The Origins of the American Empire

 

I.              Timing of an expansionist foreign policy – Why now?

 

 

-- Industrial expansion convinces some U.S. politicians and businessmen to pay more attention to countries abroad as possible markets for American products. The European market offers tangible gains. Elsewhere, there is only “potential” for gains. Much of this “potential” is overstated – especially the so-called China market.

 

-- The Depression of 1893 gives a sense of urgency – “We must gain foreign markets before the next depression hits.” 

 

-- The other Great Powers – France, England, Germany, Japan, and Russia – appear to be expanding their influence into the non-industrialized world and the Americans fear they are being “shut out.”

Even if we don’t yet have markets to exploit, we need to expand our influence in the developing world before other nations get ahead of us.

 

-- Politics: Anti-British rhetoric (“Twisting the lion’s tail”) always plays well with voters.

 

GENDERED LANGUAGE EMERGES à late 19th Century

 

-- Broader crisis of masculinity brought on by the closing of the frontier and urbanization and industrialization

     

      Men no longer “tame the West” or fight wars, they have seditary office jobs and are “going soft.”

 

II.            The Spanish-American War

 

A.  ORIGINS

 

1868. CUBA LIBRE! Movement begins. Spanish imperial government is corrupt and authoritarian. Small clique of Spanish landowners exploit the labor of native workers and treat them terribly. Backed up by the Spanish military.

 

U.S. government defends Cubans and protests Spain’s policies. Spain promises reform. None forthcoming.

 

1895. Cuban rebels take up a new strategy. To get rid of the Spanish, cut their source of revenue.  BURN the sugar cane fields.

 

“Work is a crime against the Revolution! Blessed be the Torch!” – Maximo Gomez

 

Latest American TARIFF (1894) helps the rebels’ cause, since it too undermines the sugar industry – Spanish planters have less of a market in the U.S. because of the high tariff (40% duty).

 

SPAIN RESPONDS – sends in General Weyler to crack down. Known as “Butcher” Weyler, he institutes CONCENTRATION policy. Put people in camps to keep them away from sabotaging the fields and to keep them away from the influence of the revolutionaries. Leave the camp and get shot. Pent up in overcrowded cities, BETWEEN 100,000 and 400,000 civilians die of hunger or disease.

 

STUPID POLICY

 

1. Alienates professional middle class that would have been satisfied with home rule rather than independence. Middle class now sides with the rebels.

 

2. Deprives Spanish planters of their labor and diverts military protection from the field to the cities

 

3. Spurs outrage in the United States. Demands for Cuban independence that will lose face for the Spainards who may have been ready to back off anyway.

 

By the end of 1897 even the Spanish loyalists in Cuba want Weyler out.

 

B. US RESPONSE

 

US condemns Spanish for breaking earlier promises of reform.  New Spanish government removes Weyler and promises to stand down. 

 

Penny press seizes on the sensational aspects of the story. Hearst and Pulitzer vie for most outrageous atrocity stories.

 

Hearst sends artist FREDERIC REMINGTON to “draw” the war.

R à “All is peaceful. No war to draw.”

H à “You supply the pictures. I’ll supply the war.”

 

BUT THE PRESS HARDLY DRAGS THE US INTO WAR.

 

No one in the heartland reads the Hearst papers, but people are still angry at the Spanish treatment of Cubans. 

 

Americans were very idealistic, had supported popular revolutions in Hungary (1849) and Greece (1820s). Not surprising that they would support one so close to home

 

CUBAN CAUSE APPEALS TO U.S. SENSE OF MISSION

 

Those disgusted with the increasingly commercial nature of the US – focus only on the bottom line and making money – and politics as usual see support of Cuban “cause” as an opportunity for a new MORAL RENEWAL.

 

Time to take up our DUTY as MEN just as the Civil War generation had done.

 

WAS INTERVENTION A BIG BUSINESS CONSPIRACY?

 

In a word, NO.  Most corporate leaders who have the President’s ear adamantly opposed the war. They fear instability will jeopardize recovery from 1893 depression. 

 

Ironically, big business opposition fuels the idealism of the CUBA LIBRE! Movement. If business opposes, it must be a good and righteous cause. So many anti-business Americans join in the chorus for war.

 

C. WAR BREAKS OUT

 

McKinley strongly opposed intervention. As a Civil War vet, he had “SEEN THE BODIES STACKED UP LIKE CORDS OF LUMBER” He also knows the army is in shambles; generals are relics; no logistical infrastructure to launch an amphibious invasion

 

Baited by interventionists or JINGOES – Theodore Roosevelt: McKinley has the backbone of a chocolate éclair.  Gendered language – are you a man or not?  Are you “yellow”?

 

BY 1898…

 

Spanish oppression has resumed.

 

DeLome letter ridiculing McKinley is leaked and printed in a Hearst paper. Challenge to the nation as well as McKinley’s manhood.

 

McKinley doesn’t want war, but must do something.

Sends the USS Maine on a “good will” mission

 

FEBRUARY 15 MAINE EXPLODES. CALL FOR WAR IN AMERICAN PAPERS

 

McKinley doesn’t want war. STALL FOR TIME.  APPOINT A COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE.  Committee concludes the Maine was destroyed by a mine.

 

Press cries: “REMEMBER THE MAINE!”

 

STEP BACK and ASSESS the situation from each point of view….

 

CUBAN rebels think they’re on the brink of winning. They won’t back down, negotiate a cease fire, or compromise. They increase their demands on Spain.

 

SPANISH realize they can’t put down the rebellion, but can probably maintain the status quo, so it doesn’t have to yield and it won’t yield for fear that its own government will fall. Public opinion won’t accept surrender. Yet it doesn’t want to stay. Needs an honorable way out – much better to lose a war to the Americans than have the Cubans kick them out.

 

UNITED STATES  McKinley under great pressure, even from Democrats who had previously opposed intervention. Midterm elections are coming up and they see they can make political hay by painting the president as weak. MORE GENDERED TALK: are you a man or not?

 

McKinley sits up nights contemplating his next move. He will ask for authority to used the armed forces

 

 

BACK TO THE STORY….

 

WAR FOR CUBA BEGINS IN THE PHILIPPINES

 

Admiral Dewey had been told to be ready to leave Hong Kong to attack the Spanish in the Philippines.

 

1 MAY – DEWEY STEAMS INTO MANILLA BAY

Harbor mined with mines…without fuses.

“Fire when ready, Gridley!”

Spanish fleet wiped out in 5 hours. Eight US sailors wounded from flying wood splinters of exploding Spanish ships.

 

US has first hero of the war

 

OH DEWEY WAS THE MORNING

 

UPON THE FIRST OF MAY

 

AND DEWEY WAS THE ADMIRAL

 

DOWN IN MAILLA BAY

 

AND DEWEY WERE THE KING OF SPAIN’S EYES

 

THOSE ORBS OF ROYAL BLUE

 

AND DO WE FEEL DISCOURAGED?

 

I DO NOT THINK WE DO!

 

 

Babies named after him; GUM- Dewey’s Chewies; laxative; had his wife not been a Catholic, he might have been nominated for president.

 

ACROSS THE WORLD, THE FIGHT BEGINS IN CUBA

 

Logistical nightmare. How to move 17,000 men from Florida to Cuba?

 

Teddy Roosevelt’s horse pushed off the ship and instead of heading toward land promptly swims off to sea.  Luckily, he brought a spare.

 

Uniforms stuck in a railroad depot for weeks -- Wool uniforms; embalmed beef “DISGUSTING IN TASTE EXCEPT TO THE MAGGOTS WHO GOT TO IT BEFORE THE SOLDIERS DID”

 

Bad sanitary conditions; 5400 US soldiers DEAD -- only 345 of them in battle. The rest die from disease.

 

Army leadership was poor – ex-Civil War generals, some Confederate

One charges up San Juan Hill yelling, “WE’VE GOT THE DAMN YANKEES ON THE RUN!”

 

No shortage of spirit though

Everyone volunteered – blacks, Indians, Wild West performers, Harvard types out to prove their manhood, Southerners out to prove their loyalty.

 

Demonstrated during the charge up Kettle Hill

TR charges into a hail of bullets, sword drawn. Come on, boys! Are you afraid to stand up while I am on horseback?”

 

Spanish troops, many of them barefoot teenagers who don’t want to be there anyway can’t figure out these Americans. 

 

The Americans charge into rifle fire coming at them from higher ground, and having reached the top of the hill,

 

Spanish POWs recall: “THEY TRIED TO CATCH US WITH THEIR HANDS!”

 

NO COLOR LINE

 

“HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THAT NEGRO CAVALRY, THE ROUGH RIDERS WOULD HAVE BEEN EXTERMINATED.” Says one of TR’s men.

 

Within five months, the Spanish surrender. A SPLENDID LITTLE WAR, declared the US Secretary of State.

 

US TAKES CONTROL OF CUBA, PUERTO RICE, GUAM, PHILIPPINES

 

 

IV.       Aftermath of the War – What now?

 

            What to do with new territories?

 

Platt Amendment forbids US from keeping CUBA as a colony

 

US DECIDES IT MUST PURSUE AN IMPERIAL POLICY AND TAKE CONTROL OF THESE TERRITORIES, BUT IT DOES SO VERY RELUCTANTLY…

 

US buys Philippines for $20 million from Spain

 

WHY keep the Empire? – MOTIVATIONS

 

1. DUTY

 

Spiritual UPLIFT and MISSION.

 

Bring American “know-how” to those less fortunate.  This the Americans did.

 

OPEN SCHOOLS, IMPROVE HEALTH FACILITIES, PAVE ROADS, INTRODUCE BANKING, MODERNIZE FARMING, INTRODUCE EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICES.

 

2. DESTINY

 

Had it stopped at DUTY, perhaps things would have been ok. But racism was tied closely to notions of DESTINY. Americans had no interest in input from the native people, many of whom saw how the Americans could help them, but wanted a voice in their own country. When the Americans ran into resistance, they justified their attacks on the natives as “God’s will” and appealed to social Darwinism to justify atrocities. Anyone who opposed the US impeded “progress.”

 

First two “D”s are IDEALISTIC motivations

 

Second two “D”s are REALISTIC motivations

 

3. DEFENSE

                       

US feels it must retain a presence in Philippines or other nations will move into the power vacuum and keep us from having coaling stations.

 

This is an argument discussed in Washington, but the average person does not think in such sophisticated ways. A small group of elites think in strategic terms and read Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theories about projecting naval power, but the “defense” argument doesn’t sell well with the people. They prefer the “uplifting” and idealistic arguments.

 

4. DOLLARS

 

Some claim “Big Business” wants captive/sheltered markets and raw materials – not really

 

Sugar Trust doesn’t want access to more sugar – Colonies would glut the market; good for consumers, but not for the Sugar Trust.

 

Maintaining empire costs money; HIGH TAXES

Business doesn’t like high taxes

 

Filipinos hardly seemed a good market for US steel, woolens, and cotton. China market more a myth than an immediate reality

 

Europe remains primary market and competing with European powers for colonial markets could result in retaliation – Europeans cut off their markets to US goods.

 

            CODA

 

            THE PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION

 

 1899 Filipinos want their independence.  One faction led by Emelio Aguinaldo, who thought had a deal with Dewey for independence when his soldiers helped the Americans capture the capitol, Manilla.

 

Aguinaldo launches a guerilla war; 7000 Americans die in battle, more than had died during the Spanish-American War. Costs US $400 million

 

US retaliates with a re-concentration policy. 200,000 Filipino civilians die. Looks suspiciously like the Spanish policy the US had condemned.

 

Ultimately, US triumphs since Aguinaldo had never won the support of a majority of Filipinos, many of whom joined with the US. He was upper class and most Filipinos believed his rule would be no less oppressive than the Spanish or the Americans.

 

The disaster in the Philippines spurs debate at home

 

Soldiers supposedly sent out to show their manliness were being turned into savages in the jungle – atrocities evidence this.

 

Racism surfaces.  Imperialists claim natives are incapable of self-government and must be supervised.

 

Many anti-imperialists want nothing to do with the “low” races and argue that the U.S. should pull out altogether.

 

The US doesn’t retreat into isolation, but imperial adventures in Asia are put on hold.