America's White Man's Burden 1890 - 1905
Expansioniam or imperialism can be traced to President Polk's motives initiating the Mexican-American War, fulfilling a promise to control the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The next natural extension of White Saxonism involved the Spanish presence in the Caribbean region and the Philippines; Samoa and Hawaii were already part of foreign policy initiatives designed to open the China trade and plant the American flag. U.S. blunders, especially concerning treaties allowing Japan to take Korea, set the long-term stage for Japanese invasion of China and the South Pacific, ultimately setting the stage for World War II.
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The Philippine War resulted from the Spanish-American War. Following victory, President McKinley could not return the island group to Spain or another European imperialistic power, nor did be view the Filipino people able or fit to govern themselves. Governor William Howard Taft, visiting in 1905, stated that the Filipinos would need another generation - or longer, to be civilized enough for self-government. In the meantime. the U.S. turned on the forces of independence and rules the nation as a colony. According to Teddy Roosevelt, this was the mission of the white race.
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The Sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor galvanize American public opinion against Spain. Later inquiries demonstrated conclusively that the ship blew up from internal problems related to the coal dust bins. The horrific sinking, however, provided the perfect provocation for war. The Maine had neen sent by Assistant Naval Secretary Roosevelt despite the absence of impending trouble.
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The Treaty of Kanagawa, completed by Matthew Perry, represented the first formal attempt to open Japan to trade. This effort resulted in a rapidly modernizing effect that turned an insular nation into one which invaded Taiwan in 1873, defeated Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, occupied Korea with U.S. blessings, and began the push into China that would ultimately lead to December 7, 1971 in Hawaii. The Japanese took to heart Teddy Roosevelt "Monroe Doctrine for Asia" policed by Japan. This treaty waas the first step in the process.
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Senator Albert Beveridge's "March of the Flag" speech used popular biblical parables and stories to impress the American crown with the Christian duties that befell them: Scripture commanded them to rescue "the perishing," to establish schools and teach white civilized ways of life, to join the family of Christian nations in facilitating commerce. Kipling's "White Man's Burden" was penned in celebration and reminded that Americans in the Philippines has a higher calling. The Methodist president has said as much.
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In 1898 the Nation asked, "What is Hawaii?" and answered rhetorically, "sixty millionarires." Hawaii had benefited from lucrative tariff schedules favoring the sugar barons. The harbor, however, was desperately needed as a coaling station for naval ships. Hawaii was a strategic island group that fit into the grand strategy of administration plans for controlling Asia and, specifically. the Chinese Open Door. Many of Roosevelt's foreign policy initiatives may have skirted constitutional prerogatives such as his secret deals with the Japanese during the Portsmouth negotiations ending the Russo-Japanese War.
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The role of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan assisted a long process in the 19th Century that culminated in the U.S. search for South American and Asia coaling stations as well as lands suitable for American-made products. The ultimate prize was China, opened by Secretary of State Hay's Open Door Notes and supported by thew rising eastern imperialist power Japan. Mahan's revolutionary book also called for the building of a South American canal, a project begun during the Roosevelt presidency.
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Alfred Thayer Mahan was the most forward thinking apostle of imperialism in the late 19th century, having studied extensively what elements made nations great and enduring. His writings influenced Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, and other members of the "Splendid Club" that charted U.S. future as a powerful member of the imperialist circle of European nations controlling most of the world.
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