Chapter 27 Study Guide

Thought Questions: While you are reading the chapter for the first time, write down a couple questions or observations that come to mind for class discussion. These thoughts could be about ideas you do not understand or ideas you find curious or interesting.

America Turns Outward

3. What factors caused America to turn its attention to the world beyond her borders?

Spurning the Hawaiian Pear

4. Why did President Cleveland not want to annex Hawaii?

Cubans Rise in Revolt

5. What was happening in Cuba that caused Americans to be concerned?

Dewey's May Day Victory at Manila

6. Why did Commodore Dewey have such an easy victory over the Spanish fleet at the Philippines?

The Confused Invasion of Cuba

7. Describe the fighting in Cuba.

America's Course (Curse?) of Empire

8. What were the arguments for and against the annexation of the Philippines?

Makers of America: The Puerto Ricans

9. How has U.S. citizenship caused Puerto Ricans to be different from other immigrants?

Perplexities in Puerto Rico and Cuba

10. Describe American treatment of Cuba after the Spanish-American War.

New Horizons in Two Hemispheres

11. What were the outcomes of the Spanish-American War?

"Little Brown Brothers" in the Philippines

12. In what way do the Philippines show the good and bad sides of American imperialism?

Hinging the Open Door in China

13. Was American involvement in China beneficial to China?

Makers of America: The Filipinos

14. Were Filipino immigrants welcomed with open arms in America? Explain.

Imperialism or Bryanism in 1900?

15. What issues were important in the 1900 election?

TR: Brandisher of the Big Stick

16. Give evidence to show that Teddy Roosevelt was an unconventional president?

Building the Panama Canal

17. Why was the Panama route chosen for the canal?

TR's Perversion of Monroe's Doctrine

18. Explain the similarities and differences between the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary?

Roosevelt on the World Stage

19. How did Teddy Roosevelt win the Nobel Peace Prize?

Japanese Laborers in California

20. How did a school board in California act in a way that first hurt and then helped American-Japanese relations?

Varying Viewpoints: Why did America Become a World Power?

21. What caused America's foray into imperialism? Defend your opinion

great debates in american history

Great Debate (1899):

22. American imperialism. Should the United States become an imperialist power by keeping the Philippine Islands?

For: The “proimperialists”—led by expansionists like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Albert Beveridge; some business publications like the Review of Reviews and business spokespersons like Mark Hanna; and some religious leaders like the Rev. J. H. Barrows and the Rev. Josiah Strong.

Against: The “anti-imperialists”—led by writers like William James and Mark Twain; some business spokespersons like Andrew Carnegie; some labor leaders like Samuel Gompers; and some clergymen like the Rev. Charles Ames and the Rev. Henry Van Dyke.

23. ISSUE #1: Manifest Destiny. Is overseas expansion, and therefore control of the Philippines, part of the inevitable manifest destiny of the United States?

For: Proimperialist Theodore Roosevelt: “Our whole national history has been one of expansion. Under Washington and Adams we expanded westward to the Mississippi. Under Jefferson we expanded across the continent to the mouth of the Columbia.…The same will be true of the Philippines. Nations that expand and nations that do not expand may ultimately go down, but the one leaves heirs and a glorious memory, and the other leaves neither.”

Against: Anti-imperialist Carl Schurz: “Whenever there is a project on foot to annex a foreign territory to this republic the cry of ‘manifest destiny’ is raised to produce the impression that all opposition to such a project is a struggle against fate. The fate of the American people is in their own wisdom and will. If they devote their energies to the development of what they possess within their present limits…their ‘manifest destiny’ will be the preservation of the exceptional and invaluable advantages they now enjoy.…”

24. ISSUE #2: Democracy. Would ruling another nation be compatible with basic American ideals of democracy and self-government?

For: Proimperialist New York Tribune: “Cannibals govern themselves. The half-ape creatures of the Australian bush govern themselves. The Eskimo governs himself, and so do the wildest tribes of darkest Africa. But what kind of a government is it?”

Against: Anti-imperialist Rev. Henry Van Dyke: “How can we pass by the solemn and majestic claim of our Declaration of Independence, that ‘government derives its powers from the consent of the governed’? How can we face the world as a union of free states holding vassal states in subjection, a mighty mongrel nation in which a republic is tied to an empire, and democracy bears children not to be distinguished from the off-spring of absolutism?”

25. ISSUE #3: Economic benefit. Is acquiring the Philippines essential for America’s economic health and future trade with Asia?

For: Proimperialist American Wool and Cotton Exporter: “Annexation is important because the contingencies of our China trade bid fair to be such as to make the Philippines exceedingly valuable to us as a basis for operations in the continent of China.”

Against: Anti-imperialist Carl Schurz: “I agree that we cannot have too many foreign markets. But can such markets be opened only by annexing to the United States the countries in which they are situated?”

26. ISSUE #4: Race. Should the dark-skinned Filipinos be brought under the rule of white-skinned Americans?

For: Proimperialist The Textile Record: “Supremacy in the world appears to be the destiny of the race to which we belong, the most competent governor of inferior races.…The clear path of duty for us appears to be to bring to the people of the Spanish islands in the Pacific and the Atlantic an opportunity to rise from misery and hopelessness to a promise of just government and commercial success.”

Against: Anti-imperialist Henry Labouchère: [A parody of Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden.” See text]

“Pile on the brown man’s burden

Nor do not deem it hard

If you should earn the rancor

Of those ye yearn to guard.

The screaming of your eagle

Will drown the victim’s sob

Go on through fire and slaughter

There’s dollars on the job.

Pile on the brown man’s burden

And through the world proclaim

That ye are freedom’s agent—

There’s no more paying game!

And should your own past history

Straight in your teeth be thrown

Retort that Independence

Is good for whites alone.”

REFERENCES: E. Berkeley Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890–1920 (1970); Richard Welch, ed., Imperialists vs. Anti-Imperialists (1972).

expanding the “varying viewpoints”

· Julius Pratt, Expansionists of 1898 (1951).

A “traditional” view of imperialism:

“The Manifest Destiny of the 1840s had been largely a matter of emotion. Much of it had been simply one expression of a half-blind faith in the superior virility of the American race and the superior beneficence of American political institutions. In the intervening years, much had been done to provide this emotional concept with a philosophic backing.…Far-fetched and fallacious as their reasoning may appear to us, it nevertheless carried conviction.…The observation must be made that the rise of an expansionist philosophy in the United States owed little to economic influences.…The need of American business for colonial markets and fields for investment was discovered not by businessmen but by historians and other intellectuals, by journalists and politicians.”

· William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959).

A “revisionist” view of imperialism as a product of economic expansionism:

“Men like McKinley and other national leaders thought about America’s problems and welfare in an inclusive, systematized way that emphasized economics. Wanting democracy and social peace, they argued that economic depression threatened those objectives, and concluded that overseas economic expansion provided a primary means of ending that danger. They did not want war per se, let alone war in order to increase their own personal fortunes. But their conception of the world ultimately led them into war in order to solve the problems in the way that they considered necessary and best.”

questions about the “varying viewpoints”

27. Which of these two interpretations better explains (a) the war with Spain, (b) the decision to keep the Philippines, and (c) the U.S. involvement as a “great power” in world affairs?

28. Which historian would see American imperialism more as “inevitable,” and which would see it more as a matter of choice?

29. Which of the two would judge American imperialism more harshly as a violation of moral principles and a threat to American democracy?

Analysis Questions

“Some of my subjects, aided by aliens, have renounced their loyalty and revolted against the constitution and government of my kingdom. . . . Upon receiving incontestable proof that His Excellency the Minister of the United States aided and abetted their unlawful movements, and caused United States troops to be landed for that purpose, I submitted to force.” Queen Liliuokalani (1838–1917) (To President Grover Cleveland, 1893)

“The journalism that talked was a great advance from no journalism at all. But the future belongs to the journalism that acts.” William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951) (1898)

“There comes a time in the life of a nation, as in the life of an individual, when it must face great responsibilities, whether it will or no. We have now reached that time.…The guns of our warships in the tropic seas of the West and the remote East have awakened us to the knowledge of new duties.” John Hay (1838–1905)

“I need not tell you the lunatic difficulties under which we labor.…All the powers treat us as a central Hello Office, and we strive to please the public. If I looked at things as you do, in the light of reason, history, and mathematics, I should go off after lunch and die.” Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) (Letter to Henry Adams about Open Door policy, 1900)

“I have been exposed to calumny in my long fight against ignorance and falsehood.…I have served the Republic of Panama, and her interests are coincident with those of the canal. Once the treaty is ratified, I will have fulfilled the pledge I made to myself twenty-three years ago.” Philippe Bunau-Varilla (1859–1940)

“The real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt. It could not have been more Roosevelt’s triumph if he had personally lifted every shovelful of earth in its construction.” George Goethals (1858–1928) (1919)

1. What were the causes and consequences of the Spanish-American War? Did the results of the war (particularly the acquisition of the Philippines) flow from the nature of the war, or were they unexpected?

2. How was American expansionism overseas similar to previous continental expansion westward, and how was it different?

3. Was the taking of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines really a violation of fundamental American ideals of self-government and democracy?

4. What were the elements of “idealism” and “realism” in American expansionism in the 1890s? How have Americans incorporated both of these seemingly contradictory philosophies in their foreign policy?

5. Why was the Philippine-American War such a brutal affair, and why is it not as well remembered as the less costly Spanish-American War?

6. Did Roosevelt more often “speak softly” or use the “big stick”? Was his approach to foreign policy aggressive or simply energetic?

7. How did the Roosevelt Corollary distort the Monroe Doctrine? What were the consequences of the Roosevelt Corollary for American relations with Latin America?

8. Was the United States essentially acting as a “white, Western imperialist” power, or did American democratic ideals substantially restrain the imperialist impulse?

HISTORIC NOTES

· Having expanded to the Pacific Ocean by the late nineteenth century, the US will go on to establish a global empire. The first step is to defeat Spain and take over its crumbling empire. This is accomplished in the Spanish-American War when the US ostensibly comes to the aid of Cubans who are seeking to break the chains of Spanish imperialism. Having defeated the Spaniards and wrested them their empire in the Caribbean and the Pacific, the US faces an insurgency by people who earlier were its allies, notably the Cubans and Filipinos, who bridle at what they see as a new hegemonic power.

· Despite nearly coming to blows over the Venezuelan boundary dispute, the US and Britain establish a cordial relationship that has endured.

· To protect US economic interests in China, Secretary of State John Hay proposes the Open Door policy to guarantee equal trading and commercial rights in China for all. The Chinese, however, are not consulted; this exacerbates tensions between China and the western powers.

· McKinley’s assassination thrust Theodore Roosevelt into the spotlight and the oval office – a man whom most conservative Republicans distrust. Many advocates of US imperialism are not disappointed by Roosevelt’s policies, such as the construction of the Panama Canal and a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that strengthens US hegemonic influence in Latin America.

· Hawaii came under US control when the reigning monarch, Queen Lilioukalani, opposed American economic and political presence in her island country.

· The Spanish-American War facilitated the reconciliation of the North and South as both sections now had a common foreign-policy objective. An example of this development is that ex-Confederate General Joseph Wheeler fought in a war that was in part orchestrated by Lincoln’s former aid, later McKinley’s secretary of state, John Hay.

Advanced Placement United States History Topic Outline

18. The Emergence of America as a World Power

A. American imperialism: political and economic expansion

B. War in Europe and American neutrality

C. The First World War at home and abroad

D. Treaty of Versailles

E. Society and economy in the postwar years