Joseph Pulitzer Demands Intervention (1897)
The oppressed Cubans revolted in 1895, and the Spanish commander, General Valeriano ("Butcher") Weyler, tried to crush them by herding them into pesthole concentration camps. Atrocities on both sides were inevitable, but the United States heard little of Cuban misdeeds. The American yellow press, with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal competing in sensationalism, headlined lurid horror tales. The basic principle of the so-called new journalism seemed to be "Anything to Sell a Paper," regardless of the truth. A World reporter wrote from Cuba that slaughtered rebels were fed to dogs and that children of high-ranking Spanish families clamored for Cuban ears as playthings. The following editorial in Pulitzer's World demanded action. What point or points probably made the heaviest impact on the American public?

How long are the Spaniards to drench Cuba with the blood and tears of her people?

How long is the peasantry of Spain to be drafted away to Cuba to die miserably in a hopeless war, that Spanish nobles and Spanish officers may get medals and honors?

How long shall old [Cuban] men and women and children be murdered by the score, the innocent victims of Spanish rage against the patriot armies they cannot conquer?

How long shall the sound of rifles in Castle Morro at sunrise proclaim that bound and helpless prisoners of war have been murdered in cold blood?

How long shall Cuban women be the victims of Spanish outrages and lie sobbing and bruised in loathsome prisons?

How long shall women passengers on vessels flying the American flag be unlawfully seized and stripped and searched by brutal, jeering Spanish officers, in violation of the laws of nations and of the honor of the United States?*

How long shall American citizens, arbitrarily arrested while on peaceful and legitimate errands, be immured in foul Spanish prisons without trial?**

How long shall the navy of the United States be used as the sea police of barbarous Spain?

How long shall the United States sit idle and indifferent within sound and hearing of rapine and murder?

How long?

*The most highly publicized case actually involved an examination by a police matron.

**By 1897 there were few, if any, U.S. citizens in Cuban prisons, even naturalized Americans of Cuban birth.

New York World, February 13, 1897.

William Randolph Hearst Stages a Rescue (1897)
William Randolph Hearst, the irresponsible California playboy who had inherited some $20 million from his father, was even more ingenious than his arch-rival Joseph Pulitzer. He is said to have boasted (with undue credit to himself) that it cost him $3 million to bring on the Spanish-American War. He outdid himself in the case of Evangelina Cisneros, a "tenderly nurtured" Cuban girl of eighteen who was imprisoned in Havana on charges of rebellion and reportedly faced a twenty-year incarceration with depraved fellow inmates. The yellow press pictured her as a beautiful young woman whose only crime had been to preserve her virtue against the lustful advances of a "lecherous" Spanish officer. Hearst's New York Journal whipped up a storm of sympathy for the girl and inspired appeals to the Spanish queen and to the pope. All else failing, a Journal reporter rented a house next to the prison, drugged the inmates, sawed through the cell bars, and--using a forged visa--escaped with Señorita Cisneros disguised as a boy. What does this account in the Journal reveal about the character and the techniques of the new yellow journalism?

EVANGELINA CISNEROS RESCUED BY THE JOURNAL

AN AMERICAN NEWSPAPER ACCOMPLISHES AT A SINGLE STROKE WHAT THE RED TAPE OF DIPLOMACY FAILED UTTERLY TO BRING ABOUT IN MANY MONTHS

By Charles Duval

Havana, Oct. 7, via Key West, Fla., Oct. 9.--Evangelina Cosio y Cisneros is at liberty, and the Journal can place to its credit the greatest journalist coup of this age. It is an illustration of the methods of new journalism and it will find an endorsement in the heart of every woman who has read of the horrible sufferings of the poor girl who has been confined for fifteen long months in Recojidas Prison.

The Journal, finding that all other methods were unavailing, decided to secure her liberation through force, and this, as the specially selected commissioner of the Journal, I have succeeded in doing.

I have broken the bars of Recojidas and have set free the beautiful captive of monster Weyler, restoring her to her friends and relatives, and doing by strength, skill, and strategy what could not be accomplished by petition and urgent request of the Pope.

Weyler could blind the Queen to [the] real character of Evangelina, but he could not build a jail that would hold against Journal enterprise when properly set to work.

Tonight all Havana rings with the story. It is the one topic of conversation; everything else pales into insignificance.

New York Journal, October 10, 1897.

Madrid's Diplomatic Concessions (1898)
General Stewart L. Woodford, a New Yorker of distinguished bearing and ingratiating manner, had served as a Civil War officer, a lawyer, and a congressman. Though only an amateur diplomat, he revealed surprising skill as the U.S. minister in Madrid. He was under instructions from the State Department to secure from Spain (1) an immediate end to the (modified) reconcentration policy, (2) the granting of an armistice to the insurgents, and (3) acknowledgment of Cuba's independence if the president deemed it necessary. After long haggling, the Madrid government ordered an end to reconcentration, March 30, 1898. Two of Woodford's subsequent cablegrams to Washington, reprinted here, reveal his further progress. What pressures were being exerted for peace in Madrid? Did Spain's concessions offer hope of an amicable adjustment in Cuba?

Madrid, April 9, 1898

Assistant Secretary Day, Washington:

Spanish minister for foreign affairs has just sent for me. The representatives of the European powers called upon him this morning and advised acquiescence in Pope's request for an armistice [in Cuba]. Armistice has been granted. Spanish minister in Washington instructed to notify our Department of State and yourself. Authority has been cabled to General Blanco [in Cuba] to proclaim armistice. I send verbatim memorandum just handed me by Spanish minister for foreign affairs, as follows:

In view of the earnest and repeated request of His Holiness [the Pope], supported resolutely by declarations and friendly counsels of the representatives of the six great European powers, who formulated them this morning in a collective visit to the minister of state, as corollary of the efforts of their Governments in Washington, the Spanish Government has resolved to inform the Holy Father that on this date it directs the general-in-chief [Blanco] of the army in Cuba to grant immediately a suspension of hostilities for such length of time as he may think prudent to prepare and facilitate the peace earnestly desired by all.

I hope that this dispatch may reach you before the President's message goes to Congress.

Woodford

Madrid, April 10, 1898

President McKinley, Washington:

[Referring to] My personal [dispatch] No. 66. In view of action of Spanish Government, as cabled Saturday, April 9, I hope that you can obtain full authority from Congress to do whatever you shall deem necessary to secure immediate and permanent peace in Cuba by negotiations, including the full power to employ the Army and Navy, according to your own judgment, to aid and enforce your action. If this be secured, I believe you will get final settlement before August 1 on one of the following bases: either such autonomy as the insurgents may agree to accept, or recognition by Spain of the independence of the island, or cession of the island to the United States.

I hope that nothing will now be done to humiliate Spain, as I am satisfied that the present Government is going, and is loyally ready to go, as fast and as far as it can. With your power of action sufficiently free you will win the fight on your own lines. I do not expect immediate reply, but will be glad to have an early acknowledgment of receipt.

Woodford

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1898 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901), p. 746.

Spain Regrets the Maine (1898)
The U.S. commission investigating the sinking of the Maine had not permitted Spanish officials to examine the wreck, no doubt out of fear that the evidence might be tampered with. The Spaniards nevertheless ran their own inquiry and concluded that the explosion was internal. (In 1976 a U.S. Navy investigation conducted by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover came to a nearly identical conclusion.) When the Spanish minister in Washington reported to the State Department his nation's recent concessions regarding Cuba, he added the following plea regarding the Maine. What light does it cast on the theory of Spanish official culpability, and what is the most convincing evidence of Spain's good faith?

The Government of Her Majesty doubts not that this [granting of concessions to Cuba] will be recognized by the United States Government, even as it must recognize the manifest injustice with which a portion of the public opinion of this country [the United States] claims to discover responsibilities on the part of Spain for the horrible catastrophe which took place on the calamitous night of the 15th of February last. Her Majesty the Queen Regent, her responsible government, the Governor-General of Cuba, the insular government, and all the higher authorities of Habana displayed from the first moment the profound sorrow and sentiments of horror which that measureless misfortune caused to them, as well as the sympathy which on that melancholy occasion linked them to the American Government and people.

Proof of this is found in the visits of Her Majesty's chargé d'affaires to the illustrious President of the United States, the visits made by the highest officers of the Spanish State to Mr. Woodford, the assistance unsparingly given to the victims, the funeral obsequies which were provided for them by the municipal council of Habana, and the notes addressed to the Department of State by this legation. . . .

The officers and crews of Her Majesty's war vessels lying near the Maine, heedless of the evident peril that menaced them, as is testified by the officers of that American ironclad, immediately lowered their boats, saving a large number of the wrecked ship's men, who alone owe their lives to the instant and efficient aid of the Spanish sailors.

It is singular that these well-known facts and impressive declarations seem to have been forgotten by [American] public opinion which instead lends credence to the most absurd and offensive conjectures.

The Government of Her Majesty would very greatly esteem the sense of justice and the courtesy of the United States Government were an official statement to set the facts in their true light, for it would seem that they are ignored, and the failure to appreciate them is potentially contributing to keep up an abnormal excitement in the minds of the people that imperils, causelessly and most irrationally, the friendly relations of the two countries.

As for the question of fact which springs from the diversity of views between the reports of the Spanish and American boards, the Government of Her Majesty, although not yet possessed of the official text of the two reports, has hastened to declare itself ready to submit to the judgment of impartial and disinterested experts, accepting in advance the decision of the arbitrators named by the two parties, which is obvious proof of the frankness and good faith which marks the course of Spain on this as on all occasions.

[The U.S. government failed to accept Spain's offer of arbitration.]

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1901 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, April 10, 1898), pp. 748-749.

President McKinley Submits a War Message (1898)
Despite Spain's belated concessions, McKinley sent his war message to Congress on April 11, 1898. His nerves were giving way under the constant clamor for war; his heart went out to the mistreated Cubans. (He had anonymously contributed $5,000 for their relief.) He realized that Spain's offer of an armistice, at the discretion of its commander, did not guarantee peace. The rebels had to agree on terms, and Spain had shown a talent for breaking promises and protracting negotiations. Further delay would only worsen the terrible conditions. Among the reasons that McKinley here gives Congress for intervention, which are the soundest and which the weakest? Was there danger in intervening for humanitarian reasons?

The grounds for such intervention may be briefly summarized as follows:

First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. It is no answer to say this is all in another country, belonging to another nation, and is therefore none of our business. It is specially our duty, for it is right at our door.

Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection and indemnity for life and property which no government there can or will afford, and to that end to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection.

Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island.

Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace, and entails upon this government an enormous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people have such trade and business relations; when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant danger and their property destroyed and themselves ruined; where our trading vessels are liable to seizure and are seized at our very door by warships of a foreign nation; the expeditions of filibustering [freebooting] that we are powerless to prevent altogether, and the irritating questions and entanglements thus arising--all these and others that I need not mention, with the resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our peace and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace.

These elements of danger and disorder already pointed out have been strikingly illustrated by a tragic event which has deeply and justly moved the American people. I have already transmitted to Congress the report of the Naval Court of Inquiry on the destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana during the night of the 15th of February. The destruction of that noble vessel has filled the national heart with inexpressible horror. Two hundred and fifty-eight brave sailors and marines and two officers of our Navy, reposing in the fancied security of a friendly harbor, have been hurled to death, [and] grief and want brought to their homes and sorrow to the nation.

The Naval Court of Inquiry, which, it is needless to say, commands the unqualified confidence of the government, was unanimous in its conclusion that the destruction of the Maine was caused by an exterior explosion--that of a submarine mine.* It did not assume to place the responsibility. That remains to be fixed.

In any event, the destruction of the Maine, by whatever exterior cause, is a patent and impressive proof of a state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. That condition is thus shown to be such that the Spanish government cannot assure safety and security to a vessel of the American Navy in the harbor of Havana on a mission of peace, and rightfully there. . . .

[McKinley here refers to the offer by the Spanish minister to arbitrate the Maine, and simply adds, "To this I have made no reply."]

The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has waged the war cannot be attained. The fire of insurrection may flame or may smolder with varying seasons, but it has not been, and it is plain that it cannot be, extinguished by present methods. The only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop. . . .

The issue is now with the Congress. It is a solemn responsibility. I have exhausted every effort to relieve the intolerable condition of affairs which is at our doors. Prepared to execute every obligation imposed upon me by the Constitution and the law, I await your action.

Yesterday, and since the preparation of the foregoing message, official information was received by me that the latest decree of the Queen Regent of Spain directs General Blanco, in order to prepare and facilitate peace, to proclaim a suspension of hostilities, the duration and details of which have not yet been communicated to me.

This fact, with every other pertinent consideration, will, I am sure, have your just and careful attention in the solemn deliberations upon which you are about to enter. If this measure attains a successful result, then our aspirations as a Christian, peace-loving people will be realized. If it fails, it will be only another justification for our contemplated action.

[The president had prepared the foregoing war message a week or so before he submitted it; the delay was primarily to permit U.S. citizens to flee Cuba. A few hours before McKinley finally moved, cablegrams arrived from Minister Woodford in Madrid. (See Madrid's Diplomatic Concessions, 1898.) They brought the news that Spain, having already revoked reconcentration, had met the rest of the president's demands by authorizing an armistice. So, at the end of a message that urged war, McKinley casually tacked on the two foregoing paragraphs hinting that hostilities might be avoided. Eight days later a bellicose Congress overwhelmingly passed what was in effect a declaration of war. Several years after the event General Woodford told O. G. Villard, "When I sent that last cable to McKinley, I thought I should wake up the next morning to find myself acclaimed all over the United States for having achieved the greatest diplomatic victory in our history. . . ." Instead, he learned of the war message. (O. G. Villard, Fighting Years [New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1939], p. 136.)]

*Assuming that the outside-explosion theory is correct--and it has been seriously challenged--the Maine might have been blown up by Cuban insurgents seeking to involve the United States in the war.

James D. Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents (New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1899), vol. 10, pp. 147, 150, passim.

Professor Charles Eliot Norton's Patriotic Protest (1898)
Lovable and immensely popular, Charles Eliot Norton served for many years at Harvard as professor of the history of the fine arts. After war broke out, he shocked public opinion with a speech in Cambridge urging young men not to enlist. The press denounced him as one of the "intellectual copperheads." McKinley had recommended war in the interests of civilization; Norton here urges an opposite course. Who had the sounder arguments? Was it more patriotic to protest than to acquiesce?

And now of a sudden, without cool deliberation, without prudent preparation, the nation is hurried into war, and America, she who more than any other land was pledged to peace and good will on earth, unsheathes her sword, compels a weak and unwilling nation to a fight, rejecting without due consideration her [Spain's] earnest and repeated offers to meet every legitimate demand of the United States. It is a bitter disappointment to the lover of his country; it is a turning back from the path of civilization to that of barbarism.

"There never was a good war," said Franklin. There have indeed been many wars in which a good man must take part. . . . But if a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense. It is a national crime. The plea that the better government of Cuba, and the relief of the reconcentrados, could only be secured by war is the plea either of ignorance or of hypocrisy.

But the war is declared; and on all hands we hear the cry that he is no patriot who fails to shout for it, and to urge the youth of the country to enlist, and to rejoice that they are called to the service of their native land. The sober counsels that were appropriate before the war was entered upon must give way to blind enthusiasm, and the voice of condemnation must be silenced by the thunders of the guns and the hurrahs of the crowd.

Stop! A declaration of war does not change the moral law. "The Ten Commandments will not budge" at a joint resolve of Congress. . . . No! the voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent, and spite of obliquity, misrepresentation, and abuse, to insist on being heard, and with sober counsel to maintain the everlasting validity of the principles of the moral law.

Public Opinion 24 (June 23, 1898): 775-776.

Rough Times for Rough Riders (1898)
Fight-thirsty Theodore Roosevelt was so determined to get into action that he resigned his post as assistant secretary of the navy. He hastily raised a volunteer cavalry outfit and, as lieutenant colonel of these Rough Riders, managed to reach Cuba--without the horses. Exposing himself with reckless courage, he got into the thick of the fray and won renown near Santiago. But commanding General William R. Shafter was too fat for active duty, the "embalmed beef" was vomit-inducing, and most of the volunteers were poorly trained and equipped. They betrayed their position with old-fashioned, smoke-emitting powder; and one outfit dragged around a captive balloon, thereby revealing its movements. The easy naval victories, combined with the nation's holiday mood and John Hay's reference to the "splendid little war," left a false impression of glamor. What does Roosevelt's letter to his close friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, suggest about this romantic image of the war? about Roosevelt's character?

Outside Santiago, July 3, 1898

Dear Cabot: Tell the President for Heaven's sake to send us every regiment and, above all, every battle possible. We have won so far at a heavy cost; but the Spaniards fight very hard, and charging these intrenchments against modern rifles is terrible. We are within measurable distance of a terrible military disaster; we must have help--thousands of men, batteries, and food and ammunition. The other volunteers are at a hideous disadvantage owing to their not having smokeless powder. Our General [Shafter] is poor; he is too unwieldy to get to the front. I commanded my regiment, I think I may say, with honor. We lost a quarter of our men. For three days I have been at the extreme front of the firing line; how I have escaped I know not; I have not blanket or coat; I have not taken off my shoes even; I sleep in the drenching rain, and drink putrid water. Best love to Nannie.

Disillusionment over the Cubans (1898)
The U.S. press, in playing up Spanish atrocities, had idealized the nondescript Cuban insurgents and their shadowy government. The liberating U.S. troops were speedily disillusioned. They had to restrain their ragged allies from pillaging towns, shooting Spanish prisoners, and butchering the wounded. The insurgents flatly refused to help their deliverers with such menial tasks as building roads and carrying American wounded from the battlefield. U.S. anger and contempt naturally bred Cuban resentment. In the Teller amendment, passed by Congress in 1898, the United States had pledged itself to free Cuba; in the Platt amendment, passed by Congress in 1902, Washington reserved the right to intervene to preserve order. What was the relationship between the Platt amendment and the views expressed in the following Virginia editorial?

Day by day the news from Santiago brings out more clearly the real character of the majority of the Cuban insurgents. Men who have to be prevented by force from killing prisoners and plundering surrendered cities are not likely to make admirable citizens of an independent country. Liberty, according to their conception of it, would truly be synonymous with many crimes.

In the meanwhile, let us be thankful that the President [McKinley] stood so strongly against the recognition of the alleged insurgent government--a step which was urged with ceaseless vehemence by many influential members of Congress, and by innumerable orators and periodicals. Wouldn't we have been in a pretty predicament if we had found ourselves obliged at every point to bow to the wishes of the undisciplined, bloodthirsty guerrillas who seem to compose the majority of the insurgent forces?

Of course, we believe that Cuba will rise from her ruin and show herself fully worthy of the attempt that has been made to save her, but a good many years will pass before it will be safe for the United States to withdraw their troops and leave the island to her own devices. Even then, it is a question whether Cuban independence outside of the Union will be a success or a failure.

Norfolk (Virginia) Landmark, in Public Opinion 25 (July 28, 1898): 104.

McKinley Prays for Guidance (1898)
What to do with the conquered Philippines? At first President McKinley considered taking only a foothold at Manila, on the main island of Luzon. But this would be rendered militarily untenable if the remaining islands should fall into the hands of an unfriendly power, possibly Germany. The decision then lay between all and nothing. To hand back the islands to Spain was unthinkable. After fighting a war to free Cuba from Spanish misrule, the United States could hardly return the Filipinos, who had risen in revolt, to Spanish misrule. To cut them completely loose, however, might result in a mad scramble among the powers that would touch off a world war into which the United States might be drawn. McKinley had to make the decision while badly upset by the murder of his brother-in-law at the hands of a betrayed woman. He later told a group of fellow Methodists how he sought divine guidance, presumably late in October 1898. How sound was McKinley's reasoning? Are there elements of racism in his thinking?

When next I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps, I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides--Democrats as well as Republicans--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 am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed 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 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 (pointing to a large map on the wall of his office), and there they are and there they will stay while I am President!

This document is a report of an interview with McKinley at the White House, November 21, 1899, written by one of the interviewers and confirmed by others present. Published in Christian Advocate, January 22, 1903, 

Professor William Sumner Spurns Empire (1898)
The "magnificently bald" and "iron-voiced" Professor William G. Sumner of Yale was an immensely popular lecturer and a leading anti-imperialist. Fearlessly outspoken, he offended influential alumni by opposing tariff protection and by turning a cynical eye on the United States' "civilizing mission" in the Philippines. The truth is that the more obvious the natural resources of the islands became, the less capable the inhabitants seemed of self-rule. The moral obligation of the "white man's burden," which the British poet Kipling urged the United States to shoulder, had many of the earmarks of the loot sack. The British welcomed Americans as fellow civilizers, no doubt in part because imperialistic misery loved company. Why did Sumner believe that the conquered peoples would be unlikely to accept U.S. rule, and that such rule was a perversion of American principles?

There is not a civilized nation which does not talk about its civilizing mission just as grandly as we do. The English, who really have more to boast of it in this respect than anybody else, talk least about it, but the Phariseeism with which they correct and instruct other people has made them hated all over the globe. The French believe themselves the guardians of the highest and purest culture, and that the eyes of all mankind are fixed on Paris, whence they expect oracles of thought and taste. The Germans regard themselves as charged with a mission, especially to us Americans, to save us from egoism and materialism. The Russians, in their books and newspapers, talk about the civilizing mission of Russia in language that might be translated from some of the finest paragraphs in our imperialistic newspapers.

The first principle of Mohammedanism is that we Christians are dogs and infidels, fit only to be enslaved or butchered by Moslems. It is a corollary that wherever Mohammedanism extends it carries, in the belief of its votaries, the highest blessings, and that the whole human race would be enormously elevated if Mohammedanism should supplant Christianity everywhere.

To come, last, to Spain, the Spaniards have, for centuries, considered themselves the most zealous and self-sacrificing Christians, especially charged by the Almighty, on this account, to spread true religion and civilization over the globe. They think themselves free and noble, leaders in refinement and the sentiments of personal honor, and they despise us as sordid money-grabbers and heretics. I could bring you passages from peninsular authors of the first rank about the grand rôle of Spain and Portugal in spreading freedom and truth.

Now each nation laughs at all the others when it observes these manifestations of national vanity. You may rely upon it that they are all ridiculous by virtue of these pretensions, including ourselves. The point is that each of them repudiates the standards of the others, and the outlying nations, which are to be civilized, hate all the standards of civilized men.

We assume that what we like and practice, and what we think better, must come as a welcome blessing to Spanish-Americans and Filipinos. This is grossly and obviously untrue. They hate our ways. They are hostile to our ideas. Our religion, language, institutions, and manners offend them. They like their own ways, and if we appear amongst them as rulers, there will be social discord in all the great departments of social interest. The most important thing which we shall inherit from the Spaniards will be the task of suppressing rebellions.

If the United States takes out of the hands of Spain her mission, on the ground that Spain is not executing it well, and if this nation in its turn attempts to be schoolmistress to others, it will shrivel up into the same vanity and self-conceit of which Spain now presents an example. To read our current literature one would think that we were already well on the way to it.

Now, the great reason why all these enterprises which begin by saying to somebody else, "We know what is good for you better than you know yourself and we are going to make you do it," are false and wrong is that they violate liberty; or, to turn the same statement into other words, the reason why liberty, of which we Americans talk so much, is a good thing is that it means leaving people to live out their own lives in their own way, while we do the same.

If we believe in liberty, as an American principle, why do we not stand by it? Why are we going to throw it away to enter upon a Spanish policy of dominion and regulation?

W. G. Sumner, War and Other Essays (1919), pp. 303-305.

Albert Beveridge Trumpets Imperialism (1898)
Albert J. Beveridge delivered this famous speech, "The March of the Flag," at Indianapolis, Indiana, on September 16, 1898, before McKinley had decided to keep the Philippines. Born to an impoverished family, Beveridge had spent his youth at hard manual labor but ultimately secured a college education with prizes won in oratorical contests. The cadences of his spellbinding oratory were such that "Mr. Dooley" (F. P. Dunne) said you could waltz to them. The year after making this address, Beveridge was elected to the U.S. Senate from Indiana at the remarkably youthful age of thirty-six. How convincing is his reply to the anti-imperialists' warnings against the annexation of noncontiguous territory and to their argument that no more land was needed? What were his powers as a prophet?

Distance and oceans are no arguments. The fact that all the territory our fathers bought and seized is contiguous is no argument. In 1819 Florida was further from New York than Porto Rico is from Chicago today; Texas, further from Washington in 1845 than Hawaii is from Boston in 1898; California, more inaccessible in 1847 than the Philippines are now. . . . The ocean does not separate us from lands of our duty and desire--the oceans join us, a river never to be dredged, a canal never to be repaired.

Steam joins us; electricity joins us--the very elements are in league with our destiny. Cuba not contiguous! Porto Rico not contiguous! Hawaii and the Philippines not contiguous! Our navy will make them contiguous. [Admirals] Dewey and Sampson and Schley have made them contiguous, and American speed, American guns, American heart and brain and nerve will keep them contiguous forever.

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 fastnesses. 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 today we are raising more than we can consume. Today we are making more than we can use. Today our industrial society is congested; there are more workers than there is work; there is more capital than there is investment. We do not need more money--we need more circulation, more employment. Therefore we must find new markets for our produce, new occupation for our capital, new work for our labor. And so, while we did not need the territory taken during the past century at the time it was acquired, we do need what we have taken in 1898, and we need it now.

Think of the thousands of Americans who will pour into Hawaii and Porto Rico when the republic's laws cover those islands with justice and safety! Think of the tens of thousands of Americans who will invade mine and field and forest in the Philippines when a liberal government, protected and controlled by this republic, if not the government of the republic itself, shall establish order and equity there! Think of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who will build a soap-and-water, common-school civilization of energy and industry in Cuba, when a government of law replaces the double reign of anarchy and tyranny!--think of the prosperous millions that Empress of Islands will support when, obedient to the law of political gravitation, her people ask for the highest honor liberty can bestow, the sacred Order of the Stars and Stripes, the citizenship of the Great Republic!

What does all this mean for every one of us? It means opportunity for all the glorious young manhood of the republic--the most virile, ambitious, impatient, militant manhood the world has ever seen. It means that the resources and the commerce of these immensely rich dominions will be increased as much as American energy is greater than Spanish sloth; for Americans henceforth will monopolize those resources and that commerce.

[The Treaty of Paris, by which the United States acquired the Philippines, received Senate approval by a close vote on February 6, 1899. The imperialists had little to add to the materialistic-humanitarian arguments presented by McKinley and Beveridge. The anti-imperialists stressed the folly of annexing noncontiguous areas in the tropics thickly populated by alien peoples. They also harped on the folly of departing from the principles of freedom and nonintervention as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Address, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Emancipation Proclamation. Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts assailed the imperialists with these words: "If you ask them what they want, you are answered with a shout: 'Three cheers for the flag! Who will dare to haul it down? Hold on to everything you can get. The United States is strong enough to do what it likes. The Declaration of Independence and the counsel of Washington and the Constitution of the United States have grown rusty and musty. They are for little countries and not for great ones. There is no moral law for strong nations. America has outgrown Americanism.'" (Congressional Record, 55th Cong., 3d sess., [1899] p. 495.)]

C. M. Depew, ed., The Library of Oratory (New York: The Globe Publishing Company, 1902), vol. 14, pp. 438-440.
As the century neared its sunset, the American people felt a strange restlessness. The frontier was filling up; factories and farms were pouring out exportable surpluses; the nation had not had a rousing war for a generation. Spain, trying desperately to crush a rebellion in Cuba with brutal measures, proved to be the whipping boy. The big-business administration of William McKinley did not want war; but public opinion, inflamed by the racy new yellow journalism, did. Although Spain made important eleventh-hour diplomatic concessions, an impatient and outraged Congress declared hostilities. The U.S. Navy was ready and smashed two badly outmatched Spanish fleets--one at Manila, the other off Cuba. The army, however, was most unready. After some sharp and confused fighting in Cuba, the Spaniards hoisted the white flag. The imperialistic virus had meanwhile attacked the American people, and McKinley, their ever-obedient servant, demanded and obtained all of the Philippines in the treaty of peace signed at Paris in December 1898.