ing to pay an additional $15 million, the pact wouldhave been approved.

Roosevelt was infuriated by his setback at thehands of what he called “those dagoes.” Franticallyeager to be elected president “in his own right” in1904, he was anxious to “make the dirt fly” toimpress the voters. “Damn the law,” he reportedlycried in private, “I want the canal built!” He assailed“the blackmailers of Bogota” who, like armed high-waymen, were blocking the onward march of civi-lization. He failed to note that the U.S. Senate alsorejects treaties.

Uncle Sam CreatesPuppet Panama

Impatient Panamanians, who had rebelled numer-ous times, were ripe for another revolt. They hadcounted on a wave of prosperity to follow construc-tion of the canal, and they feared that the UnitedStates would now turn to the Nicaraguan route.Scheming Bunau-Varilla was no less disturbed bythe prospect of losing the company’s $40 million.Working hand in glove with the Panama revolution-ists, he raised a tiny “patriot” army consisting largelyof members of the Panamanian fire department,plus five hundred “bought” Colombian troops—fora reported price of $100,000.

The Panama revolution occurred on November3, 1903, with the incidental killing of a Chinese civil-ian and a donkey. Colombian troops were gatheredto crush the uprising, but U.S. naval forces wouldnot let them cross the isthmus. Roosevelt justifiedthis highly questionable interference by a strainedinterpretation of the treaty of 1846 with Colombia.(This pact obligated Washington to maintain

The Panama Canal 655

the “perfect neutrality” of the isthmus, obviouslyagainst outsiders.)

Roosevelt moved rapidly to make steamyPanama a virtual outpost of the United States. Threedays after the uprising, he hastily extended the righthand of recognition. Fifteen days later, Bunau-Varilla, who was now the Panamanian ministerdespite his French citizenship, signed the Hay–Bunau-Varilla treaty in Washington. The price of thecanal strip was left the same, but the zone waswidened from six to ten miles. The French companygladly pocketed its $40 million from the U.S. Treasury.

Roosevelt, it seems clear, did not actively plot totear Panama from the side of Colombia. But theconspirators knew of his angrily expressed views,and they counted on his using the big stick to holdColombia at bay. Yet the Rough Rider became soindiscreetly involved in the Panama affair as to create the impression that he had been a secretparty to the intrigue.

Unhappily, the United States suffered a blackeye as a result of Roosevelt’s “cowboy diplomacy.”European imperialists, who were old hands at thissort of thing, could now raise their eyebrows inscorn at America’s superior moral pretensions—andthey did.

656 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

Big Stick in the CaribbeanIn 1901 Roosevelt declared, “If a mancontinually blusters . . . a big stick willnot save him from trouble; and neitherwill speaking softly avail, if back of thesoftness there does not lie strength,power. . . . If the boaster is not pre-pared to back up his words, hisposition becomes absolutelycontemptible.”

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Completing the Canal and Appeasing Colombia

The so-called rape of Panama marked an uglydownward lurch in U.S. relations with Latin Amer-ica. Much fear had already been aroused by therecent seizure of Puerto Rico and by the Yankeestranglehold on Cuba. The fate of Colombia, when itdared defy the Colossus of the North, indicated thatits weak fellow republics were not safe. The era ofthe bullying “Big Brother” policy was brazenlylaunched.

Roosevelt heatedly defended himself against allcharges of evildoing. He claimed that he hadreceived a “mandate from civilization” to start thecanal and that Colombia had wronged the UnitedStates by not permitting itself to be benefited. Todeal with these “blackmailers,” he insisted, was like“nailing currant jelly to the wall.”

But TR was not completely candid. He failed topoint out that the Nicaragua route was aboutequally feasible and that it was available without arevolution. Yet this alternative would have involvedsome delay, and the presidential election of 1904was fast approaching.

Active work was begun on “making the dirt fly”in 1904, but grave difficulties were encountered,ranging from labor troubles to landslides. The organ-ization was finally perfected under an energetic butautocratic West Point engineer, Colonel GeorgeWashington Goethals. At the outset sanitationproved to be more important than excavation.Colonel William C. Gorgas, the quiet and determinedexterminator of yellow fever in Havana, ultimatelymade the Canal Zone “as safe as a health resort.”

Americans finally succeeded where the Frenchhad failed. In 1914 the colossal canal project wascompleted at an initial cost of about $400 million,just as World War I was breaking out. The wholeenterprise, in the words of the English writer JamesBryce, was “the greatest liberty Man has ever takenwith Nature.”

TR’s Perversion of Monroe’s Doctrine

Latin American debt defaults created the conditionsfor further Rooseveltian involvement in affairssouth of the border. Nations such as Venezuela and

the Dominican Republic were chronically in arrearsin their payments to European creditors, particu-larly Britain and Germany. Seeking to force pay-ment, German warships sank two Venezuelangunboats and bombarded a town in early 1903.

This ironfisted intervention aroused Roosevelt.He feared that if the Germans or British got theirfoot in the door as bill collectors, they might remainin Latin America, in flagrant violation of the MonroeDoctrine. Roosevelt therefore devised a devious pol-icy of “preventive intervention,” better known as theRoosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Hedeclared that in the event of future financial malfea-sance by the Latin American nations, the UnitedStates itself would intervene, take over the cus-tomshouses, pay off the debts, and keep the trou-blesome powers on the other side of the Atlantic. Inshort, no outsiders could push around the Latinnations except Uncle Sam, Policeman of theCaribbean.

This new brandishing of the big stick in theCaribbean became effective in 1905, when theUnited States took over the management of tariffcollections in the Dominican Republic, an arrange-ment formalized in a treaty with the Dominicanstwo years later. Dominican officials, who had rakedin much juicy graft, were not happy with such inter-ference, and they acquiesced only after some stren-uous arm-twisting from Washington. But from adebt-collecting point of view, the customshouseintervention was a success.

Roosevelt’s corollary, though tacked onto theMonroe Doctrine, bore only a strained relation tothe original dictum of 1823. Monroe had in effect

The Roosevelt Corollary 657

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) wrote to acorrespondent in February 1904,

“I have been hoping and praying for threemonths that the Santo Domingans wouldbehave so that I would not have to act in any way. I want to do nothing but what apoliceman has to do. . . . As for annexing the island, I have about the same desire to annex it as a gorged boa-constrictor might have to swallow a porcupine wrong-end-to.”

said to the European powers, “Thou shalt not inter-vene.” TR changed this warning to mean, “We shallintervene to prevent you from intervening.” TheRoosevelt doctrine was actually so radical as to be acompletely new policy, but it gained readier accep-tance by being associated with the honored name ofMonroe. Yet in its own right, the corollary had con-siderable merit as a preemptive stroke.

Roosevelt’s rewriting of Monroe’s doctrine hadits dark side. It probably did more than any othersingle step to promote the “Bad Neighbor” policybegun in these years. As time wore on, the newcorollary was used to justify wholesale interventionsand repeated landings of the marines, all of whichhelped turn the Caribbean into a “Yankee lake.”Latin Americans mistakenly cursed the unoffendingMonroe, when they should have cursed the offend-ing Roosevelt. To them it seemed as though theMonroe Doctrine, far from providing a shield, was acloak behind which the United States sought tostrangle them.

The shadow of the big stick likewise fell on Cubain 1906. Revolutionary disorders brought an appealfrom the Cuban president, and “necessity being themother of invention,” U.S. Marines were landed.These police forces were withdrawn temporarily in1909, but in Latin American eyes the episode was

but another example of the creeping power of theColossus of the North.

Roosevelt on the World Stage

Booted and spurred, Roosevelt charged into interna-tional affairs far beyond Latin America. The outbreakof war between Russia and Japan in 1904 gave him achance to perform as a global statesman. The Rus-sian bear, having lumbered across Asia, was seekingto bathe its frostbitten paws in the ice-free ports ofChina’s Manchuria, particularly Port Arthur. In Japa-nese eyes, Manchuria and Korea in tsarist hands werepistols pointed at Japan’s strategic heart. Russiantroops had invaded Manchuria during the Boxer out-burst of 1900 and, despite solemn promises, were notwithdrawing. The tsar was obviously stalling until histrans-Siberian railroad could be finished, as it wouldbe in a few months. With the clock ticking againstthem, the Japanese suddenly began war in 1904 witha devastating surprise pounce on the Russian fleet atPort Arthur. They proceeded to administer a humili-ating series of beatings to the inept Russians—thefirst serious military setback to a European power bya non-European force since the Turkish invasions of

658 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

the sixteenth century. But as the war dragged on,Japan began to run short of men and yen—a weak-ness it did not want to betray to the enemy. Tokyoofficials therefore approached Roosevelt in the deep-est secrecy and asked him to help sponsor peace negotiations.

Roosevelt agreed and shepherded the delegatesof the two sides together at Portsmouth, NewHampshire, in 1905. The Japanese presented sterndemands for a huge indemnity and the entire strate-gic island of Sakhalin, while the Russians stubbornlyrefused to admit the depths of their defeat. Bluster-ing at both sides behind the scenes, Rooseveltforced through an accord in which the Japanesereceived no indemnity for the losses and only thesouthern half of Sakhalin.

For achieving this agreement, as well as forhelping arrange an international conference atAlgeciras, Spain, in 1906 to mediate North Africandisputes, Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prizein 1906. But the price of TR’s diplomatic glory washigh for U.S. foreign relations. Two historic friend-

ships withered on the windswept plains ofManchuria. American relations with Russia, oncefriendly, soured as the Russians implausiblyaccused Roosevelt of robbing them of military vic-tory. Revelations about savage massacres of RussianJews further poisoned American feeling againstRussia. Japan, once America’s protégé, felt robbed ofits due compensation. Both newly powerful, Japanand America now became rivals in Asia, as fear andjealousy between them grew. To many Americans,the Japanese were getting too big for their kimonos.

Japanese Laborers in California

Adding to tensions between America and Japan wasthe issue of Japanese migration to America’s PacificCoast. The Japanese government prohibited emi-gration of its citizens until 1884, when it beganallowing temporary laborers to work on sugar plan-tations in Hawaii. From there thousands of Japanese

Roosevelt and Japan 659

were recruited for work in California as farm labor-ers, railroad workers, and servants. Like the Chinesebefore them, Japanese immigrants did the nation’smost arduous, dangerous work but were barredfrom becoming citizens. And like the Chinese, Japanese immigrants confronted racist hostility.Although Japanese residents never amounted tomore than 3 percent of the state’s population, whiteCalifornians ranted about a new “yellow peril” andfeared being drowned in an Asian sea.

A showdown on the influx came in 1906 whenSan Francisco’s school board, coping with the after-math of a frightful earthquake and fire, ordered thesegregation of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean stu-

dents in a special school to free more space forwhites. Instantly the incident boiled into an interna-tional crisis. The people of Japan, who were highlysensitive on questions of race, regarded this dis-crimination as an insult to them and their belovedchildren. On both sides of the Pacific, irresponsiblewar talk sizzled in the yellow press—the real “yellowperil.” Roosevelt, who as a Rough Rider had relishedshooting, was less happy over the prospect that Cal-ifornia might stir up a war that all the other stateswould have to wage. He therefore invited the entireSan Francisco Board of Education, headed by a bas-soon-playing mayor under indictment for graft, tocome to the White House.

660 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

TR finally broke the deadlock, but not until hehad brandished his big stick and bared his big teeth.The Californians were induced to repeal the offen-sive school order and to accept what came to beknown as the “Gentlemen’s Agreement.” This secretunderstanding was worked out, during 1907–1908,by an exchange of diplomatic notes between Wash-ington and Tokyo. The Japanese, for their part,agreed to stop the flow of laborers to the Americanmainland by withholding passports.

Roosevelt worried that his intercession betweenCalifornia and Japan might be interpreted in Tokyoas prompted by fear of the Japanese. Accordingly, hehit upon a dramatic scheme to impress the Japanesewith the heft of his big stick. He daringly decided tosend the entire battleship fleet on a highly visiblevoyage around the world.

Late in 1907 sixteen sparkling-white, smoke-belching battleships started from Virginia waters.Their commander pointedly declared that he was

ready for “a feast, a frolic, or a fight.” The GreatWhite Fleet—saluted by cannonading champagnecorks—received tumultuous welcomes in LatinAmerica, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia.

As events turned out, an overwhelming recep-tion in Japan was the high point of the trip. Tens ofthousands of kimonoed schoolchildren had beentrained to wave tiny American flags and sing “TheStar-Spangled Banner”—reportedly in English. Inthe warm diplomatic atmosphere created by the visitof the fleet, the Root-Takahira agreement of 1908 wasreached with Japan. The United States and Japansolemnly pledged themselves to respect each other’sterritorial possessions in the Pacific and to upholdthe Open Door in China. The once fight-thirsty Roo-sevelt, who thus went out of his way to avoid a warwith Japan, regarded the battleship cruise as hismost important contribution to peace. The voyage ofthe white fleet also gave Uncle Sam a new recruitingslogan: “Join the Navy and See the World.”

The Gentlemen’s Agreement 661

662 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

Chronology

1899 Aguinaldo launches rebellion against United States in the Philippine Islands

First American Open Door note

1900 Boxer Rebellion and U.S. expedition to China

Second Open Door noteMcKinley defeats Bryan for presidency

1901 McKinley assassinated; Roosevelt assumes presidency

Filipino rebellion defeatedHay-Pauncefote Treaty

1902 Colombian senate rejects canal treaty

1903 Panamanian revolution against ColombiaHay–Bunau-Varilla treaty

1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

1904-1914 Construction of the Panama Canal

1905 United States takes over Dominican Republic customs

Roosevelt mediates Russo-Japanese peace treaty

1906 San Francisco Japanese education crisisRoosevelt arranges Algeciras conference

1906-1909 U.S. Marines occupy Cuba

1907 Great White Fleet

1907-1908 “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with Japan

1908 Root-Takahira agreement

VARYING VIEWPOINTS

Why Did America Become a World Power?

American imperialism has long been an embar-rassing topic for students of American history,

who remember the Republic’s own revolutionaryorigins and anti-colonial tradition. Perhaps for thatreason, many historians have tried to explain thedramatic overseas expansionism of the 1890s assome kind of aberration—a sudden, singular, andshort-lived departure from time-honored Americanprinciples and practices. Various explanations havebeen offered to account for this spasmodic lapse.Scholars such as Julius Pratt pointed to the irre-sponsible behavior of the yellow press. Richard Hof-stadter ascribed America’s imperial fling to the“psychic crisis of the 1890s,” a crisis brought on, heargued, by the strains of the decade’s economicdepression and the Populist upheaval. Howard K.Beale emphasized the contagious scramble forimperial possessions by the European powers, aswell as Japan, in these years.

In Beale’s argument, the United States—andTheodore Roosevelt in particular—succumbed to a

kind of international peer pressure: if other coun-tries were expanding their international roles andeven establishing colonies around the globe, couldthe United States safely refrain from doing thesame? In Beale’s view, Theodore Roosevelt was nosimple-minded imperial swashbuckler, but a coollycalculating diplomatic realist who perceived that ifthe United States did not hold its own against otherpowers, it would soon risk being pushed around,even in its own hemisphere, despite the MonroeDoctrine.

Perhaps the most controversial interpretation ofAmerican imperialism has come from a so-calledNew Left school of writers, inspired by WilliamAppleman Williams (and before him by V. I. Lenin’s1916 book Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capital-ism). Historians such as Williams and Walter LaFeberargue that the explanation for political and militaryexpansion abroad is to be found in economic expan-sion at home. Increasing industrial output, so theargument goes, required ever more raw materials

Varying Viewpoints 663

and, especially, overseas markets. To meet thoseneeds, the nation adopted a strategy of “informalempire,” shunning formal territorial possessions(with the conspicuous exception of the Philippines),but seeking economic dominance over foreign mar-kets, materials, and investment outlets. That “revi-sionist” interpretation, in turn, has been sharplycriticized by scholars who point out that foreigntrade accounted for only a tiny share of Americanoutput and that the diplomacy of this period was fartoo complex to be reduced to “economic need.”

Most recently, historians have highlighted theimportance of race and gender in the march towardempire. Roosevelt and other imperialists perceivedtheir world in gendered terms. American society,

many feared, was losing touch with the manlyvirtues. It had grown soft and “feminine” since theclosing of the frontier. Imperialists also saw thenations of the world in a strict racial hierarchy, with“primitive” blacks and Indians at the bottom and“civilized” Anglo-Saxons at the top. In this world-view the conquest of “inferior” peoples seemed nat-ural—a tropical tonic to restore the nation’smasculine virility. Scholars who emphasize theseexplanations of imperialism are less likely to see theexpansionism of the 1890s as an aberration inAmerican history. Instead, they argue, these over-seas adventures were part of a long tradition of race-fueled militarism, from the nation’s earliest Indianwars to Cold War engagements in Korea and Vietnam.

For further reading, see page A20 of the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.