Transcript American Imperialism: Altruism or Self

American Imperialism:
Altruism or Self Interest?
The “White City” and the White Man’s Burden: Progressive
Reform and the Imperialist Impulse
Since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and
the people of the United State have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced
upon them.... Movement has been its dominant fact, and, unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will
continually demand a wider field for its existence. But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. For a moment, [with the
closing of the frontier]... the bonds of custom are broken.... [And yet,] the stubborn American environment is there with its imperious
summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there.... [Throughout American history] in spite of
environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the
past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons,
have accompanied the frontier.
-Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in Americans History" (1893)
The White City:
The World’s Columbian Exposition (1893)
The Spanish-American War: The
Splendid Little War
William McKinley, “War Message” (1898)
The following is William McKinley’s address asking Congress to declare war on Spain. As you read, think carefully about what it
suggests about the immediate and underlying causes of the Spanish-American War. Did the U.S. enter the war out of altruism or selfinterest?
It becomes my duty to now address [Congress] with regard to the grave crisis that has arisen in the relations of the United States to
Spain by reason of the warfare that for more than three years has raged in the neighboring island of Cuba....
The grounds for... [United States military] intervention may briefly be summarized as follows:
First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and
which parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop.... It is no answer to say that this is all in another country, belonging to
another nation, and is therefore none of our business. It is especially our duty, for it is right at our door.
Second. We owe it to our [U.S.] citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection... for life and property which no government there can
or will afford... and to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection.
Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the
wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island.
Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace and entails
upon this Government an enormous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people
have such trade and business relations; when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant danger... where our trading vessels are
libel to seizure and are seized at our very door by war ships of a foreign nation... all these... with the resulting strained relations, are a
constant menace to our peace and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace....
Imperialism Cartoons
It’s truly amazing what a little training will do!
Why only the other day I thought that man unable to support himself.
Imperialism Cartoons
Debate: American “Imperialism”Altruism or Self Interest?
A Selective Timeline of US Intervention Abroad
1823 Monroe Doctrine
1845 O’Sullivan coins “Manifest Destiny”; Mexican War
1878 Samoa: Pago-Pago base- “coaling stations” and strategic outposts
1893 Hawaii seeks independence with new constitution. Put down by US, Hawaii annexed
1898 Spanish-American War:
1899 Open Door Policy
1900 Platt Amendment
1901 Lima v. Bidwell
1904 Roosevelt Corollary
1909-33
US troops in Nicaragua
1914 Panama Canal
1945-1989 The Cold War
1946 Marshall Islands
1949 US supports pro-American military regime in Greece ; Truman Doctrine
1950 Korean War
1953 US supports coup military coup in Guatemala against reformer Arbenz
1954-75
Vietnam War
1969 Bombing of Cambodia
1973 US backs overthrow of Salvador Allende of Chile, supporting military junta of Augusto Pinochet
1973 US begins support for rebels in Afghanistan to undermine Soviet control
1968 CIA backed coup installs new regime in Iraq, leading to rise of Saddam Hussein
1980 US supports “contras” against Sandinista government of Nicaragua
1980 US supports military junta in El Salvador
1988 US invades Panama to bring General Noriega to US to stand trial on drug trafficking charges
1991 Gulf War: Iraq invades Kuwait and the US leads a multinational force to reestablish Kuwaiti sovereignty
1999 US intervenes in Bosnia and Kosovo to push back Serbian forces and end ethnic cleansing
2001 Invasion of Afghanistan
2002 Iraq War
Carrying the Big Stick:
Progressive Foreign Policy in Latin America
Theodore Roosevelt, The Roosevelt Corollary (1904)
In 1904 the government of the Dominican Republic went bankrupt and Theodore Roosevelt feared that Germany and other nations might
intervene forcibly to collect their debts. In response, Roosevelt issued the Roosevelt Corollary (to the Monroe Doctrine) as part of an 1904
message to Congress. Roosevelt and later U.S. presidents cited the corollary to justify U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic, Cuba,
Nicaragua, Mexico and Haiti.
It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger... as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their
welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous... If a nation shows that it knows
how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no
interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized
society [however], may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere
the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such
wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.... While [our Southern neighbors] obey the primary laws of
civilized society they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy.... It is a mere truism to say
that every nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that
the right of such independence can not be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.
Making the World Safe for Democracy:
The U.S. and World War I
Woodrow Wilson, “War Message” (1917)
When World War I began in 1914, the U.S. adopted a policy of neutrality – seeing the war as essentially a European conflict. In response
to German violations of American trading rights (and a host of other, less immediate factors), on April 2, 1917 President Wilson asked
Congress to declare war on Germany.
On the third of February... I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and
after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law and humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel
that sought to approach [any Allied port].... Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their
errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of
friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents....
It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn
of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk... in the same way.... The challenge is to all mankind. Each
nation must decide for itself how it will meet it.... Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the
nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion....
With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking... I advise that [the U.S.] formally accept the status
of belligerent that has thus been trust upon it....
We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never
have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power... there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the
world. We are now about to accept gauge of battle with its natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation
to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad... to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its
peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of
life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy....
The Failure of Wilsonian Idealism and
the Return To Isolation
Article X of the League of Nations (1919)
At the Versailles Peace Conference following World War I, the leaders of the other "Big Four" nations " Britain, France and Italy
" resisted many of Wilson’s proposals for the post war world that he had outlined in his Fourteen Points and insisted that
Germany pay reparations for starting the war. Wilson did succeed, however, in making sure that his proposal for a League of
Nations was included in the final draft of the Versailles Treaty.
The United States Senate (which has the Constitutional obligation to approve treaties by a 2/3rds vote) refused to adopt the
Treaty of Versailles primarily because it mandated the formation of a League of Nations. For many Republicans in the Senate,
Article X (ten) was the most objectionable provision. In 1919 Wilson became ill while campaigning for support for the League of
Nations (and the Versailles Treaty more generally). The Senate never did ratify the Versailles Treaty and the U.S. " a world
power " never joined the League of Nations, hampering the League’s credibility as a mediator of world conflict.
As you read, think about why Article X was objectionable to Senate Republicans and to Americans more generally. And, think
about what the American rejection of the League of Nations might suggest about the way Americans felt about Progressivism in
1920.
The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and
existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger
of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.
Legacy of “Empire”