Chapter 26

The Clash of Cultures on the Plains

1. Native Americans numbered about 360,000 in 1860 scattered

throughout trans-Missouri West

1. The Indians stood in the path of the advancing white pioneers

(threatened bison population)

2. The Cheyenne and Sioux on horses transformed themselves into

nomadic traders and hunters

3. White intruders spread cholera, typhoid, and smallpox among the

native peoples of the plains

2. The federal government tried to pacify the Plains Indians (competition

for hunting grounds)

3. Treaties signed at Fort Laramie and Fort Atkinson marked the

reservation system in the West

1. They established boundaries for the territory for each of the

tribes (“colonies of the north”)

2. Native Americans actually lived in scattered bands recognizing

no authority outside

3. The federal government intensified this policy and herded the

Indians into still smaller confines

4. Indians surrendered their land only when they received promises

that they would be left alone

4. In the 1860s fierce warfare between the Indians and U.S. Army raged in
the West

5.

6. Receding Native Population

1. The Indian wars in the West were often savage clashes (cruelty
begot cruelty)

1. Colonel Chivington’s militia massacred Indians at Sand

Creek, Colorado in 1864
 2. In 1866 a Sioux war party attempted to block construction
of the Bozeman Trail

3. They ambushed Fetterman’s command and the Indians left

not a single survivor

2. In the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) the government abandoned

the Bozeman Trail and the “Great Sioux reservation” was
guaranteed to the Sioux tribes

3. Custer found gold in South Dakota but the Plains Indians

massacred his militia

4. Chief Joseph finally surrendered after leading his band of Nez

Perce Indians for 1,700 miles

5. Fierce Apache tribes of AZ and NM were the most difficult to

subdue

1. Led by Geronimo, they were pursued into Mexico by federal

troops (finally captured)

6. The relentless fire-and-sword policy of the whites shattered the

spirit of the Indians

7. The Native Americans were ghettoized on reservations—they

were then largely ignored

8. The taming of the Indians was by the railroad, white people’s

diseases, and no more buffalo

7. Bellowing Herds of Bison

1. The buffalo were the staff of life for Native Americans—for food,
tools, clothing, etc

2. With the building of the railroad, the massacre of the herds

began in deadly earnest

3. Creatures were slain for hides, choice cuts, or even for sheer
amusement

4. By 1885, only about a thousand buffalo were alive in the West

8. The End of the Trail

1. By the 1880s the national conscience began to stir uneasily over

the plight of the Indians
 1. MA writer Helen Hunt Jackson inspired sympathy for
Indians (A Century of Dishonor, Ramona)

2. Humanitarians wanted to treat the Indians kindly and

persuade them to take up white man’s life

2. Hard-liners insisted on the current policy of forced containment

and brutal punishment

3. Neither side showed much respect for the Native American

culture (Sun dance, Ghost Dance)

4. The movement to reform Indian policy was the Dawes Severalty

Act of 1887

1. The act dissolved many tribes as legal entities, wiped out

tribal ownership of land and set up individual Indian family
heads—full citizenship was granted to all Indians in 1924

2. In the 1890s the government expanded its network of

Indian boarding schools and sent “field matrons” to the
reservations to teach Native American women sewing and
virtues

3. The Dawes Act struck directly at tribal organization; was

the cornerstone of Indian policy

4. Under these federal policies, the Indian population started

to mount slowly

9. Mining: From Dishpan to Ore Breaker

1. Conquest of the Indians and coming of the railroad were god-

sends for the mining frontier

1. The golden gravel of California continued to yield “pay dirt”

and Colorado had its discovery

2. People poured into Nevada in 1859 after Comstock Lode

had been uncovered—gold and silver

2. Boomtowns sprouted form the desert sands like magic and

disappeared quickly

3. Once the loose surface gold was gobbled up, ore-breaking

machinery was imported
 1. The operation could be undertaken only by corporations
(pooled wealth of stockholders)

2. The age of big business came to the mining industry—

attracted population and wealth

4. Women and men found opportunity and won a kind of equality on

the frontier that earned them the vote in Wyoming, Utah,
Colorado, and “Idaho before the beginning of the 20 th century

5. The outpouring of silver and gold enabled the Treasury to hold up

the credit

10. Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive

1. With transcontinental railroads, cattle could not be shipped to

stockyards, under “beef barons”

1. Texas cowboys drove herds slowly over the plains until they
reached markets (Long Drive)

2. Overexpansion and overgrazing turned cowboy into plowboys

1. Breeders learned to fence their ranches, produce fewer

animals, and organize

11. The Farmer’s Frontier

1. The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed a settler to acquire as much

as 160 acres of land by living on it for five years, improving it,
and paying a nominal fee of about $30

1. Many more families purchased their land from the

railroads, land companies, or states

2. The Homestead Act was quite the hoax—much of the 160

acres was in rain-scarce Great Plains

3. The railways played a major role in developing the

agricultural West (marketing of crops)

4. Prairies were mostly treeless and the touch sod had been
packed in (assumed to be sterile)

1. But once the soil was broken up, the earth proved
astonishingly fruitful
 2. The 100th meridian running through the Dakotas to Texas
separated two climatologically regions; a well-watered area to
the east and a semiarid area to the west of the line

3. In the wake of droughts, the new technique of “dry farming” too

root on the plains

1. The method consisted of frequent shallow cultivation

supposedly adapted to the arid West

2. Tough strains of wheat, resistant to cold and drought, were

imported from Russia

4. Federally financed irrigation projects caused the Great American

Desert to bloom

12. The Far West Comes of Age

1. The Great West experienced a fantastic growth in population

from the 1870s to the 1890s

2. New Western states joined the Union; CO, ND, SD, MT, WA, ID,
WY, UT (Republican votes)

3. The federal government made available the fertile plains of

Oklahoma Territory

1. Oklahoma boasted 60,000 inhabitants in one year and

became the Sooner State in 1907

13. The Fading Frontier

1. In 1890, the census announced that a frontier line was no longer

discernible in America

1. Jackson Turner’s The Significance of the Frontier in

American History (1893)

2. The government set aside land for national parks:

Yellowstone (1872) and Yosemite (1890)

3. Americans had been notorious for their mobility; land was

often the most profitable crop

4. Much has been said about the frontier as a “safety valve”

(possibility of westward expansion)
 1. Western cities were the real safety valves (people
found ways to seek their fortunes)

2. In the trans-Mississippi West, the Native Americans made their

last desperate struggled against colonization and there most
Native Americans live today—Pacific to Asia

14. The Farm Becomes a Factory

1. American farmers had previously raised their own lives and but
high prices persuaded farmers to concentrate on growing single
“cash” crops and use profits to buy supplies in the store

1. Farmers were intimately tied to banking, railroading, and

manufacturing (twine binder, combine)

2. Agricultural modernization drove many farmers off the land

swelling ranks of industrial workers

3. The farm was attaining the status of a factory—an outdoor

grain factory

2. Agriculture was a big business from its earliest days in

California’s productive Central Valley

1. California fruit and vegetable sold at a handsome profit in

the rich urban markets of the East with the advent of the
railroad refrigerator car in the 1880s

15. Deflation Dooms the Debtor

1. For farmers, as long as prices stayed high, all went well, but
prices skidded in the 1880s

1. Bankruptcy fell on lie blight and grain prices depended on

the world market of grain

2. Low prices and a deflated currency were the chief worries

of the farmers—North, South, West

1. The deflationary pinch on the debtor flowed partly

from the static money supply

3. Ruinous rates of interest were charged on mortgages

(eastern loan companies)
 2. Farm tenancy rather than farm ownership was spreading fast
throughout the nation

16. Unhappy Farmers

1. Insects ravaged the crops, floods added to the waste of erosion,

and expensive fertilizers needed

2. Their land was overassessed, and they paid painful local taxes
(high protective tariffs)

3. Farmers were at mercy of the harvester trust, all of which could

control output and raise prices

4. The railroad octopus had grain growers in its grip—high freight

rates

5. Farmers still made up nearly one-half of the population in 1890—

not organized at all

1. They did manage to organize a monumental political

uprising

17. The Farmers Take Their Stand

1. Prices sagged in 1868, and a host of farmers unsuccessfully

sought relief by demanding inflation

2. The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry (Grange, 1867)

led by Oliver H. Kelley

3. Kelley wanted to enhance lives of isolated farmers through

social, education, fraternal activities

4. Kelley found that farmers were receptive to passwords, rituals,

and hierarchy

5. Grangers raised their goals from self-improvement to

improvement of farmer’s collective plight

6. Grangers also went into politics (regulate railroads through state

legislation)

7. Granger Laws—public control of private business for general

welfare (bitterly attacked)

8. Following the Wabash decision of 1886, the Grangers’ influence

faded
 9. Farmer’s grievances found a vent in the Greenback Labor Party
(1878, also elected Weaver)

18. Prelude to Populism

1. Manifestation of rural discontent came through the Farmers’

Alliance founded in TX, 1870s

2. The farmers wanted to break the grip of the railroads and

manufacturers through cooperative

3. The Alliance weakened by ignoring the plight of landless tenant

farmers, sharecroppers

4. In the 1880s a Colored Farmers’ National Alliance emerged to

attract black farmers

5. Out of the Farmers’ Alliances a new political party—the People’s

Party AKA Populists

6. They called for nationalizing of railroads, instituting an increasing

income tax, creating a new federal “subtreaty” for the farmers,
and free and unlimited coinage of silver (inflation)

7. William Hope Harvey’s Coin’s Financial School (silver)

8. The queen of the Populists was Mary E. Lease known as the

“Kansas Pythoness”

9. In 1892, the Populists jolted the traditional parties be polling

more than 1 million votes

19. Coxey’s Army and the Pullman Strike

1. The panic and depression of 1893 strengthened the Populists’

argument that farmers and laborers alike were being victimized
by an oppressive economic and political system

2. Ragged armies of the unemployed began marching to protest

their plight

3. Jacob Coxey set out for Washington in 1894 to demand

government relieve unemployment

4. General Coxey and his lieutenants were arrested for walking on

the grass
 5. The Pullman strike of 1894 in Chicago was headed by Eugene
Debs (American Railway Union)

6. Workers finally struck the Pullman Palace Car Company (lower

wages, same rent)

7. The American Federation of Labor declined to support the

Pullman strikers (“respectability”)

8. U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney called for dispatch of federal

troops and his legal grounds were that the strikers were
interfering with the transit of the U.S. mail

9. Federal troops crushed the Pullman strike and Debs was

sentenced to prison for 6 months

10. This was the first time that such a legal weapon had been
used by Washington to break a strike

20. Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan

1. Monetary policy loomed as the issue on which the election of

1896 would turn

2. William McKinley of Ohio (R) supported by Marcus Hanna

(believed gov’t should aid business)

3. Republicans had the money of Hannah and leaned toward hard-

money policies (support tariff)

4. Cleveland was the most unpopular man in the country (more like
a Republican)

5. William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech got him

nominated for the Democrats

6. The platform demand inflation through unlimited coinage of

silver

7. Democratic “Gold Bugs” unable to swallow Bryan bolted their

party over the silver issue

8. With the ratio of 16 oz Ag to 1 oz Au, most Populists decided to

vote for the Bryan

21. Class Conflict: Plowholders Versus Bondholders

 1. William Jennings Bryan swept through 27 states and made nearly
600 speeches (even East)

2. Free silver became almost as much a religious as a financial

issue (silver cure people in debt)

3. Bryan created panic among eastern conservatives with his threat

of converting holdings lower

4. Hanna shook trusts and plutocrats and piled up enormous

campaign money ($16 million)

5. Fear was Hanna’s strongest ally, as it was Bryan’s worst enemy

6. McKinley triumphed decisively taking the populous East and the

Presidency

7. The results demonstrated Bryan’s lack of appeal to

unmortagaged farmer and eastern laborer

8. The outcome was a resounding victory for big business, the big
cities, middle-class values, and financial conservatism—last
effort to win White House with mostly agrarian votes

9. Future of presidential politics lay in the cities with their growing

populations

10. The smashing Republican victory of 1896 heralded a

Republican grip on the White House for sixteen consecutive
years—long reign accompanied by diminishing voter
participation, the weakening of party organizations, and fading
away of issues like money and civil service reform

11. Concern for industrial regulation and the welfare of labor

(political era—fourth party system)

22. Republican Stand-pattism Enthroned

1. McKinley’s cautious, conservative nature caused him to shy away

from banner of reform

2. The tariff issue forced itself to the fore—the Wilson-Gorman law

did not raise enough revenue

3. Dingley Tariff Bill of 1897 proposed new higher rates and finally
with additions was at 46.5%
 4. Prosperity began to return with a rush in 1897; the Gold Standard
Act of 1900 provided that the paper currency be redeemed freely
in gold (over last-ditch silverite opposition)

5. Discoveries of new gold deposits brought huge quantities of fold

onto world markets, as did the perfection of the cheap cyanide
process for extracting gold for low-grade ore

6. Moderate inflation took care of the currency needs

Chapter 27: The Path of Empire, 1890-1899

Imperialist Stirrings

 Farmers, factory owners look beyond American shores (agricultural and

industrial production)

 The country was bursting with a new sense of power generated by

robust growth in population, wealth, and productive capacity
(trembling from blows of labor violence and agrarian unrest)

 “Yellow press” of Pulitzer and Hearst described foreign exploits as

manly adventures

 Pious missionaries looked overseas for new souls to harvest (Reverend

Josiah Strong)

 Americans (Roosevelt and Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge) were

interpreting Darwinism to mean that the earth belonged to the strong
and the fit—this is, to Uncle Sam

 European powers were imperializing (Africa and Chinese Empire)

 Development of a new steel navy focused attention overseas (control

of sea—dominance?)

 Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History helped stimulate the
naval race

 Secretary of State James G. Blaine pushed the “Big Sister” policy

 It aimed to rally Latin American nations behind US leadership and open

Latin American markets

 Blaine resided over the first Pan-American conference (economic

cooperation, tariff reduction)


 Number of diplomatic crises marked the path of American diplomacy in
late 1880s-90s

 American and German navies came to blows in 1889; lynching of

Italians in 1891 brought American and Italy to brink of war; American
demands on Chile after deaths of two sailors

Monroe’s Doctrine and the Venezuelan Squall

 America’s anti-British feeling arose in 1895-1896 over Venezuela

 Jungle boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela had been in

dispute (gold found)

 President Cleveland decided on a strong protest and his secretary of

state, Richard Olney, declared that the British was in effect flouting the
Monroe Doctrine (submit to arbitration)

 London flatly denied the relevance of the Monroe Doctrine and spurned
arbitration

 War seemed inevitable and President Cleveland wanted to run a line in

Venezuela

 Britain had no urge to fight, Canada was vulnerable, and merchant

marine was vulnerable

 Britain’s traditional policy of isolation was brining insecure isolation

(Russia, France, Germany)

 Boers in South Africa captured British party—British anger deflected to

Germany (arbitration)

 The prestige of the Monroe Doctrine was immensely enhanced

 British were now determined to cultivate Yankee friendship; Great

Rapprochement, the new Anglo-American cordiality became a
cornerstone of both nations’ foreign policies

Spurning the Hawaiian Pear

 Enchanted Hawaii had early attracted the attention of Americans (way

station, provision point)

 The State Department sternly warned other powers to keep their

grasping hands off

 Commercial reciprocity agreement (1875) and naval-base rights (1887)

 Sugar cultivation, profitable, had barriers raised against it with the
McKinley Tariff

 White planters concluded that the best way was to annex Hawaii to the
United States

 Queen Liliuokalani insisted that native Hawaiians should control the

islands

 Desperate whites organized a successful revolt in 1893 with help from

American troops

 Cleveland suspected that the US had wronged deposed Queen

Liliuokalani and withdrew the treat from the Senate in 1893 and a
probe revealed that Hawaiians didn’t want to be annexed

 The Hawaiian pear continued to ripen for five more years until 1898
after Cleveland

Cubans Rise in Revolt

 Cuba’s masses again rose against their Spanish oppressor in 1895

 The roots of the revolt was partly economic, with partial origins in the
United States

 Sugar production, backbone of Cuba’s prosperity, was crippled by the

American tariff of 1894

 Insurgents adopted a scorched-earth policy—they wanted Spain to

move out or US to aid them

 Spanish misrule in Cuba menaced the shipping routes of the West

Indies and Gulf of Mexico

 In 1896, Spanish general Weyler undertook to crush the rebellion by

herding many civilians into barbed-wire reconcentration camps, where
they could not give assistance to armed insurgents

 The American public demanded action but President Cleveland refused

to budge (no gov’t)

The Mystery of the Maine Explosion

 “Yellow journalism” of Hearst and Pulitzer enhanced atrocities in Cuba,

sometimes invented
 “Butcher” Weyler was removed in 1897, yet conditions steadily
worsened; there was some talk in Spain of granting the restive island a
type of self-government (opposed by Spanish Cubans)

 In 1898 Washington sent battleship Maine to Cuba to protect and

evacuate Americans

 In February 1898, a letter written by Spanish minister in Washington,

Dupuy de Lome, described President McKinley as a politician who
lacked good faith—sensationally headlined by Hearst

 Days later, the Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana harbor killing

260 officers and men

 Spanish commission state that the explosion had been internal and
presumably accidental while the American commission reported that
the blast had been caused by a submarine mine

 But Americans in 1898, now war-mad, blindly accepted the least likely
explanation

McKinley Unleashes the Dogs of War

 American diplomats had gained Madrid’s agreement to Washington’s

two basic demands: an end to reconcentration camps and an armistice
with Cuban rebels (McKinley did not want hostilities)

 McKinley’s private desires clashed sharply with opinions now popular

with the public

 The president finally yielded and gave the people what they wanted;
no faith in Spain’s promises

 McKinley believed in the democratic principle that people should rule—

thought it evitable

 McKinley did not want to break up the Grand Old Party and give the
Democrats an upper hand

 On April 11, 1898, McKinley sent his war message to Congress, urging
armed intervention

 Legislators adopted the Teller Amendment that proclaimed to the world

that when the United States had overthrown Spanish misrule, it would
give the Cubans their freedom

Dewey’s May Day Victory at Manila

 The regular army was unprepared for a war under tropical skies (28,00
men to 200,000 troops)

 Spain’s apparent superiority was illusory; its navy was in wretched

condition

 The readiness of the navy owed much to navy secretary John Long and
assistant Theodore Roosevelt—who cabled Commodore George Dewey
to descend upon Spain’s Philippines in war

 Dewey sailed in Manila on May 1, 1898 and destroyed the Spanish fleet

Unexpected Imperialistic Plums

 Dewey had to wait for troop reinforcements assembling in America;

foreign warships begun to gather in the harbor, ostensibly to safeguard
their nationals in Manila (British friendliness)

 Long-awaited American troops finally arriving in force, captured Manila

on August 13, 1898

 They collaborated with the Filipino insurgents commanded by Emilio

Aguinaldo

 Events in Philippines focused attention on Hawaii—a joint resolution of

annexation was rushed through Congress and approved by McKinley on
July 7, 1898 (U.S. citizenship, territorial status)

The Confused Invasion of Cuba

 Spanish government ordered a fleet of warships to Cuba under Admiral

Cervera (falling apart)

 Demands for protection poured in on Washington from eastern

seaboard of the US

 Sound strategy seemed to dictate that an American army could be

sent in from the rear

 The ill-prepared Americans were unequipped for war in the tropics (all
woolen clothing)

 “Rough Riders” commanded by Colonel Leonard Wood organized by

Theodore Roosevelt

 Embarked at congested Tampa, Florida and rushed one of the

transports
 Brisk fighting broke out at El Caney and San Juan Hill—both victories

Curtains for Spain in America

 The American army, fast closing in on Santiago, spelled doom for the
Spanish fleet

 Spanish fleets were entirely destroyed and Santiago surrendered

shortly after

 Hasty preparations were made for a descent upon Puerto Rico before
the war should end

 The American army, commanded by General Nelson Miles, met little

resistance

 Spain had satisfied its honor and on August 12, 1898, signed an
armistice

 The American army suffered from malaria, typhoid, dysentery, and

yellow fever

 One of the war’s worst scandals was the high death rate from sickness,
especially typhoid fever

McKinley Heeds Duty, Destiny, and Dollars

 Spanish and American negotiators met in Paris to begin heated

discussions

 Cuba was freed from its Spanish overlords, Guam was taken, and
Puerto Rico picked

 Knottiest of all was the problem of the Philippines, a veritable apple of

discord

 The Filipinos could not be left to govern themselves and were in danger
from other countries

 Wall Street had opposed the war but now clamored for profits in the
Philippines

 McKinley saw the solution as taking all the Philippines and

Christianizing and civilizing them

 Americans at length agreed to pay Spain $20 million for the Philippine
Islands (imperialism)
 America’s Course (Curse?) of Empire

o The Philippines was a nation in a distant tropical area populated

by Asians of alien race, culture, tongue, religion, and government
institutions (Anti-Imperialist League sprang up)

o Members included presidents of Stanford and Harvard, William

James, and Mark Twain

o The anti-imperialist blanket stretched over Samuel Gompers and

Andrew Carnegie

o Filipinos panted for freedom, despotism abroad might well beget

despotism at home, and annexation would propel the US into the
political and military cauldron of the Far East

o Imperialists appealed to patriotism and to the glory of

annexation (possible trade profits)

o Rudyard Kipling urged America to uplift the underprivileged,

underfed, and underclad

o The Spanish treaty run into heated opposition in the Senate

(William Jennings Bryan)

o Bryan argued that the war was not over until America had
ratified the pact; the sooner it accepted the document, the
sooner it could give the Filipinos their independence

o The Treaty was approved on February 6, 1899 after Bryan’s

influence with Democrats

Perplexities in Puerto Rico and Cuba

 Many Puerto Rico’s 1 million inhabitants lived in poverty; population

grew faster than economy

 By the Foraker Act of 1900, Congress accorded the Puerto Ricans a

limited degree of popular government and, in 1917, granted them U.S.
citizenship (Did the Constitution follow the flag?)

 Beginning in 1901 with the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court decreed
that the flag did outrun the Constitution, and that the outdistanced
document did not necessarily extend with full force
  An American military government set up under General Leonard Wood
in Cuba wrought miracles in government, finance, education,
agriculture, and public health (yellow fever)

 The United States honoring the Teller Amendment, withdrew from Cuba
in 1902

 The Cubans were forced to write constitution of 1901 called the Platt
Amendment

 The Cubans bound themselves not to impair their independence by

treaty or by contracting a debt beyond their resources (mutual
protection by US, sell/lease coaling and naval stations)

New Horizons in Two Hemispheres

 The Spanish-American War did not cause the US to become a world

power (already one)

 American prestige rose sharply and the European powers accorded

more respect

 So great was America’s good fortune that citizens found in the victories
further support for their indifference to adequate preparedness—new
spirit thrilled Americans

 National pride was touched and cockiness was increased by the

“splendid little war”

 The British imperialists were pleased partly because of a newfound

friendship

 By taking Philippine Islands, the United States became a full-fledged

Far Eastern power

 Elihu Root took over the reins at the War Department—War College in
Washington

 Further closing of the “bloody chasm” between North and South

Chapter 28: America on the World Stage, 1899-1909

“Little Brown Brothers” in the Philippines

  The Senate refused to pass a resolution granting Filipino independence
and bitterness toward American troops erupted into open insurrection
in 1899 under Emilio Aguinaldo

 As Filipino armies were defeated, they melted into the jungle to wage
guerrilla warfare

 Atrocity tales shocked and rocked the United States (reconcentration

camps established)

 The backbone of the Filipino insurrection was broken in 1901 with the
capture of Aguinaldo

 President McKinley appointed the Philippine Commission to act as a

sort of government

 At its head was William H. Taft who called the Filipinos his “little grown
brothers”

 Millions poured in to improve roads, sanitation, and public health

(sugar trade)

 The Filipinos hated compulsory Americanization and preferred liberty

(July 1946)

Hinging the Open Door in China

 Following China’s defeat by Japan in 1895, imperialistic European

powers moved in

 A growing group of Americans viewed the vivisection of China with

alarm (Manchu dynasty)

 Churches worried about missionaries, Chinese markets, American

public nudged Washington

 Secretary of State John Hay dispatched to all great powers the Open
Door note (summer 1899)

 He urged them to announce that in their spheres of influence they

would respect certain Chinese rights and the ideal of fair competition
(Open Doorgained wide acceptance with public)

 Italy alone accepted the Open Door unconditionally (only major power
without land in China)
  Britain, Germany, France, and Japan all accepted; Russia politely
declined

 In 1900 a super patriotic group known as the “Boxers” strove to drive

out the “foreign devils”

 A multinational rescue force arrived and quelled the rebellion—contrary

to nation’s principles

 The allied invaders had China pay an indemnity of $333 million—vastly

excessive

 Secretary Hay announced that the Open Door would embrace the
territorial integrity of China

Imperialism or Bryanism in 1900?

 President McKinley had won war, acquired rich estates, established the
gold standard, prosperity

 McKinley was renominated on a platform that endorsed prosperity,

gold standard, and expansion

 Teddy Roosevelt became a popular vice-presidential candidate

(governor of New York)

 William Jennings Bryan forced a silver plank down the throats of

Democrats

 Bryan assailed both imperialism and Republican-fostered trusts

(Roosevelt toured the country)

 Bryanites trumpeted their “paramount” issue of slavery while

Republicans responded by charging that ”Bryanism,” not imperialism
was paramount (no more prosperity with free-silver)

 Victory for Republicans was not a mandate for or against imperialism

(prosperity & protection)

TR: Brandisher of the Big Stick

 William McKinley had served another six months when in September

1901, a deranged anarchist murdered him—Roosevelt became
president at age forty-two, the youngest so far

 Known for impulsiveness, he proclaimed that he would carry out the

policies of his predecessor
  The Rough Rider’s high-voltage energy was electrifying (“the tennis
cabinet”)

 Roosevelt never cased to preach the virile virtues and denounce

civilized softness

 “Speak softly and carry a big stick and you will go far”—if statesmen
had big stick, they could work their will among foreign nations without
shouting; shouting would do no good without it

 His self-confidence merged with self-righteousness; he loved people

and mingled with all ranks

 A moralizer and reformer, Roosevelt preached virtue from the White

House pulpit

 TR had an enormous popular appeal because the common people saw

the fiery champion in him

 Roosevelt was a direct-actionists; he believed that president should

lead and keep things moving

Colombia Blocks the Canal

 Spanish-American War had emphasized need for a canal across the

Central American isthmus

 An isthmian canal would augment the strength of the navy by

increasing its mobility

 Waterway would make it easier to defense recent acquisitions

(American merchant marine)

 By Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, the US could not secure exclusive control

over such a route (UK)

 The British consented to the Hay-Pauncefote Treat in 1901 (US free

hand to build canal)

 French Canal Company was eager to salvage something from their

failure at Panama

 Bunau-Varilla offered holdings at $40 million (from $109) for New

Panama Canal Company

 Congress in June 1902 decided on the Panama route; Panama was

unwilling part of Columbia
  A treaty between the US and Colombian government granted the US a
lease for a six-mile-wide zone in exchange for $10 million and an
annual payment of $250,000 (Columbia rejected)

 The “blackmailers of Bogota” were blocking the onward march of

civilization

Uncle Sam Creates Puppet Panama

 Bunau-Varilla was disturbed by prospect of losing money; Panamanians

ripe for another revolt

 He raised a tiny “patriot” army consisting of fire department and

bought Colombian troops

 The Panama revolution occurred on November 3, 1903 and Colombian

troops were gathered to crush the uprising, but U.s. naval forces would
not let them cross the isthmus

 Roosevelt justified interference by interpretation of treaty of 1846 with

Colombia

 This pact obligated Washington to maintain “perfect neutrality” of the

isthmus

 Panama became outpost of US and Bunau-Varilla signed the Hay-

Bunau-Varilla Treaty (same $)

 Rough Rider became involved in the Panama affair and the European
imperialists raised their eyebrows in scorn at America’s superior moral
pretensions—Roosevelt’s “cowboy diplomacy”

Completing the Canal and Appeasing Colombia

 The “rape” of Panama marked an ugly downward lurch in U.S. relations

with Latin America

 The era of the bullying “Big Brother” policy was brazenly launched

 Roosevelt defended that he had received a “mandate from civilization”

to start the canal

 The Nicaragua route was about equally feasible but the presidential
election of 1904 was coming
  Active work was begun on “making the dirt fly” in 1904; organization
was perfected under West Point engineer Colonel George Washington
Goethals (who cared about sanitation)

 In 1914 the colossal canal project was completed at an initial cost of

about $400 million

TR’s Perversion of Monroe’s Doctrine

 Nations such as Venezuela and the Dominican Republic owed to

European creditors and seeking to force payment, German warships
sank two Venezuelan boats in early 1903

 Roosevelt feared that Germans or Britons might remain in Latin

America (Monroe Doctrine)

 Roosevelt devised the policy of “preventive intervention”—Roosevelt

Corollary to M.D.

 Brandishing of the big stick in the Caribbean became effective in 1905,

when the United States took over the management of tariff collections
in the Dominican Republic (treaty later)

 TR—“We shall intervene to prevent you from intervening” (preemptive

stroke)

 The new corollary was used to justify wholesale interventions and

repeated landings of the marines, which helped turn the Caribbean into
a “Yankee lake”

 The shadow of the big stick fell on Cuba in 1906; revolutionary

disorders brought an appeal from the Cuban president, and “necessity
being the mother of invention,” U.S. Marines were landed

Roosevelt on the World Stage

 Outbreak of war between Russia and Japan in 1904 gave him a chance
to be a global statesman

 Russia was seeking China’s Manchuria (Port Arthur) and Japan saw this
as a threat

 Russian troops had invaded Manchuria during the Boxer rebellion and
had not withdrew them
  The Japanese suddenly began war in 1904 (railroad) and proceeded to
administer a humiliating series of beatings to the inept Russians—the
first serous military setback to a European power

 As war dragged on, Japan began to run short of men and money and
officials approached Roosevelt in deep secrecy and asked him to help
sponsor peace negotiations

 At Portsmouth, NH in 1905, Japanese presented demands for a huge

indemnity and island of Sakhalin, while Russians refused to admit
defeat—Japanese ended up with no money and land

 Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 but diplomatic glory
had its toll on the US

 American relations with Russia had soured as Russians accused

Roosevelt of robbing victory

 Japan and America became rivals in Asia, as fear and jealousy between
them grew

Japanese Laborers in California

 Japanese government prohibited emigration of its citizens until 1884,

when it began to allow temporary laborers to work on sugar
plantations in Hawaii

 Thousands of Japanese were recruited for work in California as farm

laborers, workers, servants

 Japanese immigrants did the nation’s arduous work but were barred
from becoming citizens

 Like the Chinese, Japanese immigrants confronted racist hostility

 In 1906 San Francisco’s school board ordered the segregation of

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean students in a special school to free
more space for whites (after a devastating fire and earthquake)

 The people of Japan regarded this discrimination as an insult to them

and their children

 On both sides of the Pacific, war talk sizzled in the yellow press
(“yellow peril”)

 After inviting the SF Board of Education to the White House, he broke

the deadlock
 The Californians came to accept the “Gentlemen’s Agreement”—school
order repealed and Japanese agreed to stop the flow of laborers to the
American mainland (fear of Japanese?)

 Roosevelt used the big stick and sent his entire battleship fleet on a
voyage around the world

 Great White Fleet received welcomes in Latin America, Hawaii, New

Zealand, and Australia

 Overwhelming reception in Japan was the high point of the trip; in the
warm diplomatic atmosphere created by the visit of the fleet, the Root-
Takahira agreement of 1908 was reached

 The US and Japan pledged themselves to respect each other’s

territorial possessions in the Pacific and to uphold the Open Door in
China (battleship cruise—contribution to peace)