Unit VIII: "Waves of Reform" ca 1880s to 1921
Question/Problem 2: How did America become an imperial nation?
The following are excerpts from two primary sources of 1898 and 1899. One is a statement of support for the idea of imperialism and the other is a condemnation of imperialism.
Reading 1:
Senator Beveridge Discusses the March of the Flag, September, 1898Shall the American people continue their march toward the commercial supremacy of the world? Shall free institutions broaden their blessed reign as the children of liberty wax in strength, until the empire of our principles is established over the hearts of all mankind?
Shall we be as the man who had one talent and hid it, or as he who had ten talents and used them until they grew to riches? And shall we reap the reward that waits on our discharge or our high duty; shall we occupy new markets for what our farmers raise, our factories make, our merchants sell aye and, please God, new markets for what our ships shall carry?
The Opposition tells us that we ought not to govern a people without their consent. I answer: The rule of liberty that all just government derives its authority from the consent of the governed, applies only to those who are capable of self±government. We govern the Indians without their consent, we govern our territories without their consent, we govern our children without their consent. How do they know that our government would be without their consent?...
The ocean does not separate us from the lands of our duty and desire the oceans join us, rivers never to be dredged, canals never to be repaired. Steam joins us; electricity joins us-- the very elements are in league with our destiny. Cuba not contiguous! Porta Rico not contiguous! Hawaii and the Philippines not contiguous! The oceans make them contiguous. And our navy will make them contiguous.
But the opposition is right-- there is a difference. We did not need the Western Mississippi Valley when we acquired it, nor Florida, nor Texas, nor California, nor the royal provinces of the far northwest. We had no emigrants to people this imperial wilderness, no money to develop it, even no highways to cover it. No trade awaited us in its savage fastness. Our productions were not greater than our trade. There was not one reason for the land±lust of our statesmen from Jefferson to Grant, other than the prophet and the Saxon within them. But, to±day, we are raising more than we can consume, making more than we can use. Therefore we must find new markets for our produce....
So Hawaii furnishes us a naval base in the heart of the Pacific; the Ladrones another, a voyage further on; Manila another, at the gates of Asia-- Asia, to the trade of whose hundreds of millions American merchants, manufactures, farmers, have as good right as those of Germany or France or Russia or England; Asia, whose commerce with the United Kingdom alone amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars every year; Asia, to whom Germany looks to take her surplus products; Asia, whose doors must not be shut against American trade. Within five decades the bulk of Oriental commerce will be ours....
We can not fly from our world duties; it is ours to execute the purpose of a fate that had driven us to be greater than our small intentions. We can not retreat from any soil where Providence has unfurled our banner; it is ours to save that soil for liberty and civilization.
From William Appleman Williams, The Shaping of American Diplomacy (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1960), pp. 433-434.