ATTEMPTING THE IMPOSSIBLE: RECONCILING AMERICAN

IMPERIAL CULTURE AND COLONIAL REALITY AFTER

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, 1897-1905

______

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University, Chico

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

History

______

by

Kevin Dewey

Summer 2012 ATTEMPTING THE IMPOSSIBLE: RECONCILING AMERICAN

IMPERIAL CULTURE AND COLONIAL REALITY AFTER

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, 1897-1905

A Thesis

by

Kevin Dewey

Summer 2012

APPROVED BY THE DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH:

______Eun K. Park, Ph.D.

APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Gwendolyn J. Sheldon, Ed.D. James Matray, Ph.D., Chair Graduate Coordinator

______Jeffery Livingston, Ph.D.

______Judith Raftery, Ph.D. TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Abstract...... iv

CHAPTER

I. Introduction...... 1

II. Historiography...... 5

III. Buildup and Causes ...... 21

IV. Aftermath and Colonial Empire ...... 50

V. Managing the Philippines...... 81

VI. Conclusion...... 110

Bibliography...... 112

iii ABSTRACT

ATTEMPTING THE IMPOSSIBLE: RECONCILING AMERICAN

IMPERIAL CULTURE AND COLONIAL REALITY AFTER

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, 1897-1905

by

Kevin Dewey

Master of Arts in History

California State University, Chico

Summer 2012

In 1898, the United States declared war on the decrepit Spanish empire.

Originally, to protect Cuban nationalists who shared the original U.S. desire for self- determination, the war quickly developed into an excuse to obtain an empire for the

United States. Propaganda-induced war fervor, fueled by Spanish atrocities, the destruc- tion of the U.S.S. Maine and U.S. military superiority allowed a quick, relatively blood- less war. However, the political aftermath of the war and the intellectual debate con- cerning an American Empire persisted long after.

Various anti-colonial organizations, which would eventually coalesce into the Anti-Imperialist League very quickly began to criticize the McKinley administra- tion’s attempts to annex the Philippines as a U.S. protectorate. They argued from many

iv different perspectives, though generally focused on American exceptionalism, idealism and racism. There were even some who contended for annexation while still maintain- ing an anti-imperialist mindset.

As the Filipinos revolted in 1899, U.S. policymakers attempted to crush the revolt using a variety of proven European colonial tactics. Reconcentration camps and the inclusion of Filipino auxiliaries greatly disrupted the country and led to a prolonged, brutal war. The bloodiness of the campaign, and the subsequent political occupation after its end, proved that the United States had created a colonial empire. However, the

United States did not enter the Philippines to satisfy the needs of a business cabal as previously thought. Instead, it was a mixture of exceptionalism, idealism, and racism that drove Americans into the distant archipelago.

v

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The Spanish-American War breathed new life into the United States. The final years of the nineteenth century had been brutal to the young nation with constant labor strife, poor economic times, and an anxious young generation. After the war, Americans could enter the twentieth century aware that their nation had entered the world stage as an equal partner after defeating Spain. Commodore Dewey’s amazing victory, when combined with the minimal losses and quickness of the war, spelled out to most

Americans that the United States was destined for greatness. But the war initiated great change. It is the cause and degree of this change that has prompted historians to spill so much ink in explaining it.

Yet, it was less the war itself than its outcome that has garnered the attention of historians. As one author writes, “the elation of victory over Spain combined with the perceived dictates of ‘duty and responsibility’ to break down the traditional aversion of

Americans to foreign entanglements and the acquisition of colonies.”1 This departure from traditional, continental-based U.S. expansionism disgusted many, but excited many more. Again, a frontier was open for “rugged individuals,” so eloquently praised by

Frederick Jackson Turner in his Frontier Thesis, to explore, dominate, and exploit. The

1 Joseph Smith, The Spanish-American War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895- 1902 (London: Longman, 1994), 216.

1 2

United States, once confined to a single continent, could now comfortably stretch its legs and expand across the Pacific Ocean and into the Caribbean Sea.

It seemed shortly before the turn of the century that the United States was quickly deteriorating. There was a general feeling that men needed a war to rebuild their lost masculinity; a “martial spirit,” as Walter Millis puts it, was required to reintroduce classic American ideals of individualism, hard work, and an entrepreneurial spirit.2

Furthermore, the recent Civil War had produced a not fully united nation, still so even after the South’s victory during Reconstruction and the resumption of black subjugation.

Shortly after the Spanish-American War ended, President William McKinley in Cedar

Rapids, Iowa, lauded the newfound unity that it produced:

No development of the war has been more gratifying and exalting than the complete unification of the nation. Sectional lines have been obliterated; party differences have been hushed in the great chorus of patriotism which has been heard from one end of the country to the other.3

Clearly, McKinley had found a use for the war, a unifying utility that could only help him politically.

This thesis does not seek to provide a traditional account of the Spanish-

American War or the subsequent Philippine occupation. It denies the superiority of politically or nation-centered histories that explain all foreign policy through the actions of government elites and realpolitik decisions. Rather, it asserts that the cultural and intellectual influences of a particular time—in this case the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century—hold far more importance in

2 Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit (Chicago: Elephant Publishing, 1959).

3 “Speech at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, October 11, 1898,” in Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley (New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1900), 88.

3 understanding the decisions of various nations concerning imperialism and foreign relations more generally. It will describe the influence of prominent thinkers and taken- for-granted assumptions about the various players involved in the American decision to join the imperial game. In this manner, it is a top-down history, but one that assumes a certain class of society occupies a position of importance and reverence. This intellectual elite—at this time mainly political, academic and military—possessed significant relevance in manipulating the attitudes of the majority of the public. The battle between their conflicting opinions determined the generalized trends of American thought regarding foreign affairs.

The cultural, racial, and intellectual climates of the time, as the following pages will show, produced a populace much more sympathetic to overseas expansionism.

Moreover, this populace possessed a desire to wage a war to prove their masculinity and to silence doubts as to the apparent decline of the nation’s physical, psychological, and martial well-being. The United States entered the Spanish-American War not to possess colonies, but to prove its fighting prowess and humanitarianly rescue the island of Cuba.

But the swiftness of victory and the lure of colonial possessions such as the Philippines quickly changed the mind of once-reluctant policymakers. They viewed these new colonies as a chance to show the benefits of American civilization to a “savage” island population. However, U.S. leaders did so without universal support. In fact, a sizeable, articulate, and increasingly vocal majority would permanently resist. Moreover, the experiences of the Philippine occupation would sour many others to the benefits of imperialism.

4

American imperialism following the Spanish-American War was not a premeditated plan to occupy foreign markets, or the will of a closed group of influential businessmen. There certainly were supporters of expanding American markets, but they did not create policy. Rather, the American Empire exists because of unexpected historical outcomes, eventually transforming into arrogant colonialism through the cultural, intellectual, and racial beliefs of the leading political figures of the time. A description of the classic buildup of the war, an understanding of the cultural and intellectual context of the time, coupled with an examination of the Philippine state and subsequent American disenchantment, will provide a deeper, critical understanding of this important epoch in U.S. foreign relations.

CHAPTER II

HISTORIOGRAPHY

Scholarly examination of the Spanish-American War and subsequent U.S. expansionism has a long and rich history. The year 1898 has been regularly viewed as a watershed moment when the United States departed from its previous continental isolation and joined the Great Powers in the colonial division of the globe. With such importance assigned to one year, historians have long debated the causes and consequences of the shift in U.S. policy at the end of the century.

In a larger sense, historians have studied this period to unveil whether it provides evidence for continuous imperialism or represents a stark break between epochs.

Historians debate whether economic motives played a central role, or whether culture should occupy a dominant place in the scholarship. Thus, some historians argue from a perspective that stresses the importance of business relations, international markets, and big business. Others dwell on the cultural factors, such as the Yellow Press, concepts of masculinity, and race. The validity of these two positions will be discussed below.

These two dominant viewpoints developed very early to explain the sudden expansion of the United States beyond the continent. The first paradigm to mature focuses on the role of economics and its influence on the McKinley administration. This argument holds that McKinley hoped to stave off further economic problems caused by the depression of 1893 with an expansion of U.S. commercial interests to distant colonies

5 6 that could provide cheap labor and natural resources. A restive public, possessed of expansionist impulses since the nation’s inception, saw blessings in expansion not just with monetary gains, but with a spreading of American liberties.

A second thrust of historical thought spotlights the influence of social and political culture creating a palpable environment for expansionist policies. The McKinley administration hoped to build a popular political base with its expansionist policies, which were a result of the tactical and political situation more so than a preordained plan for economic development. Once again, a restless population fearing martial degeneration, hoping for sectional harmony, and arrogantly assuming U.S. superiority, encouraged the war to occur. The expansion that followed was primarily of a tactical nature that could sway easily an already friendly public. The anti-imperialists can then be seen as stalwarts of a bygone era, too geriatric to continue the once-divinely ordained concept of only continental expansion.

These two major strands of thought had developed prior to World War II, explicated in the works of Charles A. Beard and Julius W. Pratt, respectively. Historians adopted, altered, or scrapped much of this scholarship, but their influence persists to the present day. Only the scholarship of William Appleman Williams competes with these two titans. Through the Cold War, the story of the Spanish-American War was told by the Consenus School, the New Economic School, the Revisionists, and finally falling to the post-Revisionists. It is not likely that the latter school will be the last.

Accounts flourished in the years immediately following the War of 1898 with many personal memoirs and detailed accounts of the entire operation. Such works as

Henry Cabot Lodge’s The War With Spain sought to glorify the U.S. success with the

7 war, even if he held reservations that his history arrived too recently after the events described.1 John Black Atkins published his military history titled The War in Cuba shortly afterwards as a “supplement” to information already known about the war.2 In much larger numbers came personal accounts of the conflict. Due to their immediate relation to the events of the war, memoirs like these have settled in as the most important sources for historians. Countless numbers of influential or simply present individuals published their experience during the war to absolve either themselves of misunderstanding or to shed light on some aspect of policy. The journals of Charles G.

Dawes, the account of Secretary of War Russell A. Alger, and the diary of Whitelaw Reid are all examples of this tendency of important men detailing their role in affairs.3

Besides the elucidation provided by these men were more personal accounts of the deeds of individuals. Similar to those described above, but often had a more central focus on the individual—usually the author—on whom the book focuses. In many ways,

Secretary Alger’s grander work on the war falls into this category, but Theodore

Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and Admiral George Dewey’s Autobiography fit more readily.

These works often fulfilled an egotistical need to inflate the roll of various individuals.

Ever-bigheaded, Roosevelt certainly wished to elaborate in greater detail on his experience in the war and Dewey sought political leadership and nationwide influence with publication of his life’s story. Nonetheless, they provide firsthand accounts of the

1 Henry Cabot Lodge, The War With Spain (New York: Arno Press, 1970), i.

2 John Black Atkins, The War in Cuba (London: Smith, Elder, 1899), i.

3 Charles G. Dawes, A Journal of the McKinley Years (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1950); Russell A. Alger, The Spanish-American War (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1901); H. Wayne Morgan, ed., Diary of Whitelaw Reid: September-December, 1898 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965).

8 most controversial actions of the war; in fact, their works themselves often created the controversy.4

With the war slowly sliding into more distant memory, and the debate over expansionism occupying center stage, many authors attempted to elaborate on U.S. action to argue for or against U.S. expansion. Often, these works existed in response to the work of another author—a classic example being the obsequious battle between Dean C.

Worcester and Judge James Blount concerning the role of the United States in the

Philippines. Once the Cuban situation had been relatively resolved in the first years of the twentieth century, writers focused more closely on the United States’ role in the

Philippines and how that affected the nation domestically. Simultaneously, they explored the impact of U.S. imperialism often positively, as in the case of Nicholas Roosevelt.5 In turn, they also searched for the beginnings of U.S. imperialism and its original causes.

A standard explanation for the rise of U.S. imperialism, and colonialism generally, has its roots in the tendency of capitalistic nations to produce more than their home markets could consume. Thus, prices depressed and impelled industry to search for overseas markets. As early as 1902, historians argued that heightened economic impetuses— rather than those cultural, political, and racial—prompted U.S. expansion. In his seminal work on both British and U.S. colonialism, Imperialism: A Study, British historian J. A. Hobson underlines the rapid expansion of U.S. economic might and

4 George Dewey, Autobiography of George Dewey, Admiral of the Navy (New York: AMS Press, 1969), 245-255. An example of this controversy concerns the diplomacy between Admiral Dewey and Emilio Aguinaldo shortly before the war. Aguinaldo claimed Dewey and other American consulate workers promised U.S. protection of an independent Philippines. Dewey rejects this notion and his work is the key account used when discussing this problem.

5 Nicholas Roosevelt, The Philippines: A Treasure and a Problem (New York: AMS Press, 1926).

9 attributes the emergence of U.S. imperialism as “the natural product of the economic pressure of a sudden advance of capitalism which could not find occupation at home and needed foreign markets for goods and for investments.”6 Hobson argues, “Imperialism,” therefore, “is . . . not a choice, but a necessity.”7 But, as one historian commenting on

Hobson’s work noted, it “was not an economic necessity . . ., but a swindle on the . . . public carried out for the benefit of a select few.”8 Imperialism, according to Hobson, did not occur because the public yearned for it, but rather a small cabal of rich investors with overstuffed pockets needed dumping zones for their products.

Histories of this kind often owed more to socialist and communist influences.

Rosa Luxembourg and Vladimir Lenin argued similar points in their discussions of imperialism. Hobson was the first historian to tackle the issue of imperialism from this perspective. His cogent arguments and political persuasion set the tone for the debate until historians during the Great Depression embellished or discarded the role of economics in U.S. imperialism.9

In the 1930s, the scholarship of Charles A. Beard reiterated the thesis that imperialism had its roots in the capitalistic political economy of the late nineteenth century. Beard posited that the Spanish-American War was no “historic accident,” but

“the perfect upshot of a long chain of actions and leadership extending back over more

6 J. A. Hobson, “Imperialism” (1938), in American Imperialism in 1898, ed. Theodore P. Greene (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1955), 12.

7 Ibid., 9.

8 A. M. Eckstein, “Is There a ‘Hobson-Lenin Thesis’?,” The Economic History Review 44, no. 2 (May 1991), 304.

9 Thomas P. Greene, American Imperialism in 1898 (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1955), vii.

10 than half a century.”10 Such actions as the Perry’s expedition to Japan, the Ostend

Manifesto calling for seizure of Cuba, and Seward’s Folly in acquiring Alaska all proved to Beard that economic interests were not only vital to the Spanish-American War, but had existed since the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. He also downplayed the role of society and public opinion in starting the war:

Without in the slightest minimizing the lofty sentiment which accompanied the war of the United States . . ., it remains a fact that the American interests associated with Cuban industry and trade derived practical benefits from forcible intervention and expanded under the rule of law later established . . ..11

Beard certainly deserves praise for his theories explaining U.S. expansion. He set the tone for later arguments and his views have remained very popular. In addition, many authors a generation later would piggyback on his ideas, tying in Cold War developments and the increasingly shrinking world economically to substantiate their claims. These authors, like Beard, linked William McKinley to a cabal of business interests in Cuba. Though they do not deny that McKinley had humanitarian motives as his main concern for going to war, they pick out the little bits of economic interest in his words and those of “Large Policy” advocates. Their fault does not lie in the exposition of the relationship between imperialism and economics, but rather the inordinate focus on one factor that dictates foreign policy. Unsurprisingly, Beard’s hypothesis quickly came under attack.

Though economics remained at the center of historical discussion, some historians started to emphasize unique aspects of American culture to explain the sudden

10 Charles A. Beard, The Idea of National Interest (New York: MacMillan Company, 1934), 70.

11 Ibid.

11 onset of imperialism. Julius W. Pratt would argue that Manifest Destiny spurred the expansionist impulse after a lull in interest following the Grant administration and the poor economic times of the late nineteenth century. To Pratt,

geographical determinism, the superiority of [U.S.] democratic institutions, the superior fecundity, stamina, and ability of the white race . . . became a justification for almost any addition of territory which the United States had the will and the power to obtain.12

Thus, a long-standing cultural imperative, enmeshed in racism and the superiority of

American government and culture, propelled the United States into overseas expansion.

He changed the nature of the discussion radically, Thomas P. Greene explains, as he

“separate[d]the motives for war from the motivations for expansion.”13 Economics still played a vital role, but its importance as the impetus and shady organizer of expansion did not persuade Pratt.

Other historians, like Frederick Merk and Walter Millis, argued in the same vein as Pratt. Merk would assert that U.S. imperialism did not stem from Manifest

Destiny because of differences between their stated purposes and their eventual outcomes. Though Merk rightly separated the two concepts, he ignored the evolution of the expansionist concept. Citing a desire “to liquidate most, if not all, of the new empire”14 after the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, Merk draws a distinction between the eventual statehood of conquered contiguous territories in the

12 Julius W. Pratt, “It was au Courant Manifest Destiny,” in American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment, ed. Richard H. Miller (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970), 27.

13 Greene, American Imperialism, viii.

14 Frederick Merk, “Imperialism Was the Antithesis of Manifest Destiny” in American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment, ed. by Richard H. Miller (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1970), 34.

12 middle of the nineteenth century and the eventual independence of acquired overseas

Spanish possessions. Though understanding the intricacies of American culture, he misses the cultural and intellectual continuity that allowed expansionism to evolve, rather than appear as a sharp break in American history.

Walter Millis, though much later, would emphasize classically the role of the

Yellow Press in shaping American public opinion, but also would argue for an inherent martial spirit extant in American culture. This when coupled with a “partisan bitterness was of an intensity” that “any issue which would at once enlist the public’s enthusiasms and put the other party in the wrong was very powerful.”15 Nevertheless, his arguments enlivened debate and helped solidify the importance of understanding the oddities of

American culture.

By World War II, the two dominant threads of historical scholarship on U.S. imperialism had taken full form. Economics still dominated the discussion, but cultural historians still maintained some currency. The debate between Merk and Pratt illustrates the slow maturation of thought on imperialism within these two main branches. The beginnings of the Cold War and a society more readily adapted to more friendly views of past U.S. policy dramatically altered the status quo. These writers were dubbed the

Consensus School and saw in the Spanish-American War an aberration, a fluke of U.S. foreign policy. As Richard Hofstadter argued at the time, politicians in the 1890s “were persistently using jingoism to restore their prestige.”16 The depression of the 1890s created conditions that worried policymakers who sought outside aid to soothe their

15 Millis, Martial Spirit, 9.

16 Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 152.

13 country’s many woes. Thus, imperialism was a scam, an aberration, or a temporary insanity that befell the nation.

Likely influenced by the prosperity and culture of 1950s America, the

Consensus School conferred a particularly positive image on U.S. expansionism. The people escaped criticism for their imperialist actions as they merely protested domestic ills at home. Historians could blame a small group of expansionists in government who capitalized on their countrymen’s legitimate grievances for domestic reform. To the next generation of historians, however, it looked peculiarly like an excuse.

The rosiness of the Consensus School quickly faded as the 1960s tarnished the image of the United States’ both domestically and abroad. Though beginning his scholarship in the later 1950s, the writings of William Appleman Williams gained their most credence a decade later. He established the New Left School, training such historians as Walter LaFeber and Thomas McCormick. Williams in his seminal book

Empire as a Way of Life summarizes his main analytical argument:

The Empire as a territory and as activities dominated economically, politically, and psychologically by a superior power is the result of empire as a way of life. This is particularly important in the case of the United States because from the beginning the persuasiveness of empire as a way of life effectively closed off other ways of dealing with the reality that Americans encountered.”17 [Italics original]

Imperialism was not a fluke or some minor temporary problem that soon ceased to be of importance. The very fabric of American society revolved around the idea of the expansion of American prerogatives. Expansion “provided [Americans] with renewable

17 William A. Williams, Empire as a Way of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 4.

14 opportunities, wealth, and other benefits and satisfactions including a psychological sense of well-being and power.”18

Other writers looked to the time before the 1890s for signs of restless expansionism. They argued that expansion was an inherent aspect of American culture in existence during the alleged nadir of U.S. interest abroad after the Civil War. “Despite the preoccupation with internal problems and the general aversion to overseas expansion,” Milton Plesur writes, “America in the Gilded Age was never totally inactive in foreign affairs.”19 Increasing American tourism abroad, expanding markets, improving transportation, and fervent missionary activity all contributed to the newfound

“imperialist urge” of the nineteenth century.20 Thus, the Spanish-American War did not represent a sharp departure from previous U.S. foreign relations, but was the next step in a logical continuum.

Nineteenth-century expansion did not appear out of nowhere, but existed as an inherent feature in American society. Ostensibly, the United States expanded to gobble up distant markets, propelled into this predicament by an overgrowth of domestic production. Since early revered American figures had warned against imperialism, most

Americans needed another reason to nudge them toward aggressive expansion. David

Healy puts it nicely: “Had the American public seen no national advantage in imperialism, they would never have embarked upon it merely to do good; yet, had they

18 Williams, Empire, 13.

19 Milton Plesur, America’s Outward Thrust: Approaches to Foreign Affairs, 1865-1890 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), 7.

20 Ibid.; David Healy, U.S. Expansionism: The Imperialist Urge in the 1890s (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), 5.

15 seen no good in it, it is extremely doubtful that enough of them could have been persuaded to support it . . ..”21 Americans had their doubts about imperialism, but the lure of foreign markets, exotic adventures, and a confident belief that the spread of American institutions was a blessing to the world, allowed the public to be manipulated.

Other writers like Howard Zinn and Paul B. Schirmer would take this a step further, acidly criticizing U.S. behavior. Zinn especially would condemn the culpability of Americans in coveting colonies. These writers represented the ultimate culmination of the ideas of the New Left School. Bitterly antagonistic to the status quo, they revealed an overwhelming bias that exaggerates the intent of industrialists and businessmen to establish colonies. Similarly, Zinn overstates the economic influence on ardent expansionists. For example, he declares that “Roosevelt’s talk of expansionism was not just a matter of manliness and heroism; he was conscious of ‘our trade relations with

China.’ ”22 Roosevelt definitely contemplated the Eastern market—he discusses it occasionally in his correspondences—but it held far less importance than his fears of

American martial degeneration. Thus, Zinn plunges too deeply into his own bias against

American business.

Though the New Left School focused on the role of industrialization and influential economic moguls, it competently supported its claims with an understanding of the culture. However, there is still a strong undertone of intent. Large Policy advocates attract significant attention for leading the United States into the quagmire of the

Philippines. Moreover, writers in this vein tended to blame the McKinley administration

21 Healy, U.S. Expansionism, 5.

22 Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 300.

16 for starting a war with the preconceived idea of expansion. This was not the case.

Certainly a strong expansionist sentiment existed in the United States prior to the war, but this feeling did not manifest itself entirely in expansion of a religious or economic variety. Race, gender, and cultural trepidations played a profound role in encouraging colonial endeavors.

By the 1980s, historians began to question the now-established New Left

School from a variety of angles. First, the role of President McKinley was reexamined in such works as John Dobson’s Reticent Expansionism, H. Wayne Morgan’s William

McKinley and His America, and Lewis J. Gould’s The Presidency of William McKinley.

These works viewed the infamous president in a more sympathetic light. They reassessed his anti-expansionism, religious beliefs—here a reference to McKinley’s famous epiphany that propelled him to annex the Philippines—and leadership qualities. Instead of an aggressive, cabalistic crony of big business, McKinley emerges in these studies as a strong leader ably guiding his country through a crisis that he did not create or wish to see continue.

As they did with McKinley, historians began to doubt the inevitability of U.S. expansion and convictions of many eventual expansionists. The 1890s became a much more nuanced time, as the events with Spain changed many contemporaries’ positions on overseas activity. According to Thomas G. Paterson, historians created different forms of analysis, such as viewing the Spanish-American War internationally, regionally, nationally, and individually.23 Less focus was placed on searching for the foundation of

23 Thomas G. Paterson, “United States Intervention in Cuba, 1898: Interpretations of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War,” The History Teacher 29, no. 3 (1996): 342.

17

U.S. expansion. Instead, historians looked at the interaction between various national groups or the larger international context. Taking the focus off the United States, historians broadened the picture and elucidated a much more complicated story.

International accounts probed the relations between the Great Powers and the new role the United States played as industrial powerhouse in the late nineteenth century.

Responding to the international colonial race, the United States initiated its “impressive ascent” due to the “vigorous rivalry among imperialist states for spheres of influence” that gave a “real urgency that infused the war of 1898.”24 Regional accounts sought to explain the long, complicated relationship between Cuba and the United States or Latin

America and the United States more generally. Some historians searched the nationalism of the time for hints as to the causes and justifications for war, while others looked at the role of individuals prominent in shaping the events of the time. But, in general, historians discarded the notion that U.S. policymakers had desired expansion and slyly pursued a course toward war. Rather, historians like John L. Offner argued it was an “unwanted war.”25

After nearly eighty years of scholarship, historians were digging even deeper to uncover hidden truths about the war. The writings of historians Eric Love, Louis A.

Perez Jr., and Kristin L. Hoganson, as well as others including Paul T. McCartney, threw a wrench into previously well-ordered historical scholarship. Love investigated the role of race and race relations as an impetus for starting the war, while Perez searched the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine for its importance. In a similar light, Hoganson and

24 Paterson, “United States Intervention,” 344.

25 John L. Offner, An Unwanted War, The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain Over Cuba, 1895-1898 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

18

McCartney filtered their analysis through the culture of the time, uncovering new aspects of thought by studying gender relations and U.S. exceptionalism. Through their new ideas and groundbreaking methods, these historians injected new life into the study of

U.S. imperialism.

In her now slightly dated account, Kristin L. Hoganson asserts that the closing frontier provided a different form of psychic crisis—one of manhood. She persuasively draws on contemporary fears of social degeneracy, racial and gendered, as the leading cause for the rise in belligerency and jingoism leading to the Spanish-American War.

Hoganson argues that men feared that wealth and industrialism had softened otherwise virile men—views certainly held by ardent expansionists like Theodore Roosevelt and

Henry Cabot Lodge. Thus, she states that “ardent imperialist . . . look[ed] to the

Philippines to furnish a long-term remedy for the apparent problem of degeneracy in

American men.”26 Classic notions of honor and virility propelled youthful, energetic men to foreign lands for the purpose of adventure and the enlightenment of the natives.

Most important, Americans in the 1890s were obsessed with notions of U.S. cultural and political superiority due to their belief in the advantages inherent in the

American Republic. Fundamentally, these notions of culture heavily impact the decisions of the most powerful and influential policymakers. Paul T. McCartney succinctly defines this view:

When a state has a certain set of material interests, be they economic, geopolitical, or otherwise, that state can almost always choose among several policy options to

26 Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 13.

19

achieve its interests. Which course that state will pursue will be determined in part by its culture.27

Indeed the period 1898 to 1900 was one of intense ideological debate among all sections of society to define the United States and its position in the world. From the beginning of

North American colonization, those who would become Americans felt themselves separate and superior from their Old World counterparts. Whether they believed this from a Protestant millenarianism or later Social Darwinist theories that the American frontier produced fitter people, a cultural superiority has remained firmly entrenched in the psyche of the United States. Furthermore, this superiority found its greatest expression in the assertion that American political institutions and industry far exceed the quality of any other “civilized” nation.

With the establishment of the “Linguistic Turn” and Postmodernism, historical accounts have tended to be skeptical of the existence of any sort of consensus on the existence of a cultural environment that precipitated war. Asserting that one’s temporal separation from historical events damages knowledge of those times, scholars of this school often frustratingly sought to cast doubt on every established, general argument. One prime example is Richard F. Hamilton’s President McKinley, War and

Empire. Hamilton pilfers from American history pinpointing failed attempts at expansion, therefore criticizing the New Economic School’s assertion that expansion was a constant, successful endeavor. He continues to sharply minimize the influence of intellectuals like

Frederick Jackson Turner or Alfred T. Mahan on policymakers during the onset of overseas expansion. Hamilton seeks to suppress generalization and argues that most

27 Paul T. McCartney, Power and Progress: American National Identity, The War of 1898 and the Rise of American Imperialism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 9.

20 accounts of history should “be viewed as hypotheses about the origins of . . . expansionism,” rather than fact.28 Whether or not these trends are positive, or that postmodern thought provides an improvement to previous methods is still up to debate.

But they have at least stoked the fire of historical scholarship, energizing scholars to produce more.

A close look at the arguments for and against imperialism reveals that they rarely focus squarely on economic matters. Instead, racial anxieties, fear of degeneracy, and high-minded civic responsibility occupy the minds of turn-of-the-century writers.

Understanding the culture and society of progressive America can explain the origins of

U.S. imperialism. Recent scholarship returning to this idea has illuminated the discussion and concentrated study on these aspects of thought. The dismissal of economic determinism attached to a perpetual American expansionism can only be viewed as a positive effect of recent historical work. There is obviously some permanent expansionist ethos in the United States that holds considerable nuance and requires investigation. The next chapters will examine U.S. imperialism from this new perspective.

28 Richard F. Hamilton, President McKinley and America’s “New Empire,” vol. 2 of President McKinley, War and Empire (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 53. For a discussion of the history of U.S. imperialism from the beginnings of American history, see Chapter 1 entitled “American Expansionism: 1763-1896. For the criticism of current cultural arguments, see Chapter 2 entitled “The Advocates of Empire.”

CHAPTER III

BUILDUP AND CAUSES

Scholarship examining the onset of U.S. imperialism has generally portrayed the political-intellectual debate on this issue as a duality. Ardent imperialists battle equally vocal anti-imperialists over the ideological fate of the nation. In reality, the political situation held far more shades of grey. Nevertheless, most portrayals of the period shortly before the Spanish-American War until the calming of the Philippine

Insurrection perpetuate this false dichotomy. Understanding the intricacies in belief between various important groups can help to elucidate this watershed moment in the history of the United States. Indeed, there were differences of opinion even inside

McKinley’s cabinet.

William McKinley was not an advocate of imperialism. This may sound odd, but his role in the lead up to the war in 1898 and his previous political activity do not sketch the picture of an imperialist. He certainly developed into an expansionist, but this had more to do with the tactical situation he inherited during the war. Even while he gobbled up the remnants of the Spanish Empire, he steadfastly argued that he wished “to preserve carefully all the old life of the nation.”1

1 “Speech at Tama, Iowa, October 11, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 90.

21 22

Too often historians view the buildup to the Spanish-American War in light of its results. This obscures a proper understanding of the conflict because it places it into a deterministic mold. All U.S. action becomes another step toward the eventual result of imperial conquest. To explore fully the tumultuous early months of 1898, historians need to look at the actions of McKinley’s government from a point of view without presuming the terms the Treaty of Paris or Philippine Insurrection in mind.

This chapter will attempt to broaden the spectrum with regards to imperialism.

Though primarily focused on William McKinley and his cabinet’s impact on the Spanish-

American War, it will nonetheless present a larger outlook. The president best illustrates the disparate political spectrum, where men held both imperialist and anti-imperialist views depending on the situation, as he more than anyone else had a greater impact on

U.S. foreign policy.

Furthermore, this chapter will illuminate the persistent imperialist demands of

Congress and American culture as a whole. Throughout the whole grinding diplomatic situation prior to the Spanish-American War, McKinley had to hold back an anxious, martially driven culture intent on finding an excuse to fight Spain. The American people wanted a war for a variety of reasons that will be covered in subsequent chapters and below. They did not hope for, or even have a vague perception of receiving, a colonial empire in the early months of 1898. Whether advocating for imperialism, or hoping to avoid permanent foreign entanglements, most Americans supported the war because it would gain them and their nation martial prestige, while also freeing the long-suffering

Cubans. Thus, they eventually would call for a war that brought with it significant changes to the psyche of the United States.

23

The island of Cuba had languished for much of the second half of the nineteenth century. Long, drawn-out insurrections had crippled the once faithful Spanish colony and extracted an unprecedented human toll from its inhabitants. In 1895, another rebellion erupted prompting a brutal Spanish response. General Valeriano Weyler instituted a reconcentrado policy intended to separate combatants from non-combatants.

Since the Cuban rebels frequently disappeared as quickly as they appeared, and Spanish attempts to fight them in open battle proved futile, Weyler decided upon using less savory tactics. It succeeded in this regard, but at immense human cost. G. J. A. O’Toole summarizes the Spanish policy nicely:

The Spanish had resorted to the most ruthless measures to crush the revolution, transporting almost the entire rural population of the island into the coastal cities, where it was confined in concentration camps. Famine and disease had killed hundreds of thousands.2

The Spanish may have found some success militarily, but their policies severely damaged the nation’s international reputation.

The waning years of the Cleveland administration had done little positively to end the struggle. Cleveland, known for frustrating many expansionists, had kept a decidedly neutral course regarding the Cuban situation. In his final address to Congress,

Cleveland spent considerable time detailing his position on Cuban affairs. He stressed the financial involvement of the United States in the island, detailing the stress the current insurrection had put on American business interests. The close proximity of the island and the U.S. “considerations of philanthropy and humanity in general” had produced a state where “some sort of positive intervention” seemed necessary. But, citing the lack of

2 G. J. A. O’Toole, The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1984), 20.

24 a coherent authority on the part of the Cuban rebels, he could not recognize them as constituting a government.3

Cleveland merely described the Cuban situation eloquently in his speeches, while he procrastinated addressing the difficult issue. He figured the situation would need closure in the near future, but wisely left the conclusion to his successor to avoid any unnecessary political complications for himself. He advocated Canadian-style autonomy for Cuba within an imperial structure, a move that neither pleased the Cubans nor the

Spanish. He warned the Spanish “it can not be assumed that the hitherto expectant attitude of the United States will be indefinitely maintained.” But besides that brief warning, he plodded along an anti-interventionist, hands-off path that left a massive, escalating problem for the next president.4 McKinley would continue this policy initially, but the American public slowly began to rally toward the cry for war. This, coupled with the increasingly deteriorating condition of Cuban affairs, distracted McKinley from his domestic policies and steadily became the principal issue of the day. Nevertheless, the president maintained achieving an increase in the tariff as his highest priority.

The early 1890s brought considerable discomfort to many Americans. In

1893, the stock market crashed bringing about a sharp three-year depression that utterly destroyed the recovery from the earlier poor economic times in the 1880s. Many historians have blamed these troubles as the impetus for expansion. In his 1902

Imperialism, J. A. Hobson argued that “American imperialism was the natural product of the economic pressure of a sudden advance of capitalism which could not find occupation

3 Grover Cleveland, “Cleveland’s View of the Cuban Crisis, 7 December 1896,” in American Imperialism in 1898, ed. by Richard Miller (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970), 55-59.

4 Ibid., 58.

25 at home and needed foreign markets for goods and for investments.”5 The argument went that as American industry expanded its capabilities for production, it eventually flooded the market creating a massive surplus of goods. This unsurprisingly had the effect that prices plummeted, leading to a run on the banks, stock market crash, and intense depression. Furthermore, it flustered many writers who began to worry about the health of the nation. Frederick Jackson Turner, Brooks Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt all feared that nation was in a state of physical decay and needed energetic recovery quickly.

The impact of these worries will receive attention later.

It was these problems that most concerned William McKinley in the 1890s and for the vast majority of his career. McKinley was known as a strong supporter of the tariff and protectionism. These issues remained his entire focus and the basis of his political success even after his election in 1896. “From the time of his first speech in

Congress, until the end of his life,” biographer Charles S. Olcott writes, “McKinley sought to elaborate, clarify, and systematize the true ‘American’ policy of Protection.”6

His lack of serious comment on the issue of expansionism prior to his presidency evidences his absence of a strong imperialist proclivity.

McKinley came from a modest family and grew up in Ohio. By all accounts he fought well in the Civil War, attaining the rank of major. He was a good public speaker, and had been since he was a child, foreshadowing his eventual success in politics.7 He gained national prominence within the Republican Party with his conduct

5 Hobson, “Imperialism,” in Greene, 12.

6 Charles S. Olcott, William McKinley (1916; repr., New York: AMS Press, 1972), 1:114.

7 Ibid., 1:19.

26 during the 1884 National Convention. Furthermore, he had the advantage of having many close friends in high positions. Notably, he had a long friendship with President

Rutherford B. Hayes and a well-known association with businessman and senator Marcus

Hanna. He patiently bided his time, slowly gaining in notoriety until the election of 1896 allowed him the opportunity to seek the nomination for presidency. Until that point, he had pushed for stronger protectionism as a member of the House of Representatives and became recognized as the leader on economic policy within the Republican Party. His political success as a representative culminated in the passing of the McKinley Tariff Act on 21 May 1890.8

Since his assassination in September 1901, historians have attempted to understand the workings of McKinley’s mind. Opinions of the man have varied widely.

Some historians “regard the language of McKinley as fatuous and hypocritical,” while others label him “a modest, charitable gentleman.”9 Charles G. Dawes, the Comptroller of Currency and McKinley’s advisor, lauded McKinley as a man who “command[s] in a pre-eminent degree the confidence of the people in his strength of purpose and discretion.”10 His enigmatic character has made it difficult to follow his frame of mind and has induced much of the debate concerning his motives. Charles S. Olcott complains, like many historians, that McKinley left very little correspondence on his dealings with

8 Olcott, William McKinley. The biographical information above is predominantly drawn from Charles S. Olcott’s biography of McKinley. This was the earliest biography and it contained numerous sources from people close to McKinley. It has a strong pro-McKinley bias, but there is no reason to suspect factual irregularities.

9 Lewis J. Gould, Presidency of William McKinley (Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1980), 34; John Dobson, Reticent Expansionism: The Foreign Policy of William McKinley (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1988), 5.

10 Dawes, McKinley Years, 145.

27 subordinates. What few letters exist “are inadequate to give a proper expression to the real charm of McKinley’s personal character,” he laments, “Too often the correspondence on some promising subject came suddenly to an end . . . with a cordial

‘Won’t you come see me?’”11

Therefore, with very little raw primary source data available, historians have been forced to rely on the opinions of others and their own inference, creating a wide variety of opinions. The best logical course, therefore, is to balance McKinley’s views as expressed in his various speeches and addresses with those opinions of contemporaries on any given subject. Despite their extravagant rhetorical flourish, McKinley’s public pronouncements are the best source for his opinions on policy.

Throughout 1897, the Cuban problem slowly gathered intensity. Sympathy with the Cuban cause developed gradually as increasing stories of Spanish atrocities came to light. However, there certainly was not at first an expectation of war.

Significantly, Theodore Roosevelt commented in September 1897 that “I haven’t the slightest idea that there will be a war.”12 But, he stressed that the United States needed to prepare for the possibility. McKinley evidently agreed. Even as he pushed for peace, he expanded the navy buildup begun during Cleveland’s tenure, much to Roosevelt’s delight. McKinley ran a double game, pleasing both ardent expansionists like Roosevelt and the more conservative, peaceful sections of his party. Regardless, Roosevelt believed

McKinley “could be depended upon to deal thoroughly and well with any difficulty that

11 Olcott, William McKinley, 1:xi.

12 Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., Selections from Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), 279.

28 arises.”13 He might have prepared off-the-record for a war, but McKinley still attempted to prevent one through diplomatic channels.

Much of the inflammatory information concerning Cuba came from a small group of men loyal to the Cuban cause. These sympathizers primarily lived in New York

City and had the ear of many influential people, particularly newspaper editors. They created a “pressure group,” named the Junta, which “generated support from some

American newspapers . . ., members of the Protestant clergy . . ., congressional expansionists, and . . . from a unique coterie [of] intellectuals in government.”14 The active role of the Cuban junta can help explain why Americans were so interested and informed about the Cuban affair. It quickly became a running story in the newspapers that readers could follow daily. The leader of the Junta was Tomas Estrada Palma, who had led the rebels during the earlier Ten Years’ War of Cuban independence. Well- funded and well-connected, Palma sought to improve the image of the Cuban rebels.

Unsurprisingly, the “Junta’s reports recounted only Spanish cruelty.”15 Significantly, the

Junta provided ample atrocities for the Yellow Press. Stories of Spanish mistreatment of

Cubans inflamed the American public and seriously damaged Spanish-American relations.

The McKinley administration sought to soften sentiment on the issue through diplomatic negotiations throughout the year. Secretary of War Russell A. Alger complained that “the diplomatic atmosphere was one of apparent friendship and

13 Lodge, Selections from Correspondence, 277.

14 Richard F. Hamilton, President McKinley and the Coming of War, 1898, vol. 1 of President McKinley, War and Empire (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006), 28-29.

15 McCartney, Power and Progress, 91.

29 conciliation, but the efforts were fruitless of practical results.”16 McKinley and his advisors ardently and stubbornly sought to prevent war with Spain, while freeing Cuba at the same time. He approached the Cuban problem with immense patience, both towards the obstinate Spaniards and the jingoistic public and Congress. His reluctance to enter into war is proof of his unenthusiastic feelings toward expansionism.

The year 1898 started on an optimistic, peaceful note. The San Francisco

Chronicle reported a Cuban message that read, “All is quiet here.”17 There were legitimate reasons for a positive outlook on events in Cuba. The new Spanish Prime

Minister Praxedes Sagasta had removed the infamous General Weyler from command.

Also, autonomy arose as the explicit goal of Spanish statesmen for Cuba. It seemed as if the Spanish government “had become convinced that the only way to save Cuba is to accept the good offices of the United States.”18 Particularly the latter point created a sense that change finally had reached the languishing Caribbean Island. Cleveland had attempted U.S. involvement through mediation, but haughty Spanish officials had rebuffed him. Since both the Spanish and the Cubans had taken such a hard line stance in regard to one another, a backing down from these established positions was an important step in ending the crisis. U.S. pressure on the Spanish, and the tarnished image of their military capabilities helped to soften their stance. However, the Spanish were unlikely to part with their largest remaining colony.

16 Alger, Spanish-American War, 3.

17 San Francisco Chronicle, January 1, 1898.

18 Ibid., January 7, 1898.

30

McKinley could claim some improvement with these recent diplomatic successes as they had occurred through his pressuring of the Spanish. In his speech to

Congress on 6 December 1897, McKinley detailed his demands to Spain concerning

Cuba. He lambasted the reconcentrados, declaring them “not civilized warfare” but

“extermination.”19 McKinley underscored U.S. commitment to Cuban happiness when he argued “there is no desire on the part of our people to profit by the misfortunes of Spain.

We have only the desire to see the Cubans prosperous and contented,” he continued.20

McKinley then complained about Spanish treatment of American citizens and responded to Spanish complaints of U.S. complicity in filibustering campaigns. In all of these things, the president could claim some sort of moral or diplomatic victory. It seemed as if relations were improving and this improvement came directly from his stern approach.21

But what should the United States do to end the war if it persisted? McKinley listed four “untried measures” which included the “recognition of the insurgents as belligerents, recognition of the independence of Cuba, neutral intervention to end the war by imposing a rational compromise . . ., and intervention.”22 Of these, the second and fourth would quickly precipitate a war. The third McKinley was in the process of attempting. The most likely alternative to his current policy was to recognize the rebels formally as belligerents. For a variety of reasons, this was not palpable.23

19 First Annual Message, December 6, 1897, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. J. D. Richardson (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899), 10:129.

20 Ibid., 10:128.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., 10:131.

23 First Annual Message.

31

First, due to the high amount of trade with or near Cuba, belligerency would only harm U.S. commerce, as it would infringe upon neutral trading rights. Spanish ships could seize American goods causing significant harm to industry. Since the United States was no longer a neutral power, Spain could do this without fear of international retribution. Furthermore, whether for racial or political reasons, he did not consider the rebels in Cuba as an established government. He cited the arguments given by former

President Andrew Jackson concerning recognition of newly independent states. Jackson had grappled with the issue of Texan independence and had come to the conclusion that a colonial war of this type must come to an end before recognition. The losing mother country must recognize the rebels first and then the United States could send ministers to establish diplomatic relationships. This line of reasoning had been the same that President

Ulysses S. Grant used during the previous Cuban insurrection in response to similar pressure.24

Cuba did not have complete independence from Spain. Cuban forces only occupied a portion of the island, generally in the east, and were still in danger of falling back under Spanish control. In McKinley’s opinion, the United States would happily recognize a victor, whether Spanish or Cuban. In openly discussing the reasoning behind his actions toward Spain, McKinley attempted to portray himself as a lover of peace, patiently trying to prevent war through mediation. It is no wonder that Charles Dawes described McKinley as “always remain[ing] the firm, cool, able leader of men.”25 The only course left to McKinley was a policy that buffaloed Spain into conceding autonomy

24 First Annual Message.

25 Dawes, McKinley Years, 144.

32 for Cuba. Meanwhile, the United States would remain on the sidelines minimizing the war’s toll on Cuban citizens through humanitarian aid.

Though the Cubans did not have complete control, they still held an edge militarily. The Spanish controlled the bulk of the island, but the Cubans regularly defeated them in pitched battles. Both the Spanish and Cubans could claim some sort of victory. Since both were equally stubborn in their refusal to come to any agreement, it seemed the war would persist for years to come. And this spotlights the central problem of the Cuban crisis. The war seemingly had no end. The Cubans had fought intermittently with the Spanish for nearly a century and it looked as if that would continue. There was a general sense that the hardline stances of both the Cubans and the Spanish would keep the war going indefinitely. John L. Offner argues that the Spanish nationalists and conservatives offered two policies for Spain: It could continue the war effort at all bloody costs with the hope of scoring a resounding victory in the near future. On the other hand,

Spain could start a war with the United States. It would likely suffer defeat, but then have the opportunity to leave the islands and their debilitating financial drain. Honor would remain and business would improve.26 The San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial advancing much the same view. In it the author decried, “as a rule, so long as a fighting chance is left the Spaniard he does not seek compromise. His pride forbids.”27

This sense that the Spanish would not accept defeat added to the determination of the Cuban rebels, persuading many Americans that the insurrection would never end. The optimism that existed at the end of 1897 quickly disappeared as a

26 Offner, Unwanted War, 69.

27 San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 1898.

33 series of crises sapped the patient president’s resolve of preventing war. After each successive event, the public and Congress became more adamant for war. Up to this point, and for a good deal longer than many would have liked, McKinley had remained steadfast against the war. His patience, however, could not endure forever. As war loomed larger on the horizon, he slowly lost his ability to hold back war fever, eventually succumbing to it for fear of the political repercussions.

A disparity between public and congressional opinion and the executive branch’s policies did not help preserve peace. This disagreement existed because the stated hopes of the McKinley cabinet that Spain might end the conflict never fully materialized. While the State Department sought to assuage the differences between

Spain and the Cuban rebels, a growing impatience with the Spanish government slowly overtook the American populace. Soon, Alger observed at the time, “sympathy with the insurgent Cubans had become the popular test of human kindness, and protest against the war the unanswerable proof of unchristian indifference.”28 The American public had patiently waited nearly three years for any change in the situation. McKinley had

“enjoyed the usual honeymoon from criticism.” But, according to one historian, “any literate American reading the newspapers in 1897 could not help detecting the increasing pressure on the president to do something about Cuba.”29

As stated before, McKinley favored a policy of Canadian-style autonomy for

Cuba. In theory, this would placate both the Cubans and the Spanish. The Spanish could honorably maintain their colonial possession and the Cubans could have virtual self-

28 Alger, Spanish-American War, 2.

29 Dobson, Reticent Expansionism, 45.

34 control over their own island’s affairs. This would please the American people since it would end the brutal war that had captured their concern and sympathy. McKinley then could claim a great diplomatic victory and address instead the many other problems of his presidency.

This theory quickly broke down, however, when the emotions of all involved stirred. Much of the optimism of the McKinley administration came from the newly established liberal government of Sagasta. Once his party came to power, the Spanish seemed more willing to concede to American and Cuban demands. But the Cuban rebels were equally as obstinate as the possessive and proud Spanish. They had endured extreme hardships and their country lay devastated. Their people lived in constant squalor caused by Spanish hands. Even after the Spanish recalled General Weyler, incidents of starvation in the markets or pacificos slaughtered in their beds occurred frequently.30 These stories might very well have been embellishments, but their negative impact on the Cuban and

American mind still held real meaning. It often is not the truth of a story that matters, but its impact on the reader. By 1898, the Cubans were determined to free themselves from

Spain; it was independence or defeat.

Certainly, contemporaries at the time had a hard time truly understanding the brutality of the Cuban insurrection. The publishing war between William Randolph

Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer created a race to see who could report the most sensational atrocities. These papers, and they were not alone, deliberately attempted to shock and offend their readers. In recent historical scholarship, the role of the Yellow Press has undoubtedly been minimized. For example, Lewis J. Gould asserts that “they spoke for

30 San Francisco Chronicle, January 2, 1898.

35 only a small part of the journalistic community, and they reflected what the public wanted, rather than shaping it.”31 Stories of “Spanish atrocities were evidently exaggerated.” However, even without foundation of fact, Marcus M. Wilkerson counters, they influenced not only “’jingo’ senators,” but also served as an “example [to] other newspapers.”32 In addition, most of this hyperbole simply transformed a terrible situation into an atrocity. The Yellow Press deserves a fair amount of blame for the promulgation of false atrocities, but it seems many of the most unsavory events of the insurrection had a strong air of truth.33

Because of their legitimate grievances against the Spanish, the Cubans were not willing to settle for autonomy. They merely had to wait for the Spanish military to crumble because the Spanish state eventually would run out of money or manpower.

According to John L. Offner, Spain “had employed 250,000 men and $300 million to defeat an insurgent force of 40,000.”34 Their failure to end the war in a timely manner, or to achieve many military successes at all, gave hope to the Cuban rebels that peace hovered on the horizon so long as they had enough patience. Moreover, delay and continued violence increased pressure on the United States to intervene. Thus, the Cubans felt “independence will come in due time by the sheer inability of the Spanish to stand in

31 Gould, Presidency of William McKinley, 63.

32 Marcus M. Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War (New York: Russell and Russell, 1932), 53.

33 San Francisco Chronicle, January 1, 1898.

34 Offner, Unwanted War, 61.

36 the way.” They had no reason to accept offers from the Spanish, especially since Spain could easily revoke autonomy.35

This lack of mutual trust frustrated and retarded the peace talks. When it looked as if the Cuban crisis was improving, troubles festered beneath the surface. This undercurrent of dissatisfaction erupted on 12 January 1898. Spanish mobs in Havana rioted, shouting “Long Live Spain! Long Live the Army! Long Live the Volunteers!” The rioters focused their attention on pro-autonomy—Cuban’s who favored Spanish retention—newspapers and proceeded for three days. This event proved to many that even the recently conciliatory Spanish did not have support from their own people. The riot took an even worse turn when many Spanish refused to aid starving reconcentrados.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Spaniards “would not give a piece of bread to the concentrados, because they are enemies of Spain, protected by the United States.”36

These riots worried outside observers. European creditors, mostly British and

French, feared bonds they had bought from Spain to fund the war would never be repaid.

Subsequently, Spain began to suspect some form of U.S. or European foreign intervention. Similarly, the Spanish government fretted that it would lose power.

Sagasta’s liberal government had endured significant unrest from conservative leaders who spoke openly about the need for a military coup d’état. During the Havana riots,

Weyler was embroiled in a scandal when a newspaper associated with him published an article criticizing the Spanish action in Cuba. Weyler’s intense popularity with the

Spanish people and the Spanish military’s notorious bragging about their brutal

35 San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 1898.

36 Ibid., January 13, 1898.

37 suppression of the Cuban revolution illuminated how fragile the political situation was in

Spain.37 The riots proved that the Spanish in Cuba did not favor autonomy like the

Cubans. It highlighted the stark divide between the two opposing forces.

As a result of the riots, McKinley feared that Havana was no longer safe for

Americans. He decided to send a U.S. warship on an allegedly friendly peacekeeping mission for the sake of American protection. Congress supported this move, due in part to majority sentiment in favor of intervention. Shortly before the riots, representatives participated in a straw poll that showed most representatives favored giving Cuba belligerent rights, but not independence. Throughout the crisis, McKinley had to rein in

Congress that threatened to propel him into a war he did not want. With congressional consent and the stated desire to protect American citizens, McKinley ordered the U.S.S.

Maine to Havana harbor where it was peacefully received. This decision would have historic consequences. At first, dispatch of the Maine to Cuban waters seemed a resounding success. The move worked out so well that McKinley ordered another ship, the cruiser U.S.S. Montgomery, to visit smaller Cuban ports. The McKinley administration sought to dispel any notions of continued disintegration of Cuban affairs.

Within a week of sending the Montgomery to Cuba, a scandal developed that threatened to propel the United States into war with Spain.38 The famous De Lome incident rocked the political scene in early February. On 8 February a Cuban patriot stole a letter that included comments highly critical of William McKinley. Dupuy De Lome, the Spanish Minister to the United States, insulted the president, calling him “weak and

37 San Francisco Chronicle, January 10-20, 1898.

38 Ibid., February 2, 1898.

38 catering to the rabble . . ., a low politician, who desires to leave the door open to me and stand well with the jingoes of his party.” De Lome accused the United States of preaching peace while advocating war, specifically deriding McKinley as a hypocrite. The incident initially did little to affect Spanish-American relations. The day after the story broke, relations between the two nations were described as “cordial.” But the congressional reaction foreshadowed the coming months.39

Ironically, many members of Congress complained that McKinley was not doing enough to free Cuba. Prior to the De Lome incident, Senator David De Armond of

Missouri insisted that “further inaction . . . was a disgrace to American manhood.” He wondered how McKinley and the Republican Congress could “supinely and indifferently stand by when men almost within sight of our shores were fighting valorously for principles as holy as patriots espoused or heroes ever defended.”40 “I don’t fear war,”

Senator Albert S. Berry of Kentucky adds, “I think a little blood-running would be good for us. Let Spain fire on the American flag just once and the fame will be kindled that will free Cuba.”41 Congressmen supported war so they would not seem weak in an age of frequent saber rattling. This enthusiastic advocacy contributed directly to the Spanish-

American War.

A belief that a war would help ailing manhood strongly influenced many

American men. Kristin L. Hoganson pinpoints this feeling in her description of male disdain for the “dude” or effeminate businessman. As “wealthy dudes seemed to put

39 San Francisco Chronicle, February 9-10, 1898.

40 Ibid., January 19, 1898.

41 Ibid., January 20, 1898.

39 comfort above national honor . . ., [they] debased their manly character,” she writes.

“Detractors held that their lack of manly prowess indicated their unworthiness to wield political power.”42 It was profitable politically to call for war, whether Democrat,

Republican, or Populist. Politicians could make themselves seem masculine to hopefully attract votes away from some “cowardly” rival candidate in the future. This produced “a chance for them to validate themselves as men, citizens, and leaders . . ..”43 This desire for martial virtue impelled many Americans to become war hawks.

Besides clamoring for martial qualities, congressional representatives pushed again for more positive action in Cuba. Many proposals cropped up, demanding some form of intervention or recognition of belligerency. Three main proposals developed in this rambunctious Senate debate. Populist Senator William Vincent Allen of Nebraska demanded belligerency, while Silver Republican Frank J. Cannon of Utah requested a deadline for Spanish recognition of Cuban independence by 4 March 1898. The most ardent interventionist, Republican William E. Mason of Illinois, insisted the war cease at once with presidential action to forcibly maintain peace. Only Republican Eugene Hale of Maine, who ironically would vote against McKinley’s Treaty of Paris later, spoke on behalf of the president, defending his patient policy.44

The De Lome incident “strongly implied” that autonomy “was a sham designed to buy time” for a Spanish victory in Cuba.45 It affirmed suspicions that Spanish

42 Hoganson, American Manhood, 118.

43 Ibid., 119.

44 San Francisco Chronicle, February 9, 1898.

45 McCartney, Power and Progress, 97.

40 officials had deliberately duped American diplomats with obsequious promises only meant to procrastinate in meeting U.S. demands. As the situation worsened, it steadily became clearer that neither Spain nor Cuba would quit. Still, this did not necessitate a war. Cries for revenge echoed throughout the press and Congress, but with De Lome’s rapid resignation, McKinley adeptly buried the issue. Nevertheless, McCarthy writes, the letter “destroyed what little American confidence remained in Spain.”46

Nothing would inflame U.S.-Spanish relations more than the explosion of the

U.S.S. Maine at forty minutes past nine on the 15 February.47 Headlines declaring

Spanish culpability appeared in nearly every newspaper. The public and Congress rabidly denounced this attack on the American public. “All of the frustration that had been building over the previous two and a half years of the rebellion peaked,” as John Dobson aptly put it, “and the American public, putting the most sinister construction on events, viewed the dead as martyrs in need of avenging.”48 Most presidents would have found themselves swept up in this war fever, but McKinley remained as steadfast as ever. He ordered a fact-finding mission to discover the truth about the explosion.

Contemporaries and even some historians angrily criticized McKinley for this.

Historians, seeking to portray McKinley as a feeble leader, cite his slow reaction as an example of his poor leadership skills. For example, John L. Offner labels McKinley a

“weak” leader because he eventually succumbed to public pressure and for waffling. But

Offner fails to take into account the past history of McKinley’s Cuban policy. A rapid,

46 McCartney, Power and Progress, 97

47 First Annual Message.

48 Dobson, Reticent Expansionism, 59.

41 vengeful reaction would have been entirely out of McKinley’s character. To criticize the president for weakness misses the political importance of all of these decisions. A weak leader would have jumped into war because the public wanted it; a strong leader would wait patiently until the moment called for war. McKinley did not weakly attempt to avoid making a decision, Offner insists, he steadfastly kept on the same path as before.49

Ironically, Offner still labels McKinley as weak in handling the crisis. Whether the image of McKinley as a weak president is too deeply entrenched to entirely disappear or whether he deserves this consistent treatment remains a matter of debate.

Those closest to McKinley certainly trusted his decisions and expected that he would prevent the war. Dawes wrote in his diary on 16 February, the day after the Maine explosion, “it will hardly lead to anything like war.” He could foresee problems in the horizon even though he trusted McKinley’s judgment. Dawes provides an insider’s perspective; he worked closely with McKinley cabinet and his journal provides an interesting look into the important political issues of the day. It is not surprising then that after the Maine explosion, he comments increasingly on foreign affairs after previously focusing on personal and economic matters.50

The Maine disaster did more than just infuriate the public. As with Dawes, it took focus off of other issues and placed it squarely on the Cuban problem. Two hundred sixty six dead sailors in an already tense political climate guaranteed press coverage and ire. McKinley wished to avoid this; he had spent the last months trying to calm the situation and take public attention away from it. Now, he had no choice but to investigate

49 Offner, Unwanted War, 142.

50 Dawes, McKinley Years, 143, 145.

42 the disaster and to come to some sort of conclusion. Like Roosevelt, Dawes trusted that

McKinley could “deal with events as they come,” but realized the “Spanish situation continue[d] perplexing and ominous.”51

Impatience characterized the period between the explosion and release of the results of its investigation. War fever continued to run high throughout the month of

March. Both Spain and the United States increased their military capabilities. On 9

March, McKinley received from Congress $50 million for defense. “Large Policy”

Republicans, McKinley’s greatest political thorn, lauded this move as it coincided with their general plan of a greater navy and more aggressive foreign policy. Dawes viewed the matter a little differently, declaring that “this immense sum will be a great instrument for good if the war comes.” The ease with which Congress appropriated the money was

“a vindication of [McKinley’s] policy and add[ed] to his power to control the situation in the interests of honorable peace.”52

Newspapers, and the public more generally, divided into two camps. One perceived the Cuban situation as desperately in need of U.S. action, while the other trusted in the leadership of McKinley.53 Ironically, much of the so-called jingoism emanated from the Democratic Party. Even before the Maine explosion, Senator De

Armond had attempted to steer the Senate into debate on the Cuban question. Most

Republicans stood firm time and time again, praising the achievements of the McKinley

51 Dawes, McKinley Years, 143, 145.

52 Ibid, 145-156.

53 Hamilton, President McKinley, 1:180-181.

43 administration and responding with a united front against rabble rousing.54 Though

Dawes admitted many “radical” newspapers were hurting the administration’s image, it was apparent that McKinley had the support of most moderates as well as the bulk of his own party.

Still, reining in a restless public proved more and more difficult each day. The conclusions of the fact-finding commission did not help McKinley. On 28 March, the president delivered a special message to Congress to detail the results of the investigation. He lamented that the Maine had been sent to Havana as a “symbol of goodwill” and received in friendship. He detailed the cause of the explosion as a submarine mine that exploded beneath the ship, which then detonated the forward magazine. Besides relating that the mine was likely Spanish, McKinley placed no blame on any officers and acknowledged “that no evidence has been obtainable fixing the responsibility . . . upon any person or persons.”55 Public opinion swelled against the

Spanish, as they were almost universally condemned for the disaster, whether they caused the explosion or simply allowed it to happen.

One other inflammatory event occurred in mid-March that stirred warlike emotions further. Senator Redfield Proctor had returned recently from the beleaguered island after traveling there to see whether reports of the atrocities were true. Proctor was not the first senatorial visitor to the islands; Senator King of Utah had conducted a very

54 San Francisco Chronicle, January 19-20, 1898.

55 Special Messages, March 28, 1898, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. J. D. Richardson (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899), 10:136-139.

44 similar tour in January.56 But, Proctor was not known as inflammatory; indeed, he seemed more trustworthy and restrained than most senators. He traveled to Cuba “with a strong conviction that the picture had been overdrawn.”57 His passionate response to the dispelling of his original expectations lent credence to his conclusion to argue for cessation of the Cuban crisis.

Proctor’s tour first took him to Havana, where he described the eerie calm that prevailed in the city. All seemed well until he left the capital and soon found himself in a desolate wasteland. Military railways linked the reconcentrados that lay scattered throughout the wasted countryside. Trenches surrounded the towns, which were filled with huts “about fifteen feet in size; and for want of space [were] usually crowded together very closely.” In these huts, there was “no floor but the ground, and no furniture, and after a year’s wear but little clothing.” Without adequate sanitation, disease ran rampant. Deaths rose to extremely high numbers, reaching some two hundred thousand of the 1.6 million inhabitants having already died. He lauded the American charity effort and acknowledged Spanish improvements, but his speech left the sense that the Spanish were failing at ending the humanitarian crisis. As more information of Cuba’s suffering came to light, the more converts for U.S. action, especially among the heretofore peaceful, conservative section of the populace resembling Senator Proctor.58

56 San Francisco Chronicle, January 10, 1898.

57 Redfield Proctor, “From a Speech by Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont in the U.S. Senate, March 17, 1898,” http://www.spanamwar.com/proctorspeech.htm (accessed August 10, 2011). Speech of Senator Redfield Proctor, March 17, 1898, taken from Clara Barton’s 1899, The Red Cross, (Washington DC: American National Red Cross, 1899), 534-539.

58 Ibid.

45

Each successive scandal or disaster swayed more people toward intervention.

Slowly through the first months of 1898, “the moderate press,” which to this point had

“generally lauded his dignified stand,” began to abandon McKinley’s firm, peaceful position.59 “The anti-autonomy riots in Havana of January 1898, the de Lome letter, and the Maine incident,” according to one historian, “subtly but effectively turned American demands from Cuban autonomy to independence.”60 With public opinion swinging away from him, partisan worries became a central problem. The Democratic Party had demanded war for months and was “critical of the administration’s inertia.”61 Worrying about his political future, the president needed to act.

McKinley did so in two ways. First, he procrastinated further by inviting various members of Congress, many of whom were pro-intervention, to discuss the crisis.

Dawes relates that Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt paid a visit to

McKinley, badgering him to intervene for strategic and naval reasons. This bought him some time to develop his second strategy, a desperate attempt to stave off war through heavy-handed diplomacy. By now, McKinley’s policies had irritated congressional leaders and the public to the point where he knew this was his last chance. He demanded from the Spanish three key concessions: 1) an armistice until 1 October while the United

59 H. Wayne Morgan, America’s Road to Empire (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1965), 42.

60 Ibid., 49.

61 Dobson, Reticent Expansionism, 63.

46

States led peace talks, 2) revocation of the reconcentrado order, and 3) the United States would take over as arbiter if no results had been made by 1 October.62

In late March, McKinley delivered a formal message to Congress detailing the

Maine investigation’s findings. He announced that the Maine’s destruction was due to an outside explosion. He did not fix blame specifically on the Spanish, but hinted that the

Spanish had allowed the disaster to happen. Throughout his speech, there were veiled hints of impending use of force.63 War fever ran high, fanned by popular anger at the disaster. It is likely by this time that McKinley finally set his mind on intervention. This does not, as many historians have claimed, mean McKinley bowed under jingoistic pressure. As John Dobson argues, “he was convinced that the United States was going to war, with or without him, and he preferred to retain his credibility as a leader.”64

McKinley had spent over a year in diplomatic talks with the Spaniards. He could claim some success, particularly with humanitarian issues. Now, he waited for

Spain’s response to his demands. Of all three, Spain only conceded to ending the reconcentrado policy, while rejecting any armistice or active U.S. participation. The

Spaniards indeed preferred a potential military defeat to conceding anything diplomatically. Dawes noted in his journal that McKinley “expects abuse for his efforts for a peaceful settlement of the Cuban situation . . ..” The president had caused “great

62 Dawes, McKinley Years, 147; Dobson, Reticent Expansionism, 64; Morgan, Road to Empire, 54; Mr. Day to Mr. Woodford, Washington, DC, March 26, 1898, in United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898 (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901), 704, under “Spain,” http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

63 Special Messages, March 28, 1898, 10:136-139.

64 Dobson, Reticent Expansionism, 65.

47 indignation among the more radical members of Congress” since his Maine message was

“not warlike enough for them.”65 Apparently for posterity’s sake, McKinley held off further demands to prove his unwillingness to enter into a war he had neither sought nor approved.

Nonetheless, in early April, McKinley penned an ultimatum delivered to

Congress that would guarantee war almost certainly. He delivered his message on 11

April 1898. He declared that the Cuban insurrection

has subjected the United States to great effort and expense in enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to American trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance, and disturbance among our citizens, and by the exercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the humane sympathies of our people.66

He expressed his annoyance that the Cuban problem had stood “in the way of that close devotion to domestic advancement that becomes a self-contained commonwealth whose primal maxim had been the avoidance of foreign entanglements.” He outlined his administration’s final attempt to settle the matter diplomatically and lamented his disappointment at this “last overture.” Though he did not declare war, McKinley knew his diplomatic pressure would cause a rift with Spain that would lead to war.67

Shortly after the speech, the American minister to Spain asked for his passport to return to the United States. Simultaneously, the Spanish terminated diplomatic relations with the United States. After a brief delay to ensure the security of American

65 Dawes, McKinley Years, 150.

66 Special Messages, April 11, 1898, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. J. D. Richardson (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899), 10:140.

67 Ibid.

48 citizens in Cuba, McKinley asked Congress for a congressional declaration of war against

Spain.

Taken independently from his later actions following the war, McKinley clearly does not come across as an imperialist. He held back the war fever of his nation and eventually his own party. He did not bend to pressures suddenly, or hope to gain financially from a colonial empire that he planned after the war. He clearly hoped to end the humanitarian crisis in Cuba without resorting to force. Furthermore, the idea of a victory in the Spanish war merely brought more trepidation to the mind of the president as he stubbornly disavowed any intention of Cuban recognition even after asking for a declaration of war.68

William McKinley was not an imperialist. At least, he was not in April 1898 when he made the decision to fight a popular war. The subsequent retention of the

Philippines and the beginnings of an American colonial empire have obscured his initial aims, which were more or less free from imperialistic avarice. Following the war, he defended himself against such accusations by observing that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War had not been fought for their end results. Instead, the causes and justifications for war evolved over time.69

It is in the outcome of the Spanish-American War that McKinley deserves the most criticism for his conduct in foreign affairs. The retention of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico were a dramatic shift from conventional U.S. political culture. The intense popularity of imperialism within society played a pivotal role in both the shaping

68 Dawes, McKinley Years, 154.

69 “Speech at the Citizens’ Banquet in the Auditorium, Chicago, October 19, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 134-135.

49 of the McKinley administration’s decisions and the willingness of the American public to discard long-held notions of isolationism. In the next chapter, the degree to which the

United States abandoned its traditional continentalism will be explored along with a look at the society that supported this change.

CHAPTER IV

AFTERMATH AND COLONIAL EMPIRE

The Spanish-American War was a marvelous political and military success for the McKinley administration. But, it was also exceedingly ironic. It was “begun as a chivalrous crusade,” Kristin Hoganson observes, but ended as a “self-aggrandizing war” that resulted in numerous overseas possessions, the death of over 4,000 Americans, and an eerie feeling of hypocrisy.1 McKinley dragged his feet into the war initially, yet quickly made a complete turnaround and actively participated in a “benevolent assimilation.” This surprising change has generated considerable controversy over the years. It seems likely that McKinley maintained his tepid imperialism, as there is no reason to think that he had any sort of sudden change of heart. However, once the United

States had possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the city of Manila, it became nearly impossible for the Republican administration to surrender their prizes already won. This chapter investigates the tactical, intellectual, and political dimensions of the nine months following the end of the war. It will attempt to prove that McKinley made the decision to annex the Philippines due to the tactical situation that had developed during the war and a palpable racist and chauvinistic intellectual climate that impelled his decisions.

The 1890s have been known for quite some time to have witnessed a “psychic crisis.” Historians do not have to accept all the claims of Richard Hofstadter, who first

1 Hoganson, American Manhood, 133.

50 51 described this episode, to agree that the last decade of the nineteenth century was wrought with considerable social change, economic worry, and cultural restlessness for the American people.2 Particularly, those groups that could be considered elites, such as the aristocratic families in the established Northeast, perceived a deterioration of a time- honored American way of life. Many of these came from an older, more conservative generation that gradually formed an anti-imperialist mindset. Others—though often from the same pedigree, yet usually much younger—energetically sought to expand U.S. influence as a means to raise the nation from its deteriorating melancholy. Both groups feared the destruction of American culture in some form, but they expressed it in different ways.

For example, Theodore Roosevelt, a member of the latter group, worried about the nation’s future. “All other problems before us in this country, important though they may be, are as nothing,” he wrote at the time, “compared with the problem of diminishing birth rate and all it implies.”3 Fearing “race suicide,” Roosevelt hoped to infuse his countrymen with a virile strength of will to overcome the faltering masculinity.4 Members of the former group expressed their distaste at the decaying of older republican institutions. Gallivanting across the oceans brought a “neglect of

2 Hofstadter, Paranoid Style.

3 Roosevelt to Hugo Mönsterberg, June 3, 1901, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Square Deal, 1901-1903, ed. Elting E. Morison, John M. Blum, Hope W. Wigglesworth, and Sylvia Rice, vol. 3 of The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 86.

4 Roosevelt to Mönsterberg, 3:86.

52 domestic problems because of the emphasis placed on foreign adventure.”5 For most of the 1890s, elites feared the collapse of the United States, though often from diverse perspectives.

At least some of these fears were assuaged after the U.S. victory against the

Spanish. “No development of the war has been more gratifying than the complete unification of the nation,” McKinley could boast, “Sectional lines have been obliterated; party differences have been hushed in the great chorus of patriotism . . ..” Furthermore, ample volunteers for the military effort had affected a certain confidence in the nation’s desire to go to war. According to Secretary Alger, the volunteer response was

“spontaneous and practically universal; it was sincere and enthusiastic.”6 After all, if the war had not been popular, then the scandals that developed from overcrowding of troops in Tampa—for which Alger received blame—would not have existed as problems at all.

The war effort had exploded too quickly, had gained too much popularity, and suffered from the poor leadership of the military. The United States was willing to go to war, as the previous chapter indicated, but found itself unready.

However, only two major scandals emerged from the conflict. The first, already mentioned, had to do with the terrible disorganization of the military buildup at the beginning of the war. Due to constant cuts to the army, Roosevelt complained in June

1898, it was “altogether inadequate to immediately meet the emergency.”7 The first calls for troops had elicited massive excitement, and a huge turnout, but the army failed to

5 William George Whittaker, “Samuel Gompers, Anti-Imperialist,” Pacific Historical Review 38, no. 4 (November 1969), 433.

6 Alger, Spanish-American War, 6.

7 Ibid., 7.

53 muster a coherent, organized, and well-trained fighting force. A frustrated Roosevelt complained of the chaos in Tampa—the gathering point for the Cuban invasion—with a harsh reprimand: “No words could describe to you the confusion and lack of system and the general mismanagement of affairs here.”8 Tampa, though close to Cuba, was not a large port, nor did it provide a comfortable environment. Its tropical heat and stagnant water made it like “a canal which is festering as if it were Havana harbor,” Roosevelt reported.9 Troops famously occupied their transports in the same manner as Roosevelt; they simply took the first open ship they could find. When the ships finally embarked, large numbers of soldiers had been left behind. For those lucky few who went, there was considerable discomfort awaiting them in the trenches of Cuba.

The other major scandal broke later in the war and ended the career of

Secretary Alger. Shortly after the conquest of Santiago, a group of military officers, among them the omnipresent Roosevelt, wrote a “round robin” condemning the terrible organization and supplies provided to the military. Roosevelt bitterly blamed top

American generals for their inefficiency. “We are half starved; and our men are sickening daily,” he wrote at the time, “The lack of transportation, food and artillery has brought us to the very verge of disaster; but above all the lack of any leadership, of any system or any executive capacity.”10 When news of this surfaced, McKinley ordered an investigation, which eventually placed much of the blame on Alger. “Algerism” became a

8 Roosevelt to Lodge, June 10, 1898, in Selections from Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), 1:303.

9 Roosevelt to Lodge, June 10, 1898, 1:304.

10 Roosevelt to Lodge, July 7, 1898, 1:321-322.

54 term of derision for any disorganized incompetence. The commission investigating the scandal revealed that many soldiers had eaten “embalmed beef,” leading to thousands of casualties. In the end, possibly due to the patriotism exhibited during the war and the fact that the commander-in-chief rarely bears responsibility for military misconduct,

McKinley avoided all blame. Instead, Alger resigned, replaced by the much more capable and imperialist-minded Elihu Root.11

Though the swift victory came with some small inglorious caveats, the general consensus was one of exuberant celebration of success. In particular, Commodore George

Dewey’s swift annihilation of the Spanish Pacific navy seemed to indicate an innate U.S. military superiority. Occurring just six days after the declaration of war, it provided an immediate triumph that the administration could laud. Much of this was merely the result of inadequate Spanish military technology. Since Spain occupied a role as a world power, however, the United States garnered considerable prestige abroad. Plus, the short, glorious success of war provided significant political gains for the McKinley administration and Large Policy advocates. Julius Pratt touches on a centrally important aspect of the conflict: “That the war with Spain . . . [comes] just as the European Powers were attempting” to divide a considerable section of the inhabited earth, is “a coincidence which has a providential air.”12 Now, the McKinley administration and the American people would have to decide just what to do with their newly won territories.

During his speaking tour in late 1898, President McKinley tested his decision to go to war with the public. At Hastings, Iowa, he declared:

11 Smith, Spanish-American War, 213-214.

12 Pratt, “au Courant,” 31.

55

Hitherto, in peace and in war, with additions to our territory and slight changes in our laws, we have steadily enforced the spirit of the constitution secured to us by the noble self-sacrifice and far-seeing sagacity of our ancestors. We have avoided the temptations of conquest in the spirit of gain. With an increasing love for our institutions and abiding faith in their stability, we have made the triumphs of our system of government in the progress and the prosperity of our people an inspiration to the whole human race.13

Clearly, McKinley placed great importance on these grandiose claims. More importantly, he sought to evaluate their political validity. His public speaking tour following the

Spanish-American War, during the Paris peace conference, exposed his cautious political temperament. In these addresses, he tested the waters to mold public opinion on important matters of state. But he also revealed a deep understanding of what then defined American culture. To McKinley, the United States was unique and exceptional in its ability to resist territorial conquest for monetary gain. Moreover, any aggrandizement that did occur brought with it the blessings of American civilization. Though this concept of civilization varied from person to person, most Americans shared a collection of general beliefs.

Though McKinley rarely dwelled on race, for many Americans it occupied a central role that created this sense of superiority. Furthermore, concerns of degenerative manhood impelled many young men, pushed and prodded by their elders, toward encroaching on new territory that they “accidentally” subdued. As Paul A. Kramer states,

“Americans had a special mission in the world to transform and redeem other nations, especially through the example of their republican institutions.”14 Peculiar to American

13 “Speech at the Trans-Mississippian Exposition at Omaha, Nebraska, October 12, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 102.

14 Paul A. Kramer, “Empires, Exceptions and Anglo-Saxons,” in The American Colonial State, ed. Julian Go and Anne Foster (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 49.

56 culture was a belief that political ideas, constructs, and practices all possessed an innate superiority to any others practiced around the world. According to Paul T. McCartney,

“Americans approach . . . their options through a cultural prism that clearly disposed them to favor” some form of a “messianistic colonization program to uplift [a] region’s inhabitants.”15 Thus, the United States could impose its will on a foreign people with a

“finely spun brand of imperialism developed . . . in response to an increasingly strident public disavowal of direct imperial control.”16 The U.S. Constitution and Founding

Fathers, as many Americans insisted, may not have supported imperialism, but changing times had allowed its development.

It is here that a discussion of the cultural constructs inherent in American society becomes most important. The eventual acquisition of the Philippines, Guam,

Puerto Rico, and Hawaii struck many Americans as a dramatic departure from long held beliefs both during and after the war. The war had not generated these notions; in fact, many anti-imperialists like William Jennings Bryan or Samuel Gompers had at least paid lip service to the conflict. Bryan joined the war effort, while Gompers realized it would be political suicide if he failed to support it.17 It is necessary to note the changing of the political climate in the United States. “It is important to distinguish between arguments

. . . used prior to the war with Spain . . . to create an imperialist élan,” William Widenor

15 McCartney, Power and Progress, 10.

16 Courtney Johnson, “Understanding the American Empire,” in Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State, ed. Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano (Madison: Wisconsin University Press), 178.

17 Whittaker, “Samuel Gompers,” 431.

57 writes, “and those which were employed to rally domestic support for subsequent administration policy.”18

Why was there a shifting in perspective following the war? McKinley had entered the conflict solely—in his words—on humanitarian and quasi-economic grounds.

“The war with Spain was undertaken,” he stressed, “not that the United States should increase its territory, but that oppression at our very doors should be stopped.”19 He disavowed permanent acquisition, which Congress ratified with the Teller and—though with conditions—Platt Amendments. Why then, only two years later, was the United

States embroiled in a guerilla war to suppress the self-determinative, republican independence movement in the Philippines as an occupying, colonial force? What changed policy so dramatically during 1898? The answer lies in the manner in which

Americans viewed themselves, their own history, and the world around them, coupled with the tactical situation in which the Republican administration found itself.

With the war completed, the McKinley administration dealt with the problem of what to do with its new islands. McKinley used his speaking tour to test public attitudes and make early arguments for potential policies. Making fifty-six speeches in nine days, mostly in the Midwest, he gained significant confidence that the public supported annexation of the Philippines, while his ambassadors worked out the Treaty of

Paris with Spain. War fever still ran high. According to Hofstadter, “it is not an easy thing to persuade a people or a government” in such a state “to abandon a supposed gain

18 William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 98.

19 “Speech at the Citizens’ Banquet in the Auditorium, Chicago, October 19, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 134.

58 already in hand.”20 After Dewey’s victory, U.S. troops sailed to Manila and occupied the city following tepid resistance from the Spanish defenders. While McKinley made his speaking tour, a very tenuous peace was developing between U.S. forces in the city and nationalistic Filipino forces just outside.21

Tactically, the McKinley administration had fallen into a bind. It had a few options: It could abandon the islands to the Filipinos and expect another European nation—most likely Germany or Japan—to occupy the islands. These nations would probably treat the Filipinos as poorly as the Spanish, something that the United States could not allow after “freeing” the archipelago from that kind of exploitation and oppression. Also, American forces could occupy the island as a protectorate, allowing for greater Philippine autonomy, while maintaining military control over a few coaling stations. Originally, this option garnered significant support because it dovetailed nicely with many pre-war imperialist ideas. Another choice was to return the islands to the

Spanish, but, in the words of McKinley, “from the poignancy of their sufferings and the hopelessness of their sighs for the barest rights of humanity” returning the islands to

Spanish dominion was impossible.22 A final option was a continuing U.S. presence and tutelage in the islands. The Philippines would become a part of the United States, but with the eventual goal of independence.23

20 Hofstadter, Paranoid Style, 167.

21 Hoganson, American Manhood, 133.

22 Philippine Islands. February 1, 1899, 55th Cong., 3rd sess., 1899, S. Doc. 95, serial 3731, 3.

23 Hofstadter, Paranoid Style, 168.

59

None of these choices must have seemed palatable to McKinley. To deal with the issue of what do with Spain’s colonial possessions after the war, McKinley nominated a commission consisting of Senators Cushman K. Davis, George Gray, and William P.

Frye, diplomat Whitelaw Reid, and former Secretary of State William Day, who would serve as chairman.24 In mid-September, McKinley beckoned them to give their opinions on what to do with the Spanish possessions.25 He wisely chose a well-rounded commission; he included a Democrat, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, and a member from his own cabinet. All these men could be trusted to pursue a policy very similar to McKinley’s and there was little doubt as to McKinley’s

“paramount influence” on the commissioners.26 However, they did not all possess the same views. In typical fashion, McKinley allowed them to state their claims independently before he set any specific direction.

The opinions and arguments of the commissioners provide a good look into the various perspectives of influential Americans concerning imperialism in 1898. Frye and Davis wished to hold only Manila or all of Luzon with maybe a small coaling station that could allow greater U.S. trade penetration into Asia. Day, “in a strongly conservative sense,” argued against retention, disavowing the need for further American “humanitarian enterprises.”27 Intriguingly, Senator Gray was not present, as he “could not get away from

24 Smith, Spanish-American War, 195.

25 Morgan, Diary of Whitelaw Reid, 23-26.

26 Smith, Spanish-American War, 195.

27 Morgan, Diary of Whitelaw Reid, 27.

60 court.”28 Whitelaw Reid vocally supported imperialism, hoping to gain a foothold commercially in Asia that could be connected easily through the Ladrones and Hawaii.

The Philippines could provide access to China and would be easy to hold in the manner of a British colony, he reasoned.29 Besides, the islands were U.S. territory “by right of conquest.”30

Reid provided numerous alternatives to controlling all the islands, including just Manila, all or part of Luzon, turning Manila “into a free city” like the “Hanseatic

League,” the whole archipelago without the Southern Muslim islands, or in its entirety.31

The sheer number of opinions and options evidences the lack of much experience in colonial endeavors. It also implies a possible anxiety on the part of the commissioners, who were treading through unknown territory. Moreover, it illustrates one of the central two problems that the commissioners were supposed to solve—the retention of the

Philippines and the burden of Cuban debt. McKinley initially had ordered only that the

“United States shall occupy and hold the city, bay and harbor of Manila,” but allowing room for adjustments during the negotiations.32 Furthermore, this meeting illustrates the level and manner of strategic thinking that prevailed at this time.

28 Morgan, Diary of Whitelaw Reid, 26.

29 Ibid., 26-33.

30 Ibid., 30.

31 Ibid., 29.

32 William McKinley to United States Peace Commissioners, Paris, September 16, 1898, in United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898 (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901), 904, under “Spain,” http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

61

Clearly, the importance of coaling stations and guarding trade routes occupied a place of importance for the commissioners. Few were as rabidly expansionistic as Reid, yet there was a general sense that the Philippines could provide a base for further Asian or Pacific trade. It is no coincidence that the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands finally had passed Congress earlier in the summer. Pacific outposts like Hawaii and Samoa could connect then with the Philippines, providing a marine highway for open trade in the western Pacific. Even such vocal anti-imperialists as Senator George Hoar were in favor of policies such as these. Hoar even positively viewed Hawaiian annexation, although he

“complained that expansionists . . . now spoke of it as a stepping-stone to the farther shores of the Pacific.”33 Throughout the late nineteenth century and into the next, expansionists could defend their acquisitions by first arguing against further British incursions in the Pacific and—increasingly more dangerous—the Japanese.34 These geopolitical actualities aided expansionists in overcoming many reluctant expansionists who were still aware of the larger picture and favored some sort of American presence in the Philippines.

When he did decide eventually to annex all of the islands, McKinley could capitalize on more moderate expansionist goals as well as his early conservatism to change his initial decisions depending on the existing political climate. McKinley did not make the decision to annex the Philippines lightly. Once again, he does not appear to have been a ravenous imperialist, or much of one at all. In some ways, he was responding merely to the imperialist climate of his time. Certainly, Hofstadter argues, the “sincerity

33 Healy, U.S. Expansionism, 51.

34 Ibid., 25. See also, Morgan H. Wayne, America’s Road to Empire (New York: John Wiley and Sons), 1965.

62 of his doubts about annexation” played a role in his taking “all of five months to decide” whether to “take not merely a part but the entire archipelago.”35 However, McKinley was a resolute man who made decisions slowly; once he had decided to annex the Philippines, then he would “guide events so that American acquisition . . . became logical and, to politicians and the people, inevitable.”36 He may not have actually partaken in the apocryphal story where God speaks to his tired, fretting soul while he paced the

Executive Mansion at night, but he certainly held great reservations about annexation.

Nevertheless, McKinley reasonably judged by the end of October 1898 that complete annexation was the best option. By this time, his commissioners had agreed “it would be a naval, political, and commercial mistake to divide the archipelago.”37 He may have not wanted it in April, but the tactical situation guaranteed that he would take the islands eventually. Likely, McKinley had leaned toward annexation for some time earlier than September 1898. After their 16 September meeting, McKinley took Reid aside and “practically ma[de him] one of his official family.”38 Since McKinley rarely made political decisions without prior foresight, including the staunch imperialist Reid into his intimate circle at such a pivotal time strongly indicates his early conviction to maintain possession of the islands.

During his speaking tour, McKinley could boast that following the conclusion of the war, the United States was in a far better position domestically and internationally

35 Hofstadter, Paranoid Style, 168.

36 Gould, Presidency of William McKinley, 150.

37 K. Davis Cushman, William P. Frye, and Reid Whitelaw to Mr. Hay, Paris, October 25, 1898, in United States Department of State, Foreign Relations 1898, 932.

38 Morgan, Diary of Whitelaw Reid, 32.

63 than ever before. The United States had “won new triumphs, which have challenged the attention of the world.” The increased U.S. presence in the Caribbean, the acquisition of

Hawaii, and the defeat of the Spanish all added to the international gravitas of the United

States. However, McKinley had not wished to fight for his own gain, and he asserted that the American people had not either. He declared the United States “did not seek war,” but

“in fighting for humanity’s sake,” it succeeded far quicker and more successfully than he could have imagined.39 Americans applauded proudly whenever he claimed that they had gained a higher position in the world. It seemed that the persistent isolationism of the nineteenth century had disappeared.

McKinley not only dwelled on international matters, but also spent considerable time detailing his domestic successes. Though foreign policy had entangled his presidency, he still possessed the old desires to pass domestic legislation, such as those that would favor protectionism. Also, he understood that successful domestic policy could be equal to if not more important than foreign policy. It is much easier for governments to censure correspondents’ accounts of various battles than to ignore a strike or a riot. However, as much as he desired to focus on domestic policy, foreign matters progressively occupied the majority of his time. In addition, he could utilize his success in domestic policies and the growing economy to garner support for his newfound overseas policies.

Thus, at the Trans-Mississippian Exhibition in Omaha, he boasted about his nation’s domestic prosperity in glowing terms. After stating the United States “had

39 “Speech at the Trans-Mississippian Exposition at Omaha, Nebraska, October 12, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 102, 105.

64 challenged the attention of the world,” he made this resounding declaration: “This is true not only of the accumulation of material wealth, and advance in education, science, invention and manufactures, but, above, all, in the opportunities to the people for their own elevation, which has been secured by wise free government.”40 His presidency had turned “doubt into conviction” since the United States now possessed “good money . . ., ample revenues . . ., [and] unquestioned national credit.”41 Clearly, McKinley could figure himself a popular, reelectable president. More importantly, he could transform this success into support for his expansionist policies.

McKinley could feel confident that his foreign policy would be popular not only because he had domestic support, but also the intellectual climate of the time favored colonialism. Overall public opinion on any subject is notoriously difficult to pinpoint, but an attempt at an understanding can be profitable. Thankfully, there was in the late 1890s only a small collection of highly influential voices. Writers like Frederick

Jackson Turner and Brooks Adams had wide readership in aristocratic circles and were primarily responsible, along with poor economic times, for much of the pessimism of the

1890s. Alfred Mahan’s work on sea power and naval strategy garnered the support of many Large Policy enthusiasts, like Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt. Even more important, racial and social worries centered around superiority of Anglo-Saxons or

“English speaking peoples” and their apparent degeneration due to a perceived lack of martial vigor, reproduction, and active capacity.

40 “Speech at the Trans-Mississippian Exposition at Omaha, Nebraska, October 12, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 101-102.

41 Ibid., 102; “Speech at Hastings Iowa, October 13, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 109.

65

Turner and Adams generally appear in historical accounts together because their works deal with a very similar subject, merely differing in scope—Turner focused on the United States domestically, while Adams expanded his study into the international realm. They attempted to understand the accelerating industrialism of their era and to hypothesize concerning the future. Adams advances a grandiose theory explaining why empires decay and collapse. Allegedly, he contends,

when a highly centralized society disintegrates, under the pressure of economic competition, it is because the energy of the race has been exhausted. Consequently, the survivors . . . lack the power necessary for renewed concentration . . ., until supplied with fresh energetic material by the infusion of barbarian blood.42

Turner similarly concluded that the United States owed its unique existence to the massive continent on which it was able to expand. The progressively shrinking amounts of “free land” due to westward expansion supposedly “explain American development.”

The frontier and the clearing of its native inhabitants had created determined and individualistic Americans.43 Combining the two theories, the United States persisted in increasing in commercial development and the quality of its “civilization” because the intense competition of frontier life allowed for decentralized development of the considerable natural wealth of the United States. Thus, Turner and Adams argued that the

United States existed in a unique state because of its long isolation, industrious frontier conditions, and ample resources.

Since these two national aspirations require active, martial expansion, it is no wonder that imperialists like Roosevelt grasped on to them as arguments for territorial

42 Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay of History (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895), viii.

43 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Hold and Company, 1921), 1.

66 advance. “The first requisite in a healthy race is that a woman should be willing and able to bear children just as the men must be willing and able to work and to fight,” he wrote at the time.44 The prevalence of Social Darwinism brought the ideas of superior and inferior races to the forefront of political and intellectual thought. In turn, these races would possess more manly men capable of accomplishing any task. It greatly helped that these ideas meshed easily with Turner’s frontier thesis. Roosevelt and other like him

“were convinced that the progress of the world depended on the masterful leadership of the virile and advanced people” of the United States. The long American history of white expansion “offered proof” of U.S. superiority, Richard E. Welch, Jr. writes, and created fears that “unless [it] followed the trek to the tropics [its] individualistic tradition could wither and die.”45 To reach these jungles, the United States had to abandon its continental isolation and possess distant lands.

Furthermore, the early history of the United States imbued it with a certain national mission that transcended any historical event. According to Paul T. McCartney, the United States “serve[s] as the model demonstrating how liberal democracy could work in practice.” In addition, it “is a particularistic community that happens also to be of universal significance.”46 With its enlightenment foundation, strongly mixed with

Calvinistic and evangelical Protestantism, the United States developed exceptionalism in terms of how its citizenry viewed its position in the world. Thus, there is an “assumption that the U.S. national interest is at minimum consistent with and sometimes constructive

44 Roosevelt to Mönsterberg, 3:86.

45 Richard E. Welch, Jr., Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine- American War, 1899-1902 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 104-105.

46 McCartney, Power and Progress, 40, 41.

67 of global welfare,” McCarthy continues. More importantly, this concept “often interpolates a tendency to change other societies in directions the United States deems fit.”47 This peculiar and inherent aspect of American culture and foreign policy, when mixed with such late nineteenth century notions as the closing of the frontier, Social

Darwinism, and racism provided significant foundations for the popularity, both intellectually and socially, of expansionism.

Arguments like these and their impact on foreign policy remain a central discussion among historians. Richard F. Hamilton brutally criticizes the position of many historians who assert that a small collection of intellectual writers had a distinct impact on foreign policy. In his President McKinley, War and Empire, he discusses a host of writers, notably Turner and Adams, but also Josiah Strong, Samuel Fiske, and John W.

Burgess. These authors all theorized about the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization, the eventual conquest of the world by the Anglo-Saxons, and numerous other racially charged arguments. He even lambasts the acclaimed William A. Williams for his assertion that Adams was a “close friend” of Roosevelt, Lodge, and other Large Policy advocates and consequently “made a significant impression on them.”48 Hamilton stresses the impact of key intellectuals was actually relatively small because they often had low readership and were sometimes—as in the case of Mahan—held in low regard by many important statesmen. Furthermore, the practical considerations of policymakers prevented them from attaching great worth to highly abstract, intellectual ideas.49

47 McCartney, Power and Progress, 43.

48 Hamilton, President McKinley, 2:217.

49 Ibid., 1:51-52.

68

It is important to note that readership does not correlate directly with knowledge of a particular book’s subject. The press, associates, and general public knowledge can disseminate information that only a small percentage of the public has read. Especially during the Gilded and Progressive Eras, many people did not have time to read large intellectual books due to their intensely long hours toiling in factories or basic illiteracy. “Given the pressing concerns of their everyday activities,” as moreover

Hamilton himself notes, decision-makers “would have had little time for reading, let alone reading of the works described here.”50 It certainly would be a stretch to identify

Adams or Turner as a “key” reason for any particular development of the late 1890s.51

However, the general intellectual climate more than likely leaned toward expansionism due to numerous causes already discussed. After all, the ideas that these men produced had to come from somewhere; they did not work in a socio-cultural vacuum. Existence of their arguments implicitly defends the cultural argument that historians have utilized for nearly a century. The presence of widespread racialized understandings of the world, evident in the writings of anti-imperialists and imperialists alike, the persistence of poor economic times that to many was the cure in greater overseas trade, and a belief that American civilization was in danger of collapse, but had innate moral and political superiority, all encouraged expansionism.

Regardless of the degree of importance policymakers placed on Anglo-Saxon or martial intellectual thought, imperialists still could take the expansionary naval policies of Mahan and apply them to U.S. foreign policy. The clamor for war in early

50 Hamilton, President McKinley, 1:49.

51 Ibid., 1:51.

69

1898 had a strong intellectual foundation that continued to influence policymakers in the post-war period. However, the extent of this influence was questioned even during the events themselves. Roosevelt, writing to Mahan, complains that “while something can be done by public men in leading the people, they cannot lead them much further than public opinion has prepared the way.”52 As with the buildup to the war in the previous months, even members of the Republican administration like Whitelaw Reid who wished to take some part of the archipelago had to consider the reaction this might receive. Judging by

McKinley’s tentative stepping into Cuba, it seems reasonable that he wanted to pursue the same line of policy. He likely formed an initial idea, tested public opinion, and then shaped his decisions around that idea, changing it slightly to fit what he perceived the populace desired. The public did seem to want imperialism; a poll conducted in

September indicated that more than half of the 192 editors of various newspapers surveyed wished to annex the entirety of the Philippines.53 Still, the Republican administration decided to call upon higher ideals to argue for imperialist expansion.

McKinley and many other imperialists couched their actions in terms of destiny and duty. In a speech in Chicago, McKinley declared that “The splendid victories we have achieved would be our eternal shame and not our everlasting glory if they had led to the weakening of our original purpose . . .. Duty determines destiny,” he continues.

“Destiny which results from duty performed may bring anxiety and perils, but never

52 Roosevelt to Mahan, March 18, 1901, in “The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Square Deal, 1901-1903,” ed. Elting E. Morison, John M. Blum, Hope W. Wigglesworth, and Sylvia Rice, vol. 3 of The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 23.

53 Stuart Creighton Miller, “Compadre Colonialism,” The Wilson Quarterly 10, no. 3 (Summer 1986): 95.

70 failure and dishonor.”54 Oddly, anti-imperialists like William Jennings Bryan utilized similar terminology. “If however, a contest undertaken for the sake of humanity degenerates into a war of conquest,” he argued, “we shall find it difficult to meet the charge of having added hypocrisy to greed.”55 Rhetorical flourish aside, top politicians like McKinley and Bryan both understood the recent popular war as an opportunity to spread American political benevolence to other peoples. As the eventual Philippine-

American War soon would demonstrate, they adopted very similar rhetoric to argue nearly opposite views. Disagreement over the eventual fate of the Philippines was the central dividing line between imperialists and anti-imperialists.

Although the Anti-Imperialist League formed in June 1898, even before the cessation of hostilities, it would be the battle over the ratification of the Treaty of Paris that divided the nation between expansionism and anti-imperialism.56 Specifically, the stipulation in the treaty that granted U.S. sovereignty over the entire Philippine archipelago weighed heavily on the minds of many Americans. It had been a long fight, filled with disputations concerning previous instances of international law for

McKinley’s commissioners.57 After considerable wrangling over Cuban debt, the question of Puerto Rican retention as a war indemnity, and constant “threats of rupture” between the two parties, the commissioners gradually came to an agreement throughout

54 “Speech at the Citizens’ Banquet in the Auditorium, Chicago, October 19, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 134.

55 William Jennings Bryan, Bryan on Imperialism (New York: Arno Press, 1970), 4.

56 Erving Winslow, “The Anti-Imperialist Faith,” North American Review 175, no. 553 (Dec. 1902): 811-812.

57 Morgan, Diary of Whitelaw Reid, 113-131.

71 late October and early November concerning the Philippines and the various other islands in question. On 28 October, in a telegram whose language, according to H. Wayne

Morgan, “can be only McKinley’s,” the commissioners were given instructions concerning the war:

It is undisputed that Spain’s authority is permanently destroyed in every part of the Philippines. To leave any part in her feeble control now would increase our difficulties and be opposed to the interests of humanity. The sentiment in the United States is almost universal that the people of the Philippines . . . must be liberated from Spanish domination . . .. Nor can we permit Spain to transfer any of the islands to another power. Nor can we invite another power or powers to join the United States in governing them.58

This decision made, the commissioners wrapped up the treaty, though not necessarily easily, and submitted it to the Senate for ratification. The United States bought the

Philippines from Spain for $20 million, along with other smaller territorial acquisitions.59

The battle over the treaty exemplifies well the cultural conditions that existed in the months after the war. The tactical situation had been solved; it was now up to the representatives of the American people to decide whether they would support the

McKinley administration’s policies.

The Congressional and public spectacle that developed over the Treaty of

Paris has received considerable attention in most historical accounts. The amount of backlash the McKinley administration received proves that a substantial portion of the populace did not enthusiastically welcome expansionism. The most vocal opponents were the anti-imperialists who steadily gathered supporters from the waning months of 1898

58 Morgan, Diary of Whitelaw Reid, 129; Mr. Hay to Mr. Day, October 28, 1898, in United States Department of State, Foreign Relations 1898, 937.

59 A Treaty of Peace Between the United States and Spain. Message from the President of the United States, Transmitting a Treaty of Peace Between the United States and Spain, Signed At the City of Paris, on December 10, 1898, 55th Cong., 3rd Sess., 1899, S. Doc. 62, Part 1, serial 3732.

72 until February 1899. The Anti-Imperialist League drew from a large pool. It consisted of such popular figures as ex-presidents Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison, writer

Mark Twain, steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie, and even prominent Social Darwinists like William Graham Sumner.60 Members of the League advanced a variety of opinions against expansionism. Some, like union leader Samuel Gompers, feared the rise of immigrant labor, “ ‘cheap men’ from the orient,” who would displace Americans and endanger precious labor gains.61 Others, like Moorfield Storey, disagreed with the tactical decisions McKinley made. “A treaty with . . . other powers,” he argues, “can be made, which would . . . neutralize the Philippines.” Then, “protected from foreign aggression and saved from the expense of armies and navies, [they] will be allowed to develop in peace.”62 Though the arguments of League members varied widely, they often shared many similar characteristics.

In general, anti-imperialists held much older, more conservative views on the position of the United States in the world. Most prominent members of the Anti-

Imperialist League came from the senior generation, committed to maintaining a past devotion to continental isolation. In addition, it “was based almost exclusively on the grounds of political abstraction.” They believed that expansion of the sort that McKinley

60 Dobson, Reticent Expansionism, 117.

61 Whittaker, “Samuel Gompers,” 431.

62 Moorfield Storey, “The Neutralization of the Philippines as a Peace Measure. From the recent Annual Address of Moorfield Story, President of the Anti-Imperialist League of Boston,” The Advocate of Peace 70, no. 1 (January 1, 1908): 20.

73 wished would “doom the republic” by abandoning its hallowed aims as stated in the

Declaration of Independence or established in George Washington’s Farewell Address.63

They also argued on the basis of their religious convictions. William Jennings

Bryan emphatically declared that “the Christian religion rests upon the doctrine of vicarious suffering; the colonial policy rests upon the doctrine of vicarious enjoyment.”64

Moreover, as Samuel Gompers remarked, racism also played a potential role in the development of anti-imperialism. Many anti-imperialists in California, for example, espoused their beliefs so that they would experience less Chinese immigration. They feared the inclusion of Filipinos in this Asiatic immigration would result in further competition for labor, resulting in the loss of white jobs. Though each individual may have had his own particular emphasis, the Anti-Imperialist League formed around abstract political and cultural principles.

More important, both the imperialists and anti-imperialists generally held similar positive beliefs as to the superiority of American political institutions. In a speech in Cincinnati, Bryan asked a central question: “Whether we can govern colonies as well as other countries can is not material; the real question is whether we can, in one hemisphere, develop the theory that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed . . ..”65 In contrast, McKinley wrote in a letter to William Howard Taft about the “larger responsibilities” of colonial administration after nominating him to the

Philippine Commission in 1901:

63 Fred H. Harrington, “The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898-1900,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 22, no. 2 (September 1935): 211, 212.

64 Bryan, Bryan on Imperialism, 15.

65 Ibid., 9.

74

I extend to you . . . assurance not only for myself but for my countrymen of goodwill for the people of the Islands, and the hope that their participation in the government which its our purpose to develop among them, may lead to their highest advancement, happiness and prosperity.66 [italics added]

The difference between these two beliefs is that anti-imperialists saw a chance for the

United States to convey to the world its greatness, allowing other nations to learn from it by example. By contrast, imperialists asserted the Filipinos required the tutelage of an actual U.S. presence in the islands.

This is not to overly-simplify the case. Many anti-imperialists, particularly those in the American South and West, merely wished to see as few dark-skinned people as possible in the United States. Colonies, they feared, would allow those lesser races free access into the nation. Gompers, always mixing labor fears and racism, raised the same question, “If the Philippines are annexed, what is to prevent the Chinese, the Negritos and the Malays coming to our country?”67 Similarly, many imperialists saw no need to civilize the Filipinos, but merely wished to exploit the islands for their supposed resources or study the savage peoples there. The growth of National Geographic

Magazine attests to this latter motivation.68

Moreover, many anti-imperialists came from a reformist background, generally from the older, abolitionist generation. They consisted of mostly Mugwumps and Democrats, but also a small coterie of prominent, elderly Republicans, like Speaker

66 William H. Taft, Present Day Problems: A Collection of Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions (Freeport, NY: Book for Libraries Press, 1908), 2.

67 Stuart B. Kaufman, The Samuel Gompers Papers: An Expanding Movement at the Turn of the Century, 1898-1902 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 5:28.

68 Julie A. Tuason, “The ideology of Empire in National Geographic Magazine's Coverage of the Philippines, 1898-1908,” Geographical Review 89, no. 1 (January 1999): 34-53. Julie A. Tuason’s article on National Geographic provides an excellent account of that magazine’s role in imperialism.

75

Reed and most famously George F. Hoar.69 Conversely, most imperialists had a youthful vigor, akin to the martial spirit that persuaded them to embark on expansionist adventures. Compare, for example, the two senators from Massachusetts during the war.

Hoar, the hoary, grey Republican stalwart favored a conservative, isolationist policy, while his junior counterpart, Henry Cabot Lodge, vocally supported promoting imperialism in some form. This age difference produced an image of anti-imperialists that seemed culturally and politically anachronistic. Imperialists latched onto this and

“saw themselves as part of a rising generation of intrepid politicians who were struggling against older men for leadership.”70 The battle of generations would experience its greatest confrontation in the first few months of 1899.

Only a year before, McKinley had been disavowing retention of Cuba, claiming it “criminal aggression” to engage in “forceful annexation,” when he asked

Congress to ratify the Treaty of Paris.71 It absolved the United States of Cuban debt, while transferring it to a U.S. military governorship.72 It made Puerto Rico and Guam

U.S. colonial possessions and, most importantly, added the Philippine Islands to the

United States for $20 million.73 The lines had been drawn already. Anti-imperialists, now allied with the Democratic Party at least tentatively, sought to disallow two-thirds majority support for the treaty in the Senate. With such strong support, it seems odd that

69 Harrington, “Anti-Imperialist Movement,” 215-216.

70 Hoganson, American Manhood, 159.

71 First Annual Message, 10:131.

72 President, Proclamation, “Treaty of Peace Between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain, by the President of the United States,” United States Department of State, Foreign Relations 1898 (April 11, 1899): 831-840.

73 Ibid., 832-833.

76

Lodge remained supremely confident. “It looks now as if the treaty would be ratified without serious opposition, “he stated.74 But, in the end, his postulate was correct. The treaty squeaked through 57-27, just one vote over the required two-thirds majority.

The battle between the anti-imperialists and the imperialists would continue until the League’s collapse after the 1900 election.75 It demonstrates the complications that expansionism injected into American life. Some avowed anti-imperialists, like

William Jennings Bryan actually favored the treaty, hoping that U.S. control over the islands could guarantee their independence earlier. Bowing to popular pressure, Bryan hoped to utilize American occupation to promote his own political position, while still arguing against expansion. According to Hofstadter, “over his conduct and his explanations there hangs a heavy sense of inevitable defeat, stemming from his recognition that the voice of the majority demanded the bold and aggressive policy.”76

Bryan’s actions illustrate the awkward position of many anti-imperialists; they could not disavow the providential victories that the United States had won. It is notoriously difficult to argue against recent war gains, in any situation. Instead of attempting the impossible, Bryan and some anti-imperialists chose a different course, which eventually helped the Republican administration attain the votes required to ratify the treaty. They accepted the Treaty with the hopes of future independence, likely during

Bryan’s presidency if he were elected in 1900. Bryan opened the question to the average

74 Lodge to Roosevelt, December 23, 1898, 372.

75 Though the League lost much of its political influence following the 1900 election, it persisted for another two decades.

76 Hoffstadter, Paranoid Style, 174.

77 citizen: “The Destiny of this republic is in the hands of its own people, and upon the success of the experiment here rests the hope of humanity.”77

The American public, for reasons discussed throughout this chapter, were receptive to an expansionist policy for a variety of reasons. A principal one was the belief that the United States had a duty as a benevolent power to elevate the Filipino “savages” with the positive characteristics of American cultural and political institutions. McKinley would sum this nicely when he spoke in Savannah, Georgia:

Can we leave these people, who, by the fortunes of war and our own acts, are helpless and without government, to chaos and anarchy, after we have destroyed the only government they have had? Having destroyed their government, it is the duty of the American people to provide a better one. . .. It is not a question of keeping the islands of the East, but of leaving them.78

Of course, the Filipinos were not actually helpless; indeed, they had formed their own government headed by dictatorial president Emilio Aguinaldo. They had also single- handedly expelled the Spanish military from much of the archipelago, the United States having only conquered Manila. This military power soon would fight the Americans in the bloody Philippine-American War.

But it is interesting to note that from the beginning, McKinley did not wish to remain in the Philippines for long. The tradition of American isolationism, at least politically and militarily, still persisted in the American psyche. It would last long after the Philippine-American debacle tarnished the idea of active American tutelage of other peoples. In his famous “Benevolent Assimilation” address, McKinley sought to

77 Bryan, Bryan on Imperialism, 91.

78 “Speech at Banquet of Board of Trade and Associated Citizens, Savannah, Georgia, December 17, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 174.

78

“substitut[e] the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule.”79 Though exceedingly arrogant, in that McKinley implied that they themselves could not achieve this, his initial goals were positive. Basically, the United States would have preferred not to slaughter thousands of Filipinos.

Though McKinley may not have intended for a long stay in the archipelago, the imperialist game of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century would guarantee his successors would remain. A key reason for holding the Philippines after Dewey’s victory was to prevent German or Japanese occupation. As time would progress, the

Japanese became more aggressive and expansionist, gobbling up huge swaths of the

Pacific. From a geopolitical viewpoint, earlier desires to maintain coaling stations throughout this ocean were in many ways attempts to hold on to a western Pacific sphere of influence for the United States. As the later Russo-Japanese War and World War II would emphasize, this early trepidation toward Japanese expansion would be prescient.

The United States could maintain possession of the Philippines, providing it with a base for further trade, but also a defensible position in the western Pacific so that American ships could observe the Japanese threat. As stated before, the annexation of Hawaii was for much the same purpose. But, McKinley would not sell these ideas to the public; instead, he would focus on elevating the Filipinos to a higher status through self- congratulatory emulation.

Thus, in a different light, the inherent problem of American expansionism after the 1898 war was one of arrogance. Americans believed their political and cultural

79 William McKinley, To the Secretary of War, December 21, 1898, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. J. D. Richardson (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899), 10:221.

79 institutions to be the best in the world. Therefore, every society would benefit from embracing these concepts, even if they did not want it. Combined with the racist virulence of the times, American imperialists set out to tutor the Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans in the benefits of American civilization. But, from the beginning, McKinley feared that these peoples might resist. Worrying that a Filipino insurrection was imminent, McKinley wired to General Elwell S. Otis, the top military commander in the

Philippines, to “inform [the Filipinos] of the purposes of the Government, assuring them that while it will assert its sovereignty its purpose is to give them a good government and security in their personal right.”80 In McKinley’s and most imperialists’ minds, if the

Filipinos would just passively allow the benefits of American civilization to flow over them, they would gain positively from it and eventually, over a very long period of time, achieve civilized status.

As the next chapter will explain, the colonial policies of the United States did not meet with much success. Well into the twentieth century, scholars wondered what went wrong. The incredible irony of the Spanish-American War was that the United

States entered it “in the interest of humanity” to remove a colonial power who had tortured its subjects in concentration camps and politically suppressed them. By 1902, the

United States would have perpetrated all these same horrors. “The Philippine episode in

United States history,” in the words of Lewis L. Gould, “was flawed and doomed not

80 William McKinley, To the Secretary of War, December 21, 1898.

80 because bad men carried out harsh and callous policies, but because good men, such as

William McKinley, were trying to do the impossible.”81

McKinley reluctantly entered the war against Spain, eventually bowing to political pressure. With great reticence, the administration and many portions of the

American populace began the Philippine colonial endeavor. But owing to the superior political qualities of the United States, coupled with a tactical situation that strongly weighed toward full retention, McKinley led the American people into retaining the

Philippines. “Duty determines destiny,” he had told his audience of listeners in Chicago.

“Destiny which results from duty performed may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor.”82 The eventual dishonorable failure of colonial occupation has maligned McKinley and the United States for over a century. The next chapter will discuss how and why this occurred.

81 Gould, Presidency of William McKinley, 189.

82 “Speech at the Citizens’ Banquet in the Auditorium, Chicago, October 19, 1898,” in McKinley, Speeches, 134.

CHAPTER V

MANAGING THE PHILIPPINES

The U.S. colonization of the Philippines generally receives considerably more scholarly attention than interactions with Cuba, Puerto Rico, or any of the smaller islands, like Guam, snatched from Spain after the war. This is mainly due to the fact that possessing the Philippines became far more contentious in every way than the other islands. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the Rough Rider, put it simply in reference to

Cuba that “we took over with military governor with the declared purpose merely to get things in shape, hold a general election, and then withdraw.”1 This was all accomplished by 1902. Though a profitable look at U.S. involvement in Cuba or Puerto Rico is possible, this chapter will examine the early Philippine-American colonial relationship from Dewey’s arrival to 1905. Of course, a U.S. presence in the island lasted until after the Second World War, but in the first years of the twentieth century the imperial experiment had run dry and very little enthusiasm for “imperialism” there existed. This chapter seeks to understand the impact of the colonial policy of the United States on both

Filipinos and Americans. It argues the initial U.S. boasting that they would enlighten the

Filipinos failed due to the brutality of the Philippine Insurrection, the expense of the colonies, and the rapid loss of American interest in the archipelago.

1 Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Colonial Policies of the United States (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1937), 81.

81 82

There was a general feeling of political and cultural superiority in the United

States, in relation to “uncivilized” peoples like the Filipinos. After the Spanish-American

War, the United States confronted a tactical dilemma where it had to possess the

Philippines so they would not fall into other colonial hands, even though it was aware that annexation brought with it a cacophony of problems. The imperial mindset prevalent in most European nations—and by extension the United States—developed into its

American version as U.S. officials tried their hand at uplifting a barbarous people. As

Moorfield Storey and Marcial P. Lichauco caustically state, “the duty of educating the

Filipinos, of teaching them the rudiments of self-government and leading them out into the bright sunlight of western civilization was the mission of the American representatives in the Philippines.”2

The actual colonial policies, as will be shown, illustrate the discomfort that most Americans felt with imperialism. It also showcases the extreme arrogance and brutality of a racist, colonial power even if that power saw itself as benevolent. The U.S. relationship with the Philippines was less a continuation of inherent expansionist policy, or an attempt to simply extend markets—those certainly played a part—but, rather an opportunity for munificent Americans to showcase their entry into the world stage by proving the superiority of their political institutions with the crafting of a lesser people in their image. The eventual abject, and possibly inevitable, failure quickly squelched colonial fervor and led to eventual, albeit over a long period, independence for the

Philippines.

2 Moorfield Storey and Marcial P. Lichauco, The Conquest of the Philippines by the United States, 1898-1925 (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1925), 177.

83

Military planning for a conquest of the Philippines predated the Spanish-

American War. As tensions escalated in Cuba, the U.S. Navy Department, helped by an avid Assistant Secretary Roosevelt, created naval plans to destroy the Spanish fleet in case of war. When Congress finally declared war against Spain at McKinley’s request, the fleet was ready and waiting to advance from Hong Kong. After the annihilation of the

Spanish fleet at Manila, the Philippines seemed “attractive and available.”3 But in reality, the islands had already begun to assert themselves as a viable force. Throughout the nineteenth century, Filipino nationalists had been asserting their independence from

Spain, or at least a degree of autonomy.

Philippine nationalism has its foundations much earlier than 1898. An active independence movement began to coalesce in the last quarter of the century. Specifically, it centered on the figure of Jose Rizal, whose book Noli Me Tangere criticized the

Spanish regime. An ilustrado of exceedingly high intelligence, he had considerable knowledge of the world, having travelled and studied in Europe like many of his class.

He bridged the gap between the Hispanicized upper classes and the impoverished masses.

Though he “stood for peace and cooperation with the Spanish government,” he ultimately undermined its authority, landing himself in exile.4 Regarded, according to Estaban A. de

Ocampo, as the “greatest Filipino hero and martyr that has ever lived,” he helped spark revolutionary fervor in the Philippines.5

3 H. W. Brands, Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), vi.

4 Storey and Lichauco, Conquest, 24 and 25.

5 Estaban A. de Ocampo, “Dr. Jose Rizal, Father of Filipino Nationalism,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 3, no. 1 (March 1962): 45.

84

In his travels, Rizal often came face to face with the critical scientific racism that defined late nineteenth century European culture. Stadialism, which placed different races at various positions on an evolutionary timeline with a predictable European apex, denigrated the Filipinos. Rizal opposed this and sought to educate the Filipinos that they were, in fact, equal to any other race. In the words of Marguerite Fisher, he “exposed” the

Filipinos “to ideas unknown in their colonial experience, such as the essential equality of all men and races, the inviolability of individual rights . . ., and the popular basis of political authority.”6 Likewise, de Ocampo writes that he “insisted that his people should try to improve themselves through industry and education so that they would deserve the respect and admiration of the foreigners.”7 He has gained such a strong status in the

Philippines because he inculcated a sense of Filipino nationalism at a time in history when nationalism was in vogue as the principal means for a diverse society to organize itself.

The writings of Rizal, coupled with the revolutionary Katipunan society

Andres Bonifcacio had organized, propelled the colony to rebel against the Spanish in

1896. As had occurred in Latin America, and elsewhere, the creole class had learned from its caste superiors and inculcated a rationale for dissent. The “principles and ideals” championed by Rizal, de Ocampo relates, “became deeply engrained in the heart and mind of his countrymen.”8 The Filipino eruption eventually led to the rise of Emilio

Aguinaldo, who, after a coup d’état, replaced Bonifacio as the leader of the military arm

6 Marguerite J. Fisher, “Jose Rizal: Asian Apostle of Racial Equalitarianism,” The Journal of Modern History 28, no. 3 (September 1956): 260.

7 Ocampo, “Rizal,” 49.

8 Ibid., 54.

85 of the revolution. More importantly, Spanish authorities declared Rizal a traitor and executed him at the beginning of the revolution. Of course, this led to widespread outrage and only furthered the resolve of many Filipinos to achieve eventual independence.9

Rizal might have died, but his ideas had helped mobilize a nation. He had “worked hard in order to bring about the unity of all the Filipinos . . . so that they could effectively demand for the rights of their people.”10 When the United States began to interact with the exiled Filipino revolutionaries—they had lost the revolution in 1898 and chosen exile over death—it was dealing with an organized, self-defining nation-state, led by a highly educated and insular upper class, desperate to assert its independence.

While Commodore Dewey waited in Hong Kong for orders, Aguinaldo, then exiled there, requested that they meet. Dewey agreed, but the meeting never occurred due to Dewey receiving the order to attack the Spanish fleet. Dewey allowed Aguinaldo safe passage to Manila as “operations by the insurgents against Spanish oppression in the

Philippines under certain restrictions would be welcome.”11 Their cooperation was tenuous at best, and though Dewey occasionally would comment positively on the

Filipinos, he regarded Aguinaldo as “a soft-spoken, unimpressive little man.”12

Aguinaldo hoped for a strong relationship with the United States that could allow him to establish an independent Filipino state. Dewey was in a much more complex situation since the McKinley administration had not established any sort of future plans. “In

9 Brands, Bound to Empire, 43.

10 Ocampo, “Rizal,” 49.

11 Dewey, Autobiography, 246.

12 Ibid.

86 short,” Dewey simply put it, “my policy was to avoid entangling alliance with the insurgents.”13 He might have attempted to avoid any complications, but the intense activity of the insurgents irritated the Americans since though they “might be friends,” they could “equally as well be enemies.”14

Intense debate surfaced concerning the amount of mutual duplicity between

Dewey and Aguinaldo. Depending on whether the author is imperialist or anti- imperialist, the respective argument would claim the United States did or did not hint at eventual Filipino independence. Since both sides have little supporting evidence beyond their own claims, their statements do not substantiate much. It is likely that Consul E.

Spencer Pratt, the U.S. representative in Hong Kong, made hints toward Aguinaldo that the United States was planning unselfishly to free Spanish colonial possessions. But as the War Department “cannot approve anything he may have said to Aguinaldo on behalf of the United States,” his and Dewey’s subsequent interaction could not be considered actual promises. With the Americans aware of this—and the Filipinos ignorant—the

McKinley administration, James Blount explains, happily “did not tell Dewey to quit coaching him, because the service he was rendering was too valuable.”15

Some writers, for example Storey and Blount, decried the U.S. officials as duplicitous in their dealings with the Filipinos. Storey and Lichauco lambast the

“gentlemen” who dealt with early-Filipino relations, “in a country where the principle of

13 Dewey, Autobiography, 247.

14 Ibid., 246.

15 James H. Blount, American Occupation of the Philippines (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1913), 37.

87 estoppel is recognized, such conduct would be held equivalent to a binding promise.”16

However, what other option did the American diplomats have? Making any sort of definite claim exposed them to criticism in the future if the will of McKinley or the tactical situation changed. Allowing Aguinaldo to interpret their ambiguous statement in any circumstance would be the best course of action. Yes, Dewey, Pratt, and other

Americans misled the Filipinos, but likely not for the cause of eventual independence.

The war had not ended; the treaty was not signed. McKinley had not made up his mind concerning retention of the islands, and the treaty commission was still a long way off. It is more likely to assert that both sides in the matter hoped for something that they did not receive and then later claimed they had been duped. The U.S. officials wanted a placid alliance with the Filipinos who they could manipulate later into doing what they wanted, hopefully bloodlessly. The Filipinos desired independence alone. The existence of

Filipino troops around the entire perimeter of Manila, fighting the Spanish trapped inside the city walls, forced the Americans’ hands as to how to deal with them.

While Dewey and Pratt discussed matters with the Filipinos, there was no actual U.S. military presence in the islands until the beginning of summer.17 With the arrival of U.S. troops, “U.S. commanders felt less need for Filipino allies against the

Spanish and more concern for the question of how to keep the ‘insurgents’ outside of

Manila.”18 By this time, everyone was aware that Manila would fall; it was merely a question of to whom and when. That glory fell to the U.S. Army, who after a particularly

16 Storey and Lichauco, Conquest, 63.

17 Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 97.

18 Ibid.

88 lackluster battle took the city on 13 August.19 Therefore, the Filipinos became

“insurgents” rather than allies. Rapidly, the Filipinos began to realize that the Americans were likely to become a permanent fixture in their lives. The next few months persisted with little actual problems, but war seemed possible.

The existence of racist American troops helped sour relations between the two armies. Furthermore, with the confirmation of the treaty, the newly established Philippine

Republic saw its hopes that the United States would act as a selfless force begin to evaporate. H. W. Brands sums it nicely that “the Paris treaty, as it related to the

Philippines, simply transferred title from one set of imperialists to another.” The stage was set for war.20

From the summer of 1898 until the insurrection erupted in early February, the

Philippine military overran the archipelago, defeating the Spanish repeatedly. This elicited both praise and alarm from U.S. authorities. Senator Hoar praised the Filipinos on their ability to battle the Spanish while treating prisoners with “consistent humanity and generosity.” He contrasts the “continuous inhumanity” of Cuban troops with the

“courtesy and forbearance” of the Filipino, who had to deal with the greatest

“provocation and depression.”21 In general, the Filipinos were held in higher regard than other colonial populations such as Cubans of African descent. Blount, as a Southerner, chafed considerably when the Asiatic Filipinos are compared with African Americans.

He believed “that the southern men in the Philippines have always gotten along better

19 Blount, American Occupation, 47.

20 Brands, Bound to Empire, 48.

21 Philippine Islands, 2.

89 with the Filipinos” since he “instinctively resented any suggestion comparing the

Filipinos to negroes.” He asserts, “Not only is the universal American willingness to treat the educated Asiatic as a human being endowed with certain unalienable rights going to redeem him from . . . contempt, but the American from the South . . . guarantee[s] that he shall never be treated as if he were an African.”22 In his bizarre way, Blount illustrates some of the complicated forms of racism that existed in American culture.

Most of the actual soldiers and sailors that trickled into Manila harbor throughout 1898 did not possess such high-minded views of the Filipinos. Paul Kramer, among others, details the extent of latent racism extant in soldier’s diaries and letters.

They used words like “gugu” and “nigger” and sang songs with lyrics such as “damn, damn, damn the Filipino” and “civilize them with a Krag.”23 Notions of masculinity probably aided this kind of thinking. “If American men could not defeat the supposedly unmanly Filipinos,” Hoganson asserts, “they must be in truly dire need of character- building struggles.”24 American men had needed a war to save themselves from degeneration; according to many Americans, the Filipinos could benefit from fighting a superior white power. Though they generally did not approach this in a positive light— most soldiers thought of the Filipinos as uncivilized savages—they still possessed some form of self-confidence that they were a civilizing force. The extent and degree of racism played a central role in defining Filipino-American relations, especially after war erupted.

22 Blount, American Occupation, 365.

23 Kramer, Blood of Government, 139.

24 Hoganson, American Manhood, 151.

90

American imperialists, Kramer contends, utilized “racial exceptionalism” as a

“formidable argument against national-exceptionalist anti-imperialists.”25 Anti- imperialists, like Blount, argued against the wisdom of a lasting U.S. presence in the

Philippines because of “the fundamental unfitness of republican government machinery for boldly activating and honestly enforcing doctrines which deny frankly . . . that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”26 Regardless of the status of the Filipinos racially, it was not the duty of the United States to force the

Philippines into a state of American civilization. Imperialists saw positive signs in the

Filipinos and their own inherent benevolence as counteracting any negatives that the impact of U.S. colonialism may eventually cause the Filipinos. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. put it succinctly: “Like most countries, we were convinced that we had the best form of government ever devised in the world and that our custom and habits were also the most admirable.”27 Thus, in a comic way Blount suggests, Americans would “teach the

Filipino English and at the same time keep plenty of American soldiers around to knock him on the head should he get a notion that he is ready for self-government before the

Americans think he is.”28

Though the anti-imperialists may have made excellent arguments or been particularly vocal, for all their bluster they made very little impact policy-wise until the election of 1900. The military, with Republican support, did as it pleased preparing for a

25 Kramer, “Empires,” in Go and Foster, 57.

26 Blount, American Occupation, 349.

27 Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Colonial Policies, 85.

28 Blount, American Occupation, 340.

91 likely war with the Filipinos. When the delegates worked on the treaty in Paris, Dewey remarked at the time, they “scarcely comprehended that a rebellion was included with the purchase.” Until the Philippine-American War began on 4 February 1899, American troops “were far from being in possession of the property which” had been bought with the treaty.29 Americans troops huddled in Manila, fraternizing with the Spanish and

Filipinos, while they waited for a battle. Meanwhile, McKinley attempted to stave off a war by professing the magnanimity of American intentions.

In his infamous “Benevolent Assimilation” speech, McKinley expressed that

“we come not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends, to protect the natives in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights.” Professing the constructive characteristics of American rule, he highlighted the benefits of a just,

American peace. “All persons who, either by active aid or by honest submission, cooperate,” he promised, “will receive the reward of . . . support and protection.” If

McKinley could win over the Filipino people, he could avoid entanglements with the

Philippine Republic, which had declared its independence in June. “All others will be brought within the lawful rule we have assumed, with firmness if need be,” he also warns, “but without severity so far as possible.”30 McKinley likely did not expect the level of severity to increase to the intensity of reconcentration or the water cure, but the veiled threat of force was readily apparent even from the beginning.

29 Dewey, Autobiography, 284.

30 William McKinley, To the Secretary of War, May 19, 1898, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. J. D. Richardson (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899), 10:209.

92

Relations with the Philippine Republic had deteriorated since U.S. forces had kept the insurgents out of Manila. Neither side “wished open military conflict,” postponing the war. But, General Otis, Commander of the U.S. Army, often used threats of military force to strong-arm the insurgents into doing what he wanted. McKinley wrote to Otis at the beginning of the year urging him not to stir up any possible conflict.31 At the same time, he pointedly ignored Philippine nationalism, instead opting for assimilation.32 The war had two primary stages: a conventional war fought between two organized armies which lasted until November 1899 and a guerilla war that persisted for at least another ten years, but officially ended in May 1902.33 The first stage witnessed

Filipino national unity, while the second saw the development of Filipino collaboration with the American state.

To further complicate matters, in early March, McKinley sent the first civilian commission to the islands to report on conditions and work toward the eventual establishment of civil government. Civilian and military officials butted heads considerably, advocating a “Hard-line and Soft-line.”34 The U.S. military had many battles against the poorly organized and equipped Filipino army. A major factor in this was the Filipino tendency to shoot over the heads of American troops. This proved their lack of martial prowess and denigrated them further in racist American eyes. Military authorities chafed at the presence of civilians, led by the anti-imperialist Jacob Schurman,

31 William McKinley, To the Secretary of War, May 19, 1898, 10:218

32 Smith, Spanish-American War, 204.

33 Brands, Bound to Empire, 49-50.

34 Amy Blitz, The Contested State (Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000), 37.

93 who inquired into military affairs. General Otis, not known to share information, had restricted press coverage to hide his lack of a clear-cut victory. The Americans may have been winning the war, but they had incredible difficulty capturing important leaders or scoring major victories.

Regardless of the state of military affairs, the commission hoped to sway some Filipinos toward accepting U.S. rule. It acted as the cultural and political arm of

American colonialism. McKinley and his advisors hoped that the commission would provide the Filipinos the actual practical knowledge required to lift them to the level of

American civilization. Its purpose was to educate and, over an extended period of time, produce a viable state based on American ideas. In many ways, the Philippine

Commission worried the islands were too alien and it would take generations to instill

American values. The commissioners feared that Spanish rule had corrupted the

Filipinos, so they instituted numerous reforms. An example of one such reform was the institution of a governor-general with veto power who could act as a sort of benevolent dictator. The general view at the time was that the Filipinos had been corrupted by their

Spanish rulers. Thus, not only did the commissioners have to combat the deleterious effects of an Asiatic culture, but one infected with Latin inefficiencies and prejudices.

However, those influential and affluent Filipinos most assimilated into Spanish culture— called ilustrados—were also those who abandoned the Nationalist cause the most readily.

As in any colonial campaign, there is often a wealthy, conservative upper class extant in the controlled country that allies itself with the colonizers for its own benefit. Fearing the political repercussions if Aguinaldo were victorious, “the ilustrados and other Filipino elites grew concerned that their own social, political and economic

94 interest might be threatened by the spreading rebellion in the countryside.”35 This both hurt the Philippine Republic by siphoning away some of its most illustrious inhabitants, and also bolstered imperialist claims that the natives would be better off under American tutelage. In fact, it proved to the Republican administration that Filipinos wanted

American dominion.

The Schurman Commission, as it became known, did little other than research the conditions of the islands. The military government would persist, but the commission would attempt to “alleviate the burdens of taxation, to establish industrial and commercial prosperity, and to provide for the safety of persons and property . . ..”36

Ironically, the United States hoped to meld the island archipelago into its own image, while simultaneously knowing very little about it. Dean Worcester, a member of the committee and one of a handful of Americans with intimate knowledge of the islands prior to April 1898, tells a comical story of an old woman not realizing that the

Philippines are not the Philippians from the Christian Bible, but an East Asian island chain.37 So little was the information available to the Americans before Dewey’s victory that the commission spent most of its time interrogating private citizens in Manila, most of which were of European extraction. They developed a sense of the ethnic situation in the islands, yet barely encountered any Filipinos. It would be left to the Taft

35 Blitz, Contested State, 36.

36 William McKinley, To the Secretary of War, January 20, 1899, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. J. D. Richardson (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899), 10:222.

37 Dean C. Worcester, The Philippines Past and Present (Norwood, MA: Norwood Press, 1914), 6.

95

Commission—a second group of Americans—to establish a much more significant U.S. government presence.

The creation of commissions occurred primarily for political reasons. The longer U.S. military rule lasted in the Philippines, the more firepower McKinley’s political rivals had to use against him in the presidential election of 1900. As has been shown earlier, a considerable portion of the populace—though nowhere near a majority— ardently and vocally fought his every action in the Philippines. The longer military rule continued in the Philippines, Henry Parker Willis reported in 1905, the more it would be

“discreditable to the administration.” Moreover, the civil government “could act as a check on the army,” which the press and anti-imperialists were steadily criticizing for its brutality to the Filipinos.38 The existence of a civil body governing the Philippines could more easily shape the lives of its inhabitants toward embracing American political institutions. As Gould explains, McKinley’s “foreign policy evolved from the premise that greater power and influence for his nation would also promote the betterment of mankind.”39 Ostensibly, he refers to the more grandiose aspects in McKinley’s expansionism. But in the same light, McKinley sent his civil commissioners to the

Philippines to attempt sincerely to begin the educative process.

The United States might have been willing to force the Filipinos militarily to succumb to American dominion, but the McKinley administration still hoped to avoid this choice. Therefore, the president hoped for reciprocity, urging the Filipinos to receive the commissioners “in a manner due to the honored and authorized representatives . . . on

38 Henry Parker Willis, Our Philippine Problem (New York: Arno Press, 1905), 25.

39 Gould, Presidency of William McKinley, 34.

96 account of their knowledge, skill and integrity.”40 Like a father wagging his fingers, in reprimanding his children, McKinley sternly warned the Filipinos against any unruly behavior, while professing benevolent aims. This same process would continue under the

Taft Commission.

In March 1900, McKinley appointed the Taft Commission, consisting of

William H. Taft, future president and Chief Justice, Luke E. Wright, future Philippine governor-general, Dean C. Worcester, a member of the first commission, Henry C. Ide, and Bernard Moses. Within six months, the commission added three Filipino members—

T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Benito Legarda, and Jose Luzuriaga. These first Filipino members evidence the desire of U.S. colonial officials to promote as much Filipino cooptation as possible. With the authority of the Spooner Amendment behind it, the commission had near-dictatorial powers excepting the right to sell land. “It had been supposed that this state of affairs was temporary, and would be modified as soon as Congress undertook to legislate for the Philippines,” Henry Parker Willis notes.41 The slow change of power, and the vague references to how it might be transferred to the Filipinos, assumed center stage in the discussions as to what to do with the Philippines.

During the tenure of the Schurman Commission, the Philippine-American

War entered its second phase. General Otis consistently planned for a massive defeat of the Filipinos, but each time he attacked their strongholds or one of their many capitals, he encountered resistance followed by rebel retreat into the jungles. As the rainy season came in 1899, Aguinaldo realized his military could not defeat the United States in

40 William McKinley, To the Secretary of War, January 20, 1899, 223.

41 Willis, Philippine Problem, 31-33.

97 conventional war. He adopted a guerilla strategy, personally heading a small contingent of forces into the mountains.42 Aguinaldo’s regime deteriorated primarily due to class and ethnic divisions. In ever-greater numbers, well-to-do Hispanicized aristocrats, such as the three Filipino members of the commission, began to “wonder what a thorough-going revolution would do to their privileged position in the political, economic and social scheme of the islands.”43 These Filipinos hoped to benefit from U.S. occupation; as they were generally wealthier, whiter and more educated, they were touted as prime examples of the eventual Philippine citizen U.S. statesmen desired.

The guerilla phase of the war brought with it substantial political change in the islands and the beginning of the actual U.S. colonial state. Militarily, it produced “a perfect orgy of looting and wanton destruction . . ..” Like Vietnam sixty years later, U.S. troops patrolled the jungles all over the disparate archipelago, struggling to distinguish between friend and foe. Not surprisingly, the brutality of war greatly increased in this phase. Worcester describes one grizzly scene: “A detachment, marching through Leyte, found an American who had disappeared a short time before crucified, head down.”

Another man “had been buried in the ground with only his head projecting,” so that ants could “do the rest.”44 Both sides slaughtered injured prisoners, rather than care for the wounded. The Filipinos did this to avoid having to feed other soldiers when they themselves were low on supplies, whereas the U.S. troops often did so out of frustration

42 Brands, Bound to Empire, 52-53.

43 Ibid., 53.

44 Worcester, Philippines Past and Present, 384.

98 and racism. Since the Filipinos had “doffed their uniforms,” Worcester reported, it seemed “all ‘gugus’—or, often, ‘niggers’—soon came to look alike.”45

In response to this situation, Americans resorted to two particularly brutal forms of warfare resorted to by Spanish and British colonial rulers: the water cure and reconcentration. Troops used the water cure to traumatize prisoners into giving confessions that could reveal a guerilla stronghold, or uncover the names of some

“civilian” in the village who moonlighted as a revolutionary. Far worse, General Franklin

Bell, U.S. Brigadier-General in the Batangas region, gave his Circular Order No. 22, which order instituted reconcentration in the same manner, and for the same purposes, as the Spanish did in Cuba. It was aimed “to place the burden of the war on the disloyal.”

Bell believed “practically the entire population ha[d] been hostile to us at heart.”

Moreover, reconcentration would force Filipinos “to conclude that it is best to help the

Government put down this insurrection.”46 Though for different purposes, these two methods of peacekeeping had a strong negative impact, both domestically and in the

Philippines.

The use of the water cure and reconcentration exemplified two different, negative aspects of U.S. colonialism. The water cure demonstrated the brutality of U.S. troops toward the Filipinos. The environment in which they fought created considerable tension as it was difficult to differentiate friend from foe. Extremely high death to wounded ratios accompanied every major skirmish between guerilla forces and U.S. military. In most wars in the nineteenth century, for every man killed in battle, five were

45 Worcester, Philippines Past and Present, 55.

46 Affairs in the Philippine Islands. Hearings Before the Committee on the Philippines of the United States Senate, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 331, Part 2, serial 4243, 1628.

99 wounded. In the Philippines, this number inverted, five Filipinos died to every one wounded.47 If the youth of the soldiers, the difficulties of jungle warfare, and the latent racism apparent in Euro-American society are taken into account, this is not surprising.

Since at the same time, the Taft Commission was attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Filipinos with their enlightened political conduct, facts like these severely damaged their reputation.

Little has harmed the reputation of the McKinley administration in history as much as reconcentration. The policy was the primary reason for McKinley to enter into the Spanish-American War. “It was not civilized warfare,” the president stated emphatically, “It was extermination.”48 The blame should not fall entirely on McKinley since he had been assassinated, and Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him, by the time Bell issued the order. But the Republican administration, now led by Roosevelt, never really advanced beyond “the ends justify the means” as its explanation for instituting a policy so brutal. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Filipinos starved or died of disease in these camps, generally built with little sanitation. Reconcentration soured the Filipinos to the

American state that sought to civilize them. Reconcentration as a military policy was very successful, but its shortsightedness eventually helped to damage Filipino-American relations by creating grievances against the Americans among the general populace.

47 An excellent, detailed account of this fact can be found in Storey and Lichauco, Conquest, 126-129.

48 William McKinley to the Senate and House of Representatives, message, December 6, 1897, in United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 6, 1897 (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1898), xii, under “Message of the President,” http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1897 (accessed August 10, 2011).

100

While the worst of the fighting began to wind down in late 1902, the Taft government, now entrenched and active in Manila, had instituted several civil governments in some of the quieter provinces already. In July 1901, Taft received executive authority over the entirety of the Philippines. The civil government, Willis notes, would “now have the power formerly held by the military governor.”49 The

Commission would act as the legislature, while the governor-general would occupy the role of executive. The speed of the transition, complicated by the rollback of some provincial governments due to renewed insurrection, led many to question the policies of the new Philippine government. However, by 1901, the imperial flame might not have quite “burned itself out,” but focus on the Philippines had waned considerably. 50

A few instances will suffice to illuminate the slowly fading U.S. interest in the

Philippines. For all their bluster, the anti-imperialists had miserably failed to focus the political discussion squarely on the imperialist question. The political and ideological disparity of League members prevented them from affecting the 1900 election. Running against perennial presidential loser Bryan, McKinley utilized the war to help his reelection. Like many presidents afterwards, he “was delighted to find that being commander in chief during a war restored his image as a capable leader.”51 The martial qualities of a war leader had engendered endearing respect for McKinley, who reveled in the popularity that romantic imperialism had provided. However, this popularity hinged

49 Willis, Philippine Problem, 32.

50 Storey and Lichauco, Conquest, 188.

51 Hoganson, American Manhood, 110.

101 on the nation’s exuberance at attaining Great Power status with the acquisition of the

Philippines.

When it came to actually administering the Philippines, most Americans were apathetic at best. It is not that the public had little interest in foreign affairs. In his 1900

Message to Congress, McKinley touched on many foreign policy issues, bragging about the establishment of U.S. international trade that “sets us to the front of questions of international questions of supply and demand.”52 Obviously, McKinley’s pandering to the public’s patriotic pride sought political advantage for himself, but it describes the boastful feelings that the Republican administration utilized to win reelection in 1900.

They proudly preached of their international success both economically and politically, which proved to be a popular rallying cry. The public may have trusted the Republican administration to handle the Philippine situation, but they did not necessarily watch it eagerly.

In his 1905 introduction, Henry Parker Willis asks the public to “abandon the attitude of indifference or obstinacy which many of them have hitherto adopted.”53 This might have been a result of the intense press censorship practiced by Generals Otis and

Arthur MacArthur when handling military affairs. As the war did not end as soon as he claimed, Otis “increasingly exercised the right of press censorship that the War

52 William McKinley to the Senate and House of Representatives, message, December 3, 1900, in United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 3, 1900 (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1902), xix, under “Message of the President,” http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1900 (accessed August 10, 2011).

53 Willis, Philippine Problem, v.

102

Department had conferred upon him.”54 Press censorship was practiced to such an extent that the “correspondents of leading American papers” complained that Otis prevented them from reporting honestly to the American public.55 “Americans had little knowledge of the ‘vigor and ferocity’ of the war,” Storey and Lichauco argue, due to the attempts of those in political office to minimize the importance of the struggle.56 Censorship, together with the sheer distance of the Philippine insurrection, helped to minimize it. Once the war seemed to wind down, they continue, “power, commerce, and military glory ceased to be invoked as the arguments for the indefinite retention of the Philippines.” The administration “now defended its Philippine policy on other grounds—namely, philanthropy.”57

This philanthropy would come through Americanization. James Blount characterizes the period from 1902 to 1906 as “Uncle Sam wrestling with his guardian angel Consent-of-the-governed.”58 For all its superfluous drama, this statement holds a grain of truth. The Philippine civil government had to answer the question of why the

Philippines had a colonial government, while Cuba was at least given independence, albeit compromised by the presence of U.S. marines as dictated by the Platt Amendment.

As mentioned earlier, the Americans would help advance the Filipinos with their own beneficent political institutions. This was formalized with the 1902 Organic Act that gave

54 Blitz, Contested State, 34.

55 Storey and Lichauco, Conquest, 98.

56 Ibid., 105.

57 Ibid., 177.

58 Blount, American Occupation, 347.

103

Congress direct control over the islands. The colonial period from 1902 until 1916 is one of consistent push-and-pull between the increasingly bloated U.S. government bureaucracy and ambitious Filipinos slowly chipping away at U.S. control.

Early on, the Taft government attempted to incorporate as many Filipinos as possible into the U.S. colonial state. This served to defend the claim that the United

States was tutoring the Filipino and slowly increasing their political power. It also sought to placate Filipinos, particularly those wealthy and educated enough to work with U.S. policymakers. Filipinos served in local and city governments, occupied lower ranks in the colonial bureaucracy, and participated in the Philippine constabulary. For many Filipinos,

“the promise of amnesty . . . had attracted both rural and urban elites away from the revolution and toward the U.S. military state.”59 Now Filipinos would not receive simply

“the broad-gauged, in some cases exterminist, racism of the U.S. military.” Instead, the colonial state would work to both “persuade its Filipino participants that they were

‘brothers’ and not ‘serfs’” while also dictating “why they were unready for the rigors and responsibilities of self-government.”60

U.S. policymakers in the Philippines attempted to bridge the gap primarily through Americanizing education, but secondarily through promoting the material progress of a strong commercial state. In addition, there were attempts to sanitize the

Philippines and overall to improve transportation and communication. These attempts ranged in success from dismal failures to laudable gains. For example, education came to the Philippines in two ways: participation in the colonial state and through the primary

59 Kramer, Blood of Government, 161.

60 Ibid.

104 schools. The former desired the erudition of American political institutions, while the latter hoped to sway younger Filipinos from what colonialists perceived as the deleterious practices of their Malay and Hispanic ancestors. The Taft Commission, when organizing the Philippine Civil Service, adhered to the relatively new practice of the merit system that President Roosevelt championed. His 1901 Annual Message claimed that “the merit system is simply one method of securing honest and efficient administration” to produce an “honest and efficient” government.61 In this way Roosevelt could transfer the

Progressivism now established in his administration to the Philippines. Throughout the first years of the twentieth century, the civil service expanded from “a few bureaus and offices” to “all positions, including teachers, in the executive and judicial branches of the central government” as well as smaller local governments.62 Filipinos could learn from these advanced forms of government existing in the United States for their own civilization.

As the colonial state expanded to cover more and more aspects of Philippine society, more Filipinos joined its ranks. In 1903, half of civil servants were Filipino; by

1913 nearly three in four positions were occupied by Filipinos.63 Republicans and imperialists could claim that the colonial state was working. The civil service could teach politics, but colonial policymakers hoped to mold the entire public. In 1901, 509

61 William McKinley to the Senate and House of Representatives, message, December 3, 1901, in United States Department of State. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 3, 1901 (Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1902), 46, under “Message of the President,” http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1901 (accessed August 10, 2011).

62 Worcester, Philippines Past and Present, 363.

63 Ibid., 366.

105

American teachers disembarked the USS Thomas in Manila, excited and nervous to begin their duties. Their arrival was very important as evidence that the United States was indeed persisting in its efforts to advance the archipelago’s well-being. Paul Kramer makes this point succinctly: “If reconcentration had made the United States seem dangerously like Spain and Great Britain, the teachers arriving on the Thomas would, some hoped, restore the fabric of U.S. national exceptionalism.”64 The military atrocities happened, according to the Republican administration, to allow for future benevolence on the part of the Americans; they anxiously awaited celebrating the results of the new educators.

Education in the Philippines proceeded along a rocky record. After the arrival of the first corps, it became fairly obvious that the optimistic tone of the early colonial years was misplaced. Teachers, told to teach in English, found that they could not converse with the natives nor did they generally enjoy their placement. As Willis puts it,

the exposure to diseases, debilitating influence of the climate, high cost of living, and dislike of the natives produces so strong an impression that the teacher seeks, and sometimes secures, a release from his contract and returns at the expiration of a year or less.65

Often times, the colonial administration was only able to keep teachers by denying them the money required to leave the islands. Furthermore, funding and supplies often depressed educators, who learned they had no books, little native help, and inadequate school supplies.66 Quickly, teachers simply looked to increase their attendance numbers, as that was judged the only indication of success. Moreover, many Filipino students only

64 Kramer, Blood of Government, 168-169.

65 Willis, Philippine Problem, 233.

66 Ibid., 240-244.

106 participated in school so as to learn English and obtain a well-paying civil service job, neglecting any other aspect of study.67 Since most officials in the Philippines “accepted the idea of Anglo-Saxon superiority,” H.R. Brands writes, “Americans would civilize and uplift the Filipinos by bringing them American culture, language included.”68 But, this backfired; Filipinos did not respond well to a language they did not know and still brimmed with anger over the destruction of their islands due to the war for which they generally blamed Americans.

The U.S. colonial state did not always have such a dismal record. When it came to improving transportation and sanitation, the U.S. presence generally was a positive. According to Worcester, who had traveled in the Philippines before the war, sanitation conditions disgusted many westerners. Filth covered the streets and superstitious natives could not differentiate between spirit and pathogen.69 Very quickly,

American soldiers contracted various tropical diseases, notably malaria, cholera, or other infections. As it is something that military governments do well, disease eradication began in earnest at the beginning of the occupation and continued strongly into the civil administration. U.S. officials eliminated rinderpest, spread basic knowledge of how to avoid infections, improved sanitation, and even eliminated the bubonic plague.70 One example of improvements to transportation was the Benguet Road to Baguio in Northern

Luzon. In that section of the country, the weather resembled parts of Europe owing to the

67 Willis, Philippine Problem, 245.

68 Brands, Bound to Empire, 71.

69 Worcester, Philippines Past and Present, 410-412.

70 Ibid., 414.

107 higher elevation. Worcester and some of his associates managed to convince the Taft administration to build a road there. This route, though primarily for white Americans to use, was just one example of U.S. state-building in the Philippines.71 Conversely, the methods that U.S. policymakers utilized and the cost of projects like the Baguio roads could elicit considerable ire from the Filipinos.

Americans entered the colonial arena with high hopes and unrealistic expectations. No matter the rhetoric of President Roosevelt proudly proclaiming “the army is not at all a mere instrument of destruction,” but “a great constructive force, a most potent implement for the upbuilding of a peaceful civilization,” war had obliterated any good feelings between Filipinos and Americans.72 Americans naïvely hoped that

Filipinos would understand their just intentions if they provided cleaner streets, more roads, and “civilizing” teachers. But the island lay in ruins, destroyed by the policies and soldiers of the United States. Americans honestly believed they were exceptional, and a cause for good. The Filipinos merely watched what they saw as an exchange of colonial powers. That is not say, however, that the American occupation provided only negatives.

Certainly, American administration was less arbitrary and brutal than Spanish rule. Eventually, Filipinos gained sufficient posts in the government and, after the inauguration of the Philippine Assembly in 1907, progressively stripped power away from U.S. officials. And this made sense, as by 1907, Taft could claim in his speech at the inauguration of the assembly, “Business is reviving, the investment of foreign capital is gradually increasing and only one thing is needed to insure great material

71 Worcester, Philippines Past and Present, 457-458.

72 William McKinley to the Senate and House of Representatives, message, December 3, 1901, in United States Department of State, Foreign Relations 1901, 45.

108 improvement,” he insisted, “and that is the continuance of conservatism in this government.”73 By conservatism he meant those Filipinos most associated with the

United States and who had collaborated early and eagerly. These Filipinos, Taft hoped, would guide their fellow countrymen to a U.S. defined future, like the Americans had.

In the 1930s, President Theodore Roosevelt’s son looked back at the accomplishments in the Philippines of the U.S. government. He mentions the fall in death rate, long expanses of new roads, and improved education, sanitation, and government efficiency, as well as higher average wages.74 But to achieve all of this, the United States destroyed a nascent independence movement based on the same aspirations that

Americans espoused. The positive, humanitarian ideals that went into the Spanish-

American War quickly corrupted when added to flagrant racialization and American exceptionalism. The San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial summarizing this nicely: “As the fundamental declarations of our government apply to all mankind, their implied instruction is to enlarge the areas of their acceptance and extend their benefits to every land in a condition to receive them.”75 It was this last phrase, “in a condition to receive them,” that so affected the Americans experience in the Philippines. Sculpting a

Filipino state proved more difficult, however, than naïve colonialists expected.

With the Jones Act of 1916, a Democratic administration in Washington cut much of its ties with the Philippines and the Tyding-McDuffie Act of 1934 set a date for independence. The U.S. state persisted until after World War II, but an actual vigorous,

73 Taft, Present Day Problems, 32.

74 Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Colonial Policies, 164-165.

75 San Francisco Chronicle, February 6, 1898.

109 colonial presence no longer prevailed. The American experience had been muddled and inefficient in attempting to do the impossible. It is not a reasonable idea to crush an independence movement, and then expect the superiority of one nation’s cultural and political institutions to supplant another’s. Nonetheless, the persistent belief of Americans in the superiority of their culture dictated the need to civilize a colony that fell into their laps. The inherent differences between Filipinos and Americans, especially when starkly contrasted by the inherent racism of Americans, ensured the failure of the American state in the Philippines. No American honestly expected the nation to acquire a Philippine colony in April 1898. Some might have anticipated something similar, and some might have supported that move; certainly, no one foresaw U.S. creation and maintenance of a

European-style colonial state.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

Beginning in the early 1890s American culture began feeling the shock of an expanding nation reaching the ends of its continental reach. Of course, relatively empty land still existed, but settlers had traversed it and in most cases the best areas already had been cultivated. Moreover, other white nations had initiated colonial policies, busily snatching land and creating colonies throughout Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. The United

States was put into the position of accepting the racialized, expansionist arguments of

European imperialists, while possessing a national ideology that contradicted such policies. It was just a matter of time before racist and imperialist ideologies replaced extant self-determinative beliefs.

The war in 1898 did not cause many problems beyond public awareness of the incompetence of Russell Alger and the egregious state of U.S. military organization.

However, war with Spain brought with it spoils. U.S. forces had triumphed, but the government’s civilian leaders had to decide what to do with the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto

Rico, and Guam. The latter three proved much easier to absorb than the Far East Asian archipelago, which by the end of the war could boast its own independence movement, replete with a charismatic president. From the beginning to the end of 1898, the United

States transformed into an imperialist nation with the annexation—formalized in 1899— of the Philippines.

110 111

This essay has examined the cultural and tactical aspects of U.S. imperialism.

It has asserted that U.S. policymakers prior to the war, especially President McKinley, had no real intention to take colonies, let alone the Philippines. Indeed, even after annexing the Philippines, U.S. overseas colonies were termed “territories.” War fever fueled a positive popularity boost for the president, while promoting significant support in the populace for imperialism. This support came from fears that American culture was entering a state of decline due to the lack of martial qualities in the men, anxieties about finances and economics, and a dread that the closing of the western frontier might endanger the health of the nation. It is this cultural trepidation and its racist undertones, when coupled with the lack of alternatives toward imperialism in the Philippines, that produced the horrors of the Philippine occupation.

Americans did not enter 1898 planning to take the Philippines. Some military planners included them into their plans to handle the increasingly inevitable conflict with

Spain. When the Philippine Insurrection began, however, most Americans were painfully unaware of its location. McKinley himself did not know if the Philippines were islands or canned goods. His first request on learning of Dewey’s victory at Manila was to ask for a map. As mentioned previously, many Americans believed they could gain manly qualities asserting themselves in the Philippines. In addition, the United States could argue they were not colonizers, but in reality uplifting the Filipinos with the blessings of

American civilization. Mixing superiority and condescension, many Americans attempted to reconcile their nation’s anti-imperialist past with its imperialist present. The eventual disavowal of classic imperialism, and the lack of any other colonial examples akin to the

Philippines, proves they failed in that endeavor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

A Treaty of Peace Between the United States and Spain. Message from the President of the United States, Transmitting a Treaty of Peace Between the United States and Spain, Signed At the City of Paris, on December 10, 1898. 55th Cong., 3rd Sess., 1899. S. Doc. 62, Part 1, serial 3732.

Affairs in the Philippine Islands. Hearings Before the Committee on the Philippines of the United States Senate. 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902. S. Doc. 331, Part 2, serial 4243.

Adams, Brooks. The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay of History. New York: MacMillan Company, 1895.

Alger, Russell A. The Spanish-American War. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1901.

Atkins, John Black. The War in Cuba. London: Smith, Elder, 1899.

Blount, James H. American Occupation of the Philippines. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1913.

Bryan, William Jennings. Bryan on Imperialism. New York: Arno Press, 1970.

Cleveland, Grover. “Cleveland’s View of the Cuban Crisis, 7 December 1896.” In American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment, edited by Richard Miller, 53-59. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970.

Cushman, K. Davis, William P. Frye, and Reid Whitelaw to Mr. Hay, Paris, October 25, 1898.” In United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898, 932-933. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

Dawes, Charles G. A Journal of the McKinley Years. Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1950.

113 114

Dewey, George. Autobiography of George Dewey. New York: AMS Press, 1913.

First Annual Message, December 6, 1897. In A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, edited by J. D. Richardson, 127-136. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899.

Kaufman, Stuart B. The Samuel Gompers Papers: An Expanding Movement at the Turn of the Century, 1898-1902. Vol. 5. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.

Lodge, Henry Cabot, ed. Selections from Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925.

Lodge, Henry Cabot. The War With Spain. New York: Arno Press, 1970.

Lodge to Roosevelt, December 23, 1898. In Selections from Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918. Edited by Henry Cabot. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925.

McKinley, William. Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley: From March 1, 1897 to May 30, 1900. New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1900.

———. To the Secretary of War, May 19, 1898. In A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, edited by J. D. Richardson, 208-211. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899.

———. To the Secretary of War, December 21, 1898. In A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, edited by J. D. Richardson, 219- 221. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899.

———. To the Secretary of War, January 20, 1899. In A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, edited by J. D. Richardson, 222- 223. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899.

——— to the Senate and House of Representatives, message, December 6, 1897. In United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 6, 1897, vii-xxxiv. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1898. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1897 (accessed August 10, 2011).

115

——— to the Senate and House of Representatives, message, December 3, 1900. In United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 3, 1900, vii-li. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1902. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1900 (accessed August 10, 2011).

——— to the Senate and House of Representatives, message, December 3, 1901. In United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 3, 1901, ix-liv. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1902. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1901 (accessed August 10, 2011).

——— to United States Peace Commissioners, Paris, September 16, 1898. In United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898, 904-908. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

Miller, Richard, H., ed. American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1970.

Morgan, H. Wayne, ed. Diary of Whitelaw Reid: September-December, 1898. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965.

Mr. Day to Mr. Woodford, Washington, DC, March 26, 1898. In United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898, 704. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

Mr. Hay to Mr. Day, Washington, DC, October 28, 1898. In United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898, 937-938. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

Olcott, Charles S. William McKinley, Vol. 1. 1916. Reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1972.

116

Philippine Islands. February 1, 1899. 55th Cong., 3rd sess., 1899. S. Doc. 95, serial 3731.

Proctor, Redfield. “From a Speech by Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont in the U.S. Senate, March 17, 1898.” http://www.spanamwar.com/proctorspeech.htm (accessed August 10, 2011).

Richardson, James, D., ed. A Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897. Vol. 10. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899.

Roosevelt to Mönsterberg, June 3, 1901. In The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Square Deal, 1901-1903. Edited by Elting E. Morison, John M. Blum, Hope W. Wigglesworth, and Sylvia Rice. Vol. 3 of The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, edited by Elting E. Morison. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951.

Roosevelt to Mahan, March 18, 1901. In The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Square Deal, 1901-1903. Edited by Elting E. Morison, John M. Blum, Hope W. Wigglesworth, and Sylvia Rice. Vol. 3 of The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, edited by Elting E. Morison. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951.

Roosevelt to Lodge, June 10, 1898. In Selections from Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918. Edited by Henry Cabot. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925.

Roosevelt to Lodge, July 7, 1898. In Selections from Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918. Edited by Henry Cabot. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925.

San Francisco Chronicle. January 1-April 20, 1898.

Special Messages, March 28, 1898, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, edited by J. D. Richardson, 136-139. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899.

———, April 11, 1898. In A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, edited by J. D. Richardson, 139-150. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1899.

Storey, Moorfield. “The Neutralization of the Philippines as a Peace Measure. From the recent Annual Address of Moorfield Story, President of the Anti-Imperialist League of Boston.” The Advocate of Peace 70, no. 1 (January 1, 1908): 19-20.

117

Taft, William H. Present Day Problems: A Collection of Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions. Freeport, NY: Book for Libraries Press, 1908.

Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Hold and Company, 1921.

United States Department of State. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 6, 1897. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1898. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1897 (accessed August 10, 2011).

———. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

———. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1899. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1901. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1899 (accessed August 10, 2011).

———. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 3, 1900. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1902. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1900 (accessed August 10, 2011).

———. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 3, 1901. Washington, DC: General Printing Office, 1902. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1901 (accessed August 10, 2011).

U.S. President. Proclamation. “Treaty of Peace Between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain, by the President of the United States, A Proclamation.” United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress, December 5, 1898, (April 11, 1899): 831- 840. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1898 (accessed August 10, 2011).

Willis, Henry Parker. Our Philippine Problem. New York: Arno Press, 1905.

118

Winslow, Erving. “The Anti-Imperialist Faith,” North American Review 175, no. 553 (December 1902): 811-818.

Secondary Sources

Beard, Charles A. The Idea of National Interest. New York: MacMillan Company, 1934.

Blitz, Amy. The Contested State. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000.

Brands, H. W. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Dobson, John. Reticent Expansionism: The Foreign Policy of William McKinley. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1988.

Eckstein, A. M. “Is There a ‘Hobson-Lenin Thesis’?” The Economic History Review 44, no. 2 (May 1991): 297-318.

Fisher, Marguerite J. “Jose Rizal: Asian Apostle of Racial Equalitarianism.” The Journal of Modern History 28, no. 3 (September 1956): 259-265.

Greene, Thomas P., ed. American Imperialism in 1898. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1955.

Go, Julian, and Anne Foster. The American Colonial State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

Gould, Lewis J. The Presidency of William McKinley. Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1980.

Hamilton, Richard F. President McKinley and the Coming of War, 1898. Vol. 1 of President McKinley, War and Empire. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006.

———. President McKinley and America’s “New Empire.” Vol. 2 of President McKinley, War and Empire. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007.

Harrington, Fred H. “The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898-1900.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 22, no. 2 (September 1935): 211- 230.

Healy, David. U.S. Expansionism: The Imperialist Urge in the 1890s. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

119

Hobson, J. A. “Imperialism.” 1938. In American Imperialism in 1898, edited by Theodore P. Greene, 1-13. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1955.

Hofstadter, Richard. The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.

Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.

Johnson, Courtney. “Understanding the American Empire: Colonialism, Latin Americanism, and Professional Social Science, 1898-1920.” In Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State, edited by Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano, 175-190. Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 2009.

Kramer, Paul, A. The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Kramer, Paul A. “Empires, Exceptions and Anglo-Saxons: Race and Rule Between the British and U.S. Empires 1880-1910.” In The American Colonial State, edited by Julian Go and Anne Foster, 43-91. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

McCartney, Paul T. Power and Progress: American National Identity, The War of 1898 and the Rise of American Imperialism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.

McCoy, Alfred W., and Francisco A. Scarano, eds. Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State. Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 2009.

Merk, Frederick. “Imperialism Was the Antithesis of Manifest Destiny.” In American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment, edited by Richard H. Miller, 33-36. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1970.

Miller, Richard, H., ed. American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1970.

Miller, Stuart Creighton. “Compadre Colonialism.” The Wilson Quarterly 10, no. 3 (Summer 1986): 92-105.

Millis, Walter. The Martial Spirit. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1989.

Morgan, H. Wayne. America’s Road to Empire. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965.

120

Ocampo, Esteban A. de. “Dr. Jose Rizal, Father of Filipno Nationalism.” Journal of Southeast Asian History 3, no. 1 (March 1962): 44-55.

Offner, John L. An Unwanted War, The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain Over Cuba, 1895-1898. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992.

O’Toole, G. J. A. The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1984.

Paterson, Thomas G. “United States Intervention in Cuba, 1898: Interpretations of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War.” The History Teacher 29, no. 3 (1996): 5-10.

Plesur, Milson. America’s Outward Thrust: Approaches to Foreign Affairs, 1865-1890. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971.

Pratt, Julius W. “It was au Courant Manifest Destiny.” In American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment, edited by Richard H. Miller, 21-32. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1970.

Roosevelt, Nicholas. The Philippines: A Treasure and a Problem. New York: AMS Press, 1926.

Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. Colonial Policies of the United States. New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1937.

Smith, Joseph. The Spanish-American War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895-1902. New York: Longman Publishing, 1994.

Storey, Moorfield and Marcial P. Lichauco. The Conquest of the Philippines by the United States, 1898-1925. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1925.

Tuason, Julie A. “The ideology of Empire in National Geographic Magazine’s Coverage of the Philippines, 1898-1908.” Geographical Review 89, no. 1 (January 1999): 34-53.

Welch, Richard E., Jr. Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine- American War, 1899-1902. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

Whittaker, William George. “Samuel Gompers, Anti-Imperialist.” Pacific Historical Review 38, no. 4 (November 1969): 429-445.

Widenor, William C. Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980.

121

Wilkerson, Marcus M. Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War. New York: Russell and Russell, 1932.

Williams, William A. “Brooks Adams and American Expansion.” The New England Quarterly 25, no. 2 (June 1952): 217-232.

———. Empire as a Way of Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Worcester, Dean C. The Philippines Past and Present. Norwood, MA: Norwood Press, 1914.

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.