The Debate over the Philippines, 1898-1900

Documentary Source Problem

On April 19, 1898 the United States Congress passed a joint resolution that amounted to a declaration of war against Spain. This resolution:

2) demanded that Spain withdraw from Cuba

3) directed the President to use armed force to insure these demands

4) disclaimed any intention by the United States to annex Cuba

This action stemmed from more than a decade of American vexation over the chaos and cruelty of Spain's administration of its Cuban colony. In 1897 and 1898,the ruthlessness of Spanish military rule in Cuba -- often exaggerated by sensational reports of Spanish atrocities in American newspapers -- provoked popular outrage in the United States. Then, in February and March of 1898, blunders and indiscretions in Spanish diplomacy and a mysterious explosion which sunk the United States battleship Maine in Havana harbor (with a loss of over 250 officers and men) brought American indignation to the boiling point.

An aroused public and a belligerent Congress quickly pressured President William McKinley to drop negotiations with Spain and send a war message to Congress. In order to allay the fears of American sugar interests, who wanted to retain tariff barriers against Cuban sugar, but even more to assure themselves and the public that this was to be a selfless, humanitarian crusade, the Congress pledged that there would be no annexation of Cuba. As one New York newspaper put it, the war must be fought "(f)or human lives and the liberty of human beings, for Cuba Libre; not for an extension of United States territory."

With public attention fixed upon the island to the South, the first major military encounter occurred, not in Cuba, but in the distant Philippine Islands. Thanks to the strategic foresight of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, the Asiatic Squadron of the American Navy had been ordered to monitor the segment of the Spanish fleet anchored in Manila harbor. When war was declared the American squadron, under the command of Admiral George Dewey, sailed immediately for the Philippines, where it surprised and destroyed the Spanish fleet. Americans virtually burst with pride at this "glorious victory" at a distant and unexpected site. McKinley, himself, confessed later that "When we received the cable from Admiral Dewey telling of the taking of the Philippines I looked up their location on the globe. I could not have told where those darned islands were within 2000 miles!"

Those "darned islands" created a dilemma for American leaders and the American public. The Congressional resolution had pledged no annexation of Cuba. But what about other Spanish territories that might be conquered during the war? As American troops occupied Manila - at first in seeming cooperation with rebel Philippine forces under Emilio Aguinaldo, and then in opposition against Aguinaldo's aspirations for Philippine self-rule -- Americans began to debate their options.

The following documents, selected from the deluge of speeches and articles that ensued over the next two years, reveal the options that were considered in the debate over American annexation of the Philippines. The debate reached a climax during January and February, 1899, just before the Senate barely ratified (by a single vote over the two-thirds necessary) the treaty transferring the Philippines from Spain to the United States. But the Senate vote did not mark the end of debate. With the power to determine the future of the islands, the United States might still grant them independence. The Democratic Party candidate for President in 1900, Senator William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, made such a policy central to his campaign, thus prolonging the debate for another year.

Assume that you are writing a history of this era of American history with a focus on the changes and continuities in American attitudes. In no more than five (5) typewritten, double-spaced pages, summarize the most significant themes of the debate, with particular attention to the ways in which earlier concepts, themes and issues were echoed, altered, reinterpreted, dismissed, or redefined in the course of this debate.

DOCUMENT #1

Judge Peter S. Grosscup (United States District Court) in Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1898.

.... America and Europe, with the latter's colonial dependencies on other continents, dominate to-day the moral purposes and trade of the world. This domination is not a diminishing one .... The Latin race, tho still preeminent in many fields, is a diminishing race; the Anglo-Saxon, preeminent in all the arts and ambitions that make this age powerful, is an increasing race. It is the only race that has, since the beginning of time, correctly conceived the individual rights of men, and is, on that account, more than anything else, surviving, by fitness, the other races.

... events foreshadow, with certainty, the breaking up of Asia. The first quarter of the twentieth century will probably break up these hitherto stagnant peoples and throw them into a modern atmosphere, and will undoubtedly cleanse and advance them as only a clean, wholesome civilization can. Into this field the moral purposes and commercial courage of the Anglo-Saxon are bound to project themselves ... This war has shown that we need a home port in Asiatic waters. The strategy of war has compelled us to obtain a temporary foothold in the Philippines. I believe we will find a way to make it permanent (and), having no policy looking to colonial settlement, we will find such way without offending any great power....

DOCUMENT #2

William Jennings Bryan, Senator (D) from Nebraska and Democratic Party Presidential Candidate, 1896 and 1900, speech at Omaha, Neb., June 14, 1898.

History will vindicate the position taken by the United States in the war with Spain. In saying this I assume that the principles which were invoked in the inauguration of the war will be observed in its prosecution and conclusion. If, however, a contest undertaken for the sake of humanity degenerates into a war of conquest, we shall find it difficult to meet the charge of having added hypocrisy to greed. Is our national character so weak that we cannot withstand the temptation to appropriate the first piece of land that comes within our reach?

To inflict upon the enemy all possible harm is legitimate warfare, but shall we contemplate a scheme for the colonization of the Orient merely because our ships won a remarkable victory in the harbor of Manila?

Our guns destroyed a Spanish fleet, but can they destroy that self-evident truth, that governments derive their just powers, not from superior force, but from the consent of the governed? ....

If some dream of the splendors of a heterogeneous empire encircling the globe, we shall be content to aid in bringing enduring happiness to a homogeneous people consecrated to the purpose of maintaining a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

DOCUMENT #3

William James (Philosopher and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University), letter to Francois Pillon, June 15, 1898.

... we have now the Cuban War! , A curious episode of history, showing how a nation's ideals can be changed in the twinkling of an eye .... The European nations of the Continent cannot believe that our pretense of humanity, and our disclaiming of all idea of conquest, is sincere. It has been absolutely sincere! The self-conscious feeling of our people have been entirely based in a sense of philanthropic duty, without which not a step would have been taken. And when, in its ultimatum to Spain, Congress denied any project of conquest in Cuba, it genuinely meant every word it said. But here comes in the psychologic factor: one the excitement of action gets loose, the taxes levied, the victories achieved, etc. the old human instincts will get into play with all their own strength, and the ambition and sense of mastery which our nation has will set up new demands. We shall never take Cuba; I imagine that to be very certain ... But Porto Rico, and even the Philippines, are not so sure. We had supposed ourselves (with all our crudity and barbarity in certain ways) a better nation morally than the rest, safe at home, and without the old savage ambition, destined to exert great international influence by throwing in our "moral weight," etc. Dreams! Human Nature is everywhere the same; and at the least temptation all the old military passions rise, and sweep everything before them.

DOCUMENT #4

Senator Justin S. Morrill, speech in U.S. Senate, June 20, 1898.

We can not afford to denounce and forbid all acquisitions of territory in the Western hemisphere by European governments, even at the peril of war, and forthwith embark in a thus-bedamned enterprise ourselves. If we could have our yet unstained doctrine respected by others, we must scrupulously practice what we preach....

This historical policy of the republic of the United States for the hundred years just passed, based, as it has been, upon the sound doctrine promulgated by Washington in his farewell address with words of perennial wisdom against foreign entangling alliance, has taken root in the hearts of the America people, where it is treasured up as their political Bible and can not now be mocked at as merely an ancient tradition. Its acceptance has made the nation great, made it respected.

DOCUMENT #5

Henry Watterson, editor of Louisville Courier-Journal, from interview in New York Herald, June 22, 1898.

To surrender territory acquired by the outlay of so much blood and treasure would be a wanton and cowardly abandonment of obligations and opportunities literally heaven-sent, for they were not originally contemplated by anybody. We can not remand the Philippines to Spain, or commit them to a population incapable of self-government, to become a prey of European diplomacy....

The traditional stay-at-home and mind-your-own-business policy laid down by Washington was wise for a weak and struggling nation. .... But each of the centuries has its own tale of progress to tell ... We must adapt ourselves to the changed order. We must make a new map. ...The United States from now on is destined to be a world power. Henceforth its foreign policy will need to be completely reconstructed. The man who would cling to the traditions of Washington is as one who would reject the railway and travel by the stage-coach, or, disdaining the highway, would strike through the woods...

From a nation of shopkeepers we become a nation of warriors. We escape the menace and peril of socialism and agrarianism, as England has escaped them, by a policy of colonization and conquest. From a provincial huddle of petty sovereignties held together by a rope of sand we rise to the dignity and prowess of an imperial republic incomparably greater than Rome. It is true that we exchange domestic dangers for foreign dangers; but in every direction we multiply the opportunities of the people. We risk Caesarism, certainly; but even. Caesarism is preferable to anarchism.... In short, anything is better than the pace we were going before these present forces were started into life. Already the young manhood of the country is as a goodly brand snatched from the burning, and given a perspective replete with noble deeds and elevating ideas.

DOCUMENT #6

The Burlington (Iowa) Hawk-Eye (Republican newspaper), June, 1898.

The United States now confronts a condition, not a theory. As a people we are the most practical of all races and care more for conditions than theories. Unexpectedly, and through the unseen hand of a developing destiny, we have the Philippine Islands. To assume that we are not competent to deal with this new problem is to assert that Yankee ingenuity has run its course and that popular government is unequal to the demands of modern civilization, inferior to monarchical rule, and unable to cope with the program of the world. The Hawk-Eye takes no stock in such a narrow standard of American statesmanship....

DOCUMENT #7

New York Herald, August 21, 1898, pt. 4, p. 3.

FILIPINOS WORSE
THAN THE INDIANS

Described by the Herald's Correspondent as
Repulsive in Appearance and Brutal in their Warfare
WOMEN PRISONERS
CRUELLY TREATED
Huts of the Natives in the Bamboo
Thickets Filled with Hoards of Plunder
CUNNING AND UNRELIABLE
Passes signed by "General" Aguinaldo
Bear Such Titles as "the August Dictator"

From the Herald's Special Correspondent, Cavite, July 7.

The native Filipino is much a Malay, a good deal a Chinese and More of a Jap, with more or less Spanish meanness thrown in .... None of the women are even good looking. They have very expressive eyes and the younger ones have good white teeth, and that's all. There are no fat people here. It is amusing to see the Filipinos when they are at rest, squatted on their heels, chewing betle nut The older women are given over to this habit entirely, and they have ugly black teeth as a result

... these islanders take delicately nurtured women and children and walk them for miles through mud and mire in slippered feet and callico gowns. This is what I saw yesterday....

DOCUMENT #8

"Preachers Say Hold Philippines" New York Herald, August 22, 1898 quotes from sermon of Rev. W. C. Steele, Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City.

The dead nation [Spain] is evidence of the wrath of God. We have conquered them because we were fighting for humanity and God. The American idea is divine. The red, white and blue represents what the cross represents -- equality.

Spain has learned nothing in four hundred years. Here religious intolerance has been her downfall, and the war we have waged means the beginning of the end of nations which do not recognize the true spirit of religion.

quotes from sermon by Rev. John P. Peters, St. Michaels Episcopal Church, New York City.

We must bear in mind that our nation has taken a place that it never before occupied in the world's affairs. We have assumed a broader responsibility.

The truth is, no nation can or should live wholly within itself ... No man or woman has a right to live within himself or herself. Selfishness , and exclusiveness act to the detriment of the individual ...

In the past the United States government has offered an asylum for the oppressed of all nations. Here the refugee from all lands have found a welcome ... The refugees have come to us. Now we have stepped outside of our own borders to aid other people in the march of freedom and the upholding of human rights.

DOCUMENT #9

Reverend A. B. Leonard, "Prospective Mission Fields," Gospel in All Lands (Methodist publication), August, 1898.

Spain is the foremost representative of political tyranny and religious intolerance among the civilized nations.... For centuries she has done her utmost to block the progress of Christian civilization .... Had Spain pursued an enlightened policy in politics and religion ... she might now rank with Great Britain, rather than with decaying nations such as China and Turkey....

In the place of fostering intelligence among her subjects, she has kept her masses in dense ignorance and under the influence of blind superstition. ...

... an overruling Providence has thrust us out to the "uttermost parts of the earth," there to break the power of Spanish despotism. ...These marvelous events are now history, but no moral ken can foretell their far-reaching influences. But we do know that great opportunities are suddenly open before the Christian Church for advancing among long-oppressed peoples the kingdom of God. The Philippines ... are by the naval and military prowess of a Christian government suddenly thrown open for evangelistic operations. The Christian Church must follow the army and occupy the territory conquered by the war power of the nation.

DOCUMENT #10

John G. Carlisle, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, "Our Future Policy," Harper's Magazine (Sept. 1898).

That our political institutions were not designed for the government of dependent colonies and provinces is a proposition which scarcely admits of discussion. This was intended to be a free republic, composed of self-governing States and intelligent, law-abiding, and liberty-loving people; and no one has ever heretofore supposed that any territory ... could be rightfully governed by the central authority, except for such period as might be necessary to prepare it for admission into the Union upon a footing of perfect equality with each of the other States....

The Philippine Islands, with a population of eight or ten millions, must, unless we are to violate the organic law of the land and hold and govern them perpetually as conquered provinces, be erected, within a reasonable time, into several States, each with two Senators, and altogether having thirty or forty Representatives.

The new policy will demand large standing armies and great navies with consequent burdensome taxation....

DOCUMENT #11

Charles Denby, "Shall We Keep the Philippines?" Forum (Sept. 1898). Denby was United States Minister to China from 1885 to July, 1898.

Dewey's victory has changed our attitude before the world. We took no part in international questions. We had no standing in the councils of nations....

The position of absolute indifference to what is happening in the world is difficult of maintenance; and when it is maintained it is humiliating.

I recognize the existence of a national sentiment, in accordance with the supposed teaching of Washington's Farewell Address, which is against the acquisition of foreign territory; but the world has moved and circumstances are changed. We have become a great people. We have a great commerce to take care of. We have to compete with the commercial nations of the world in far-distant markets. Commerce, not politics is king....

There is no reason whatever why we cannot administer the Philippines in a manner satisfactory to their people was well as to ourselves....

I am in favor of holding the Philippines because I cannot conceive an alternative to our doing so, except the seizure of territory in China. I prefer to hold them rather than to oppress further the government and people of China. I want China to preserve autonomy, to become great and prosperous; and I want these results not for the interests of China, but for our interests.

The whole world sees in China a splendid market for our native products .... There is a boundless future which will make the Pacific more important to us than the Atlantic.

If we give up the Philippines, we throw away the splendid opportunity to assert our influence in the Far East.... The Philippines are a foothold for us in the Far East. The possession gives us standing and influence. It gives us also valuable trade both in exports and imports ....

Dewey's victory is an epoch in the affairs of the Far East. We hold our heads higher. We are coming to our own. We are stretching out our hands for what nature meant should be ours. We are taking our proper rank among the nations of the world. We are after markets, the greatest markets now existing in the world. Along with these markets will go our beneficent institutions; and humanity will bless us.

DOCUMENT #12

Senator Albert Beveridge (R) of Indiana, speech circa. Sept 16, 1898, as reported in Indianapolis Journal, Sept 17, 1898.

The march of our flag. [Cheers.] In 1789, the flag of the Republic waved over four million souls in thirteen States and their savage territory which stretched to the Mississippi, to Canada, and to the Floridas. The timid souls of that day said that now new territory was needed ... But Jefferson ... acquired that imperial territory which swept from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas to the British Possessions, and the march of the flag began. [Applause.] The infidels to the gospel of liberty raved, but the flag swept on. [Applause.]...

Those who denied the power of free institutions to expand urged every argument and more that we hear today; but the people's judgment approved the command of their blood, and the march of the flag went on. [Applause.]

The screen of land from New Orleans to Florida shut us from the Gulf, and over this and the Everglades Peninsula waved the saffron flag of Spain; Andrew Jackson seized both, the American people stood at his back ... Then Texas responded to the bugle call of liberty, and the march of the flag went on. [Cheers.] And at last we waged war with Mexico, and the flag swept over the Southwest, over peerless California, past the Golden Gate to Oregon....

And now, obeying the same voice that Jefferson heard and obeyed ... McKinley plants the flag over all the islands of the seas, outposts of commerce, citadels of national security, and the march of the flag goes on. [Long-continued cheering.] ...

But did the opposition say that, unlike the other lands, these lands of Spain are not contiguous?

The ocean does not separate us from the lands of our duty and desire -- the ocean joins us, a river never to be dredged, a canal never to be repaired [Applause.] Steam joins us, electricity joins us -- the very elements are in league with our destiny. [Continued applause and cheers.] ... The Philippines not contiguous? Our navy will make them contiguous! [he thundered as the thousands shouted their delight.]

DOCUMENT #13

Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, speech, circa. Dec. 1898.

If the Philippines are annexed what is to prevent the Chinese, the Negritos and the Malays coming to our country? How can we prevent the Chinese coolies from going to the Philippines and from there swarm into the United States and engulf our people and our civilization? If these new islands are to become ours, it will be either under the form of Territories or States. Can we hope to close the flood-gates of immigration from the hordes of Chinese and the semi-savage races coming from what will then be part of our own country?

DOCUMENT #14

Carl Schurz, U.S. Senator from Missouri (R), speech at University of Chicago, January 4, 1899.

... our easy victories had put conquest within our reach, and when our arms occupied foreign territory, a loud demand arose that ... the conquests should be kept ... Why not? was the cry. Has not the career of the Republic almost from its very beginning been one of territorial expansion? Has it not acquired Louisiana, Florida, Texas, the vast countries that came to us through the Mexican war and Alaska, and has it not digested them well? Were not those acquisitions much larger than those now in contemplation. If the Republic could digest the old, why not the new? What is the difference?

Only look with an unclouded eye, and you will soon discover differences enough warning you to beware. There are five of decisive importance.

(1.) All the former acquisitions were on this continent and, excepting Alaska, contiguous to our borders.

(2.) They were situated, not in tropical, but in the temperate zone, where democratic institutions thrive and where our people could migrate in mass.

(3.) They were but very thinly peopled in fact, without any population that would have been in the way of new settlements.

(4.) They could be organized as territories in the usual manner, with the expectation that they would presently come into the Union as self-governing States with populations substantially homogeneous to our own.

(5.) They did not require a material increase of our Army and Navy, either for their subjection to our rule or for their defense against any probable foreign attack provoked by their being in our possession.

DOCUMENT #15

Senator George F. Hoar (R -- Massachusetts), and Senator Orville H. Platt (R -- Connecticut), Speeches in U.S. Senate, January 9, 1899 (U.S. Cong. Rec. 55th Cong., 3rd Session, p. 501).

Mr. HOAR. I do not agree, Mr. President, that the lesson of our first hundred years is that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are a failure, and the Americas is to begin the twentieth century where Spain began the sixteenth...

The Monroe Doctrine is gone. Every European nation, every European alliance, has the right to acquire dominion in this hemisphere when we acquire it in the other....

Our fathers dreaded a standing army; but the Senator's doctrine, put in practice anywhere ... renders necessary a standing army, to be reenforced by a powerful navy....

Our fathers respected above all the dignity of labor and rights of human nature ... And they meant to send abroad the American-flag bearing upon its folds ... the legend of the dignity of pure manhood .... No longer, as the flag floats over distant seas, shall it bear on its folds to the downtrodden and oppressed among men the glad tidings that there is a least one spot where that beautiful dream is a reality. The poor Malay, the poor African, the downtrodden workman of Europe, will exclaim, as he reads this new doctrine: "Good God! Is there not one place left on earth where in right of my manhood I can stand up and be a man?"

Mr. PLATT: ... the literal application of the Senator's doctrine would have turned back the Mayflower from our coast and would have prevented our expansion westward to the Pacific Ocean. He announces the doctrine that we must not attempt to govern any people except with their consent -- their express consent....

Mr. President, what did we do with the Indians of this country? ... We found here a continent in the hands of the Indians ... who did not want us to come here, who did not want to be governed by us without their consent, and with them incapable of consenting, we have, nevertheless, gone on and legislated for them and governed them, and now, at last, have brought many of them to a state where they have become citizens and incorporated with us....

I was not one who desired this war. I stood against it as long as I could .... but, Mr. President, that war came, and with it came obligations to succeed, and the moment it was declared I was for my country and for pressing that war forward to its successful conclusion.

Over in the bay of Manila there was a third of the Spanish fleet. To allow that fleet to join the home fleet of Spain and to go against our fleet would have put us perhaps at a disadvantage ... The Commander in Chief of the United States sent forth the message to Admiral Dewey, "Destroy the Spanish feet at Manila."

We had no thought of the consequence ... Is there an American citizen upon whose cheek the blush of shame would not have mantled if those ships had been called away when their work was done? It was the inevitable result of that war which I desired to avoid.

Nay, more Mr. President, I believe that back of it all was the hand of Providence. ...I believe the hand of Providence brought about the conditions which we must either accept or be recreant to duty. I believe that those conditions were a part of the great development of the great force of Christian civilization on earth. I believe the same force was behind ... our ships in Manila Bay that was behind the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. I believe that we have been chosen to carry forward this great work of uplifting humanity on earth. From the time of the landing on Plymouth Rock in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, in the spirit of the Constitution, believing that all men are equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, believing that government derive their just powers form the consent of the governed, we have spread that civilization across the continent until it stood at the Pacific Ocean looking ever westward.

"Westward the course of empire takes its way."

The English-speaking people, the agents of this civilization, the agency through which humanity is to be uplifted.... is charged with this great mission. Providence has put it upon us. We propose to execute it .... We propose to proclaim liberty and justice and the protection of life and human rights wherever the flag of the United States is planted....

We can not be accused of not loving liberty and justice and equality and the rights of men with a love as pure and as earnest and as unselfish as that of the Senator from Massachusetts. With that love in our hearts, ...we shall meet these questions as they arise, and for one, Mr. President, I shall meet them in the spirit both of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States .....

Mr. HOAR:.... The Senator from Connecticut undertakes to say that I misunderstood him. It is not upon what principles he propose to govern these people alone that I charge him with denying the principles of the Constitution and the Declaration. It is in his undertaking to govern them at all without their consent....

You have no right at the cannon's mouth to impose on an unwilling people your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution and your notions of freedom and notions of what is good.... The Senator says, "Oh, we governed the Indians against their will when we first came here," long before the Declaration of Independence. I do not think so. I am speaking of other people. Now the people of the Philippine Islands are clearly a nation -- a people three and one-third times as numerous as our fathers were when they set up this nation. If gentlemen say that because we did what we did on finding a great many million square miles of forest and a few hundred or thousands men roaming over it without any national life, without the germ of national life, without the capacity for self-government, without desiring self-government, was a violation of your principle, I answer if it was a violation of our principle it was wrong. It does not help us out any to say that one hundred and fifty years ago we held slaves or did something else. If it be a violation of your principle it is wrong. But if, as our fathers thought, as we all think, it was not a violation of the principle because there was not a people capable of national life or capable of government in any form, that is another thing.

But read the account of what is going on in (the Philippines). The people there have got a government, with courts and judges, better than those of the people of Cuba, who it was said, had a right to self-government ... and it is proposed to turn your guns on them and say, "We think that our notion of government is better than the notion you have got yourselves."

DOCUMENT #16

Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana, speech before U.S. Senate, January 9, 1899.

Mr. President, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever: "territory belonging to the United States," as the Constitution calls them. And just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustees under God, of the civilization of the world. And we will move forward to our work ... with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as his chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world....

God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic people for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns ... He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples.

Pray God the time may never come when Mammon and the love of ease shall so debase our blood that we will fear to shed it for the flag and its imperial destiny....

DOCUMENT #17

George Hoar, Senator (R) from Massachusetts, January 9, 1899.

I have listened ... to the eloquence of my honorable friend from Indiana ... Yet Mr. President, as I heard his eloquent description of wealth and glory and commerce and trade, I listened in vain for those words which the American people have been wont to take upon their lips in every solemn crisis of their history. I heard much calculated to excite the imagination of youth seeking wealth, or the youth charmed by the dream of empire. But the words Right, Duty, Freedom, were absent... I could think of this brave young Republic of ours listening to what he had to say, of but one occurrence:

"The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, 'Get thee behind me, Satan."'

DOCUMENT #18

William Jennings Bryan, "Will it Pay?" New York Journal, January 15, 1899.

Who can estimate in money and men the cost of subding and keeping in subjection eight millions of people, six thousand miles away, scattered over twelve hundred islands and living under a tropical sun? ....

Let us consider for a moment the indirect cost of annexation. Grave domestic problems press for solution; can we afford to neglect them... to engage unnecessarily in controversies abroad?

Must the people at large busy themselves with the contemplation of "destiny" while the special interests hedge themselves about with legal bulwarks and exact an increasing toll from productive industry?

While the American people are endeavoring to extend an unsolicited sovereignty over remote peoples, foreign financiers will be able to complete the conquest of our own country. Labor's protest ... will be drowned in noisy disputes over ... boundary lines.

Monopoly can thrive in security so long as the inquiry, "Who will haul down the flag," on distant islands turns public attention away from the question, who will uproot the trusts at home?

DOCUMENT #19

Exchange between Senator Benjamin Tillman (D) of South Carolina, and Senator Knute Nelson (R) of Minnesota, on the Senate floor, January 20, 1899.

Mr. NELSON: They have lived for three hundred years under Spanish tyranny and ... barbarism as serfs and slaves. They are as unfit for self-government, in the sense that we have it, as most any people on ... the earth .... It would be the highest cruelty to turn them adrift to-day upon the political sea between a double danger --the danger of destruction from anarchy and chaos within and the danger of being swallowed up by some of the great powers of Europe .....

Mr. TILLMAN: You speak of these people as having been slaves of the Spaniards for three hundred years, and that they are unfit to take any part in the government.

Mr. NELSON: I mean ... that they were slaves in a similar sense, not in the same sense, as in the Southern States before the Civil war.

Mr. TILLMAN: ... I want to call the Senator's attention to the fact, however, that he and others who are now contending for a different policy in Hawaii and the Philippines gave the slaves of the South not only self-government, but they forced on the white men of the South, at the point of the bayonet, the rule and domination of those ex-slaves. Why the difference? Why the change? Do you acknowledge that you were wrong in 1868?

Mr. NELSON: . . . I do not think it is wholesome either for the Senator from South Carolina or for me to delve into the dreary past in these matters... I fear that the Senator is so possessed with questions that grew out of slavery ... that he can hardly see clear on this matter of the Philippine Islands ....

Mr. TILLMAN: ... If the Senator from Minnesota will permit me, to my mind, although it may be darkened by the surroundings, it is the one issue in this whole proposition. You are undertaking to annex and make a component part of this Government islands inhabited by ten millions of the colored race, one-half or more of whom are barbarians of the lowest type. It is to the injection into the body politic of the United States of that vitiated blood, that debased and ignorant people, that we object...

Mr. NELSON: Mr President, the fear of the Senator from South Carolina ... is to a large extent based upon the idea that if we annex the people of these territories they become voters, full citizens in every respect. That is not true. A person may become a citizen of the United States and (sic) entirely deprived of the right of suffrage. A minor is a citizen of the United States; a person non compos mentis is a citizens of the United States; a woman is a citizen of the United States ... The matter of suffrage is not a necessary incident of citizenship...

DOCUMENT #20

A. Lawrence Lowell (President of Harvard University), "The Colonial Expansion of the United States" Atlantic Monthly (Feb. 1899).

It is commonly said that the recent annexations make a departure from our traditional policy, in that they present the first attempt the nation has made to acquire colonies. The former half of this statement is substantially correct; for, with the exception of Alaska, the lands we have annexed border upon those we already possessed. Moreover, they have been, for the most part, uninhabited or very thinly peopled....

The term "colony" is habitually used in a vague sense. It brings to mind European possessions in America, Asia and Africa, and conjures up recollections of selfish oppression. In fact, for many Americans the word has disagreeable associations with which it has no necessary connection....

Since the Revolutionary War the inhabitants of the United States have increased twentyfold; and of the present population one half live in communities that have at some time been organized as territories -- in other words, that have been founded by the process of colonization. It may safely be asserted, therefore, that the United States has been one of the greatest and most successful colonizing powers the world has ever known. ...the question is, not whether we shall enter upon a career of colonization or not, but whether we shall shift into other channels the colonization which has lasted as long as our national existence, or whether we shall abandon it....

If our colonies are to thrive and add to our own prosperity, we must select only thoroughly trained administrators, fit them for their work by long experience, and retain them in office irrespective of party. To do this, it is necessary to create a permanent and highly paid colonial administrative service, which shall offer an honorable and attractive career for young men of ability. It must be organized on the same basis as the army and the navy... the wisest course would be to base it upon an academy like the schools at West Point and Annapolis ......

DOCUMENT #21

William James, letter to Boston Evening Transcript, March 1, 1899.

We are now openly engaged in crushing out the sacredest thing in this great human world -- the attempt of a people long enslaved to attain to the possession of itself, to organize its laws and government, to be free to follow its internal destinies according to its own ideals... Why, then, do we go on? First, the war fever; and then the pride which always refuses to back down when under fire .... In this affair we have to deal with a factor altogether peculiar with our belief, namely, in a national destiny which must be "big" at any cost ... We are to be missionaries of civilization, and to bear the white man's burden, painful as it often is! ... The individual lives are nothing. Our duty and our destiny call, and civilization must go on! Could there be a more damning indictment of the whole bloated...term "modern civilization" than this amounts to?

DOCUMENT #22

Carl Schurz, U.S. Senator (R) from Missouri, "The Policy of Imperialism" Address at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference in Chicago, Oct 17, 1899.

There are some American citizens who take of this question a purely commercial view. I declare I am ardently in favor of the greatest possible expansion of our trade, and I am happy to say that, according to official statistics, our foreign commerce, in spite of all hindrances raised against it, is now expanding tremendously, owing to the simple rule that the nation offering the best goods at proportionately the lowest prices will have the markets. It will have them without armies, without war fleets, without bloody conquests, without colonies. I confess I am not in sympathy with those, if there be such men among us, who would sacrifice our National honor and the high ideals of the Republic, and who would inflict upon our people the burdens and demoralizing influences of militarism for a mere matter of dollars and cents. ... But as to the annexation of the Philippines, I will, for argument's sake, adopt even their point of view for a moment and ask: Will it Pay?

Now, it may well be that the annexation of the Philippines would pay a speculative syndicate of wealthy capitalists, without at the same time paying the American people at large. As to people of our race, tropical countries like the Philippines may be field of profit for rich men who can hire others to work for them, but not for those who have to work for themselves. Taking a general view of the Philippines as a commercial market for us, I need not again argue against the barbarous notion that in order to have a profitable trade with a country we must own it. If that were true, we should never have had any foreign commerce at all. ... It is equally needless to show to any well-informed person that the profits of the trade with the islands themselves can never amount to the cost of making and maintaining the conquest of the Philippines.

... Many imperialists admit that our trade with the Philippines themselves will not nearly be worth its cost; but they say that we must have the Philippines as a foothold, a sort of power station, for the expansion of our trade on the Asiatic continent, especially in China. Admitting this, for argument's sake, I ask what kind of a foothold we should really need. Coaling-stations and docks for our fleet, and facilities for the establishment of commercial houses and depots. That is all. And now I ask further, whether we could not easily have had these things if we had, instead of making war upon the Filipinos, favored the independence of the islands. Everybody knows that we could.

DOCUMENT #23

Theodore Roosevelt, Governor of New York, "Expansion and Peace," The Independent, Dec. 21, 1899.

The growth of peacefulness between nations ... has been confined strictly to those that are civilized. It can only come when both parties to a possible quarrel feel the same spirit. With a barbarous nation peace is the exceptional condition. On the border between civilization and barbarism war is generally normal because it must be under the conditions of barbarism. Whether the Barbarian be the Red Indian on the frontier of the United States, the Afghan on the border of British India or the Turkoman who confronts the Siberian Cossack, the result is the same. In the long run civilized man finds he can keep the peace only by subduing his barbarian neighbor....

... every expansion of a great civilized power means a victory for law, order and righteousness. This has been the case in every instance of expansion during the present century, whether the expanding power were France or England, Russia or America. In every instance the expansion has been of benefit, not so much to the power nominally benefited, as to the whole world. In every instance the result proved that the expanding power was doing a duty to civilization far greater and more important than could have been done by any stationary power....

Nations that expand and nations that do not expand may both ultimately go down, but the one leaves heirs and a glorious memory, and the other leaves neither. The Roman expanded, and he has left a memory which has profoundly influenced the history of mankind ... Similarly to-day it is the great expanding people which bequeath to future ages the great memories and material results of their achievements, and the nations which shall have sprung from their loins, England standing as the archetype and best exemplar of all such mighty nations. But the peoples that do not expand leave, and can leave, nothing behind them...

DOCUMENT #24

William Jennings Bryan, "New Peoples Must be Raised," New York Journal, February 11, 1900.

When this nation incorporates new peoples within its limits, the new peoples must be raised to the level of our people. The line between citizen and subject is the line between republic and empire. If we accept the theory that half of our people can be free and half vassal, the vassal idea will grow until the divine right of the American people to rule distant and subject races will blossom into the doctrine that some strong man has the divine right to rule the American people, and then the people at home will become targets for the large army raised to support a policy of exploitation in other lands.

This Repubic can have no higher destiny than to be a light unto the oppressed in every land. It can win the highest glory by being a moral factor among the nations of the world....

DOCUMENT #25

David Starr Jordan (President, Stanford University), "False Steps by a Nation are Hard to Retrace," 1900.

The Philippines are not contiguous to any land of freedom. They lie in the heart of that region which Ambrose Bierce calls "the torrid zone," nature's asylum for degenerates.: They are already densely populated - more densely than even the oldest of the United States....The conditions of life are such as to forbid Anglo-Saxon colonization. Free institutions worthy of the name have never yet existed in the tropics. Apparently they can never exist there. Individual exceptions and special cases to the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon or any other civilized race degenerates in the tropics mentally, morally, physically.

DOCUMENT #26

Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator from Massachusetts, speech before the U.S. Senate, March 7, 1900.

The policy we offer... is simple and straightforward. We believe in the frank acceptance of existing facts, and in dealing with them as they are and not on a theory of what they might or ought to be. We accept the fact that the Philippine Islands are ours to-day and that we are responsible for them before the world. The next fact is that there is a war in those islands, which, with its chief in hiding, and no semblance of a government, has no degenerated into mere guerrilla fighting and brigandage...Our immediate duty, therefore, is to suppress this disorder, put an end to fighting, and restore peace and order. That is what we are doingz....

Personally, I have no doubt that our constitution gives full right and authority to hold and govern the Philippines without making them either economically or politically part of our system, neither of which they should ever be. When our great Chief Justice, John Marshall ... declared in the Cherokee case that the United States could have under its control, exercised by treaty or the laws of Congress, a "domestic and dependent nation," I think he solved the question of our constitutional relations to the Philippines.

We should give them honest administration, and prompt and efficient courts. We should see to it that there is entire protection to persons and property, in order to encourage the development of the islands by the assurance of safety to investors of capital. All men should be protected in the free exercise of their religion, and the doors thrown open to missionaries of all Christian sects ....

It has been stated over and over again that we have done great wrong in taking these islands without the consent of the governed, from which, according to American principles, all just government derives its powers. The consent of the governed! It is a fair phrase and runs trippingly upon the tongue, but I have observed a great lack of definite meaning in those who use it most ... What do we mean by the "consent of the governed?" We quote it from the Declaration of Independence. What did Jefferson mean by the phrase? ... The Declaration of Independence was the announcement of the existence of a new revolutionary government upon American soil. Upon whose consent did it rest? Was it upon that of all the people of the colonies duly expressed. Most assuredly not. In the first place we must throw out all negroes and persons of African descent, who formed about one quarter of the population, and who were not consulted at all as to the proposed change of government .... Were women included in the word "governed?" They certainly were not permitted by voice or vote to express an opinion on this momentous question. They must, therefore, be excluded.... Did the revolutionary government rest on the consent of all the white males in the colonies? Most assuredly not. There was the usual age limitation ... Everywhere the suffrage was limited, generally by property qualifications, sometimes by other restrictions...

... under the guidance of Thomas Jefferson ... we took Louisiana without the consent of the governed, and ruled it without their consent so long as we saw fit. Who is there to-day who will stand up and say that Thomas Jefferson did not do well and rightly when he bought Louisiana?

... Then came the Mexican war, and by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo we received a great cession of territory from Mexico, including all the California coast ... There were many Mexicans living within the ceded territory. We never asked their consent. Must we again draw the census line and say that the country was too large and they were too few to be entitled to a consent? There seems to be no other escape, if it is desired to distinguish the California acquisition from that of the Philippines...

Prophets of evil are not lacking to declare ruin inevitable if we persist in our career of expansion and in setting no fixed bounds to the progress of the country. Like the raven of Macbeth they croak themselves hoarse in predicting the downfall of the Republic. These dire forebodings are not new. Look back to the debates of 1803 and the succeeding years, and you will find there all that is being said now in almost the same language, and with the same certainty of swift-coming disaster. ...The downfall of the Republic has been constantly and confidently foretold many times since the foundation of the Government, generally on trivial grounds, and always when a great expansion of territory took place. Never has it come true. Only once was the great peril real and near and that was not when men were trying to widen the bounds of the Republic, but when they sought to divide it and make it small.

DOCUMENT #27

Theodore Roosevelt, Republican candidate for Vice-President, campaign speech at Detroit, Michigan, Sept 7, 1900.

.... There is not the least little danger of imperialism and there is not a dividing line of any kind to be drawn between ourmethods of expansion in 1898 and 1899 and the methods of expansion under which we acquired Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, California, Hawaii and Alaska. .... When in 1776 the United States declared itself a nation, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan formed a part of Canada. Illinois and Indiana were acquired by conquest during the Revolution. Many of the inhabitants did not want to become part of the United States ... but they were conquered and brought in .... The Indian aboriginal inhabitants of these States were not consulted in the treaty, nor were the white inhabitants of French extraction. The author of the Declaration of Independence, being of sane and healthy mind, did not push the doctrine of "the consent of the governed" to a conclusion that would have resulted in our great

Commonwealth being confined to east of the Alleghanies, while this mighty West, in which I am now speaking, would have been left as a hunting-ground for savages and a swelling-place for fur-traders.

Mr. Bryan and his associates cannot say enough about the "consent of the governed" doctrine as applying to the Philippines. They dwell upon the fact that "no man is good enough to govern another." In North Carolina, and other Southern States, we see before our eyes the process of the disfranchisement of the negro. We see before our eyes the black man governed without his consent by the white man. Be it remembered too, that the men thus disfranchised have always been Mr. Bryan's fellow citizens, most of them born as free as he was born. If our opponents are sincere they must necessarily denounce what has been done in North Carolina with even more bitterness than they have shown in denouncing what has been done in the Philippines.

The policy of expansion is America's historic policy. We have annexed the Philippines exactly as we have annexed Hawaii, New Mexico, and Alaska. They are now part of American territory and we have no more right to give them up than we have the right to restore Hawaii to the Kanaka Queen or to abandon Alaska to the Esquimaux. We cannot go back, first for the sake of the islands themselves, and next for the sake of our own honor. The men who are making speeches on the unrighteousness of our expanding in the Philippines might with as much justification incite the Sioux and the Apache tribes to outbreak against us, on the ground that we have no right to retain South Dakota or Arizona.....

DOCUMENT #28

Reverend Josiah Strong, Expansion (Sept.,1900).

Industrial expansion is an absolute necessity to competitive manufacturers. It is not the ultimate way out, of course, for it cannot continue always ... But the "ultimate" is a long way off, and does not concern us in this discussion. Industrial expansion is a present necessity, and will continue to be until the nations learn to substitute industrial co-operation for industrial competition....

Our share of the Chinese trade is next to that of Great Britain and rapidly increasing. Our proximity to Eastern Asia and our advantages for manufacture ... should ultimately give us the first place in China's foreign commerce...

At the annual dinner of the American Asiatic Association, Wu Ting-Fing, Chinese minister to the United States said:

"We all know that China is one of the greatest markets of the world, with a population of 400,000,000 that must be fed and clothed... She wants your wheat, your cotton, your iron and steel, ...It is a fine field for American industry to fill these wants. It is particularly easy for you to reach China on account of the fine highway you have on the Pacific, and especially desirable that you do so since you have become our ... neighbor in the Philippines."

... when we remember that our new necessities are precisely complementary to China's new needs, it is not difficult to see a providential meaning in the fact that, with no design of our own, we have become an Asiatic power, close to the Yellow Sea, and we find it easy to believe that

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."

DOCUMENT #29

Bishop J. L. Spalding, "Love of Country," 1899.

We have a compact territory sufficient to support three hundred or more millions of human beings. Should it be possible that we ever need more, there is a region as large, with a population much like our own, adjoining our northern boundary. Why ... should we go to the ends of the earth to take forcible possession of islands lying in remote oceans under tropical skies, inhabited by barbarous or savage tribes, where both race and climate preclude the hope of ever attaining to any high degree of culture? ...

What can imperialism bring us except the menace of ruin? As men are born to die, states rise to fall. Nineveh, Tyre, Babylon, Persian, Egypt and Greece, each had its day. States must perish, but empires are more surely and more quickly brought to ruin. Roman patriotism was dead when Rome became an empire...

DOCUMENT #30

Theodore Marburg (writer on international affairs), Expansion (1900).

Constant reference is made to the disasters that overtook free institutions in Rome and France from the presence of a large standing army. Such references are inapplicable to America ... It is only a country that has formidable enemies on its border that is compelled to maintain a large military force at home. An aggressive policy in distant regions, if the home country's position is isolated, does not involve any such necessity. If we find we must maintain a force in our new possessions, eventually that force will be composed largely of native soldiers. A handful of Englishmen conquered India, and eighty thousand English troops to-day hold this land of two hundred millions. The conquest was effected largely by the use of native troops, and the secret of retention may be said to lie partly in the employment of an army two-thirds native and partly in the practice of justice. Even if were we unable to make use of native troops, the army would not be in America but abroad. It would come back in small groups as the English army comes back from foreign expeditions. Is it not absurd to suppose that it could be used for purposes of tyranny or to defeat the will of the people? ...

Still another source of hesitation is the uncertainty as to the effect of dependencies upon our own institutions. It is claimed: that they will involve their ruin; that whilst a monarchical government may safely pursue a policy of expansion and imperialism, a democracy cannot; that the arbitrary rule necessary to introduce justice amongst an inferior people will affect the liberty of the citizen at home. As a complete answer to this it need only be pointed out that the English, too, are a free people and have become freer whilst building up an empire ninety-one times the size of the mother country....

Has the policy of expansion which has been pursued in England for the last three hundred years, and her arbitrary rule of people who are unfit to rule themselves, affected the liberty of the Englishman at home.? ... The sudden expansion of the empire ... that occurred as a result of the wars in the second half of the eighteenth century was followed by an enormous increase of territory during the nineteenth century. What about the liberty of the citizen during these two centuries? In 1780 the right of petition was established, in 1792 the freedom of the press further fortified ... During the 19th century ... occurred the great extension of suffrage and popular education ...

DOCUMENT #31

Andrew Carnegie, head of Carnegie Steel Company, "Should the United States Expand," (1900).

It has been said that the Philippines will be to the United States what India is to England. This is what I believe they will be, but do people really know what India is to England?

England in India stands to-day upon a volcano. She has to keep 60,000 British troops there to hold the people in subjection, ...There is scarcely a statesman of Britain who does not wish privately: "Would that we were safely out of India!"

India is the curse of Britain, and the Philippines will be the curse of the United States. If you teach suppressed people at all, you make them rebels. Education is fatal to the government of a superior race. The Declaration of Independence will make every ambitious Filipino a thoroughly dissatisfied subject.

DOCUMENT #32

Brigadier General James F. Rusling, Account of an interview with held by President William McKinley with a group of Methodists visiting at the White House on November 21, 1899, printed in the Christian Advocate, January 22, 1903.

... Before you go I would like to say just a word about the Philippine business. I have been criticized a good deal about the Philippines, but don't deserve it. The truth is, I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them ... I sought counsel from all sides - but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands, perhaps, also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I an not ashamed to tell you gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way -- I don't know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain -- that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany -- our commercial rivals in the orient -- that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States, and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!