American Propaganda and War in the Philippines

Volume 11 | Issue 40 | Number 1 | Article ID 4002 | Oct 01, 2013 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Selling Empire: American Propaganda and War in the Philippines Susan A. Brewer adventure and civilizing mission. Dissent, however, flourished among a minority called anti-imperialists. Setting precedents for all And of all our race He has marked wartime presidents who would follow, McKinley the American people as his chosen enhanced the power of the chief executive to nation to finally lead in the build a public consensus in support of an regeneration of the world. This is expansionist foreign policy.1 the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the This article explores McKinley’s use of wartime glory, all the happiness possible to propaganda extolling national progress and man. unity to aid his successful navigation of the transition of the United States to great power Senator Albert J. Beveridge, 1900 status. The president and his supporters did not portray the United States as an imperial I thought it would be a great thing power in the European manner. To win support to give a whole lot of freedom to for far-reaching changes in foreign policy, the Filipinos, but I guess now it’s McKinley explained overseas expansion in better to let them give it to terms of American traditions and drew on themselves. familiar themes from the past. The last Civil Mark Twain, 1900 War veteran to serve as president, he celebrated the coming together of the North and South to fight a common enemy. He At the turn of the twentieth century, Americans portrayed American expansion in the Pacific as and Filipinos fought bitterly for control of the a continuation of manifest destiny. He Philippine Islands. The United States viewed compared the Filipinos to Native Americans, the Pacific islands as a stepping-stone to the calling them savage warriors or “little brown markets and natural resources of Asia. The brothers.” Appealing to popular attitudes of the Philippines, which had belonged to Spain for times, he encouraged Americans to fulfill their three hundred years, wanted independence, not manly duty to spread Christian civilization. The another imperial ruler. For the Americans, the United States, he asserted, was a liberator, not acquisition of a colony thousands of miles from a conqueror.2 its shores required a break with their anti- imperial traditions. To justify such a break, the administration of William McKinley proclaimed that its policies benefited both Americans and Filipinos by advancing freedom, Christian benevolence, and prosperity. Most of the Congress, the press, and the public rallied to the flag, embracing the war as a patriotic 1 11 | 40 | 1 APJ | JF reporters accurately conveyed the president’s views, his staff issued press releases, timing the distribution so that reporters on deadline filed only the administration’s version of the story. Through news management, the McKinley administration disseminated war propaganda based on facts, lies, ideas, patriotic symbols, and emotional appeals.3 In contrast to the more rambunctious expansionists of the day, the genial McKinley exuded calm and dignity. As noted by his contemporary, the British historian and diplomat James Bryce, American leaders put considerable effort into leading opinion while appearing to follow it. The president spoke publicly of America’s expanded influence in the Caribbean and the Pacific as though it had happened by chance or been willed by God. His Hawaii, Cuba, and the Philippinesactions, however, made the acquisition of an celebrate the Independence Day of the empire no accident. In addition, his public United States. July 1898. Charles L.position of passivity made it difficult for critics Bartholomew, Minneapolis Journal. to challenge his policies until they were well (Cartoons of the Spanish-American War by under way. McKinley, observed the astute Bart, Minneapolis: Journal Printing Co, Henry Adams, a grandson and great-grandson 1899). of presidents, was “a marvelous manager of men.” While politicians, members of the press, To rally support for his policy, the McKinley and military men freely expressed their administration mastered the latestcriticisms of U.S. policy, the president and his communication technology to shape thefellow expansionists took the country to war portrayal of the war by the media of the day. with Spain, built a consensus for keeping the McKinley was the first to have his inauguration Philippines, and maintained support for waging filmed and to have a secretary who met daily war against Filipinos who fought for their with the press, “for a kind of family talk,” as independence. In doing so, they constructed a journalist Ida Tarbell put it. Reporters were persuasive version of U.S. policy in the provided with a table and chairs in the outer- Philippines as a “divine mission” that not only reception room of the Executive Mansion disguised the realities of war and conquest, but where they could chat with important visitors also would serve in years to come as an and even the president if he approached them example of America’s commitment to spreading first. McKinley paid special attention to the freedom.4 representatives of the wire services, the news agencies that sent syndicated stories by Competition for Empire telegraph to subscribing newspapers across the country. The president’s staff, which grew from The war between the Americans and the six to eighty, monitored public opinion by Filipinos was just one of many colonial wars studying daily hundreds of newspapers from taking place in the late 1800s and early 1900s around the country. To make sure thatas the world’s industrialized powers scrambled 2 11 | 40 | 1 APJ | JF for dominance in Africa and Asia. Britain Pacific. Mahan’s ideas had powerful support doubled its imperial territory, France acquired from McKinley, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R- three and a half million square miles including MA), Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Indochina, and Russia expanded east. The Roosevelt, and other expansionists, called aging Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Spanish “jingoes.” In particular, the United States empires struggled to hang on to what they had. wanted access to China with its millions of Up-and-coming nations—Germany, Japan, and potential customers. So did Japan, Britain, the United States—sought to expand their Germany, Russia, and France. The imperial influence. Imperial powers clashed overpowers threatened to divide up China as they faraway frontiers and subdued native peoples had Africa. In January 1898, the U. S. Minister who resisted foreign rule. New technologies to China warned Washington, “partition would often made these fights one-sided. To fuel destroy our markets.” Within months the economic expansion, businessmen and traders United States would be a Pacific power competed over investments, raw materials, and practicing direct imperialism in the Philippines markets, backing railroad construction in to advance indirect imperialism in China.6 China, digging copper mines in Africa, and selling sewing machines to Pacific Islanders. American expansionists of the white, Anglo- Missionaries of many faiths crusaded for the Saxon, and Protestant middle and upper classes souls of the “heathen,” preaching ancient were confident that they could lead at home beliefs as well as western attitudes about and overseas. Citing Social Darwinism and culture and consumer goods. Explorers raced scientific studies that demonstrated the to plant their flags. Claims of national glory superiority of the white race, they viewed white accompanied many of these exploits, along with American men to be dominant by virtue of their justifications of spreading progress andevolved good character and civilized self- stability. Such fierce competition for territory, control. The men of decadent Spain, they economic gain, and souls often produced thought, had gone soft. They considered non- upheaval instead.5 white people to be no more than children, primitive and wild, in need of the guidance of a His goal, McKinley told Governor Robert big brother or great white father. Women, LaFollette of Wisconsin was to “attain U.S. viewed as weak and passive, also required supremacy in world markets.” The United protection. Such attitudes reassured these States had settled its western frontier,leaders of their natural supremacy at a time wrapping up thirty years of conflict with the when millions of Catholic and Jewish Native Americans. With their own continental immigrants arrived from Southern and Eastern empire to manage, American expansionists Europe, the women’s suffrage movement seemed more interested in indirectagitated for the vote, African Americans imperialism---informal dominance through challenged the “color line” drawn by economic power---than direct imperialism, segregationists in the South, and workers and which entailed hands-on governance. For farmers demanded radical reforms. These instance, U.S. companies already had made leading men preferred the status quo at home. fortunes out of bananas and minerals from War overseas provided an escape from “the Latin America. To further economic expansion, menace and perils of socialism and Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan of the U.S. Navy agrarianism,” thought Henry Watterson, the advocated the construction of a canal through editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, just “as Central America, the buildup of a strong navy England has escaped them, by a policy of to protect trade routes, and the acquisition of colonialism and conquest.” In a nation at war, refueling bases in the Caribbean and the the leaders believed, everyone would know and 3 11 | 40 | 1 APJ | JF accept their place in society whether at the top New York World and St. Louis Post Dispatch or the bottom. Freedom was only for “people and William Randolph Hearst of the New York capable of self-restraint,” said TheodoreJournal and San Francisco Examiner competed Roosevelt, who ironically was seen as a bit of for readers (and advertisers) with exposés, wild man himself.7 stunts, comics, sports coverage, women’s features, and exciting accounts of foreign American expansionists drew on these beliefs conflicts.

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