__SERIES__
theories
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__TITLE__ USA: Imperialists and Anti-Imperialists __TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2007-06-21T13:35:10-0700 __TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov" __SUBTITLE__ (The Great Foreign Policy Debate at the Turn of the Century)PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
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[4]Translated from the Russian by David Skvlrsky
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__COPYRIGHT__ First printing 197911105--248 16(01)-79
0804000000 [5] CONTENTS Page Foreword........................ 7 Chapter One Mainsprings of Expansionist Doctrines......... 10 Chapter Two Anglo-Saxon `Superiority'............... 39 Chapter Three Manifest Destiny................... 56 Chapter Four Frontier Thesis.................... 69 Chapter Fivfc Sea Power Doctrine.................. 8fi Chapter Six From Expansionist Theory to Practice. Mne HooseveitLodge Group.................... 100 Chapter Seven Expansion and the Press................ 116 Chapter Eight American Anti-Imperialist League........... 150 Chapter Nine...................... Liberals and Radicals................. 189 Chapter Ten....................... The Bryan School and Carnegie............ 226 Chapter Eleven..................... Workers' Organisations................ 239 [6]CONTENTS
Chapter Twelve The Socialists .
Chapter Thirteen Historiography
279307 329 336 346
Conclusion Bibliography Name Index
[7] __ALPHA_LVL1__ FOREWORDThroughout the history of the United States of America the forces of progress and conservatism have been locked in unceasing struggle. This was seen most vividly during the War of Independence and then during the Civil War of 1861--1865, which put an end to the disgraceful system of slavery. In the course of the past hundred years the mass movements in the USA have been directed mainly against the monopolies that had seized control of the nation's economic and political life. The agrarian movements of the nineteenth century, the Progressist actions of the early twentieth century, the mass democratic movements of the period of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and the upswing of the civil rights movement and the movement against the US war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s were all of an anti-monopoly character.
Foreign policy issues have lain at the core of the sociopolitical and ideological struggle in the USA throughout the epoch of imperialism. This is not accidental. It was none other than the USA that started one of the first imperialist wars: the Spanish-American War of 1898. However, that `splendid little war', as it was called by the then Secretary of State John M. Hay, generated vast problems in the USA and on the international scene.
The USA defeated the senile Spanish monarchy and took over some of its colonies. Simultaneously, the US ruling circles embarked upon dollar expansion in Latin America and the Far East.
8The peoples of the former Spanish colonies rose against their new imperialist masters. In parallel, an anti-war and anti-colonial movement commenced in the USA itself. It was headed by the American Anti-Imperialist League and by some labour and socialist organisations. The Great Debate that began at the time over foreign policy issues gave a new dimension to the social confrontation, namely the democratic movement versus colonialist expansion and imperialist wars.
This debate did not prove to be a transient phenomenon of American history. To this day it is at the bottom of an acute struggle over questions of US foreign policy.
To this day leading American historians representing different schools of historiography come forward with contradictory and, sometimes, mutually-excluding assessments of US foreign policy and anti-monopoly movements at the turn of the century. The spectrum of these assessments is very wide indeed: from apologia to condemnation of US foreign policy; from qualifying the anti-imperialists as a handful of moralists endeavouring to breathe life into outdated ideals to portraying them as a dominant faction of the ruling class.
The determined actions of the masses in the USA for peace triggered by the US aggression in Vietnam prompted many American researchers to take a new look at the historical and social preconditions and roots of US imperialist policy. The nation's progressive opinion is again giving its close attention to American democratic traditions, which were demonstrated so impressively in the Great Debate over US foreign policy at the turn of the century, when the movement against colonial conquests and imperialist wars was born.
The scale and strength of the peace movement have grown perceptibly today when progressive opinion is demanding an easing of international tensions. Today, as Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, declared at the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, `It is very important to proclaim correct and just principles of relations among nations. It is no less important to see that these principles are firmly rooted in present-day international relations, are put to practical 9 use and made the law of international life not to be breached by anyone.'^^1^^
This book presents a study of the ideological struggle in the USA over the nation's foreign policy in the period of US capitalism's transition to its imperialist stage, of the social mainsprings of this struggle and its relationship to historical, political, and sociological doctrines. Special attention is given to the platform and social significance of the movement led by the American Anti-Imperialist League, the causes behind the dramatic upsurge and relatively quick decline of that movement, and also to the part played by the labour and socialist press in the Great Debate of those years.
_-_-_~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course. Moscow, 1975, p. 580,
[10] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER ONE __ALPHA_LVL1__ MAINSPRINGS OF EXPANSIONIST DOCTRINESThe ideology of US imperialism began to take shape during the last three decades of the nineteenth century, a period that witnessed the USA's emergence as the world's most powerful industrial nation as a resultjof rapid economic growth. From 1870 to 1900 its output of pig iron increased eightfold, of steel 150-fold, and of coal eightfold, reaching an annual level of 15.4, 10.2, and 265.7 million tons respectively^^1^^; the output of all sorts of industrial products increased fourfold; 140,000 miles of railways! were built bringing into operation four transcontinental lines.^^2^^
Agriculture likewise developed swiftly. In the period 1870--1900 the output of two basic grain crops---wheat and corn---more than doubled. The cotton crop and the livestock population doubled.^^3^^ At the close of the nineteenth century the USA became one of the world's main suppliers of grain and meat. In 1915 Lenin wrote: `The USA is unrivalled either in the rate of development of capitalism at the turn of the century, or in the record level of capitalist development already attained; nor has it any rival in the vastness of the territory developed with the use of the most up-to-date machinery, which is adapted to the remarkable variety of natural and historical conditions.'^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonial Times to 1957. A Statistical Abstract Supplement, Washington, 1960, pp. 365--66, 416--17, 356--57.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 427, 429.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 297, 301--02, 292--93.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 17.
11There were several reasons for this rapid economic growth. The Civil War of 1861--1865 wiped out slavery and made bourgeois social relations supreme throughout the nation. The Homestead Act of 1862 opened up the enormous expanses of the West for swift capitalist development in agriculture. From 1863 to 1900 the settlers received nearly 600,000 plots of land aggregating 80 million acres under that act. The area under cultivation increased from 163 million to 415 million acres in the period 1860--1900. In the South, too, although vestiges of slavery were still extant, capitalism developed by leaps and bounds. All combined, this created a huge internal market that furthered the development of productive forces of American bourgeois society.
Industrial growth was in large measure stimulated by vast natural resources, in particular, coal, iron ore, timber, petroleum, and copper. Industrialisation was based on the latest American and European machinery (in the period 1860--1900 alone 676,000 inventions in science and technology were patented in the USA). Moreover, industrialisation was fostered by the flow of capital from overseas and by immigration. European investments in the US economy topped 3 billion dollars in 1890, and nearly 14 million immigrants arrived in the USA during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century.^^1^^
Industrial growth was accompanied by the concentration and centralisation of capital. This process was observed on the railway transport earlier than in other branches with the build-up of Vanderbilt, Gould, and Huntington empires. The first big monopoly, Standard Oil, was established in 1882 with a controlling interest in upwards of 90 per cent of the oil refineries in the nation.
Fifty-three firms with a capital of 713,725,667 dollars were formed into trusts in 1890--1897, and another 168 with a capital of 4,876,960,000 dollars were amalgamated in 1898--1902.^^2^^ John Moody, who published a research on the concentration of American industry, estimated that at the turn of the century there were in the USA 445 trusts with _-_-_
~^^1^^ Historical Statistics of the United States, pp. 60--61.
^^2^^ See: J. Kosczynski, Die Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter in USA, Berlin, 1948.
12 an aggregate capital of 20,379,163,000 dollars.^^1^^ The large corporations accounted for three-fourths of the entire industrial output.The Rockefeller and Morgan groups comprised the apex of this system of monopoly corporations. The Rockefeller group did not confine itself to control of the petroleum industry; it spread out to the copper and tobacco industries, the railroads, the mining and other industries. The Morgan group, which was the second largest monopoly, controlled the United States Steel Corporation, the General Electric Company, and other firms, a section of therailroads,^ insurance companies, and so on. There was bitter rivalry between these two groups, which were, at the same time, linked by a so-called cross-directorate. In summing up their influence on the nation's economic life, Moody wrote: `These two mammoth groups jointly ... constitute the heart of the business and commercial life of the nation, the others all being the arteries which permeate in a thousand ways our whole national life, making their influence felt in every home and hamlet.'^^2^^
Having outstripped other countries in the volume of industrial output, the USA found itself ahead of most of them also in the level of centralisation of capital and in the size and power of monopoly corporations. `The American trusts,' Lenin wrote, `are the supreme expression of the economy of imperialism or monopoly capitalism.'^^3^^ Towards the close of the nineteenth century a disparity arose between the USA's large share of the world's industrial product and its position in the world market, its export of capital and its lack of colonial possessions. Under imperialism this disparity is settled by force.
Moreover, the development of US capitalism sharply aggravated social contradictions. This was seen in the famous May Day actions in Chicago in 1886, the great miners' strikes in the West, the steel strikes in Pennsylvania, and the armed clashes at the Pullman plants. The wave of social unrest rose not only at factories and mills but also at the _-_-_
~^^1^^ John Moody, The Truth About the Trusts. A\Description and Analysis of the American Trust Movement, New York, 1904, p. 488.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 493.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 44.
13 farms. During the last three decades of the nineteenth century three major farmers' movements---Grangers, Greenbacks, and Populists---protesting against corporation oppression, shook the USA.The social ferment that swept across the nation reached its peak in 1893, when the USA was hit by the severest economic crisis of the nineteenth century. In August of that year President Grover Cleveland convened an emergency session of the US Congress to regulate financial problems. But the crisis raged unabated into the next year: thousands of factories and workshops were closed and more than a million workers were discharged. The year 1894 witnessed the Pullman strike, the take-over of the AF of L leadership by left forces, a march by unemployed workers---the 10,000-strong Coxey Army---to Washington, and the high tide of the Populist movement. Even Samuel Gompers said: `Those responsible for these conditions should take warning. They are sleeping in false security.'^^1^^ Considerable attention was attracted by an article published in Bankers' Magazine in February 1894. The author, C. Ford, anxiously asked whether the American political system had reached the end of its usefulness. He was even more worried over the fact that the USA had become sectionalised not only politically but also on business and economic questions.^^2^^
The acute economic and social problems generated by the evolution of US capitalism into monopoly capitalism demanded a solution, but from the standpoint of the ruling class the choice of the means for this was not very large. The American bourgeois spokesmen of those days were diehard conservatives. Sociology was dominated by the school of William G. Sumner, who declared that the principle of laissez fairewas the sole regulator of society's life and lauded big business as the outcome of the `survival of the fittest'. True, in the 1890s Lester F. Ward had written his first works on the philosophy of social meliorism, and a new school of political economy had been founded by _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Federation of Labor. Thirteenth Annual Convention Held at Chicago III. December llth to 19th Inclusive. 1893. Report of Proceedings, p. 9 (further---Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1893).
^^2^^ Walter F. LaFeber, The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860--1898, Ithaca, New York, 1963. pp. 184--85.
14 Richard T. Ely, Henry C. Adams, and Simon N. Patten, who held that government intervention and regulation were the means for taking the edge off the most acute social and economic conflicts. However, at the close of the nineteenth century these spokesmen of bourgeois reformism had little influence.It is indicative that Theodore Roosevelt, an astute politician, who did not shy away from reformism, wrote in 1896: `When war [meaning revolution.---/. D.} does come I shall be found at the head of my regiment.... I speak with the greatest soberness when I say that ... the sentiment now animating a large proportion of our people can only be suppressed, as the Commune in Paris was suppressed, by taking ten or a dozen of their leaders out, standing ... them against a wall, and shooting them dead.^^1^^ An influential segment of the ruling class saw the way out in economic and colonial expansion. This was not new. Beginning with Adam Smith the bourgeois economists and sociologists had always regarded the expansion of the capitalist market as the classical mode of settling economic and social conflicts. The economic motivations for expansion during the epoch of `free' capitalism acquired even greater force with the transition to imperialism. `To the numerous ``old'' motives of colonial policy,' Lenin wrote, `finance capital has added the struggle for the sources of raw materials, for the export of capital, for spheres of influence, i.e., for ... economic territory in general.'^^2^^
The keynote of the pronouncements of many businessmen and statesmen in the 1880s-1890s was that expansion was vital. Francis L. Stetson, a prominent lawyer, warned in 1894: `We are on the eve of a very dark night ... unless a return of commercial prosperity relieves popular discontent.'^^3^^ Somewhat later Senator William P. Frye specified: `We must have the market [of China.---/. D.} or we shall have a revolution.'^^4^^ The seizure of new markets and the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt. A Biography, New York, 1931, p. 164.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 299.
~^^3^^ William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, New York, 1962, p. 26.
^^4^^ Ibid.
15 search overseas for places for investment were among the main subjects of the debates in Congress on questions of tariffs and the gold standard, during the Anglo-Venezuelan dispute in 1895, and in the debates on the Hawaiian Islands and Cuba.Having appeared too late for a share in the division of the world and in view of the world alignment of forces and the specific nature of US economic and political development, the ruling circles concerned themselves chiefly with economic infiltration, with dollar expansion as a form of colonial policy (as distinct from the `classical' British and French colonialism of the close of the nineteenth century).
Towards the end of the nineteenth century American foreign trade had grown significantly. US exports increased from 393 million dollars in 1870 to 1,394 million dollars in 1900. True, farm products were still predominant in this export, but their volume grew at a slower rate than that of manufactures: since the outbreak of the 1893 crisis the former had increased by less than 50 per cent, while the latter almost trebled.^^1^^ There was a particularly rapid growth of exports of key industries: in the 1890s the USA was already exporting machines, steam engines, ships, and other items. `The swift growth of the export of American manufactures,' the St. Petersburg newspaper Vestnik finansov, promyshlennosti i torgovli wrote in December 1899, `is a major characteristic of the contemporary economic life of the United States and a most remarkable and pregnant development in the world market over recent years.'
The activities of the National Association of Manufacturers are symbolic in this context. It was established in Cincinnati in January 1895, its inauguration meeting being attended by about 300 leading businessmen.^^2^^ Three years later, its president, Theodore C. Search, noted with satisfaction that `a majority of the large manufacturers who are engaged in foreign trade' were members of the organisation.^^3^^ _-_-_
~^^1^^ J. A. Hobson, Imperialism. A Study, London, 1902, p. 84.
~^^2^^ Proceedings of the National Association of Manufacturers, 1897, Ann Arbor, 1964, p. 1 (further---Proceedings, NAM, 1897). A. K. Steigerwalt in The National Association of Manufacturers, 1895--1914 (Ann Arbor, 1964, p. 18) speaks of 600 founding businessmen.
~^^3^^ Proceedings, NAM, 1897, p. 4.
16 From the very outset its members made no secret of the fact that their prime intention was to expand foreign markets. More than half of the NAM 12-point programme adopted in 1896 dealt with the necessity to expand exports.^^1^^ In summing up the general sentiment of the business world, Search told the NAM convention in 1897: `Many of our manufacturers have outgrown or are outgrowing their home markets and the expansion of our foreign trade is their only promise of relief.'^^2^^ It is worth noting that in a speech welcoming the inauguration convention of NAM William B. McKinley, who was to be the US President (he was Governor of the State of Ohio at the time), declared: `The fabled wealth of the Indies and the vast projects of empire and conquests that filled the mind of the rulers of old are as nothing in comparison with the trophies of your peaceful and practical pursuits.' Further, he noted: `We want our own markets for our manufactures and agricultural products, we want a foreign market for our surplus products.'^^3^^The NAM conventions were not a debating club. They passed recommendations on trade expansion, building an ocean-to-ocean canal in Nicaragua, founding a preferential banking system to subsidise American foreign trade, forming a department of industry and trade in the US government, setting up American commercial agencies overseas, and so on, and discussed the practical ways and means of giving effect to these recommendations. The NAM gave much of its attention to the Latin American markets. At the 1895 convention Charles H. Clark, Secretary of the Manufacturers Club of Philadelphia, urged economic expansion south of Rio Grande and crowding European rivals out. At the same convention W. Miller, President of the Nicaragua Canal Company, spoke of the benefits that the building of the canal would bring to trade.^^4^^
In 1896 the NAM sent a commission to South America to investigate trade conditions. The commission returned with an exhaustive report on foreign trade in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and recommended larger credits for _-_-_
~^^1^^ William A. Williams, op. tit., pp. 32--33.
~^^2^^ Proceedings, NAM, 1897, p. 16.
~^^3^^ Proceedings, NAM, 1895, pp. 10, 12--13.
~^^4^^ Proceedings, NAM, 1897, p. 4.
17 American firms, an improvement of the work of the merchant marine, and so on.^^1^^ Particularly close attention was given to Mexico, where US capital had seized key positions at the close of the century. The NAM listed the Mexican industries in which investments would be profitable. It was also interested in the vast Far Eastern market. Theodore C. Search and M. E. Ingalls, head of a large railroad company, had spoken of it in 1895,^^2^^ but special attention was given to it at the next two NAM conventions. China's importance as a market for American goods and investments was underscored in the 1897 NAM presidential report.^^3^^ At the time of the debates over the Treaty of Paris, that finalised the Spanish-American War, the NAM favoured retaining the Philippines as a colony in view of its market potentials and its strategic location in the Far East.^^4^^There was a striking disparity between the relatively small US investments overseas and the might of US capital. The three principal imperialist powers---Britain, France, and Germany---had foreign investments totalling at least 35 billion dollars: Britain---20, France---10, and Germany---5. The US investments ran to only 500 million dollars.^^5^^ This was a historically shaped situation: for many decades American capitalism had a vast home market, and the same situation persisted at the turn of the century, but the monopolies attached decisive significance to the huge profits that could be made from investments in economically backward countries, where land was relatively cheap, and wages and the price of primary materials were kept at a low level.^^6^^
Although the USA was still a debtor nation at the close of the nineteenth century and its own overseas investments were relatively small, another tendency began to make itself felt. On the one hand, American capital was crowding foreign capital out of its home market. On the other, foreign investments in the USA did not prevent American capital from _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. K. Sleigerwall, The National Association of Manufacturers, 1895--1914, pp. 21--25.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 24.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 57.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 50.
~^^5^^ Scott Nearing and Joseph Freeman, Dollar Diplomacy. A Study in American Imperialism, London, 1927, p. 11.
~^^6^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, pp. 241--42.
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---0284 18 expanding overseas. The American researcher William A. Williams justifiably noted the significance of the economic incentive for investments abroad and for exports: `While it is true that the nation also owed money abroad during the same period, that point is not too important to an understanding of American foreign policy. For the loans and the investments had a bearing on American foreign policy even though balance of payment computations reduce the net figure. Businessmen with interests in Mexico or Manchuria, for example, did not stop trying to influence American policy (or cease having an effect on Mexican or Asian attitudes) just because their investments or loans or sale were arithmetically cancelled out by the debt incurred by other Americans in France. Another misleading approach emphasizes the point that America's overseas economic expansion amounted to no more than 10 or 12 per cent of its national product during those years. But 10 per cent of any economic operation is a significant proportion; without it the enterprise may slide into bankruptcy.'^^1^^ In 1900 the journal Yale Review gave the following pattern of US foreign investments: 185 million dollars in Mexico, 150 million in Canada, 50 million in Cuba, 45 million in South America, 10 million in Europe, and 5 million in the Pacific area.^^2^^ Along with other economic, strategic, and political interests, these investments contributed to shaping American foreign policy.The American continent and the Pacific basin were the principal regions of US imperialist expansion. The USA had particularly large economic interests in Cuba, which became the immediate object of its claims.^^3^^ At the end of the nineteenth century the once mighty Spanish monarchy fell into senility, and its economic ties with its Cuban colony were hardly any stronger than those of the USA. American capital held the key positions in all the basic industries in Cuba. In 1890 the American Sugar Refining Company was in control of 90 per cent of Cuba's export of sugar cane, dictating the price of the product. In the 1890s not only the _-_-_
~^^1^^ William A. Williams, op. cit., p. 46.
~^^2^^ Yale Review, November 1900, p. 276.
~^^3^^ US economic expansion in Cuba is discussed at length in: Richard D. Weigle, The Sugar Interests and American Diplomacy in Hawaii and Cuba, 1893--1903, Ph. D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1939.
19 export but also the production of sugar was controlled by American capital. The Americans invested money in iron ore mines and in fruit and tobacco plantations, and dominated Cuba's foreign trade. In 1893 US-Cuban trade exceeded 100 million^dollars annually. When the popular rising began in Cuba in 1*895 it affected the material interests of influential American business and, as LaFeber showed in his study, this was possibly one of the crucial factors that prompted the USA to declare war on Spain.^^1^^American business saw a promising market also in other Latin American states. In 1885 it accounted for only 3.7 per cent of the US export. But this figure should mislead nobody. For many Latin American countries trade with the USA was of decisive significance, amounting to 64.5 per cent of the foreign trade of Guatemala, 41.6 per cent of Venezuela, 39.4 per cent of Mexico, 36.6 per cent of Colombia, and 26.8 per cent of Brazil.^^2^^ In Mexico the US railroad corporations owned thousands of kilometres of track; an American telephone company had signed contracts for building telephone networks in practically all the Latin American countries as early as 1880; this period saw the United Fruit Company laying the foundations of its future empire. The USA began challenging British supremacy in South and, particularly, Central America.
In 1889 the USA convened the first Pan-American conference^ as; part of its designs in Latin America. Symbolically, the US delegation consisted almost entirely of manufacturers and financiers. Its members included Charles R. Flint, who was associated with Graced Co., Cornelius N. Bliss, owner of textile mills, James C. Davis, banker and owner of railroads, Andrew Carnegie and Clement Studebaker, both millionaire industrialists. The agenda, drawn up by the US Department of State, included, among other things, creation of customs and monetary alliances, an Inter-American bank, and an arbitration tribunal for the settlement of disputes between countries of the Western Hemisphere. Pan-- Americanism was used to justify ideologically the USA's claims to economic and political supremacy in the American _-_-_
~^^1^^ Walter F. LaFeber, op. cit., pp. 328--406.
^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 42--43.
__PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 20 continent. The events of the 1880s-1890s, the American armed incursions into Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, Mexico, and elsewhere in Latin America, and interference in the dispute between Britain and Venezuela in 1895, which brought the USA to the brink of war, showed how purposefully the USA was acting.The Far East, chiefly China, was another major region of US imperialist expansion. In the mid-1890s the USA joined energetically in the drive for markets and concessions in China. In the period 1895 through 1900 its exports to China increased more than fourfold, while its share of China's trade topped 10 per cent. The USA exported to China mainly cotton fabrics, kerosene, and iron and steel goods. The largest US firm operating there was the American-China Development Company, which was set up chiefly to acquire railway concessions and exploit mineral deposits. The first concession---for a railway between Hankow and Canton---was obtained in April 1898.^^1^^ The company planned to lengthen the railway to Peking, then across Manchuria, and link it up with the Trans-Siberian Railway. In early 1898 it sponsored the formation of the Committee on American Interests in China, which solicited recommendations from the chambers of commerce of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and other cities on business operations in China. In June 1898, when the struggle for spheres of influence in China had reached white-hot pitch and threatened to oust American capital, the committee set up the American Asiatic Association, in which big industrial and commercial interests were represented. The American historian Charles S. Campbell believes that this association was the principal agency behind the proclamation of the Open Door policy in China.^^2^^ This policy was one of the basic political actions taken by the USA to undermine the spheres of influence of its imperialist rivals and thereby ensure more favourable conditions for the American monopolies.
At the close of the nineteenth century the USA embarked upon direct colonial conquest. The war with Spain brought it control of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and what _-_-_
~^^1^^ Charles S. Campbell, Jr., Special Business Interests and the Open Door Policy, New Haven, London, 1951, pp. 21--22.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 52--53.
21 amounted to a protectorate in Cuba. In the summer of 1898 it annexed the Hawaiian Islands, and a year later it took part in the division of the Samoa Islands. These conquests were the preparation for a broad imperialist expansion in Asia: `Hawaii is half-way between Panama and Hong Kong. The Philippines are a step towards Asia and China.'^^1^^Such was the material foundation of the imperialist ideology of expansion.
Although all theories, noted Engels, are rooted in economic facts they proceed from accumulated ideological material.^^2^^ The chief components of the ideology of expansion in the USA were the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, racist theories, social Darwinism, and a Germanist concept of history.
The Manifest Destiny doctrine sprang from some specific features of the USA's historical development, which gave shape to the striving for expansion. These were, above all, the extraordinarily favourable conditions for capitalist development in breadth in the American continent. The entire North American continent lay open for colonisation.
For various reasons, the most diverse strata of the American population were interested in the colonisation of the Western territories. The farmers were unquestionably one of these strata. Squatting, a means by which efforts were made to resolve the agrarian question democratically, became one of the essential conditions of capitalist development in agriculture through farming. At the same time, it was a forcible method of settling North America, for it entailed the seizure of land from the Indians. The big bourgeoisie, especially the land specluators, the rich merchants, particularly the fur traders, owners of mining and timber companies, and so on, were opposed to the democratic solution of the agrarian question but, like the farmers, they wanted a Westward expansion. This was dictated not only by capitalist development. It was needed to a no less extent by the slave-owning plantation economy of the South. The extensive character of plantation slavery required an unlimited reserve of `free' land.
_-_-_^^1^^ Lenin cited this quotation from a book by Josppb Patoullct. See: v. I- Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 39, p. 210.
^^2^^ Frederick Engels, Anti-Diihring, Moscow, 1978, p. 25.
22Moreover, expansion was stimulated by some features of political life in the USA. It was a major argument of the slave-owning planters of the South and the bourgeoisie of the North in their bid for supremacy in the federal government. The South was in need of new slave-owning states. Although their population was growing much slower than that of the free states, and although the House of Representatives of the US Congress had slipped out of the hands of the slave-owners, their supremacy in the Senate enabled them to strengthen their influence on the Union. The 1820 Missouri Compromise, which closed the door to the proliferation of slavery north of parallel 36°30' whetted the aggressive ambitions of the planters and gave them a free hand south of this line. They turned their sights on territory belonging to other countries, chiefly Mexico and Spain.
In order to give an idea of the enormous scale of the USA's territorial expansion, it must be noted that when independence was proclaimed (1776) the 13 colonies situated along the Atlantic seaboard had an area of only 386,000 square miles. Under the Versailles Peace Treaty (1783) the western boundary of the USA ran along the Mississippi, increasing the nation's territory to 892,000 square miles. The purchase of the huge state of Louisiana (827,900 square miles) in 1803 nearly doubled the republic territorially. The acquisition of Florida gave it another 72,100 square miles (Western Florida was seized in 1810--1813, and Eastern Florida in 1818). Texas was torn away from Mexico in 1836 and unilaterally incorporated in the USA in 1845 (this increased the area of the slave states by 390,000 square miles). As a result of the war with Mexico in 1846--1848, the USA annexed almost half of that country's territory, i.e., 529,000 square miles. Under the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 the USA took another 29,400 square miles of territory from Mexico. In 1847, after long bargaining with Britain, the USA acquired the larger portion of Oregon---a vast territory on the Pacific seaboard (285,000 square miles). The treaty on the purchase of Alaska was signed in 1867: that huge territory of 577,400 square miles went to the USA for the sum of 7,200,000 dollars. As a result, the territory of the USA increased tenfold in the period from 1776 to 1900.
The military weakness of the Indians and of the 23 neighbouring countries enabled the United States to seize vast territories with relative ease, without a large regular army. But this does not mean that military valour was not esteemed in the USA. On the contrary, of the 25 statesmen who became presidents in the period from George Washington to Theodore Roosevelt, at least eight owed their elevation to a military career. George Washington, the American Commander-in-Chief in the War of Independence, became the first President of the USA (holding office for two terms); General Andrew Jackson (who likewise served two terms) made a name for himself in the War of 1812; careers were won in the Mexican War by the future presidents Zachary Taylor and Franklin Pierce; Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James A. Garfield fought in the Civil War; Theodore Roosevelt won distinction in the Spanish-American War. High military rank was held by presidents Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. Many military men held other government posts.
The unparalleled expansion, which continued during the lifetime of many generations, influenced the most diverse aspects of life and mentality of Americans. It generated the long-lasting illusion that many social collisions could be settled through expansion. The realisation ofjalmost all religious, political, and social ideals was likewise linked with territorial expansion. The pioneers who went to America were driven by a missionary spirit. They hoped to found a model nation.
The easier access to land, the higher wages, and the more mobile class distinctions (to say nothing of the absence of estate barriers) seemed to confirm optimistic hopes. These realities of the USA's historical development helped the formation of the democratic traditions of the American people but, at the same time, these traditions were misinterpreted in nationalistic and expansionist theories and were the ferment for the myths about national exclusiveness.
One of the most widespread theories of this kind was the Manifest Destiny doctrine. It was formalised ideologically quite late. In 1840 the journalist John L. O'Sullivan, a Southerner, coined the catchword `manifest destiny' to mean that the destiny of the United States was foreordained, that it was its mission to rule the entire North American continent, 24 the Western Hemisphere and, possibly, the world. The vague and semi-mystical formula of preordained mission proved to be congenial to many nationalist and expansionist theories, and also to social and political ideals. In it were fused the hope of the harassed English Puritans for freedom of religion in America with the missionary zeal to convert the Indians to Christianity, the burning desire of the farmer to own his land with the aspiration of the slave-owner to preserve that `special institution' at all costs, and the frequently not unfounded pride in some social and political institutions with the naive philistine conviction of the Yankee that many of the problems worrying mankind had received their best solution in the New World.
The Manifest Destiny doctrine gradually underwent a change. In the colonial period it was interpreted theologically. When Plymouth and Jamestown were founded by settlers from Europe, America was seen as the `Promised Land', as the `New Canaan'. The belief that the Americans were under divine protection is to be found in the early Puritan chronicles.
The idea that the American nation was a `God's chosen people' and had a `special mission' is closely linked with the Calvinist teaching of predestination, which held a central place in Puritan ideology. In England Puritanism was an expression of bourgeois opposition to absolutism and feudal order. But the Puritans of the New World, who had only recently been persecuted in Europe, proclaimed that they were a people with the divine mission of restoring the purity of the Church in the new, promised land (America). `The Lord sifted an entire nation in order to bring select seed to a desert,' wrote a seventeenth-century Puritan chronicler. In 1640 the Assembly of New England passed a resolution proclaiming its inhabitants a chosen people.
The religious interpretation of Manifest Destiny persisted in colonial times and played a significant part in nineteenthcentury expansionist theories. Nevertheless, beginning from the War of Independence increasing prominence was gained by the theory of a political Manifest Destiny. The principles of bourgeois freedom and democracy, proclaimed by the American Revolution of 1775--1783, were unquestionably of great significance. During the first half of the nineteenth 25 century the USA was the only large bourgeois republic in the world. For a long time it did not have a strong bureaucratic machine. These and other features of political development, and the tangible gains in bourgeois democracy, gave birth to the illusion that American political institutions differed fundamentally from European. In his famous book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited the United States in 1831, wrote: = __NOTE__ Fix: should be a block quote! `All free nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans, in their intercourse with strangers, appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogy is acceptable to them, the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to effort praise, and if you resist their entreaties, they fall to praising themselves.... If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, ``Ay,'' he replies, ``there is not its equal in the world.'' If I applaud the freedom that its inhabitants enjoy, he answers: ``Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy to enjoy it.'' If I remark on the purity of morals that distinguishes the United States, ``I can imagine,'' says he, ``that a stranger who has witnessed the corruption that prevails in other nations, would be astonished at the difference.'' At length I leave him to the contemplation of himself; but he returns to the charge and does not desist till he has got me to repeat all I had just been saying.'^^1^^ Of course de Tocqueville's constitutional-monarchist sympathies must be taken into account, hence his scepticism about American political institutions, but his powers of observation cannot be denied. This French statesman and historian noted how easily the patriotism of the Americans, their pride in their social and political institutions evolved into a conviction of their `superiority'.
Thus, after the War of Independence, the expansionist theories received fresh nourishment for the argument that the Americans were on an exclusive road. It was contended that the kind of republican administration that prevailed in the USA would be beneficial to other nations, too.
There were various interpretations of Manifest Destiny: assimilation of politically backward nations (chiefly the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Part II, `The Social Influence of Democracy', New York, 1840, p. 225.
26 Indians), political gravitation (relative to Cuba) and political similarity (relative to Canada). Addressing Americans, President Andrew Jackson declared: `You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessing without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed and enable you, with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time the great charge He has committed to your keeping.'^^1^^ Much was said about `expanding the sphere of freedom' during the first and second Mexican wars, whose aim was to proliferate slavery to new territories.^^2^^ Much was done to promote expansionism by John L. O'Sullivan. In an article headed 'The Great Nation of Futurity' (1839), he wrote that the Americans were a `chosen' nation with the most perfect democracy in the world, and urged that the 'democratising mission' should be spread to Texas, Cuba, Oregon, California, Canada, and Mexico. 'Its floor shall be a hemisphere,' he wrote, 'its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of Many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions ... governed by God's natural and moral law of equality.'^^3^^As the epoch of imperialism drew nearer, the theory that American bourgeois democracy was unique, that it was superior to European state systems'was increasingly losing ground. But it continued living. The mass of the American people, who were opposed to social injustice, still carried over from the previous epoch their naive belief that theirs was an ' exclusive' destiny as distinct from the European.
Racism was one of the main components'of the ideology of expansionism. Wars of extermination against the Indians, slavery of the blacks, and discrimination against non-- _-_-_
~^^1^^Andrew Jackson, 'Farewell Address, March 4, 1837' in: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789--1897, Vol. Ill, Washington, 1896, p. 308.
~^^2^^ Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History, New York, 1963.
~^^3^^ Essays in Honor of William E. Dodd by His Former Students at the University of Chicago, Edited by Avery Craven, Chicago, Illinois, 1935, p. 341.
27 Anglo-Saxon immigrants bred firm racist prejudices, the doctrine of the 'white man's burden', the idea that the higher civilisation should be brought to the 'little brown brother', to 'nations submerged in darkness'. In 1691 a law forbidding white women to marry Indians, blacks, or mulattos was passed in Virginia with the sanction of the Church. Virginia's example was soon followed by other colonies.The chief source of anti-black racism was the slave-owning South. Statesmen, sociologists, and clergymen eulogised slavery. The most reputed in this field were John C. Calhoun, who led the planters' oligarchy in Congress and was a brilliant orator, and James De Bow, professor of political economy at the University of Louisiana.^^1^^ The arguments about the `superiority' of the white race and that slavery was a 'natural condition' were echoed and developed by, among others, George Fitzhugh, Albert T. Bledsoe, John H. Van Evrie, and W. Smith.^^2^^ By proclaiming slavery the foundation of the social system, a Utopia of 'Grecian democracy', which was allegedly destined to be revived in the South, they came out against the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed liberty and equality as natural human rights.
In the 1850s an attempt was made to use science, notably anthropology, to justify slavery. The physical and mental qualities of one race or people or another were tendentiously interpreted in order to justify slavery. For instance, professor of anatomy at the University of Louisiana Josiah C. Nott tried to prove that if the human race originated from various species of apes, blacks originated from the lowest species.^^3^^ Another `scientist', Samuel A. Cartwright, contended that blacks consumed less oxygen than whites.^^4^^ Van Evrie _-_-_
~^^1^^ Works of John C. Calhoun, Edited by Richard K. Cralle (reissued), Vols. 1-6, New York, 1968.
~^^2^^ George Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society, Richmond, 1854; George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! or Slaves Without Masters, Richmond, 1857; Albert Taylor Bledsoe, An Essay on Liberty and Slavery, Philadelphia, 1856; John H. Van Evrie, Negroes and Negro`Slavery'; the First, an Inferior Race---the Latter, Its Normal Condition, New York, 1854; W. Smith, Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery, Richmond, 1956.
~^^3^^ J. Nott, G. Gliddpn, Types of Mankind, Philadelphia, 1854.
~^^4^^ Samuel A. Cartwright, Cotton Is King, and Pro-Slavertj Arguments, Augusta, Georgia, I860.
28 referred to distinctions in the structure of the skull, the build of the body, and so on in order to persuade people that the black was not merely black-skinned but an 'inferior species'.The theories of the American slave-owners coalesced with those of the European reactionaries. In 1855 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, considered one of the fathers of modern racism, wrote a book, The Moral and Individual Diversity of Races, in which he juggled with anthropological racial distinctions to depict them as the deep-rooted cause of social inequality. He wrote that `Aryans' were the superior race, a race of masters. The French count's book was translated and '' published in the USA a year later. The publisher, Josiah C. Nott, wrote in the commentary: 'I ... regard most of his conclusions as incontrovertible.'^^1^^
The Civil War of 1861--1865 abolished slavery in the USA, but racial discrimination against blacks persisted.
This was mainly what determined the anti-black orientation of racism in the USA in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. Biological racism again reared its head. As some decades previously, `scientists' arbitrarily interpreted anthropological findings. W. McGee declared that the black and the white man could not have had a common ancestor; R. B. Bean argued that the brain of the black was smaller than that of the Caucasian; Nathaniel S. Shaler wrote of experiments that had allegedly confirmed the mental inferiority of blacks.^^2^^ Racist theories were not alien to serious and well-known anthropologists. For instance, Daniel G. Brinton believed that the anatomical features of the different races governed their psychology and in the long run led to different capabilities.^^3^^ Racist ideas were preached even more subtly by Franz Boas. He denied that there was a direct link between the physical anatomy of races and their capabilities, but considered that the more capable races produced more talents. Naturally, among the American blacks there proved to be fewer scientists, artistic people, and statesmen.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Quoted from: H. Wish, George Filzlmgh, Propagandist of the Old South, Louisiana, 1943, p. 35.
~^^2^^ W. McGee, 'The Trend of Human Progress' in: American Anthropologist, July 1899, pp. 445--46; Nathaniel S. Shaler, The Neighbor. The Natural History of Human Contacts, Boston, 1904.
^^3^^ Daniel G. Brinton, Races and People, New York, 1890.
29The anti-black orientation was the main but not the only aspect of American racism at the turn of the century. Many racist arguments were offered against immigration from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and, particularly, China. Indicative in this context is Francis A. Walker's article 'Immigration and Degradation',^^1^^ in which he asserted that the interbreeding of races was 'polluting the blood' of American Anglo-Saxons and leading to their degradation. Racism perniciously affected a wide spectrum of American life, even the politics of labour organisations and the Populist movement.
Social Darwinism, which found fertile soil in American bourgeois thought in the late nineteen^century, alsojcontributed much to the shaping of expansionist ideas.
The doctrine of classical liberalism, underlying which was the laissez faire principle as the prerequisite of the functioning of the capitalist economy, held almost undivided sway in the USA prior to the 1870s. A key principle of that doctrine was non-interference in private property; the liberal doctrine applied that principle also to other areas of economic and public life, according the role of night watchman to the government. Relative to the budget, the prevailing theory was of a `cheap' government, whose spending was limited to the upkeep of the army, the police, and the judiciary. Regarding international trade, the postulate was advanced that it should be free of all control by the government.
It would seem that after the^Civil War of 1861--1865 liberalism should have taken a firmer hold in the USA and become the official ideology. But that did not happen. With the passage of 'free capitalism' to the stage of monopoly capitalism the laissez faire principles were superseded by doctrines glorifying big business.
Social Darwinism became the most influential of these doctrines. This process was linked with the general changes in American social thought during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. Theological philosophy had held strong positions until the 1870s. But new acute and complicated _-_-_
^^1^^ Francis A. Walker 'Immigration and Degradation', Forum. August 1891.
30 problems, for whose solution religion proved to be a much too weak bulwark, appeared after the second American revolution of 1861--1877. On the other hand, social thought was influenced by the advances in natural science and the methods of research used in it. Here a large role was played by the natural scientific theory of Charles Darwin. His book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in which he expounded his theory of evolution, one of the major scientific achievements of the nineteenth century, was published in 1859. The idea of universal movement and change was now proved not only relative to nature but also relative to the animal world. Published a year later in the USA, The Origin of Species at once received wide publicity in connection with the general development of the natural sciences in the 1860s-1870s; to a large extent this was due to efforts of Thomas H. Huxley, Edward L. Youmans, John Fiske, Asa Gray, and other proponents of Darwin's theory.These circumstances opened the way to European positivist philosophy. Herbert Spencer's evolutionist ideas won a large following in the USA. 'The peculiar condition of American society,' Henry Ward Beecher wrote to Spencer in 1866, 'has made your writings far more fruitful and quickening here than in Europe.'^^1^^ Indeed, Spencer became exceedingly popular. The philosophers William James, Josiah Royce, John Dewey, and William T. Harris, the sociologists Lester F. Ward, Charles H. Cooley, Franklin H. Giddings, and William G. Sumner, and the realist writers Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, and Hamlin Garland came under his influence in one way or another. From 1860 through 1903 a total of 370,000 copies of his sociological works were sold in the USA.^^2^^ Spencer's system of 'synthetic philosophy' and 'organic theory' seemingly gave a coherent picture of the universe, portraying everything in all-embracing unity---from cosmic phenomena to contemporary politics. He was the first in bourgeois science to enunciate the idea of the natural evolution of social forms so forcefully.
Spencer's ideas powerfully influenced bourgeois sociology and socio-political thought of the close of the nineteenth _-_-_
~^^1^^ Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, Revised edition. New York, 1959, p. 31.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 34.
31 century. But this was a contradictory influence.Bourgeois radicals were attracted by Spencer's confidence that social evolution was unconquerable, his cause-and-effect postulate, and the outward accuracy of his conclusions. Moreover, his positivism struck a blow at clericalism.At the same time, Spencer's sociology used biology to justify the class structure of bourgeois society and condemn revolutionary intervention in social development. He not only championed but went beyond thejmnciples of traditional liberalism, embodied in laissez faire, taking the first steps towards formulating the postulates of social Darwinism. He held that despite visible distinctions, the social organism, like the animal world, had the salient feature that it was ruled by the law of survival of the fittest.
His theory was thus sufficiently broad and controversial to satisfy people of different views---from agnostics and radicals of the Robert G. Ingersoll type to deists like John Fiske. Leading American bourgeois ideologists accepted and developed, the social Darwinist principles expounded by Spencer. One of the most influential social Darwinists, Professor William Graham Sumner of Yale University, for many years propagated the idea that the 'struggle for existence' was the basic law of human society, that only the `fittest' survived. At the early stages of historical development, the state of human society was determined by the correlation between population and arable land. Where there was a sparse population and plenty of land the struggle for existence was less severe and the conditions were congenial to the operation of democratic institutions. Where the population grew faster than the area of arable land, the struggle for existence became sharper. Democratic institutions perished, giving way to militarism and expansionist ambitions. In modern times the struggle for existence was manifested by the unbridled industrial competition, in which the strongest won and their victory served as a kind of ferment for further evolution and progress. Sumner believed poverty to be the lot of the weak, and wealth the result of the drive of the strong. 'The millionaires,' he wrote, 'are a product of natural selection.... They may fairly be regarded as the naturally selected agents of society for certain work. They get high wages and live in luxury, but the bargain is a good one for society. There is 32 the intensest competition for their place and occupation.'^^1^^ As lie saw it, this was the sum and substance of social progress.
Social Darwinism thus gave a biological interpretation of the basic social phenomena of bourgeois reality: the class struggle was described in categories of struggle for existence and proclaimed everlasting; the creation of monopolies was regarded as the natural effect of the operation of natural selection; it was argued that it was futile to attempt to abolish the contrasts between poverty and wealth by means of social reforms.
In analysing why social Darwinism was successful in the USA R. Hofstadter noted: `Sumner's synthesis brought together three great traditions of Western capitalist cultures: the Protestant ethic, the doctrines of classical economics, and Darwinian natural selection.'^^2^^ Indeed, it seemed as though the 'survival of the fittest' theory had given a scientific foundation for traditional Puritan virtues---doggedness, enterprise, and money-grubbing---and also for commercial success and gain as signs of divine grace.^^3^^ On the other hand, the wall between the traditional liberal doctrine of laissez faire and social Darwinism crumbled, and from the enunciation of the law of free competition it was but a logical step to an apologia of the struggle for existence. However, the adoption of the principle of survival of the fittest meant not only an enlargement of the laissez faire doctrine but also a certain rupture with it. The theory of economic liberalism, which initially expressed the interests of the bourgeois class as a whole, now proved to be turned against most of that class, and social Darwinism signified justification of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ William Graham Sumner, The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays, New Haven, 1914, p. 90.
~^^2^^ Richard Hofstadter, op. cit., p. 51.
~^^3^^ In American historiography there is no unanimity on this question. Hofstadter underscores the predominant influence of social Darwinism on conservative ideology, while Edward C. Kirkland and Irvin G. Wyllie agree with this assessment of the character of these ideas but link their origin with the Protestant tradition (Edward C. Kirkland, Dream and Thought in Business Community, 1860--1900, Chicago, 1964; Irvin G. Wyllie, 'Social Darwinism and the Businessman', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 103, No. 5, October 15, 1959).
33 exploitation not only of the proletariat but also of the petty and even middle bourgeoisie.This extension of Darwin's teaching to social relations was only one aspect of social Darwinism. Its other aspect was its extension to relations between nations. The principle of struggle for existence and the interpretation of social distinctions as distinctions between the less and more fit led to the doctrine of `inferior' and `superior' nations and races. Phrases like 'struggle of races for existence', 'natural selection', 'survival of the fittest', and 'racial evolution' became common in scientific and popular journals, newspapers, university lecture-rooms, and even in church sermons (it was taken for granted that the Anglo-Saxon race, particularly its American branch, was the fittest). In the USA there were wide repercussions to the book Social Evolution by the Englishman Benjamin Kidd (1894). Kidd was one of the first to apply the principles of social Darwinism to a study of the relations between nations and between races. He prophesied that in future the English and American branches of the Anglo-Saxon race would be supreme in the world.
Social Darwinism breathed life also into old racist theories. In the 1880s and 1890s the ideas of Gobineau were given a new lease of life by the widely read British historians Charles Kingsley, John Robert Seeley, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain.^^1^^
At the close of the nineteenth century the theory of AngloSaxon superiority received a fresh ideological impetus when it was `scientifically' substantiated not only by social Darwinism but also by the Germanist orientation in European historiography. The appearance of the latter school was one of the effects of the debate between the Germanists and the Romanists, which'comprised a long chapter of European political thought and historiography.
A bitter polemic took place between German and French historians over the Germano-Romanic issue during the last _-_-_
~^^1^^ Charles Kingsley, The Roman and the Teuton. A Series of Lectures Delivered Before the University of Cambridge, London and New York, 1891; John Robert Seoley, The Expansion of England, London, 1883; Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Foundations of the Nineteenth Centunj. Translated from the German by John Less, London, New York, ' 1910.
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---0284 34 thirty years of the century when Franco-Prussian relations deteriorated. This polemic was projected into the debate in the 1880s over the role of Germanic conquests in the moulding of European feudalism. It was joined by historians of many European countries who split into two camps depending on their scientific and political views. Everywhere the GermanoRomanic problem was given a national dimension. For example, the English historian Francis Palgrave embraced the view that the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the British Isles did not shake the Romanic tradition, and that it was still further reinforced with the arrival of the Normans. On the other hand, the English historians Edward Freeman, William R. Stubbs, and John Green held the Germanic view that when the Anglo-Saxons occupied the British Isles they destroyed all vestiges of the Celtic culture.At the close of the nineteenth century, when American historical thought turned to the more experienced and refined European historiography it found in the Germanic school a ready, elaborated argumentation of the theory of Anglo-Saxon political superiority familiar in the USA. It is only natural that the American variety of Anglo-- Saxonism, too, found its strongest expression in historiography where the Anglo-Saxon school emerged.
In the USA this period witnessed a considerable reorganisation of historical education and of the work of historians. History began to be taught in colleges for the first time after the Civil War. Lectures on history and seminars on methods of using source material were introduced in the nation's leading universities. In 1881 Cornell University became the first institution of higher learning in the USA to open a chair of history. Of no little importance were the trips made by American history students to Europe, particularly Germany, where they assimilated more sophisticated techniques of source material usage. Upon their return many of them headed chairs of history or political sciences at major universities: Herbert B. Adams at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, John W. Burgess at Columbia University, New York, Andrew D. Whits at Cornell University, Ithaca, Charles K. Adams at University of Michigan, to mention a few. At seminars in German universities many American students adopted not only the improved methods of studying source 35 materials but, in many cases, also general ideas and concepts. The Prussian-German school of Sybel-Treitschke, which held that the Germans were the sole bearers of the ideas of individual freedom and the decisive force of European history, prevailed in historiography at the time. Following the example of Leopold von Ranke, a large segment of German historians paid no attention to the socio-economic theme and reduced the historical process to the development of state and law institutions. These ideas were uncritically taken over by the adherents of the Anglo-Saxon school.
The formation of this school in the USA was strongly influenced by the English historians William R. Stubbs, John Green, and Edward A. Freeman. The latter was one of the most energetic proponents of the Germanic orientation. In 1873 he published his Comparative Politics,^^1^^ which stimulated the American interpretation of the doctrine of Anglo-- Saxonism. Minutely tracing the history of political institutions, Freeman wrote that history was the politics of the past, and that politics was the history of the present. His application of comparative philology and mythology to the history of constitutional institutions was one-sided. In Comparative Politics he considered political institutions outside the socioeconomic conditions that had called them to life, and argued that the similar features of the political systems of states existing in different epochs were due to racial community. He wrote that Aryan races had an outstanding ability for setting up 'constitutional institutions', proclaiming that 'in this mighty drama of European and Aryan history, three lands, three races, stand forth before all others, as those to whom, each in its own day, the mission has been given to be the rulers and the teachers of the world.... As the Aryan family of nations, as a whole, stands out above the other families of the world, so the Greek, the Roman, and the Teuton, each in his own turn, stands out above the other nations of the Aryan family.'^^2^^ According to Freeman, the Anglo-Saxons _-_-_
~^^1^^ Edward A. Freeman, Comparative Politics. Six Lectures Read Before the Royal Institution in January and February, 1873; Edward N. Saveth, American Historians and European Immigrants, 1875--1925, New York, 1948, pp. 12--32.
~^^2^^ Edward A. Freeman, With the Unity of History,The Tied Lecture Read Before the University of Cambridge, May 29, 1872, London, 1873, p. 38.
36 brought advanced political institutions to the British Isles in the fifth century. Hengisl and Eadric, the Anglo-Saxon chieftains, were the true founders of the British constitutional system. The Protestants, who colonised New England in the seventeenth century, brought the Teutonic 'political heritage' to America. Freeman contends that the AngloSaxons with their superior political abilities have three `homes': Germany, Britain, and the USA. But the Teutonic spirit manifested itself most forcefully not in continental Europe, where it was resisted by the Romanic influence, but in Britain and the USA.The first American Germanists gave their attention chiefly to ascertaining the genealogy of American political institutions, to finding in colonial America a link with the ancient Germanic tribal organisation. Henry Adams, professor of history at Harvard University, was one of the first exponents of the Teutonic theory in the USA. During the 1873/74 academic year he conducted seminars devoted to Anglo-Saxon institutions, and two years later published his Essays in AngloSaxon Law,^^1^^ in which he claimed to have discovered the general principles underlying the laws of Germanic peoples. However, he soon gave up his preoccupation with AngloSaxonism and later even ridiculed Freeman, saying that his finest scientific work, History of England, was fit only for children.
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, became the centre of the new school, and its guiding light was Herbert Baxter Adams. After returning from Germany, where he studied at the University of Heidelberg under Johann Kaspar Bluntschli and Heinrich von Treitschke, he taught at Johns Hopkins University for 25 years. His seminars attracted the largest audience.
In Methods of Historical Study,^^2^^ published in 1884, H. B. Adams, following in the footsteps of Freeman, presented arguments in favour of 'comparative polities'. He maintained that comparative linguistics distinguished common elements in _-_-_
~^^1^^ Henry Adams, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, Boston, New York, 1876.
~^^2^^ H. B. Adams, 'Methods of Historical Study', Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science.Nos. I-II, 1884.
37 the languages of kindred peoples, while 'comparative polities' brought to light similar features in their political institutions, and similarity in language and in political institutions sprang from a common root.In Saxon Tithingmen in America, The Germanic Origin of New England Towns, Norman Constables in America,^^1^^ and other works he compared the political organisations and land relations of the New England Pilgrim fathers and the ancient Germans described by Publius Tacitus and endeavoured to establish a genetic bond between the two. He cited new facts showing that in the early colonial settlements of America there were some elements of the rural commune, that in many cases land was the property of the commune. He made interesting observations on the administration of Puritan settlements and on the tribal administration of the ancient Germans, and offered quite a provocative linguistic analysis of the names of towns in Northern Germany, Britain,' and the USA. He gave an extended interpretation of this source material evidence and tried to compare the social organisation of the Puritan communities run on bourgeois principles with the communal self-administration of the ancient Germans,who were atfthestage of military democracy. Adams, like Freeman before him, attributed some elements of external similarity to 'racial community'. He ascribed the nascent American political institutions and the birth of the principles of `individualism' and `federalism' to the tribal system of the Anglo-Saxons. Montesquieu's winged phrase 'freedom came from the German forests' acquired a new ring on Adams' lips.
It is indicative that in Adams'interpretation the Germanic theory of the origin of American institutions was closely linked with the social Darwinian concept. He believed that if the Anglo-Saxon freedoms moved far beyond the German forests it was only because the Teutonic peoples had stood the test of struggle and proved to be more adapted. On the other hand, it is hard to disagree with Edward N. Saveth, who wrote: 'The conception of individual liberty, local selfgovernment, freedom from external control which the new _-_-_
~^^1^^ All published in the first volume of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science in 1882 and 1883.
38 historical school claimed to have discovered in the German forests not only provided a basis for American national character but contributed additional support to a strongly developed philosophy of laissez faire.... The last stage in the evolution of the heroic Teuton was as a captain of industry, bringing the benefits of ``political organisation" to inferior races and resisting the attempts of non-Aryans to fetter his individuality with the chains of socialism.'^^1^^Anglo-Saxonism emanated not only from Johns Hopkins University. Similar theories were developed at Cornell University by Andrew D. White and Meses C. Tyler, at Harvard University by Albert B. Hart and John Fiske, at Columbia University by John W. Burgess, and at Washington University by James K. Hosmer. It was propounded in different variants. Whereas Herbert B. Adams brought into American historiography a historical pattern of the origin of American democracy from the self-administration of the ancient Germans, Henry Cabot Lodge believed that the Americans had closer ties of kinship with the Normans.
These were the basic ideological mainsprings of the expansionist doctrines. Underlying them was, above all, the theory of American `exclusiveness'---a biased interpretation of the economic, social, and political features of the USA's development.
Racism and the theory that American political institutions were superior were the pivot of the historical concept of the Anglo-Saxon school (Fiske, Burgess), which preached imperialist expansion. Aone-sidedinterpretation of the historical peculiarities of the USA's socio-economic development was the core of Frederick Jackson Turner's `frontier' theory, which likewise greatly contributed to shaping the idea of expansionism. The theory of American `exclusiveness' held a prominent place in Josiah Strong's theological interpretation of Manifest Destiny and Alfred T. Mahan's doctrine of sea power.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Political Science Quarterly, Edited for the Academy of Political Science by the Facility of Political Science of Columbia University, September 1939, p. 440,
[39] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER TWO __ALPHA_LVL1__ ANGLO-SAXON `SUPERIORITY'Historians of the Anglo-Saxon school in the USA, who assimilated and adapted the Germanic concept to American conditions, linking it up with Manifest Destiny, at first devoted most of their attention to the early colonial history of the USA, to substantiating the `exclusiveness' of American political institutions. Many of them, like Herbert B. Adams, went no further. They avoided contemporary foreign policy problems, international relations, and colonial expansion.
Another group of historians of the same school pressed on. They proclaimed that it was the `right' and `duty' of the USA to proliferate constitutional institutions of AngloSaxon origin beyond the nation and even throughout the whole world. Its most influential proponents were John Fiske and John W. Burgess.
John Fiske (Edmund Fisk Green) was born in 1842 in Middletown, Connecticut, into a well-to-do family with strong Calvinist traditions. He was a gifted man in many respects. By the time he turned 20 he had learned 17 European and Asian languages,^^1^^ was abreast of the latest discoveries in the natural sciences, and was profoundly interested in comparative philology. In 1860 he enrolled in Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1863. He spent his whole life at that university, lecturing and conducting seminars on philosophy and history until his death in 1901. In his student days he became familiar with European philosophy: _-_-_
~^^1^^ Thomas S. Perry, John Fiske, Boston, 1905.
40 Auguste Comte's positivist teaching and Spencer's theory of organic development. At first he was impressed by Comte, regarding the laws of sociology as the direct continuation of the laws of physics. However, he soon embraced Spencerianism, becoming its lifelong proponent in the USA. A significant factor here was his correspondence with Spencer from 1864 onwards and his personal meeting with him- during a trip to Britain in 1873.Fiske's earlylessays evoked derogatory comment in academic circles at Harvard, where he was threatened with expulsion, while the Lowell Institute in Boston went so far as to ban the lectures of the 'Cambridge Faust'. This is not surprising. New England, bastion of the Puritan dogmatists in the USA, had given rise to the philosophy of transcendentalism, which regarded Nature as an incarnation of God, and was the seat of George Bancroft's romantic school in historiography. The spread of positivist philosophy---the doctrines of Comte and, in particular, the evolutionist ideas of Spencer, who used Darwin's biological teaching as the foundation of his sociological scheme---was at the beginning equated to the dissemination of atheism. However, Fiske soon proved the hollowness of these apprehensions. In Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, written during his sojourn in London, Fiske not only energetically took up the cause of Spencer's sociology but also endeavoured to interpret his positivistic evolutionism in the spirit of traditional American theology. While Spencer was an agnostic, who refused to discuss what was `incognisable', Fiske sought to throw a bridge across the chasm dividing science and religion. In numerous essays and books written in the 1870s-1880s---Darwinism and Other Essays, Excursions of an Evolutionist, The Destiny of Man Viewed in the Light of His Origin, The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge, to mention a few---he maintained that the evolution of nature and society presupposed an ideal aim and was directed by a supreme spiritual force.
Until the mid-1880s Fiske gave all his attention to philosophy; his subsequent turn to history was due, as he said, to the desire to find the best proof of the justice of all-- embracing laws of evolution. In the 1880s-1890s he published many books on history. The most important of these was his book, American Political Ideas (1885), in which were collected the 41 lectures delivered by him at Harvard University and the Royal Institution of London. The central subject of this book, which had some 20 printings in Fiske's lifetime, is the origin of the US political system and a prognostication of its further destiny.
A historian of the Anglo-Saxon school, Fiske based his methodology on the theory of evolution, the Anglo-Saxon doctrine, and 'comparative polities' (Fiske called Freeman 'our greatest master'^^1^^).
His basic proposition, 'Without genealogy the study of history is completely lifeless',^^2^^ evokes no objections. But in tracing the genealogy of American political institutions his axiom was that races and individuals were politically unequal, asserting that no constitutions could yield good results if the human material was poor. Later he wrote: 'A hundred years ago, the most illustrious of Americans felt little interest in his ancestry; but with the keener historic sense and broader outlook of the present day, the importance of such matters is better appreciated. The pedigrees of horses,( dogs, and fancy pigeons have a value that is quotable in terms of hard cash. Far more important, for the student of human affairs, are the pedigrees of men.'^^3^^
In the spirit of the Anglo-Saxon theory, he linked the origin of American political institutions with the political organisation of the ancient Germanic tribes. 'In the deepest and widest sense,' he maintained, 'our American history does not begin with the Declaration of Independence, or even with the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth; but it descends in unbroken continuity from the days when stout Arminius in the forests of northern Germany successfully defied the might of imperial Rome. In a more restricted sense, the statesmanship of Washington and Lincoln appeares in the noblest light when regarded as the fruition of the various works of De Montfort and Cromwell and Chatham. The good _-_-_
^^1^^ The Letters of John Fiske, Edited by his daughter Ethel F. Fiske, New York, 1940, p. 592.
^^2^^ John Fiske, Old Virginia ami Her Neighbors, Vol. II, Boston, 1897, p. 26.
~^^3^^ Quoted from: Edward N. Saveth, American Historians and Ey* ropean Immigrants, 1875--1925, New York, 1948, p. 36,
42 fight begun at Lewes and continued at Naseby and Quebec was fitly crowned at Yorktown and at Appomattox.'^^1^^In American Political Ideas he considered the history of 'Aryan nations' as the development of the principles of federalism and local self-government, measuring the success or failure of one nation or another by how comprehensively these principles were embodied in its political system. The first attempt to combine the principles of federation and local self-government was made, according to Fiske, in ancient Greece, but it ended in failure because the excessive autonomy of the individual cities ultimately exhausted the federation and led to anarchy.^^2^^ In ancient Rome, on the contrary, centralisation and despotism ruled out local self-- government.^^3^^ It was only the ancient Germanic tribes that resolved the main political problem of all civilisations---that of forming a union of a large number of people without sacrificing self-government^^4^^ and individual freedom.
To some extent Fiske used the social factor to explain the political process. For instance, he noted that the slow rise of German towns weakened the centrifugal character of local autonomy and made the political system of the Germanic tribes much more stable than that of Greece and Rome. However, for him the main thing was the self-development of the political qualities implicit in the race. According to him, the Germanic tribes were able to'work out better political principles because they did not interbreed with nonAryans. The Slavs (also an Aryan branch) were, on the contrary, unable to maintain racial purity and slid into a despotic form of government. He saw the ultimate triumph of the principles of federalism and local autonomy among English-speaking people. The Anglo-Saxons took the `Teutonic' political heritage to England, and the English Puritans took it to North America. The Americans were worthy heirs to all finest achievements of the Anglo-Saxons in the development of political institutions. 'The American,' he wrote, 'has absorbed considerable quantities of closely kindred _-_-_
~^^1^^ John Fiske, American Political Ideas, Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History, New York, 1885, p. 7.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 58.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 59--60.
~^^4^^ Ibid., pp. 60--70,
43 European blood, but he is rapidly assimilating it all, and in his political habits and aptitudes he remains as thoroughly English as his forefathers in the days of De Montfort, or Hampden or Washington.'^^1^^One of his other major political conclusions was that it was the `right' and `duty' of the USA to proliferate its ' superior' constitutional institutions throughout the world. As was keenly observed by Hofstadter, the 'writings of John Fiske, one of the earliest American synthesizers of evolutionism, expansionism, and the Anglo-Saxon myth, show how tenuous could be the boundary between Spencer's ideal evolutionary pacifism and the militant imperialism which succeeded it'.^^2^^
Fiske's expansionist credo was most fully expressed in the lecture 'Manifest Destiny', which was included as a chapter in American Political Ideas^^3^^ Prior to its publication, in the period from 1880 to 1885 this lecture was delivered by him several times in England and 45 times in America. He recalled that his readings were particularly successful with Senators and members of the Supreme Court, and he was received by the US President, who had heard about his 'marvellous lectures'.^^4^^
At the outset of the lecture Fiske related the story of an Independence Day dinner given by the Americans residing in Paris. At the dinner toasts were proposed by three of the party. `~``Here's to the United States,'' said the first speaker, ``bounded on the north by British America, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.'' ``But,'' said the second speaker, ``this is far too limited a view of the subject: in assigning our boundaries we must look to the great and glorious future which is prescribed for us by the Manifest Destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race. Here's to the United States, bounded on the north by the North Pole, on the south by the South Pole, on the east by the rising and on the west by the setting sun.'' Emphatic applause greeted this aspiring prophecy. _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 105.
~^^2^^ Richard Hofstadter, op. cit., p. 176.
~^^3^^ Still earlier it was published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1885.
~^^4^^ The Letters of John Fiske, p. 431,
44 But here arose the third speaker---a very serious gentleman from the Far West. ``If we are going,'' said this truly patriotic American, ``to leave the historic past and present, and take our manifest destiny into account, why restrict ourselves within the narrow limits assigned by our fellow-- countryman who has just sat down? I give you the United States---bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by the primeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment!"\thinspace'^^1^^ Fiske told this story with a purpose---to show the opportunities that the United States had for expansion. Behind the fantasy of the third speaker were what Fiske regarded as the realistic ambitions of the second speaker.In framing arguments to justify the USA's pretensions, Fiske referred to the American political system. In America, he said, it had become customary to deal with questions between states as with questions between individuals, and 'this we have seen to be the real purport of American federalism. To have established such a system over one great continent is to have made a very good beginning towards establishing it all over the world.'^^2^^
The superiority of American political institutions is Fiske's main but not only argument. He had frequent recourse to the argument that the industrial civilisation of the New World was advanced. He saw the advantage of the American branch of Anglo-Saxons in the growth of population and industry, in the steady growth of the number of 'dollar hunters', who had replaced the 'scalp hunters'. He visualised the future triumph of American civilisation as the effect of US economic might. When the shameful tariff, falsely called `protective' was done away with and American manufacturers produced superior articles at less cost of raw material, the advantages of the United States with its standing army of only 25,000 men would be seen visibly over the states of Europe with their standing armies amounting sometimes to four million men. Economic pressure would compel the European nations to disband their armies and _-_-_
~^^1^^ John Fiske, American Political Ideas, Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History, pp. 101--02.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 148,
45 beat their swords into ploughshares. The victory of the industrial type of civilisation would then be complete.^^1^^ The industrial development of the Anglo-Saxon race would gradually introduce federalism to Europe. It would then become as desirable for the states of Europe to enter into a federal union as it had been for the states of North America a century previously.^^2^^ 'I believe,' he concluded, 'that the time will come when such a state of things will exist upon the earth, when it will be possible ... to speak of the United States as stretching from pole to pole.... Indeed, only when such a state of things has begun to be realized, can Civilization ... as sharply demarcated from Barbarism, be said to have fairly begun. Only then can the world be said to have become truly Christian.'^^3^^Fiske was far from having pacifist illusions. He held that the Anglo-Saxon political ideals could be peacefully proliferated only to civilised, Christian nations. 'The history of mankind has been largely made up of fighting, but in the careers of the most progressive races this fighting has been far from meaningless,'^^4^^ he wrote. 'As long as civilization comes into contact with barbarism, it [war.--- /. D.] remains a too frequent necessity.'^^5^^ He also noted that it would be necessary to develop backward continents like Africa. Africa 'is a vast country, rich in beautiful scenery and in resources of timber and minerals with a salubrious climate and fertile soil, with great navigable rivers and inland lakes, which will not much longer be left in control of tawny lions and long-eared elephants and negro fetishworshippers'.^^6^^ He prophesied: 'The day is at hand when four-fifths of the human race will trace its pedigree to English forefathers, as four-fifths of the white people in the United States trace their pedigree today. The race thus spread over both hemispheres, and from the rising to the setting sun will not fail to keep that sovereignty of the sea _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 148--49, 150.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 146.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 151--52.
~^^4^^ John Fiske, The Destiny of Man, Boston, 1892, pp. 85--86.
~^^5^^ John Fiske, American Political Ideas, Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History, p. 146.
~^^6^^ Ibid., p. 141.
46 and that commercial supremacy which it began to acquire when England first stretched its arms across the Atlantic to the shores of Virginia and Massachusetts.'^^1^^In American Political Ideas Fiske enunciated his general historical and political concept, but the solution of the basic questions of the history of the United States was only outlined. His historical writings---The Discovery of America, The Beginnings of New England, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, The War of Independence, The Critical Period of American History, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, and others---cover the period from the discovery of America to the 1880s-1890s. His brilliant literary style and vivid presentation of dramatic events of colonial days and the War of Independence won him a wide audience.
The negative aspects of Fiske's methodology are not so clearly discernible in his historical works; nevertheless, what is striking is his close attention to political and military history and his efforts to show the evolution of the notorious ideas of federalism and local self-government.
The Beginnings of New England is his key, conceptual historical work. In it he repeats at length his idea of Teutonic political superiority, and portrays the first Puritan settlers as custodians of the purity of primordial political principles. Thanks to them, the Americans were 'equipped as no other nation had ever been, for the task of combining sovereignty with liberty, indestructible union of the whole indestructible life in the parts'.^^2^^ In his examination of urban self-government, the rise of town assemblies, the formation of a federation of provincial assemblies, and so forth, Fiske tries to prove that the Anglo-Saxon political principles swiftly developed further in America. New England improved on the old English model. The time would come when the whole world would enjoy its blessings.
In the spirit of the views prevailing at the time in American bourgeois historiography, he gave an idyllic portrayal of the life of the American colonists. In studying the early period of US history, Fiske posed the question: What led to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 143.
~^^2^^ John Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, Boston, New York, 1889, p. 174.
47 the victory of English colonisation over Spanish, Dutch, and, particularly, French? Francis Parkman, a historian of the 'early school' and Fiske's predecessor in investigating this subject, attempted to prove that in the battle for the American forests the victory of the English was due to their more sophisticated political ideas embodied in British democracy. Parkman referred to the providentialist idea that the Puritans were a 'chosen people'. In the spirit of 'comparative polities', Fiske saw the roots of Anglo-Saxon political institutions in the village assemblies and the representation principles of the ancient Germans, but his conclusions were the same: the conflict between France and England 'was the strife between absolutism and individualism, between paternal government carried to the last extreme, and the spontaneous life of communities that governed themselves in town meeting'.^^1^^Fiske closely examined the problem of the formation of a Federal Union that had been debated by leading personalities of the North American colonies for 150 years, and analysed the attempts to form that federation (particularly in 1754). But these facts, taken in isolation from the basic content of American colonial history---the expansion of economic links between the colonies and formation of the North American nation---were arbitrarily interpreted by Fiske only as evidence of the evolution of English political institutions on American soil.
He impoverished the history of the War of Independence. The first American revolution was a liberation, anti-feudal movement for national unity, but Fiske saw in it only a struggle to attain a new, higher stage in the development of political institutions. The significance of that war, he wrote, was that it showed 'an astonished world that instead of one there were now two Englands, alike prepared to work with might and main toward the political regeneration of mankind'.^^2^^ He did not reject the term 'American revolution', but under his pen it became an 'English civil war' and a 'conservative revolution'.
_-_-_~^^1^^ John Fiske, New France and New England, Boston, New York, 1902, p. 233.
^^2^^ John Fiske, American Political Ideas, Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History, p. 129.
48From the standpoint of his doctrine of the evolution of Aryan political principles, the Civil War, like the War of Independence, was only a stage in the development of the principles of federalism and local self-government. As early as in American Political Ideas he wrote that while the War of Independence was fought for the principle of equal representation, the Civil War was fought for the final assertion of the principles of federalism. According to him, the combination of centralisation and autonomy had made the United States an example for all the nations of the world.
These are the basic political ideas enunciated in Fiske's historical writings. His eminence as a historian was not due to any introduction of new facts into scientific circulation or to the elaboration of any new method: Fiske was mostly a populariser. His assessments of individual events likewise fit into the straitjacket of the then prevailing conservative historiography. Many years later the liberal journal The Nation wrote ironically that philosophers were inclined to believe that Fiske's vocation was history, while historians were convinced that he was above all a philosopher. The genealogy of American political institutions, traced by Fiske in American Political Ideas, provided the arguments to back up the assertion about Anglo-Saxon political superiority and to proclaim that it was the mission of the USA to regenerate the world politically. In this lay the political keynote of his historical compositions.
In the 1890s he wrote only one book, The Discovery of America, but became more deeply involved in politics. As President of the Immigration Restriction League he demanded the expatriation of Slavs and Italians. In foreign policy he urged an alliance of the Anglo-Saxon nations against the 'menacing activity' of Russia in the Far East. He hailed the American victory over Spain in the War of 1898 as the high point of the conflict between the Spanish and the Anglo-Saxon civilisations.^^1^^
Considerable influence was enjoyed also by John William Burgess, another exponent of the Anglo-Saxon school of history. He was born in 1844 into a slave-owning family in _-_-_
^^1^^ Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Titoupht, Boston, 1962, p. 176.
49 Tennessee and was brought up in the American South. However, a firm adherent of the Union, he joined the Federal army during the Civil War. After the war he graduated from Amherst College, following which he spent three years in Germany studying political science and history, espousing the Pan-Germanic school. His views were influenced mainly by Gustav Droysen, the Prussian historian, and Rudolf von Gneist, a leading expert in English law. In Germany he read the works of Gobineau. He returned to the USA confirmed in the view that the Teutonic peoples had an exclusive mission. At first he taught at Amherst where he introduced a German system of instruction: seminars on problems of constitutional history. From 1876 to the end of his life (he died in 1931) he taught at Columbia University, New York. At the university he founded a faculty and school of political science in 1880. It was his design that they should be centres for the training of the future political elite. The journal Political Science Quarterly, established by him in 1886, preached the Anglo-Saxon doctrine and method of 'comparative polities', and frequently published articles on current foreign policy issues.Although Burgess was mainly an expert on political science, he wrote some significant works on history. In The Middle Period, The Civil War and the Constitution, and Reconstruction and the Constitution he examined the war between the North and the South as a clash of two political ideals. The North championed supreme constitutional principles expressing national sovereignty; the South followed a sideline of development, clinging to the outdated theory of sovereignty of states. Racism featured prominently in Burgess' writings. 'The claim that there is nothing in the color of the skin from the point of view of political ethics,' he wrote, 'is a great sophism. A black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind.'^^1^^
Many of the ideas in his historical works on the Civil War were no more than the result of the application to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ John W. Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-- 1876, New York, 1905, p. 133.
__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---0284 50 history of the USA of the methodology formulated by him a decade earlier in Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law (1890) and in articles on topics of the day.^^1^^Underlying his theory of the formation of political institutions was the idea that political organisation was determined by the ethnic composition of the population. Accordingly, he classified Aryans as 'political nations', and non-- Aryans as 'non-political nations'. 'American Indians, Asiatics and Africans cannot properly form any active, directive part of the political population', 'Aryan nationalities alone have created democratic states; ... no other peoples or populations have ever given the slightest evidence of the ability to create democratic states', Burgess wrote in an article headed 'The Ideal of the American Commonwealth'.^^2^^ But even nations classified as Aryans had different political gifts. The Celts, Greeks, and Slavs, he maintained, were able to organise self-government only at the level of local communities, but could not found nation states.^^3^^ The Romans and the Latin peoples were on a higher rung. They had created empires that were a step forward in political evolution. But individual freedom had been sacrificed, local autonomy suppressed, and the ethnic distinctions of the population ignored.^^4^^ Even if the Romans had had ideal conditions, he argued, they would have been unable to advance politically and form a nation state: this was not the mission of the Romans in civilising the world. That mission was left to the Teutonic race.
Burgess assessed the political system in the USA as the highest achievement of Teutonic political genius: 'It [the American federal system.---/. D.] reconciles the imperialism of the Romans, the local autonomy of the Greeks and the individual liberty of the Teutons, and preserves what is genuine and enduring in each. It is, therefore, perfectly _-_-_
~^^1^^ More in detail in: I. P. Dementyev, American Historiography of the Civil War in the USA (1861--1865), Moscow, 1963, pp. 146--52 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. X, September 1895, No. 3, pp. 406, 407.
~^^3^^ John W. Burgess, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, Vol. 1, Boston and London, 1898, pp. 32--34.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 36.
51 adapted for universal application.'^^1^^ The time would come when 'the American commonwealth will appear as the bearer of the ideal for the world'.^^2^^Burgess felt that the principal political achievement of the Teutonic states, particularly of the USA, was the reconciliation of a strong state authority and the personal freedom of citizens. But his views on this question were not devoid of contradiction. Under the influence of German political thought he regarded the government as almost the embodiment of the designs of Providence, and advocated a government that could maintain social peace in the nation and impose its will on weaker nations. On the other hand, his ideas about domestic policy were an expression of the ideology of laissez faire and extreme bourgeois individualism. This did not always dovetail with American reality of the close of the nineteenth century, which was the reason for Burgess' apprehensions over the growth of private corporations and other processes springing from the evolution of the capitalism of free enterprise into imperialism.^^3^^ In the 1890s he wrote hopefully of a state whose administration would be entirely in the hands of 'aristocrats of the mantle', of the elite duly trained to cut short interference in the 'rights of the individual' by workingmen's associations and trusts alike.
While Fiske underscored the impact of the English historical experience on American political institutions and the kinship between American and English institutions, Burgess was an Anglophobe. He had no liking for the English, who, he said, were not 'true Teutons': the Norman invasion had infused much French blood into them. But when the English settlers arrived in America, the hardships of a pioneering life reinforced the Germanic element in the English character. This was also fostered by massive German immigration to the USA. Burgess became a Germanophile during his student years in Germany. In his old age he recalled an unforgettable sunny day in the spring of 1871, when the German armies were returning victorious from France _-_-_
~^^1^^ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. X, September 1895, No. 3, pp. 417--18.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 418.
^^3^^ Pelitical Science Quarterly, Vol. XIII, June 1898, No. 2, p. 204.
__PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 52 and he and other students left the lecture rooms to gaze on the cavalrymen on prancing horses and Prussian infantry in shining helmets.^^1^^The social conflicts considered by Burgess through the prism of racial conflicts acquired a completely distorted image. He contended that the reason the insurgent people in England and, particularly, France had time and again menaced the propertied was because the ruling elite had lost its racial purity and, consequently, the political principles had been deformed. The immutability of social and political orders was best ensured by the preservation of power in the hands of men of Teutonic origin.^^2^^ This was the angle from which Burgess assessed the socialist movement as well. He wrote: 'The present menace to individual liberty proceeds from a different quarter. I say menace, rather than danger; for I do not feel that it amounts to a danger. I refer to the so-called socialistic movements in certain parts of our country, among certain classes of the population. More than twenty years ago, while a student at the German universities, I first heard the socialistic program expounded, and I then thanked Providence that my home was in a land where such vicious nonsense could never, as I supposed, gain a lodgment.'^^3^^ Burgess maintained that the working-class and socialist movement in the USA was the work of immigrants unused to the laws of the AngloSaxon race.^^4^^ Like Fiske, he urged a restriction on the entry of 'inferior Aryans' into the USA. He fulminated against the Irish and Slavs, and was instrumental in securing the expulsion of Jews from Columbia University.^^5^^
Burgess' racist political theories were even more significant in substantiating the imperialist policy of conquest. He stressed that it was the duty of Teutonic nations 'to carry the political civilization of the modern world into those parts of the world inhabited by unpolitical and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Edward N. Saveth, op. cit., p. 44.
~^^2^^ John W. Burgess, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, Vol. 1, pp. 44--45.
~^^3^^ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. X, September 1895, No. 3, p. 410.
~^^4^^ John W. Burgess, Reminiscences of an American Scholar, New York, 1934, pp. 397--98.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 245.
53 barbaric races'.^^1^^ 'I do not think,' he declared, 'that Asia and Africa can ever receive political organization in any other way.'^^2^^ On the other hand, it 'would be a petty morality indeed', he wrote, 'which would preserve a territory capable of sustaining millions of civilized men for the hunting-ground of a few thousand savages'.^^3^^ He not only proclaimed that colonial peoples were a 'burden of the white Aryan races' but also urged bringing 'law and order' to the more backward white races, writing that 'interference in the affairs of populations not wholly barbaric, which have made some progress in state organization, but which manifest incapacity; to solve the problem of political civilization with any degree of completeness, is a justifiable policy'.^^4^^While some spokesmen of expansionism wrote of peaceablyAnglo-Saxonising the world, Burgess declared that armed intervention was the 'right and duty' of 'political nations'. The latter should not only respond to the appeal ofjj' unpolitical' nations^ but compel them to accept the higher state organisation, for there were no human rights 'at the stage of barbarity'. Most of the world, he wrote, was inhabited by politically incompetent nations. They were incapable of forming civilised states and would therefore remain in a barbarous or half-barbarous condition until the politically developed nations performed that task for them. This state of affairs endowed the politically competent nations with the duty of responding to the appeal of backward nations for assistance and leadership or compelling them to accept that leadership.
Burgess gave an aggressive interpretation of the doctrine of Anglo-Saxon political superiority and throughout his life urged a policy of expansion. He declared with pride: 'I am not one of those who think that the United States ought never to have colonies or dependencies.'^^5^^ In this context it is curious that he was opposed to the SpanishAmerican War and the seizure of the Philippines. But even _-_-_
~^^1^^ John W. Burgess, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, Vol. 1, p. 45.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 4.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 47.
~^^4^^ Ibid.
^^5^^ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XIV, March 1899, No. 1, p. 1.
54 in that case his were racist arguments: he believed that the USA had not completed the settlement of the American continent, for it had not entirely assimilated the ethnic minorities, and that the annexation of overseas territories would make millions of people of the politically incompetent yellow race American citizens.^^1^^ But shortly afterwards, he wrote: '...the generous treatment of Cuba and the sacrifices made for the inhabitants of the Philippines have taught ... that the Republic can have colonies and a world policy without becoming a military despotism.'^^2^^At the turn of the century he charted a far-reaching programme of US imperialist expansion. Writing of colonial policy, he noted: 'I think it can be now briefly expressed. It is that all of the territory of the North American continent over which the sovereignty of the United States may become extended shall be made, ultimately, States of the Union; and that all extra-continental territory over which it may become extended shall either be made, ultimately, States of the Union---as, possibly, the Hawaiian Islands and Porto Rico---or be erected into communities even more completely self-governing than the States of the Union, under the protectorate of the United States---as Cuba already and, later on, Philippines.... This is a policy worthy of the Great Republic.'^^3^^ His vision of the United States of the future was: 'It might be a bold, but it would not be a reckless, prophecy to say that the child is now born who will see the States of this Union stretching from the Isthmus of Panama to the North as far as civilized man can inhabit, peopled by two hundred and fifty millions of free men, exercising a free protectorate over South America, most of the islands of the Pacific and a large part of Asia.'^^4^^
Burgess' sympathies for Germany and his anti-Slav chauvinism proved so strong that in The European War of 1914 he shocked the reading public with his arguments that the imperialist war was a war of Teutons against the 'Eastern Slav semblance of civilisation' and the 'decaying Latin _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 1-18.
^^2^^ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XIV, March 1904, No. 1, p. 8.
^^3^^ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XIV, December 1904, No. 4, p. 575.
^^4^^ Ibid.
55 civilisation'. 'To me,' he wrote, 'it seems indisputable that every true American interest, moral and material, requires the maintenance of the German Empire in its present organization and power in Middle Europe. Neither the veiled Autocracy of the East nor the Gallic Republic of the West can be spoken of on the same day with it as the producer of genuine liberty, real progress, and universal prosperity.'^^1^^ Some years later he made the charge that the Entente had enfeebled Germany at a time when the threat of 'Asiatic Bolshevism' had appeared in the East.^^2^^This was a period when the circle of Burgess' readers had dwindled, but in the 1880s-1890s he enjoyed the reputation of a leading expert on political science, a prominent historian and a spirited publicist. His books were not addressed to the general reader, but for several decades he was a professor at Columbia University, where, to quote Nicholas M. Butler, the university's president, he interested thousands of students in political science.^^3^^ The historians Herbert Osgood, William A. Dunning, and James Robinson, the economists E. R. A. Seligman and John B. Clark, and the statesmen Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick H. Gillett were among Burgess' students. Some time later Theodore Roosevelt repeated Burgess' calls almost verbatim.
Burgess' ideas were an extreme racist expression of the doctrine of Anglo-Saxon superiority and powerfully influenced the shaping of an expansionist ideology in the USA, and possibly not only in the USA, at the turn of the century. One can agree with the American historian Julius W. Pratt, who wrote in 1936 that Burgess' treatise was embraced by the ideologues of the fascist Third Reich.^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ John W. Burgess, The European War of 1914: ItsCauses, Purposes, and Probable Results, Chicago, 1915, pp. 147--48.
~^^2^^ Bernard E. Brown, American Conservatives: The Political Thought of Francis Lieber and John W. Burgess, New York, 1951, p. 131.
~^^3^^ Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898, New York, 1951, p. 20.
^^4^^ Ibid., p. 8.
[56] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER THREE __ALPHA_LVL1__ MANIFEST DESTINYAmong those who gave shape to expansionist ideology, a prominent part was played by Josiah Strong, a Protestant missionary and social reformer, who combined the preaching of the Christian mission with the latest social Darwinist apologia of Anglo-Saxon racism. His major work, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis^^1^^---was a bestseller in the 1880s. Its entire printing of 170,000 copies was sold out in the USA and it was translated into many foreign languages. (Some chapters were reprinted in newspapers and journals or were brought out as pamphlets). Strong's biographer wrote that this book made him a national figure and there was a great demand for him as a lecturer and speaker.^^2^^ Prior to this Strong was known only as an energetic missionary. He was minister in Protestant churches in Kansas, Wyoming, and other Western states, and an active member of the American Home Missionary Society.
Strong wrote his book in keeping with the long Protestant missionary tradition and appealed mainly to Protestants in America. The USA had always been a predominantly Protestant country. In the colonial period most of the settlers from England were Protestants. Subsequently, it was justifiably held that due to the absence of a centralised Church authority, the certain freedom in the interpretation _-_-_
~^^1^^ Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963 (this edition will be quoted in subsequent pages).
~^^2^^ J. H. Holmes, Josiah Strong. 'Dictionary of American Biography', New York, 1936, Vol. XVIII, p. 150.
57 of religious dogmas, the absence of elaborate rituals, and so forth, Protestantism was better adapted to bourgeois enterprise than any other denomination. However, under the new conditions the anti-feudal edge of Protestantism was gradually blunted, with the result that its negative sides acquired prominence.Belief in a divine historical role was not infrequently combined by the Puritans with fanatical religious intolerance. Evidence of this were the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692--1693 in which 19 women were charged with ' conspiring' with the devil and executed; the creation of theocratic communities in some New England colonies, where authority was in the hands of the aristocracy of `God's chosen'.
In the USA Protestantism was a religion mainly of Americans of English origin, and hence its nationalistic character from the very outset. As early as in the period of colonisation in North America, the prevailing belief was that the Protestant English were superior to the Catholic Spanish and French. This belief was further consolidated in the nineteenth century during the wars against Mexico.
The Federal Constitution of 1787 proclaimed freedom of worship, but this did not prevent Protestantism's establishment as the predominant Church in the land. A specific role was played by the Protestant missionary societies. Springing up at the dawn of American history, they engaged in converting the pagan Indians to Christianity, and later extended their activities to the white non-Protestant population.
At the close of the nineteenth century, with the steady aggravation of class contradictions in the nation, the Protestant Church gave more and more attention to social problems, suggesting its own recipes for social evils. Some of its modernists attempted to `renew' religious dogmas with the aid of the findings of science and social practice. The so-called strive for the social Gospel, a movement founded at the end of the nineteenth century by the Baptist clergyman Walter Rauschenbusch, combined a limited criticism of the vices of capitalism with the preaching of a class peace. (The movement's left wing, led by William D. P. Bliss, propounded ideas of Christian socialism). In the meantime, many American missionary organisations 58 extended their activities outside the USA, working energetically abroad with the object of evangelising the world 'in the lifetime of our generation'. In China alone there were nearly 2,000 American Protestant missionaries in 1895. The American missionary schools in China had nearly 10.000 pupils in 1899, and 30,000 in 1905. The missionaries veritably cleared the way for the penetration of foreign capital. Small wonder that the Boxer rising of 1900 was directed chiefly against foreign exploiters and missionaries.
The American Home Missionary Society, to which Strong belonged, was one of the oldest and most vigorous Protestant organisations. The theme 'Our Country', used by Strong for the title of his book, was usual in the sermons of Presbyterian and Congregationalist clergymen. The same journal, Home Missionary, mouthpiece of the American Home Missionary Society, which in 1886 advertised Strong's Our Country, printed an article under the same heading in 1841, and in 1859 the society brought out a pamphlet entitled 'Our Country'.^^1^^
But Strong's book was no mere repetition of routine Protestant sermons. It accentuated those aspects of the North American Protestant doctrine that spoke of the `exclusiveness' of the American nation. Strong contemplated the historical mission of the USA through the prism of New England theology---the Calvinist conviction that the nation's exclusive mission was to become an instrument for the regeneration of the world.
The USA, Strong emphasised, would be the centre for the spread of Christianity throughout the world, but in order to move in that divinely appointed direction it had first to resolve its internal problems.
In describing the times the Americans were living in, Strong wrote: 'Notwithstanding the great perils which threaten it, I cannot think our civilization will perish; but I believe it is fully in the hands of the Christians of the United States, during the next ten or fifteen years, to hasten or retard the coming of Christ's kingdom in the world by hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years.'^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Josiah Strong, Our Country, Editor'a Introduction, p. X,
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 218.
59What were the perils to which the USA was exposed? In the first chapters Strong considers immigration and Catholicism in the spirit of traditional Protestant sermons, censures the consumption of alcoholjand tobacco, and denounces the polygamy of the Mormons. 'During the last ten years,' he mourned, 'we have suffered a peaceful invasion by an army more than four times as vast as the estimated number of Goths and Vandals that swept over Southern Europe and overwhelmed Rome.'^^1^^ In a manner similar to that of the influential members of the nationalistic movement who later formed the Immigration Restriction League, Strong attempted to prove that immigrants were unprepared for life in the USA morally and politically and were the milieu breeding crime.^^2^^ In his opinion this character of the immigrants (in the 1870s-1880s they came principally from Southern and Eastern Europe) was due to their belonging to the hated Catholic world.
Protestant-Catholic rivalry in America has a long history. During the colonial period many Americans had good grounds for regarding Catholicism as embodying European monarchical institutions. Later, when Protestantism lost its historically progressive role, its anti-Catholic orientation became an aspect of Anglo-Saxon chauvinism. Social discrimination first against Catholic Irish immigrants and, at the close of the nineteenth century, against immigrants from Southern Europe was given religious backing. Later, the Spanish-American War was portrayed by the jingoists as a struggle between two races (the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin) and, correspondingly, between two religions ( Protestantism and Catholicism). At the close of the nineteenth century in the USA there were strong anti-Catholic organisations: the National League for the Protection of America, The Patriotic Order of Sons of America, the National League for the Protection of American Institutions, and others. Their influence may be gauged from the fact that the American Protective Association (a secret Order) had a membership of two million in 1895.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 42.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 53.
~^^3^^ Encyclopedia of Social Reform, Edited by W. D. P. Bliss, New York, 1897, p. 50.
60The progressive content of the struggle of the Protestant against the Catholic Church had thus receded into the distant past, while Strong, like other Protestant leaders, endeavoured to present the rivalry [of the two denominations, as'a struggle between democratic and authoritarian principles In his analysis of the Syllabus of Errors issued by Pope Pius IX (on December 8, 1864) Strong attempted to prove the extraneousness of Catholicism in the USA and superiority of Protestant principles in the approach to education, human rights, and even national sovereignty.^^1^^
Strong did not confine himself to attacking Catholic immigrants and the consumption of alcohol and tobacco--- this was rather a tribute to the usual theme of Protestant sermons. Our Country aroused wide interest precisely because its author went beyond the framework of religion and suggested solutions for the nation's key social problems of the day: the frightening spread of slums and crime in the towns, the concentration of wealth and the growth of poverty and the mounting influence of socialist ideas.
As Hofstadter justifiably noted, Strong's book represented an effort to adapt the concepts of Darwin and Spencer 'to the prejudices of rural Protestant America'.^^2^^ Strong knew his world and did not idealise it. The main thing was that he understood that the farmer's idyll was irretrievably receding into the past. With lavish strokes, he drew a picture of the development of civilisation: the spread of railways and the telegraph girdling the country, the rapid development of industry, and the achievements of American science and technology. His principal conclusion was that the industrial orientation of social development was irrevocable, and that the hopes and the difficult problems that had to be resolved were linked with that orientation. This conclusion is seen in even bolder relief by Strong's attitude to the Western lands. He was one of the first to see the looming danger of `free' lands being exhausted, and attached serious importance to this problem (although not as serious as Frederick J. Turner believed it to be ten years later; Turner regarded the disappearance of this land as a 'turning point _-_-_
~^^1^^ Josiah Strong, Our Country, pp. 73--74.
^^2^^ Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, p. 178.
61 in the history of the USA'). True, Strong did not analyse the role of frontiers in the social context: so far as he was concerned this was rather a 'missionary frontier', a watershed between the Christian world and barbarity. But this does not belittle the significance of Strong's conclusion that with the complete colonisation of the American continent the city would be the touchstone of America's moral foundations. 'The city,' he wrote, 'is the nerve center of our civilization. It is also the storm center.'^^1^^Strong sometimes gave a realistic picture of the social antagonisms in American society, using vivid language to describe 'the dangerously rich and the dangerously poor', the hardships of the workers, and the ferocity of the social conflicts. He had no illusions about the omnipotence of money in the USA: 'Money is power in the concrete. It commands learning, skill, experience, wisdom, talent, influence.'^^2^^ In his description of 'economic despotism' and `mammonism' there are undertones of Christian Utopian criticism of capitalism: 'This is modern and republican feudalism. These American barons and lords of labor have probably more power and less responsibility than many an olden feudal lord. They close the factory or the mine, and thousands of workmen are forced into unwilling idleness.... We have developed a despotism vastly more oppressive and more exasperating than that against which the thirteen colonies rebelled.'^^3^^ He portrayed the horrifying poverty of the slum dwellers of New York and Chicago, among whom hunger, disease, and prostitution were rife. The living condition of the workers was becoming unbearable when 'competition leads to over-production, which results in closing mills and factories for long periods'.^^4^^
Under these conditions, Strong noted, socialism was the natural answer to all problems: every `\thinspace``winter of discontent" among laborers is made ``glorious summer" for the growth of socialistic ideas'.^^5^^ Socialist ideas were penetrating everywhere. They were well known in the American West: `You _-_-_
~^^1^^ Josiah Strong, Our Country, p. 171.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 220.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 150.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 146.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 151.
62 can hardly find a group of ranchmen or miners from Colorado to the Pacific who will not have on their tongue's end the labor slang of Denis Kearney, the infidel ribaldry of Robert Ingersoll, the socialistic theories of Karl Marx.'^^1^^ But in the city socialist ideas were spreading even] faster: ' Socialism centers in the city, and the materials of its growth are multiplied with the growth of the city. Here is heaped the social dynamite.'^^2^^ Strong regarded socialism as the most dangerous manifestation of the 'present crisis', the most frightening way out of contemporary social difficulties.While he scathingly censured the new industrial barons, Strong did not for a moment question any bourgeois principle. Property, capital and order had to be kept intact. 'It is the duty of some men to make a great deal of money. God has given to them the money-making talent; and it is as wrong to bury that talent as to bury a talent of preaching,'^^3^^ he wrote. Itwas his view that the enrichment of one man benefited everybody, that labour 'receives much more of the earning than capital'.^^4^^ By investing in industry, rich people created the means of subsistence for many Americans. On the other hand, noting the hardships of the American workers, he asserted, nevertheless, that they were now living better than 'a hundred or fifty years ago'.^^5^^ He gave a kind of psychological explanation of the social tensions in the nation: it was the result of the gulf between the growing requirements of the people and the possibilities for satisfying these requirements. 'Education,' he wrote, 'increases the capability of enjoyment; and this capability is increasing among the many more rapidly than the means of gratification; hence a growing popular discontent.'^^6^^
What was Strong's solution for acute social problems? His programme was modest indeed: the moderating influence of the Christian principle, enlightenment, and mitigation of unrestricted individualism. The wealthy had to remember _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., p. 153.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 176.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 235.
~^^4^^ Josiah Strong, The Times and Young Men, New York, 1901. pp. 201--03.
~^^5^^ Josiah Strong, Our Country, p. 142.
~^^6^^ Ibid., pp. 147--48.
63 that they had to use their power with a thought for their neighbour. Property was a divine gift given not only for self-indulgence. Mammonism, unbridled luxury, and greed had to be disavowed; Christian stewardship was the only answer, and the only way to 'Christianising wealth'.^^1^^ Within the framework of the social evangelical movement, Strong himself took part in municipal reforms. He was a member of various religious societies that tried to alleviate the lot of the city slum dwellers. In 1898 he founded the League of Social Service, which was later reorganised into the American; Institute for Social Service. In The New Era or The Coming Kingdom, The Twentieth Century City, Religious Movements /or Social Betterment, and other works written during this period, he developed the idea that it was important to give the Church a larger role in society and that some reforms were necessary. A keen observer, he saw, however, that the problems were much too acute and complicated to be resolved solely through Christian social reformism.He felt that broad foreign expansion was the principal way to resolve internal difficulties. This was the new ' frontier' that could replace the lost `frontiers' in the American West and unite the American people around new aims and ideals. Expansionism was part and parcel of the United States' worldwide Christianising mission proclaimed by him, but considerations of a non-religious character were much more numerous in his system of arguments.
His main argument was that the Anglo-Saxons were superior to all other nations. To use his words, 'the Anglo-Saxon is the representative of two great ideas, which are closely related. One of them is that of civil liberty.... The other great idea of which the Anglo-Saxon is the exponent is that of a pure spiritual Christianity'.^^2^^ This political and spiritual superiority, he believed, gave Anglo-Saxons the right to undertake the mission of saving mankind and governing the world. With Strong, as with other exponents of US expansionism, Anglo-Saxonism was, essentially, Americanism. The United States with its 'higher type of AngloSaxon civilization' was the centre of the life, energy, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 251.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 200--01.
64 influence of Protestant Anglo-Saxons. Strong drew the same conclusions as Fiske. 'Does it not look,' he wrote, 'as if God were not only preparing in our Anglo-Saxon civilization the die with which to stamp the peoples of the earth, but as if He were also massing behind that die the mighty power with which to press it?'^^1^^Strong, too, had recourse to social Darwinism in order to justify the future expansion of the USA. 'The lower,' he said, 'was intended as a means to the higher.' 'The aborigines of North America, Australia and New Zealand are now disappearing before the all-conquering Anglo-Saxons. It seems as if these inferior tribes were only precursors of a superior race, voices in the wilderness crying: ``Prepare ye the way of the Lord!"\thinspace'^^2^^ True, references to biology did not prevent Strong from believing in divine Providence, but this changed nothing in the substance of his interpretation.
Among qualities of the Anglo-Saxons facilitating expansion, Strong distinguished the rapid growth of population; this had been noted in the USA during the first half of the nineteenth century, when the Western territories were colonised. For instance, in the debate over the annexation of Oregon in 1846 Congressman Andrew Kennedy said: 'Go to the West and see a young man with his mate of eighteen; after the lapse of thirty years, visit him again, and instead of two, you will find twenty-two. That is what I call the American multiplication table.'^^3^^ Enlarging upon this idea, Strong made the following computations: 'In 1700 this race numbered less than 6,000,000 souls. In 1800, Anglo-Saxons ... had increased to about 20,500,000, and now in 1890 they number more than 120,000,000.... If this rate of increase is sustained for a century ... the Anglo-- Saxon race ... would in 1980 number 1,111,000,000 souls.'^^4^^ 'Does it not look,' he concluded, 'as if God were ... preparing in our Anglo-Saxon civilization the die with which to stamp the peoples of the earth.'
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 205.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 215; Josiah Strong, The Times and Young Men, p. 75.
~^^3^^ Julius W. Pratt, 'The Ideology of American Expansion' in: Essays in Honor of William E. Dodd, Eel. by Avery Craven, Chicago, 1935, p. 343.
~^^4^^ Josiah Strong, Our Country, pp. 202--03, 205.
65In urging expansion, Strong returned to the subject of `free' lands and the Western migration. He saw the solution of the USA's economic and moral problems in replacing the old, continental frontiers by new, overseas boundaries. Further, he regarded the colonisation of the American West as a useful experience for modern expansion. 'The expansion of this race,' he wrote, 'has been no less remarkable than its multiplication.... Another marked characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon is what may be called an instinct or genius for colonizing.'^^1^^ He was ahead of Turner in suggesting that the American `frontiers' had bred the ' aggressiveness' of pioneers and given rise to lasting military traditions. Among the most striking features of the Anglo-Saxon Strong distinguished 'his money-making power---a power of increasing importance in the widening commerce of the world's = __NOTE__ Following '' should probably be ' future".^^2^^ Noting that the world was being Christianised and civilised, and that trade was following the flag, he considered that it was vital for the USA to acquire new markets. Later, many American exponents of expansion (particularly Brooks Adams and Alfred T. Mahan) gave economic arguments in favour of imperialist foreign policy. But Strong was the first to do so. He `discovered' the bond between divine Providence and business interests. He regarded a vigorous US foreign policy not only as the embodiment of the Protestant evangelicism and civilising mission of the Anglo-Saxons but also as the solution to the problem of markets for allegedly surplus products. The American historian Walter LaFeber called Strong's doctrine a view combining 'the religious and industrial manifest destiny of the Anglo-Saxons'.^^3^^
After listing his arguments in favour of expansion ('they are the mighty alphabet with which God writes his prophecies'), Strong gave the following picture of the world's future: 'The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 202, 212.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 212.
~^^3^^ Walter LaFeber, The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860--1898, p. 78.
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5---0284 66 a new stage of its history---the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled.... Then this race of unequal energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it---the representative, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization---having developed peculiarly aggressive traits calculated to impress its institutions upon mankind, will spread itself over the earth. If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the result of this competition of races will be the `` survival of the fittest"?'^^1^^For a decade and a half after the publication of Our Country Strong was absorbed in problems of the social evangelical movement. It seemed as though the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the USA emergence on the world scene had borne out his prophecies. This made him redouble his efforts as an exponent of expansion. In 1900 he published his Expansion Under New World Conditions, the manuscript of which was read and approved by two leading theorists and practitioners of American expansionism: Admiral Alfred T. Mahan and Senator William P. Frye. In this book Strong developed his old ideas: God had foreordained the subjugation of other races by the chosen Anglo-Saxon race; American energy, released by the loss of internal `frontiers', had to be directed towards external expansion; the USA needed new markets. The need for expansion was especially strongly motivated by the increased capacity of American industry. One of the chapters discusses in detail the economic significance of an ocean-to-ocean canal and the possibility of winning the Far Eastern market. Strong clearly put the idea that failure to seize new markets could lead to revolutionary convulsions. 'Without foreign markets,' he wrote, 'the new applications of machinery will transfer regiment after regiment from the industrial army to the army of the unemployed and discontented. Let us not forget that in 1877, after a period of long industrial depression, we had railway riots in ten American cities; and ball and bayonet _-_-_
~^^1^^ Josiah Strong, Our Country, p. 214.
67 did their work amid incendiary fires. Our cities already contain quite enough of social dynamite for the safety of civilization.'^^1^^Strong approved the US intervention in the British-- Venezuelan dispute as a major step towards a re-evaluation of the Monroe Doctrine. He welcomed the Spanish-American War of 1898, and was active in the ideological and political struggle over the Treaty of Paris. The anti-expansionists condemned the government's colonialist policy, chiefly the seizure of the Philippines, on democratic grounds. Strong called them 'blind men ... quarreling with our national destiny or with divine Providence', 'disciples of Count Tolstoi'.^^2^^
Strong's influence on US expansionist ideology at the turn of the century was manifold. His ideas encouraged clergymen urging expansion. He was followed by Lyman Abbot, Francis E. Clark, D. Smith, and John H. Barrows. His book Our Country gave an impetus to the so-called Anglo-Israel movement in the USA. That movement JTOpounded the view that like the people of Biblical Israel, the Anglo-Saxons were a chosen people.
During the Spanish-American War many religious journals of various Christian denominations carried bellicose statements and developed the theory of 'painless imperialism'. The Congregationalist pastor Lyman Abbot, editor of the influential journal The Outlook, was one of the most militant proponents of the war against Spain. The historians Julius W. Pratt and Richard Hofstadter note that the Protestant Church of the USA made a most unsavoury contribution to the debate over the Treaty of Paris. Its press insisted that the annexation of the Philippines was the duty and responsibility of the USA.^^3^^ The influence of Strong's ideas is hard to assess, but it is obvious it was not confined to religious sphere.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Josiah Strong, Expansion Under New World Conditions, New York, 1900, p. 91.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 212, 276.
~^^3^^ Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898, Baltimore, 1936, pp. 289--294; Richard Hofstadter, 'Manifest Destiny and the Philippines', in: America in Crisis, Ed. by Daniel Aaron, New York, 1952, p. 193.
__PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 5* 68Frederick J. Turner evolved the thesis of mobile ' frontiers' in the 1890s. Alfred T. Mahan accentuated the economic significance of expansion, but, as LaFeber rightly noted, Strong's Our Country contained the embryo of these ideas.^^1^^
More finespun and subtle methods of expounding expansion came into use in the early years of the twentieth century. But Strong stuck to the old ideas that the American Anglo-Saxons were the champions of world supremacy. These ideas underly Our World,^^2^^ a book he began writing shortly before his death as a continuation of Our Country.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Walter LaFeber, op. cit., p. 80.
^^2^^ Of the four volumes conceived by Strong, the first two were published: Our World: The New World Life (1913) and Our World: The New World Religion (1915).
[69] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER FOUR __ALPHA_LVL1__ FRONTIER THESISAmong the concepts that directly gave shape to the ideology of expansionism, the `frontier' thesis is unquestionably the most important. It was first enunciated by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner (1861--1932) in the essay 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History' read before the American Historical Association of Chicago in July 1893. This essay has been called `provocative', for in reading it Turner's aim was to spark a discussion of the role of `free' territories.^^1^^ A dispute did indeed break out not only among historians but also among statesmen, especially after Turner re-stated his thesis in 1896 in The Atlantic Monthly, a journal with a large circulation.^^2^^ Turner soon became a popular figure in the nation.
The central idea of Turner's `frontier'^^3^^ thesis was that 'up to our day American history has been to a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, .explain American development'.^^4^^ The colonisation of the West was seen by Turner as the main motive force of US history. These _-_-_
~^^1^^ Thomas D. Clark, Frontier America: The Story of the Westward Movement, New York, 1959, p. 23.
~^^2^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, 'The Problem of the West' in: The Atlantic Monthly, September 1896.
~^^3^^ Turner designated as frontier the advanced line of settlements lliat sprang up in the process of the colonisation of the West; this zone had a population density of less than two per square mile.
~^^4^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, New York, 1921, p. 1.
70 were not entirely new ideas, rather, as contemporaries put it, they virtually 'hung in the air'. Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Turner in 1894: 'I think you ... have put into definite shape a good deal of thought which has been floating around rather loosely.'^^1^^ Many years later Charles A. Beard denned their character, calling Turner the spokesman of the 'agrarian traditions' in American history.^^2^^The question of the 'agrarian tradition', i.e., of the ideological mainsprings of Turner's concept, is so important that it must be considered in some detail. The USA is a country where the features of capitalist development manifested themselves on vast expanses of territory under conditions of internal colonisation. Capitalist development proceeded in the East alongside the colonisation of the West. The first process, Lenin wrote, expressed the further development of established capitalist relations; the second expressed the formation of new capitalist relations on new territory. The former process signified capitalism's development in depth, and the latter its development in breadth.^^3^^ Lenin dialectically examined the interaction of those two tendencies of capitalist development: 'The development of capitalism in depth in the old, long-inhabited territories is retarded because of the colonisation of the outer regions. The solution of the contradictions inherent in, and produced by, capitalism is temporarily postponed because of the fact that capitalism can easily develop in breadth.'^^4^^ He also emphasised that the 'sharpening of contradictions and the displacement of small-scale production are not removed but are transferred to a larger arena. The' capitalist fire appears to be ``damped down"---but at the price of an even greater accumulation of new and more inflammable material'.^^5^^
These points are important for understanding the impact of the `free' lands on various aspects of the USA's socioeconomic and ideological development. Under conditions of capitalist relations not yet fully developed these `free' _-_-_
~^^1^^ Walter LaFeber, The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion 18fiO-1898, Ithaca, 1903, p. 04.
~^^2^^ The New Republic, February 1, 1939, p. 301.
^^3^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 3, pp. 593--94.
^^4^^ Ibid., p. 595.
^^5^^ Ibid,, Vol. 22, p. 89.
71 lands slowed down the 'tendency towards expropriation'' enabling a segment of the farmers and individual groups of workers to settle in the West and, for a short time, maintain their former social level. For a time capitalist development in breadth held up the aggravation of the contradictions between labour and capital, contradictions which frequently grew acute but did not acquire lasting, accomplished organisational forms.The contradiction between the two trends of capitalist development, in breadth and in depth, made a strong imprint on the social consciousness of Americans and generated many Utopian theories on non-capitalist development in the USA.
At the dawn of American history it was suggested that the `free' lands could deliver the New World from wage slavery or, at least, from the darker sides of capitalism. For a long time there seemed to be no end to these `free' lands. The ideological spokesmen of the farmers were convinced that in the USA each person could realise the 'natural right' to land, that property would be distributed equitably, and that general welfare would be ensured for many centuries to come.
These ideas were not alien to Benjamin Franklin and were vividly embodied in the writings of St. John de Crevecoeur, who saw the American republic as a Rousseauesque Utopia translated into life; this belief was shared by the young Thomas Jefferson. The sufferings of the urban lower classes of Paris and London had depressed Jefferson. But even before his travels in Europe he felt that if the `free' lands were given to the working people America would be saved from the rise of big cities with their oppressed wage workers. He visualised the future America as a democratic farmers' republic with lofty civil virtues.
The Westward movement bred petty-bourgeois illusions and aspirations among the American working class ('a farm for each worker'), and fostered the spread of various agrarian Utopias, in particular, plans for the equitable distribution of land proposed by Thomas Skidmore, George H. Evans, and other leaders of the working-class movement.
All Utopias of this kind that sprouted on American soil were objectively linked with the struggle for a progressive, 72 `American' way of development of capitalism in agriculture, which meant 'the most rapid development of productive forces under conditions which are more favourable for the mass of the people than any others under capitalism'.^^1^^
Utopian illusions were most assiduosly spread by George Evans, Herman Kriege, and other national-reformers of the 1840s. They urged unhampered access to the `free' lands, their gratuitous distribution to all who were in need of them. Evans believed this was a panacea for all the evils of capitalism. An agrarian reform would deliver the workers from capitalist oppression. Some of them would become farmers on the free lands, while those who remained in the East would have to be paid higher wages in order to hold them back from resettlement. An end would gradually be put to the old social system under which the workers toiled in torment and poverty at the heartless machines. There would be a new society of peace, prosperity, and security. Evans drew up a schedule of the events that would follow an agrarian reform (presumably in 1851): '1855---General prosperity such as was never known before by civilization...; 1870---No man or woman in the United States begs ``leave to toil"...; 1890---Almost every family in the Union is now in possession of a Home, and there is no want of employment.... Machinery now works for the laborer? not against them...; 1900---Men wonder why their fathers tolerated Land Monopoly ... and debating whether the Millennium has arrived.'^^2^^
The land reform, long-awaited by the Western farmers, was put into effect in 1862: under the Homestead Act anybody wishing to possess land could have a plot of 160 acres for a nominal payment. But the agrarian Utopia went up in smoke: it did not prove possible to perpetuate small-scale farming in the West, much less open the gates for industrial workers.
Following the Civil War of 1861--1865 capitalism developed by leaps and bounds, both in industry and in agriculture. Development in breadth was clearly superseded by development in depth. The turning point was seen clearly during the closing decades of the nineteenth century with American _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 160.
^^2^^ Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. I, New York, 1962, p. 214.
73 capitalism's transition to its imperialist stage. During that period the actual class antagonisms of American society were no longer alleviated by Western colonisation. The intensity of capitalist development in agriculture was indicated by the extent wage labour was used. In only the twenty years from 1860 to 1880 the number of farm labourers grew fourfold. Land monopolisation proceeded rapidly. According to the 1800 census, tenant farms in the main agricultural states comprised between 20 and 30 per cent of the total number of farming households. In the period of 1860--1890 the nation's population increased by nearly 45 million, but only about 400,000 families got free land from the government and kept it for themselves.^^1^^During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century American capitalism bound the bulk of the workers firmly to the factory machine. In this context striking facts were cited during the debate over the so-called safety valve doctrine among American researchers at the close of the 1930s and early 1940s (Carter Goodrich, Sol Davison, Fred'A. Shannon). As a result of this debate it was widely acknowledged that the difficulties involved in resettlement from the industrial cities of the Northeast to the Western territories, to the free lands had deprived the factory workers of the possibility of moving to the West en masse. It has been estimated that it cost at least a thousand dollars to start a farm in the West in the 1850s-1860s. This included the cost of clearing and fencing a plot of 40 acres, building a house and maintaining a family until sufficient food could be grown, the cost of seeds, farm implements, draught animals, and so forth (but it did not include the expense of transportation, which Fred Shannon estimates as the equivalent of half a year's wages for a family of five^^2^^). In that period average wages did not exceed a dollar a day for labourers, and two dollars a day for skilled workers. Needless to say, it was exceedingly difficult for a worker to save enough money for a farm. In reply to the question why unemployed workers were not going to the West, the newspaper Workingman's Advocate wrote in July 1870: 'In the first place, many _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer's T,ast Frontier. Agriculture 1860-- 1897, Vol. V, New York-Toronto, 1945, p. 55.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 54,
74 of them have not the means to take them there, and in the second place they have nothing with which to till the land when they get there.... If they could cultivate the soil, without oxen, or horses, or implements of agriculture or could live on grass, and shrubs, and wild fruits while their first year's crop were growing, going West might be a valid question worth considering.'^^1^^The agrarian Utopia ended in failure, but the Utopian ideas springing from the struggle for the Homestead Act persisted. From Utopias they turned into apologias. It was still believed that the USA was a land of 'unlimited opportunities', that there was social equality on the 'last frontier', that poverty-free existence was assured on the Western farm, and so on.
There was another side to the bourgeois apologia for the saving role of the free lands. The sharp aggravation of the economic and political contradictions in the USA at the close of the nineteenth century was due not to the growth of monopoly capitalism but to the ebb of the colonisation tide in the Western lands, the near exhaustion of the fund of public land. The clergyman Josiah Strong, too, had seen this as the growth of social tension. James Bryce, a leading English political scientist, wrote that when the Americans had occupied all their Western lands 'it will be a time of trial for democratic institutions'.^^2^^
These were the theories and doctrines that Turner drew upon for his frontier thesis. The ideological traditions underlying his doctrine were linked in origin with 'the progressive struggle for an American way of capitalist development in agriculture. At the close of the nineteenth century these traditions had lost their foundation and evolved into a widespread bourgeois apologia, which Txirner included in his historical pattern and thereby assured it of long recognition in American social thought.
A new look at US history, an'assessment of Western colonisation as a central factor of historical development demanded a methodological approach differing from that of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quoted from: Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. I, New York, 1962,' p. 443.
~^^2^^ Quoted from: Walter LaFeber, The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860--1898, p. 65.
75 the racist historians. Turner got his training as a scholar at the University of Wisconsin and then at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where he studied under Herbert B. Adams. His first works clearly bore the marks of his interest in 'comparative polities'. He subscribed to the views of the Anglo-Saxon school on the origin of American political institutions. However, as early as the beginning of the 1890s he departed from the one-sided identification of the historical process with political history. In an article headed 'The Significance of History' (1891), he wrote: 'Today the questions that are uppermost, and that will become increasingly important, are not so much political as economic questions.'^^1^^ In the spirit of positivist methodology he regarded society as a social organism passing through several stages of development. Turner himself noted that his ideas about the significance of history were based on the ideas of Wilhelm Roscher, Karl Knies, and other exponents of the historical school in political economy. The latest studies indicate that Turner was influenced mainly by Friedrich List and Achille Loria. List, one of the founders of the historical school in political economy, held that every nation goes through five stages of economic development: hunting, pastural, agricultural, agricultural-industrial, and industrial-commercial. The Italian economist Achille Loria suggested that historical stages already passed in Europe were being reproduced in the colonies on account of the free lands.Turner began studying the American West largely under the influence of his background. He was born, grew up and spent most of his life in the State of Wisconsin (from 1891 to 1910 he taught at the University of Wisconsin). For a long time this relatively backward state preserved the way of life of the American frontier with its frontiersmen and Indians.
Turner concretised the theory of stages, using American material (he studied the settlement censuses of the North American continent), and linked it with the myth about the salutary mission of the free lands in the American _-_-_
~^^1^^ Walter LaFeber, The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860--1898, p. 66.
76 West. He believed that the American West was demonstrating the social evolution that had ended in Europe long ago, that it was visibly recreating the stages of development passed by mankind.Algie M. Simons, who studied under Turner, repeated and vulgarised this concept but did not alter its logic when he summed up: 'Biology has taught us that the embryo reproduces in syncopated form the various steps in the evolution of living organisms.... In the same manner the successive stages of settlement in the march of America's army of pioneers tells again the story of social evolution.... While the frontier existed, this was the only country in the world that for many generations permitted its inhabitants to choose in which of the historic stages of social evolution they would live.'^^1^^ As the Soviet historian A. V. Yefimov noted regarding the theory of social stages, 'the Time Machine was created not by American reality but by the fantasy of H. G. Wells. It was not time machines with masters endowed with fantastic qualities but the most ordinary people who moved across North America from East to West and from West to East, and their resettlement was not a movement from one epoch to another but a process of the development of European-American capitalism'.
The idea that the free lands of the West had a mission of salvation was the pivot of Turner's concept. In his description the frontier sometimes acquired an extended, vague interpretation, coming forward in the image of `nature' as the antithesis of `civilisation', as a symbol of rejuvenation. Against this background the American pioneer is seen as a man torn away from social relations. There are no barriers between him and nature, society has disintegrated, and the pioneer wages a hand-to-hand war upon the forest.^^2^^ But Turner, as a rule, gives a definite social characteristic of the frontier. The free lands, he wrote, 'promoted equality among the Western settlers, and reacted as a check on the aristocratic influences of the East. Where everybody could _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. M. Simons, Social Forces in A merican History, New York, 1913, pp. 135, 140.
~^^2^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, p. 270.
77 have a farm, almost for taking it, economic equality easily resulted, and this involved political equality'.^^1^^American historical reality was far removed from Turner's assertions about the equality of Western settlers. Social differentiation among the farmers was characteristic not only of the nineteenth century. In the early history of the American colonies there was considerable property stratification among the Western settlers.
Turner's theory about the frontier origin of American democracy springs from the same myth about the salutary role of the West. American democracy, he wrote, 'came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier'.^^2^^ This interpretation had its logical roots in the historical facts of the struggle of the masses for the democratic development of agrarian relations and for political freedoms. However, seen through the prism of the apologetic frontier doctrine, these real facts acquired a mystified form of the birth of democracy in frontier settlements.
American bourgeois democracy took shape in acute class conflicts, including conflicts started by the struggle for free lands. Turner deduced democracy 'from the forest', from the fragile and shortlived equality on the frontier, and isolated it from the class struggle. He went so far as to assert that American democracy was in sharp contrast 'with those modern efforts of Europe to create an artificial democratic order by legislation.'^^3^^
He maintained that a democratic order was established through social and political equality on the frontier and was then spread to all the elements of a 'developed society', rejuvenating and restoring democracy in the East. The frontier acts in two dimensions. On the one hand, political ideas about democracy appear on the frontier under the impact of the environment, of social and geographic conditions; on the other, the old political ideas brought from the East wither away and get `transformed'. 'Decade after decade,' he wrote, 'West after West, this rebirth of American _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 212.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 293.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 266.
78 society has gone on, has left its traces behind it, and has reacted on the East.'^^1^^The conditions for the rise of democracy were the free lands and primitive social relations. However, the social relations on the frontier gradually grew more complex as `civilisation' drew ever nearer from the East. The development of capitalism undermines social equality on the frontier, cuts down the virgin forests, destroys the primitive economic life, and thereby erodes the foundations of democracy. But the frontier does not die. It moves farther West, to new, uninhabited free lands, restoring social equilibrium. Turner traced the Westward movement of the frontier to the Pacific and believed that it ceased to exist in 1890.
According to Turner, the frontier was the magic stone curing the USA from economic, social, and political ills. The frontier, he said, had a determining influence on all areas of American society and was instrumental in creating a specific, American way of life.^^2^^
The basic flaw of Turner's concept is that he took his departure^ from the geographical environment, from the external conditions of life, from the environment in which the settlers found themselves in the West.
Also a methodological inaccuracy of Turner's approach to American history was the artificial severance of two tendencies in the development of capitalism in the United States, its development in breadth and in depth, and the absolutisation of the former tendency. Turner depicted capitalism's development in breadth, linked with the settlement and development of new territories, as the principal, determining process in the history of the USA.
Carried away by the idea that the free lands spelled out social and political equality, Turner ignored the link of the long-existing plantation slavery with these lands. With the extensive character of American plantation slavery, the Westward movement of the planters and the seizure by them of fertile virgin lands were vital to the continued existence of slavery.
Turner was a historian, but historiography was only one _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 205.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 206.
79 of the fields influenced by his concepts. No less important was the direct political implication of the frontier thesis. A reason for its popularity was that it responded to the most acute problems of the USA on the threshold of the twentieth century. Turner tried to answer the question of what was happening to America, and hindsight was needed in order to ascertain what had to be done now.In describing the social collisions in the USA in the 1880s-1890s, many American writers sought to explain them as being due to the disappearance of the frontier, but none of them put it so clearly as Turner: 'And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.'^^1^^ The disappearance of the frontier of settlement, he said, was the reason behind the convulsions of the 1890s. He attributed the aggravation of the social contradictions in the USA to the disappearance of free lands. (The untenability of this argument is demonstrated by the fact that in 1890--1900, i.e., after the Census Bureau had declared that there was no longer a frontier, 1,100,000 new farms were settled, or half a million more than in the preceding decade.^^2^^ Possibly, the land granted under the Homestead Act was poorer than before and required additional investment. Nevertheless, homesteaders received 226,000 plots or 16,000 more than in the previous ten years.)
Turner keenly felt the growth of social tension in the USA. In 1896 he noted anxiously that the 'nation seems like a witch's kettle'.^^3^^ In 1903 he said that America was experiencing a revolution: capital was being concentrated on a huge scale (1,500 million dollars in the hands of the Steel Trust alone); 'lines of cleavage' had begun to appear between capital and labour; and the political parties were now tending to divide on issues involving the question of socialism.^^4^^ In 1910 he wrote: 'A new national development is _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, p. 38.
~^^2^^ Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform, New York, 1956, p. 52.
~^^3^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, p. 221.
~^^4^^ Ibid., pp. 244, 245, 240, 247.
80 before us without the former safety valve, of abundant resources open to him who would take. Classes are becoming alarmingly distinct.'^^1^^Where, it was asked, was a new safety valve to be found? As Walter LaFeber noted, a twofold conclusion could be drawn from the frontier thesis relative to the ways of resolving social problems: 'Perhaps most important, the frontier thesis not only defined the dilemma, but did so in tangible, concrete terms. It offered hope that Americans could do something about their problems. Given the assumption that expansion across the Westernjirontier explained past American successes, the solution for the present crisis now, became apparent: either radically readjust the political institutions to a non-expanding society or find new areas for expansion. When Americans seized the second alternative, the meaning for foreign policy became apparent---and immense.'^^2^^
__FIX__ This has a TON of quotes in SINGLE quotes! so, change: ' to: `Turner partly turned to the recipes of bourgeois reformism: 'When the words ``capitalistic classes" and ``the proletariat" can be used and understood in America it is surely time to develop such men ... who may help to break the force of these collisions, to find common grounds between the contestants.'^^3^^ He saw the new safety valve in science and education. From article to article he called upon the universities to mediate in the class conflicts. He sometimes even spoke of the need for a measure of government control of the nation's economic life.^^4^^
However, reformist ideas became central in Turner's later writings, while the political significance of the frontier thesis was chiefly that it justified expansion. This justification was given in the main formulation of the frontier thesis: the nation's territorial expansion was the determining factor of its history. Since territorial expansion had resolved the USA's economic and social problems in the past, and provided the foundation for the uninterrupted functioning of democratic institutions, the natural conclusion was that it was needed for the development of the _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., p. 280.
~^^2^^ Walter LaFeber, op. cit., p. 67.
~^^3^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, op. cit., p. 285.
^^4^^ Ibid., pp. 280--92, 357.
81 American republic. To quote William A. Williams, the frontier thesis explained America's democracy and prosperity in the past as the result of expansion: 'Either implicitly or explicitly, depending on the form in which it was presented, the idea pointed to the practical conclusion that expansion was the way to stifle unrest, preserve democracy, and restore prosperity.'^^1^^ As Turner saw it, the new period of American history would likewise differ from the old in that 'never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves',^^2^^ there would be no frontier, no free land and, consequently, new territory would have to be found.Conquest was placed on the order of the day not only by the political conclusions to be drawn from the frontier thesis. It was indicated by various elements of Turner's concept. In his thesis the mainsprings of Westward colonisation sometimes have no concrete historical and social features. In his quest for a suitable word to describe them, he usually used 'restless, nervous energy' and sometimes spoke of the 'buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom'. The romanticised figure of the frontiersman was given the aura of a conqueror of the continent. Conquest, he wrote, was the prime ideal of the pioneer. He extolled the aggressive restlessness of the pioneer, the axe, and the Winchester.
Turner evolved the frontier thesis as a counterbalance to the principles propounded by historians of the racist school. But in some of its key elements the antithesis was formal. Fiske and Burgess had maintained that political democracy had come from the German forests. Turner preserved the notion of the birth of democracy in forests. But instead of the German forests of the days of Julius Caesar he offered the virgin thickets of the American West. Democracy, he believed, acquired an accentuated original, national character: '...it was not carried in the Sarah Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.'^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, New York, 1962, p. 24.
~^^2^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, op. cit., p. 37.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 293.
__PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---0284 82Turner, too, accepted the ideas of social Darwinism, but unlike the exponents of the genetic theory he accentuated not heredity but changeability: 'The history of our political institutions, our democracy, is not a history of imitation, of simple borrowing; it is a history of the evolution and adaptation of organs in response to changed environment, a history of the origin of new political species.'^^1^^
Lastly, Anglo-Saxon racism is not at all alien to Turner's views. The entire frontier thesis tacitly sprang from the postulate that the American Indians were an inferior race doomed to extermination and extinction, that this was an inevitable process accompanying the growth of civilisation.^^2^^ Relative to non-Anglo-Saxon immigration Turner adopted a stand similar to that of the historians of the AngloSaxon school. In a series of articles published in Chicago Record-Herald he argued that immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was pushing up the crime-rate in the USA.^^3^^ In one of his first essays he wrote that socialism had been brought to America by immigrants from Europe.^^4^^ He held to this view to the end of his life. In 1924 he noted the spread of syndicalism in the ranks of organised labour and linked it with the influence of immigrants from Eastern Europe and with people 'who interpret America in terms of Russia'.^^5^^
Turner was not a politician, but he did not conceal his approval of the USA's first steps towards imperialist conquest. It is symbolic that his Frontier in American History was read in July 1893, when a new devastating economic crisis had commenced and there was confusion and despondency in the nation. R. A. Billington, a contemporary adherent of the frontier thesis, underscored the immediate _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 206.
~^^2^^ In an article devoted to the period of Reconstruction in the USA, 1865--187(5, published in The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Turner assessed the black liberation movement with considerable bias, from the standpoint of white chauvinism (The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Vol. 27, New York, 1911, pp. 711--14).
~^^3^^ Edward N. Saveth, American Historians and European Immigrants, 1875--1925, New York, 1948, pp. 125--30.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 134.
~^^5^^ Frederick J. Turner, The Significance of Sections in American History, New York, 1932, p. 224.
83 political ring of the pronouncement, writing that 'for the man in the street, there was a direct connection between the Census Bureau's announcement of 1890 [on the end of free lands.---/. D.] and the need for overseas possessions. With opportunity drawing to a close within the nation's border, he reasoned, the government's duty was to provide areas for exploitation elsewhere'.^^1^^ Turner himself observed: 'He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and, unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise.^^2^^The orientation of US imperialist expansion was still not clearly defined in the early 1890s. But in 1896 Turner already noted with satisfaction: 'For nearly three centuries the dominant fact in American life has been expansion. With the settlement of the Pacific coast and the occupation of the free lands, this movement has come to a check ... and the demands for a vigorous foreign policy, for an interoceanic canal, for a revival of our power upon the seas, and for the extension of American influence to outlying islands and adjoining counries, are indications that the movement will continue.'^^3^^
Fourteen years later addressing the American Association of Historians as its president, Turner said that the USA's expansion in the Far East 'was, indeed, in some respects the logical outcome of the nation's march to the Pacific, the sequence to the era in which it was engaged in occupying the free lands and exploiting the resources of the West'.^^4^^
While explaining the past, Turner charted an action programme for the present, laying the ideological foundation for expansion. The frontier thesis was widely dealt with in literature, made the rounds of the universities, and found support among businessmen, clergymen, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ R. A. Billington, Westward Expansion, New York, 1949, p. 754.
~^^2^^ Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, p. 37.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 21!).
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 315.
__PRINTERS_P_83_COMMENT__ 6* 84 politicians of different hues. An important reason for this success was that Turner's thesis had a national appeal. Another reason was that it was based on the democratic mythology of the early period. Turner hypcrtrophicd individual aspects of American social development, justifying the USA's aggressive foreign policy of the turn of the century on historical grounds. Soldiers of the imperialist epoch were depicted as the successors to the pioneer settlers of the American West. Turner interpreted imperialist expansion as an ' expansion of freedom' vital to the maintenance of democracy and its spread to other countries.On the economic level, the thesis was addressed not only to businessmen, who explained the economic crisis in the USA as being due to the market's limitations on account of the diminishing area of free lands and demanded new markets. Turner appealed also to democratic elements propounding the principles of laissez faire in opposition to the powerful trusts. As Turner saw it, since the existence of undeveloped territory was the foundation of free competition and since the disappearance of such territory was leading to the decline of free enterprise and the growth of trusts, there was only one conclusion to be drawn: there had to be further territorial expansion.
This theory, too, received the support of a segment of farmers.^^1^^ The leading Populist William H. Harvey wrote that the condition of the working people in the USA was deteriorating on account of the disappearance of frontiers. The 'escape valves for the poorer people' had vanished, he wrote in 1894, and the 'damming up of the stream has now come. There is no unexplored part of the world left suitable for men to inhabit'.^^2^^ Another Populist, Jerry Simpson, wrote that the time had gone when the USA had had a 'great and boundless West', where 'surplus labor ... could find an outlet', now that the frontier had closed 'and the great tide of population is turned back again upon the East'. However, he expressed the hope that the loss of the frontier would be compensated by America's economic _-_-_
~^^1^^ William A. Williams, The Roots of Modern American Empire. A Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society, New York, 1969.
~^^2^^ Walter LaFeber, op. tit., p. 65.
85 might challenging the world for competition in its markets.^^1^^Note must be made of Turner's influence on two leading statesmen and ideologues of those days---Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Both accepted the frontier thesis. Its impact is felt in Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West, which extols the civilising mission of the AngloSaxons in the North American continent. Woodrow Wilson, who was a close friend of Turner, propounded similar ideas in his writings on political science.^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 167.
~^^2^^ William A. Williams, 'The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign Policy' in: Pacific Historical Review, November 1955.
[86] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER FIVE __ALPHA_LVL1__ SEA POWER DOCTRINEAlfred Thayer Mahan, architect of the popular concept of sea power, one of the principal demolishers of American isolationism, the author of innumerable articles on current problems, and founder of the `look around' in American journalism, was unquestionably the most influential spokesman of American expansion at the turn of the century. Moreover, he linked the theory of expansion with practice.
He was born in 1840 (his father was professor of engineering at West Point). Upon graduating from the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1859 he began his career as a naval officer. Although he fought in the Civil War in the Union Navy, his sympathies lay mostly with the South. Charles C. Taylor, Mahan's biographer, relates that Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was forbidden reading in the Mahan family. Mahan himself recalls: 'I was brought up ... learning to look askance upon New England and abolitionists. The experiences of life, together with subsequent reading and reflection, modified and in the end entirely overcame these early prepossessions.'^^1^^
Belief that the USA had to have a strong centralised government and that the secession of the South stood in the way distinguished Mahan from his classmates at the Naval Academy, many of whom embraced the cause of the rebel slave-owners. Mahan's long naval career was colourless. He found his vocation in the study of naval history. In _-_-_
~^^1^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, From Sail to Steam. Recollections of Naral Life, London-New York, 1907, pp. X--XI.
87 1883 he published The Gulf and Inland Waters, which was an attempt to draw a lesson from the Civil War for future operations by the American Navy. It attracted attention. In 1885 Mahan was invited to teach at the Newport Naval War College, which was engaged in developing Pacific strategy under Admiral Stephen B. Luce. The lectures delivered by Mahan were published in 1890 under the title The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660--1783. The keynote of these lectures was that sea power was a major factor determining the destiny of nations. This book was immensely successful. It had 32 printings in the USA and Britain in the period up to 1935, and was translated into practically all the European languages.^^1^^ Mahan's next book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793--1812,^^2^^ was just as successful. English reviewers called it the 'Gospel of British greatness', a 'philosophy of naval history', and so forth. When Mahan visited Britain in 1895 the highest honours were showered upon him. He was received by the Queen, honorary degrees were conferred upon him at Oxford and Cambridge within a single week, and he was the first foreigner to become a member of the Royal Navy Club. In Germany similar success awaited him. Kaiser Wilhelm II wrote that he was trying to learn his books by heart, and ordered them to be sent to all the shipboard libraries of the German Navy. In Japan, Mahan's books, as he himself noted, were studied more assiduously than anywhere else.In the USA recognition did not come at once. In 1893 Mahan was posted to the cruiser Chicago. To his application, in which he wrote that he would be much more useful as a writer, the chief of the Bureau of Navigation replied: 'It is not the business of a naval officer to write books.'^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ It was translated into the Russian by N. P. Azhelov and published in 1895, hile in 1S98 the journal Morskoi sbornik (Nos. 8 and 9) carried artic'es by S. A. Skryagin and V. F. Golovachev, who attempted to apply Mahan's ideas to Russia's history.
~^^2^^'A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793--1812, 2nd cd., Vols. 1-2, Boston, 1893. This book was translated into the Russian.
~^^3^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, From Sail to Steam. Recollections of Naval Life, p. 311.
88 Mahan retired in 1896 in order to devote himself to political writing. He soon published a two-volume biography of Nelson nd the book Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812,^^1^^ which completed the cycle of studies in the history of Britain's sea power. In them Mahan repeated his idea that sea power was of decisive significance in history. His numerous articles, published in leading literary and political journals---Harper's Magazine, The Forum, The Atlantic Monthly, The Century Magazine, and The North American Review---influenced the attitude of American public opinion to foreign policy. Mahan's prestige soared from 1897 onwards, when his friend, Theodore Roosevelt, who shared his views, became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Confident that his opinion would be valued, Mahan urged the speedy build-up of a large navy, the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, and US control of the building of the interoceanic canal. During the Spanish-American War he was appointed to the Naval War Board. In 1899 he was an expert with the American delegation at the Hague Conference, where he opposed any restrictions on naval armaments. It is interesting to note that he censured the proposal for banning the use of poison gases in war.^^2^^In The Problem of Asia and Its Effect Upon International Politics, written after the Spanish-American War, Mahan gave a picture of wide-ranging US expansion and of temporary alliances with Anglo-Saxon countries in the West and with Japan in the East.
Towards the end of his life Mahan was inundated with decorations and honours. In 1906 he was given, on President Roosevelt's initiative, the rank of Rear Admiral, Retired, and earlier he was awarded scientific degrees by leading American universities.
Mahan did not live to see the USA enter the First World War (he died in 1914), but as witness of its outbreak he wrote in his last notes that it was a war between `Teutons' and `Slavs'. He wanted Germany to be humbled, but not to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. T. Malian, The Life of Nelson. The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain, Vols. 1-2, London, 1897; Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812. Vols. 1-2, Boston, 1905.
~^^2^^ William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power, Norman, 1947, pp. 246--47.
89 extent it should never rise again, and even considered the possibility of a 'united Western Europe' against the Slavs.^^1^^ __*_*_*__The doctrine of sea power is the highlight of all of Mahan's writings. The idea that sea power is the key factor of a nation's destiny was propounded by him in the light of the naval wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the wars for colonies, for the division of the world. He concentrated on the history of the British colonial empire and the role of the Navy as the instrument for the conquest of colonies and the spread of colonial trade.
In his main theoretical work, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660--1783, Mahan named the elements determining the development of sea power: geographical location, physical structure (natural resources and climate), size of territory, numerical strength of the population, the national character, and the state system. Given that these conditions were favourable, another formula briefly expressed by Mahan as N -f MM + NB = SP (Navy -f- Merchant Marine-f Naval Bases = Sea Power) would come into operation.
He analysed these elements in the light of British history and drew the conclusion that all fostered the creation of sea power. Britain's geographical location did not require it to spend strength on defending land frontiers; its long coast had many splendid harbours; the very poverty of its natural wealth induced resourcefulness, and much of its population was linked with the sea. Applying to the sea the thesis of the Frenchman Antoine Henry Jomini on the relationship between the armed forces and territory he wrote that a 'country is in this like a fortress; the garrison must be proportioned to the enceinte'.^^2^^ Mahan found that the enceinte, Britain's coastal ramparts, could be well protected. He attached special significance to combining a network of naval establishments in the metropolis with a network of stations in conquered colonies. The British government, he _-_-_
~^^1^^ W. n. Puleston, The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S.N., New Haven, 1944, p. 351.
~^^2^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660--1783, Boston, 1890, p. 43.
90 noted, clearly appreciated the significance of bases in colonies, and skilfully sited and protected them with a manoeuvrable fleet.He regarded the history of Britain as a history of struggle for sea power and a colonial empire; this struggle was waged overseas. England's sea power was the principal factor behind its victories over its rivals---Spain, Holland, and France.
Mahan's views on strategy were highly valued in naval circles in many countries. It is outside the scope of our subject to discuss their merits, but the one-sidedness of the theory of sea power is quite obvious when one considers historical events. When Mahan tried to prove that the Navy was the sole determining factor of national destinies, and that sea power was the decisive factor in war, he was clearly exaggerating. He regarded the Navy in isolation from society's economic and social organisation. It was as though Engels had the Mahan doctrine in mind when he wrote: 'Naval political force, which reposes on modern warships, proves to be not at all ``direct'' but on the contrary mediated by economic power, highly developed metallurgy, command of skilled technicians and highly productive coal-mines.'^^1^^
Methodological errors led Mahan to omissions and even serious distortions in describing historical events. His errors are seen in bold relief in his description of the wars between England and France at the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. Mahan isolated sea power from other factors, for instance Britain's financial power and commercial and industrial superiority, which contributed greatly to the victorious outcome of its war against Napoleon. Also, he underestimated the role of the national liberation movement in Europe against the Napoleonic empire, without which Britain's hand would have been seriously weakened. Moreover, Mahan's assertion that British sea power broke Napoleon conflicts with the selfevident fact of the decisive part played by the Russian people in crushing the Grand Army. Mahan's pattern distorted the history of the USA as well. It was not the raids of the fleet of privateers, but the victories of the army of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, Anti-Diihring, Moscow, 1977, p. 213.
91 Washington over the British troops that brought the 13 colonies deliverance from colonial tyranny.It is not hard to criticise Mahan the historian, for he indiscriminately used facts of the past to support his theory about the decisive significance of the Navy. It is only as a curious circumstance that one may mention that in 1902 Mahan was elected President of the American Historical Association. With no professional training as a historian, he drew haphazardly from documents to prove his view. Even in naval history he drew upon the writings of others, in particular, French historians, chiefly Jomini. (Only relative to his biography of Nelson can it be said that it was based on archival material.)
It is hard to ascribe the popularity of Mahan's concept exclusively to his views on military strategy. His ideological predecessors in this field in the USA were, in addition to Stephen B. Luce, the Secretary of the Navy in the 1870s George M. Robeson, Senators Marion Butler and John T. Morgan, and the Secretary of the Navy in the 1890s Benjamin F. Tracy. Almost simultaneously with the publication of Mahan's books, the British Admiral Philip Howard Colomb began to publish a series of articles underscoring the significance of a large fleet of ships of the line for the outcome of naval wars. Of course, Mahan's advantage over his predecessors was his excellent fluency as a writer; his books did not remain within a narrow circle of experts, they commanded a wide reading public. But the main reason for the phenomenal success of Mahan's sea power doctrine and his excursions into history was that at the close of the struggle for the division of the world the ruling circles of the imperialist powers saw in his theories convincing evidence in favour of an arms race, a justification for war preparations.
Mahan himself did not conceal the pragmatism of his use of English history: he applied its lessons in order to suggest solutions for the USA's foreign policy problems. He believed that the nation's principal weakness was its want of a big Navy. And he set out to prove that such a Navy was vital to the United States.
He analysed elements of sea power relative to the USA, much as he had done relative to Britain. For a whole 92 century the American isolationists had believed that the ocean protected the nation's security, that it was, above all, a barrier to European interference. Mahan rejected this argument categorically. He contended that the ocean was a splendid means of communication but left the USA insecure militarily. 'The position of the United States upon the two oceans,' he wrote, 'would be either a source of great weakness or a cause of enormous expense, had it a large sea commerce on both coasts.'^^1^^
While singling out and considering one by one the other components of sea power, Mahan drew the conclusion that the USA only had the potential for developing that power. He noted two elements: the character of the people and the nation's large industrial potential. About Americans he wrote: 'The instinct for commerce, bold enterprise in the pursuit of gain, and a keen scent for the trails that lead to it, all exist; and if there be in the future any fields calling for colonization, it cannot be doubted that Americans will carry to them all their inherited aptitude for self-government and independent growth.'^^2^^
He wrote that it was of the utmost importance to acquire overseas stations for the Navy: 'Having ... no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting-places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.'^^3^^
As early as his very first book Mahan urged expansion in the Caribbean, noting the geographical proximity of the countries of that basin to the USA and their strategic value: '...the preponderance of the United States on this field follows, from her geographical position and her power, with mathematical certainty.'^^4^^
He was quite right when he wrote of the changeability of a nation's geographical position relative to the development _-_-_
~^^1^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660--1783, p. 29.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 57--58.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 83.
^^4^^ Ibid., pp. 34--35.
93 of the productive forces and, particularly, to the development of transportation. For instance, using the projected interoceanic canal as his example he showed that the importance of the Caribbean would change with the building of the canal: instead of remaining an inland sea it would be a crossroad of the world's sea lanes. The conclusions from this correct observation were used by Mahan to justify the need for US expansion overseas.His calls for expansion and an arms race, and his basic theories---an attempt to establish a direct link between a country's geographical location, the 'character of the people', and sea power, while ignoring society's economic and social organisation---bring his ideas into kinship with later geopolitics. The geopolitical theory, according to which foreign policy and international relations are governed exclusively by factors of economic and political geography, was formulated later, during the First World War (the term ' geopolitics' was coined by the pan-Germanist Rudolf Kjellen), but its foundations had been laid at the turn of the century by Friedrich Ratzel in Germany, Halford John Mackinder in Britain, and Alfred T. Mahan in the USA.
The theoretical basis of Mahan's views was provided not only by geographical determinism but also by social Darwinism. He wrote: `All around us is strife; ``the struggle of life'', ``the race of life" are phrases so familiar that we do not feel their significance till we stop to think about them. Everywhere nation is arrayed against nation; our own no less than others.'^^1^^
The basic law of life of nations, as of individuals, Mahan argued, was the law of self-preservation, which could not be narrowed down to simple existence within immutable frontiers. Growth was the quality of every healthy organism. In specifying this `law' in the context of the USA's practical policy, he drew up the following action programme: 'Nations must struggle with one another for existence and unless the United States was strong in the struggle it would perish.... Therefore, the United States must build a big navy, seize new naval bases and colonies, force distant _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power. Present and Future, Boston, 1897, p. 18.
94 markets open, and enter full-panoplied into the competition of the great nations for the possession and domination of the earth.'^^1^^More than any other exponent of expansion, Mahan clearly and unequivocally formulated 'national interests'---above all, the solution of economic problems and an alleviation of social tension. These, properly speaking, were the tasks to which his sea philosophy was directed. Sea power was needed in order to ensure a flourishing foreign trade, in order to compete successfully in foreign markets. (Mahan referred primarily to commerce, not industry or economy as a whole. By economic growth he meant an increase of output for sale). From 1890 onwards, in each of his books and articles he repeated his insistence on the seizure of markets for American 'surplus products': 'outside, beyond the broad seas, are the markets of the world, that can be entered and controlled only by a vigorous contest',^^2^^ 'the productive energies of the country ... impel it necessarily to seek access ... to the region beyond'.^^3^^ In Mahan's eyes economic expansion acquired almost the mystical character of manifest destiny: '...whether they will or no, Americans must now begin to look outward. The growing production of the country demands it. An increasing volume of public sentiments demands it.'^^4^^
Moreover, he regarded foreign expansion as a means of settling internal conflicts. In 1894, which saw the height of the economic crisis and an upswing of the working-class movement in the USA, he wrote: '...the ground already shakes beneath our feet with physical menace of destruction from within, against which the only security is in constant readiness to contend. In the rivalries of nations, in the accentuation of differences, in the conflict of ambitions, lies the preservation of the martial spirit, which alone is capable of coping finally with the destructive forces that from outside and from within threaten to submerge all the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quoted from: Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, A Basic History of the United States, New York, 1944, pp. 340--41.
~^^2^^ The Atlantic Monthly, December 1890, p. 817.
~^^3^^ The Atlantic Monthly, October 1893, p. 471.
~^^4^^ Quoted from: Walter LaFeber, The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860--1898, p. 89.
95 centuries have gained.'^^1^^ lie asked: '...which are to-day the most aggressive nations, in the sense of seeking external expansion?... Are they not Germany, Japan, Russia? And why? Ambition?' He viewed expansion as the means for muting social protests and giving the peoples food, drink, clothing.^^2^^ He described these countries as have-nots done out of colonies and markets, while the old colonial powers had siezed fabulous wealth. Moreover, he held that war was the 'true antidote' to socialism. The elimination of the arms race, in his opinion, might result in 'a socialist community of states in which the powers of individual initiative, of nations and of men' would be atrophied, and nations would be demoralised by a 'beneficiary system' of social organisation.^^3^^He was not only a spokesman of US expansion and an eloquent publicist. He was a practising imperialist who was directly involved in foreign policy actions. Whereas in his major theoretical works expansionist propaganda was to some extent crowded out by historical and naval aspects of study, in the many articles published since the early 1890s he drew up a concrete politico-strategic programme of expansion. Its basic elements were the building of a big navy, the seizure of colonies in different parts of the world, the creation of naval bases to protect commerce, rejection of arbitration in all cases uncongenial to the USA, the repeal of laws restricting the financing of arms programmes, the government's participation in the promotion of foreign trade, particularly in China, and, lastly, the training of politicians, if not the entire nation, in an expansionist spirit.
He held that the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands should be one of the first steps of the USA towards extracontinental expansion. In a letter to The New York Times in January 1893, he drew attention to a 'major aspect' of the events of the period in Hawaii. 'It is a question for the whole civilized world and not for the United States _-_-_
~^^1^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power. Present and Future, pp. 121--22.
~^^2^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, U.S.N. Some Neglected Aspects oj War, Boston, 1907, pp. 69--70.
~^^3^^ William E. Livezey, op. cit., p. 265.
96 only, whether the Sandwich Islands, with their geographical and military importance unrivalled by that oi' any other position in the North Pacific, shall in the future be an outpost of European civilization, or of the comparative barbarism of China.'^^1^^ This letter attracted the attention of the editor of the influential journal The Forum, and the latter requested Mahan to enlarge upon the subject. Mahan replied with an article: 'Hawaii and Our Future Sea Power'. He traced the stages of United States territorial expansion in the past, writing: 'In our infancy we bordered upon the Atlantic only; our youth carried our boundary to the Gulf of Mexico; to-day maturity sees us upon the Pacific. Have we no right or no call to progress farther in any direction?'^^2^^ He contended that the annexation of Hawaii was a major step forward, for 'the Hawaiian group possesses unique importance---not from its intrinsic commercial value, but from its favorable position for maritime and military control'.^^3^^ He felt that all objections to annexation would be waived if people would take a broad view in the light of US interests in world trade and the significance of sea lanes.In the article 'The Isthmus and Sea Power' he dwelt in detail on the strategic, commercial, and political importance of the Panama Canal, stressing that steps had to be taken to place it under American control, otherwise this would be done by Britain, which would then form an iron ring running across the canal zone, Hawaii, and British Columbia. He suggested the practical measure of surrounding the future canal with a network of military bases that could be used by the American Navy. In this connection he regarded the Caribbean as the approaches to the future canal, a position that would allow controlling it. He wrote that most of the Caribbean islands were in the hands of foreign powers incapable of promoting progress in that region, and called for preparations for a war against Spain.^^4^^ He was _-_-_
~^^1^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future, p. 31.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 35.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 39.
~^^4^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future, p. 261.
97 active in these preparations and in the war itself. He desired to make the most of the fruits of victory. In a letter to one of his friends, Sydenham Clarke, he mentioned the Philippines and Cuba, writing, 'we cannot abandon to any other the task of maintaining order in the land in which we have been led to interpose'.^^1^^The economic expediency of expansion was the high note of Mahan's writings, but he had recourse also to other arguments. In his articles one distinctly discerns the colonialist refrain about the 'white man's burden' and undisguised Anglo-Saxon racism. He wrote about the interoceanic canal in the spirit of Fiske and Burgess: '...the fundamental meaning of the canal will be that it advances by thousands of miles the frontiers of European civilization in general, and of the United States in particular.'^^2^^ Mahan believed that the Pacific would be not only a centre of world commerce but also the scene of a gigantic struggle between the nations of the East and West. He drew a frightening picture of the future, when 'the vast mass of China---now inert---may yield to one of those impulses which have in past ages buried civilization under a wave of barbaric invasion. The great armies of Europe, whose existence is so frequently deplored, may be providentially intended as a barrier to that great movement, if it comes.... China, however, may burst her barriers eastward as well as westward, toward the Pacific as well as toward the European Continent'.^^3^^ A strong US Navy could play the decisive role in the future East-West collision. Mahan distinctly saw the many contradictions dividing the USA and'Britain, but in the interests of 'racial community' he joined Joseph Chamberlain and Theodore Roosevelt in pressing for AngloAmerican unity for 'the security and strength of that [Western.---/. D.\ civilization'.^^4^^
In a series of concepts justifying US expansion, Mahan devoted considerable attention to the Monroe doctrine. He gave it a new interpretation as early as the beginning _-_-_
~^^1^^ W. D. Puleston, op. cit., p. 200.
~^^2^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future, p. 260.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 31--32.
~^^4^^ The North American Review, November 1894, pp. 555--56,
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7-0284 98 of the 1890s and enlarged upon his interpretation after the Spanish-American War. He wrote: 'Reduced to its barest statement, and stripped of all deductions, natural or forced, the Monroe doctrine, if it were not a mere political abstraction, formulated an idea to which in the last resort effect could be given only through the instrumentality of a navy; for the gist of it, the kernel of the truth was that the country had at that time distant interest on the land, political interests of a higher order in the destiny of foreign territory.'^^1^^ As Mahan saw it, the Monroe doctrine had, from the very outset, been 'the expression of a great national interest, not merely of a popular sympathy with South American revolutionists'.^^2^^ Proceeding from these postulates, he criticised the old understanding of the Monroe doctrine that the USA should abstain from interference in the affairs of other continents, with the exception of America, while American interest lay outside the American continent and embraced islands geographically sited near the USA. 'It may be well here to consider for a moment,' he wrote, 'the charge, now often made, that by the acceptance of the Philippines, and, still more, by any further use of the opportunities they may give us, we abandon the Monroe doctrine.... The Monroe doctrine, however, commits us only to a national policy, which may be comprehensively summarized as an avowed purpose to resist the extension of the European system to the American continents. As a just counterweight to this pretension ... we have adopted, as a rule of action, abstention from interference---even by suggestion, and much more by act---in questions purely European.'^^3^^ This doctrine, in Mahan's interpretation, was 'a policy, not a law, and behind it has always lain force, not the less real because not flaunted'.^^4^^Along with Theodore Roosevelt (in some cases anticipating him), Mahan thus gave a new interpretation of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Captain A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future, p. 152.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 154.
~^^3^^ A. T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia, London, 1900, pp. 12--13.
~^^4^^ Alfred T. Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration or a Place of Force in the International Relations of States, New York-London, 1912. p. 105.
99 Monroe doctrine, making it an instrument justifying US interference in Latin America and even beyond the American continent.Lastly, he gave a militarist interpretation of the Open Door doctrine. Justifiably regarding it as an American objection to the predominant influence of the European colonial powers in China, he stressed that 'equal opportunities' in the Chinese market should be based on strength and that leadership should pass to the USA.
Such was the broad spectrum of issues of American foreign expansion raised by Mahan. It would be hard to overestimate the influence exercised by him: his views were unquestionably central in the expansionist ideology of the 1890s. Charles A. Beard has quite correctly called him 'the most successful propagandist ever produced in the United States'.^^1^^ Mahan's theories were as oil poured on the flame of colonialist expansion, noted Julius W. Pratt. His views affected many aspects of foreign policy and naval thought in the USA. His arguments were quoted by congressmen and were used by journalists. His influence was particularly significant among the so-called imperialist practitioners headed by Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, and Brooks Adams, and through them it spread on the actual implementation of foreign policy. His writings were hailed by the press, particularly by Albert Shaw, a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt and editor of the influential Review of Reviews. Roosevelt himself called Mahan a classic of naval theory, used many of his arguments, and translated them into practice when he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897--1898 (one of Mahan's converts was Hilary Herbert, Secretary of the Navy in 1893--1897).^^2^^ Writing about Mahan, Walter LaFeber noted: 'Unlike Turner, Strong, and Adams, his significance for American foreign policy can be measured in such tangible terms as the 15,000-- ton battleships built in the post-1889 period, which initiated the modern United States battleship fleet.'^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Charles A. Beard, A Foreign Policy for America, New York, London, 1940, p. 39.
~^^2^^ Walter LaFeber, op. cit., p. 94,
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 85.
[100] Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1979/UIAI351/20070621/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.06.26) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ top __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER SIX __ALPHA_LVL1__ FROM EXPANSIONIST THEORY TO PRACTICE.A major part in shaping imperialist ideology was played also by a group of prominent politicians who combined the propagation of expansionist theory with the implementation of an imperialist foreign policy. In literature it is known as the Roosevelt-Lodge group. Most researchers agree as to who comprised that group. 'The dynamic element in the movement for imperialism,' wrote Richard Hofstadter, 'was a small group of politicians, intellectuals, and publicists, including Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Senator Albert J. Beveridge, Whitelaw Reid, editor of The New York Tribune, Albert Shaw, editor of the Review of Reviews, Walter Hines Page, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, and Henry and Brooks Adams.'^^1^^ Charles A. Beard gives practically the same list of ' imperialist agitators', who, 'taking advantage of the national furor over the war against Spain and the unrest created by the populist upheaval at home ... put their creed over on the country for a brief season'.^^2^^
Most of this expansionist elite belonged to distinguished American families of Anglo-Saxon origin, were educated at the finest American universities, and made a successful career of politics. The theories of Fiske, Strong, Burgess, and Mahan were instrumental in moulding the views of the imperialist practitioners of 1898. At the time of transition from words to action, their armoury consisted of social _-_-_
~^^1^^ America in Crisis, Ed. by D. Aaron, New York, 1952, p. 183.
~^^2^^ Charles A. Beard, Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels. An Estimate of American Foreign Policy, New York, 1939, pp. 20--21.
101 Darwinism, Anglo-Saxon doctrine, and other theories. Many members of the Roosevelt-Lodge group were linked not only by an affinity of outlook but also by personal friendship. Lodge and Roosevelt got to know each other in the early 1880s on the Republican bandwagon in the presidential election campaign (the nominee was James G. Blaine). The Adams brothers yielded to their influence. Nobody in the group questioned Mahan's views.Each of these men was prominent on the political Olympus and contributed to the propagation of expansion and the preparations for the war with Spain. Henry Cabot Lodge, a member of the Boston financial elite, was the leading orator of the group of expansionists in the Senate. He was bitter in his criticism of what he believed was President Cleveland's irresolute policy relative to the Hawaiian Islands and tireless in demanding the building of a big navy and developing far-reaching plans of expansion. His article 'Our Blundering Foreign Policy' (1895) was particularly characteristic in this respect. Rejecting the argument that the annexation of Hawaii would be a violation of the Monroe doctrine, he wrote that the doctrine simply held that no European power should establish itself in the Western Hemisphere or interfere with American governments and did not by any means discountenance the extension of American 'institutions of liberty'.^^1^^ He outlined the following foreign policy programme: '...from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Ocean there should be but one flag and one country. Neither race nor climate forbids the extension ... every consideration of national growth and national welfare demands it. In the interests of our commerce and of our fullest development we should build the Nicaragua canal, and for the protection of that canal and for the sake of our commercial supremacy in the Pacific we should control the Hawaiian Islands and maintain our influence in Samoa. England has studded the West Indies with strong places which are a standing menace to our Atlantic seaboard. We should have among those islands at least one strong naval station, and when the Nicaragua canal is built, the island of Cuba, still _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Forum, March 1895, pp. 15--16,
102 sparsely settled and of almost unbounded fertility, will become to us a necessity.'^^1^^Albert Beveridge was no Less fervent in championing expansion, saying: 'God has not been preparing the Englishspeaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and selfadmiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead the regeneration of the world.'^^2^^ With rare bluntness Beveridge expatiated on the economic motivation of expansion: 'American factories are making more than the American people can use; American soil producing more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must and shall be ours. And we will get it as our mother [England] has told us how. We will establish trading-posts throughout the world as distributing-points for American products. We will cover the ocean with our merchant marine. We will build a navy to the measure of our greatness. Great colonies governing themselves, flying our flag and trading with us, will grow about our posts of trade. Our institutions will follow our flag on the wings of our commerce.'^^3^^
Identical views were aired by John Hay, architect of the Open Door doctrine, and Orville H. Platt. Brooks Adams, an influential member of the Hoosevelt-Lodge group, who, to quote William A. Williams, was 'something of the chairman of an informal policy-planning staff',^^4^^ read his writings to a select circle, theoretically substantiating the principles of US foreign policy. In the much-talkecl-of book America's _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 1(5-17.
~^^2^^ Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny. A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History, Chicago, 1963, p. 308.
~^^3^^ Claude G. Bowers, Beveridge and the Progressive Era, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1932, p. 69.
^^4^^ Pacific Historical Review, November 1955, p. 387.
103 Economic Supremacy (1900), Adams applied the laws of physics in an attempt to prove that the USA was the concentration point of the world's social energy, and developed ambitious plans of expansion.In its plans of propaganda and expansion the RooseveltLodge group had many supporters in the machinery of power. In Congress Lodge's partisans included Frye, Morgan, and Teller. Senator William E. Chandler seconded Lodge in demanding the seizure of the mouth of the Orinoco and American control of the Caribbean, while Senator Money joined Roosevelt in asserting that war would improve the nation's qualities. Many were motivated by a desire to 'punish Spain'.
The Roosevelt-Lodge group had similarly strong support among the high-ranking military. Sea power proponents of the Mahan school, who included William T. Sampson, Richmond P. Hobson, Henry C. Taylor, and G. W. Melville, suggested concrete ways and means of building up sea power: a big navy, the Nicaragua canal, a canal linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic, and coaling stations and naval bases on foreign territory. Of course, there were proponents of expansionism also among army officers, prominent among whom were Russel A. Alger, a Civil War colonel and then Secretary of War, Nelson A. Miles, Commanding General of the United States Army, and Leonard Wood, the future military governor of Cuba and governor-general of the Philippines.
Unquestionably, the most colourful figure among the expansionists was Theodore Roosevelt. The group admired his talents and dynamic nature, recognised him as their leader, and forecast that he would hold high office, believing that he could implement the desired policy better than anybody else. Brooks Adams wrote to Roosevelt in 1896: 'Wall Street has desperate need of men like you.'^^1^^ For his part, Roosevelt wrote in his Autobiography: 'Without the active support of these men I would have been powerless.'^^2^^
A terrorist bullet in Buffalo fatally wounded President McKinley on 6 September 1901. He died a week later, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, New York, 1948, p. 218.
^^2^^ Theodore Roosevelt, An A utobiography, New York, 1929, p. 354,
104 the then 42-year-old Theodore Roosevelt became president. His name is rightly associated with US imperialist expansion and a policy of flexible bourgeois reforms at the beginning of the twentieth century. But already in the 1890s he was well known and even popular in the USA. By the time he was 40 he had made a dazzling career: he had been a member of the legislature of New York State, President of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, commander of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, and elected Vice-President of the USA (1900).He was not an ideologue of the 'first rank' or the creator of any new expansionist concept, but he interpreted AngloSaxonism, the frontier thesis, and the sea power doctrine in his own way and, more importantly, applied them to imperialist actions. The programme of foreign expansion proposed by him in the 1890s had earlier been theoretically substantiated in his work The Naval War of 1812 (1882) and, in particular, the many-volume The Winning of the West (1889--1896), as well as in his articles.
A pupil of Burgess, he was, naturally, profoundly influenced by the Germanist doctrine, but it was not an influence that rose to the surface. Of Dutch extraction, he rarely, even in private correspondence, let alone in his public pronouncements, used the term `Anglo-Saxon', preferring the expression 'English-speaking nations', while relative to Americans h» spoke of 'our race', the 'new mixed race'. This did not, of course, alter the substance of his convictions. 'During the past three centuries,' he wrote, 'the spread of the English-speaking peoples over the world's waste spaces has been not only the most striking feature in the world's history, but also the event of all others most far-reaching in its effects and its importance ... the sons of the unknown Saxon, Anglian, and Friesic warriors now hold in their hands the fate of the coming years.'^^1^^ He followed the stereotype of the Anglo-Saxon school when he spoke of the 'voice of blood', the 'destiny of the race', and visualised the highest political achievement of the Americans in combination of local and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, Par1» i. New York. London, 1889, pp. 1, 5.
105 state interests, in the smooth functioning of the political machinery of the states in the federal union.A major hallmark of Roosevelt's views was their social Darwinist thrust. One of his favourite views was that a great nation, a great race could be such only if it consisted of strong individuals. In many of his writings and speeches he urged educating virtues in soldiers. (In his Autobiography he wrote with pride how he used his fist to settle arguments, and, in a letter to Lodge in July 1898, of the thrill he had felt at killing a Spaniard with his own hand.) The People, newspaper of the Socialist Labor Party, in 1898 described Roosevelt as the writer of books on man-hunting and bearhunting.^^1^^ Roosevelt turned worship of strength and the strong individual into a Nietzschean apologia of the ' superman' set above social and racial distinctions. An apologia of this kind in art form had been expressed by his favourite poet, Rudyard Kipling. Declaring that there was unending hostility between East and West, he exclaimed:
But there is neither East nor West, Border,
nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come
~ ~ ~ from the ends of the earth!
Roosevelt considered war the finest school of valour and courage. War, he said, was as natural to men as motherhood was to women, and the loss of these virtues in individuals led to the decline of a whole nation. In a speech before the Naval War College in June 1897, he said: 'No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war.... We of the United States have passed most of our few years of national life in peace. We honor the architects of our wonderful material prosperity.... But we feel, after all, that the men who have dared greatly in war, or the work which is akin to war, are those who deserve best of the country.'^^2^^ In a speech delivered in the spring of 1899 he was most explicit about the need for moulding the character of a conqueror in every American: 'The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country, the over-civilized _-_-_
~^^1^^ The People, 25 September 1898.
~^^2^^ Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Win Who Made It, p. 210.
106 man, who has lost the great fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man, and the man of dull mind whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty life that thrills ``stern men with empires in their brains"---all these of course shrink from seeing the nation undertake its new duties.'^^1^^The social Darwinist tenets on the struggle for existence were applied by Roosevelt also to relations between states, peoples, and races. May the strongest win. The natural selection of the `finest' nations and races took place in a brutal struggle. Progress was achieved by blood and sacrifice. The subjugation of backward by more civilised nations ultimately benefitted the subjugated. These were Roosevelt's principal conclusions. He extolled war against ' savages', the conquest and subjugation of coloured people by the `superior' white race.
He spoke of the superiority of English-speaking peoples, bur regarded Americans as their highest branch. Unlike the historians of the Anglo-Saxon school, who gave their attention to the 'European past' of the Aryan peoples, he was more attracted by the American historical experience. His main work, The Winning of the West, is devoted to the settlement of the North American continent by Europeans. Roosevelt regarded the ousting and extermination of the Indians as the natural process of the disappearance of an 'inferior race' allegedly incapable of forming developed state institutions and creating a civilised society. He violently attacked Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor and George W. Manypenny's Our Indian Wards, which were an indictment of American official policy towards the American Indians: 'These foolish sentimentalists not only write foul slanders about their own countrymen, but are themselves the worst possible advisers on any point touching Indian management.'^^2^^ He declared that a war against 'savage foes' was the most just of wars, writing: 'It is as idle to apply to savages the rule of international morality which obtains between stable and cultured communities, as it would be to judge the fifth-century English conquest of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life. Essays and Addresses, New York, 1900, pp. 6-7.
~^^2^^ Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. 1, Part 1, p. 264,
107 Britain by the standards of today.' He paid tribute to the white colonialists with the words: 'All honor to the missionary, all honor to the soldier, all honor to the merchant who now in our own day have done so much to bring light into the world's dark places.^^1^^Alongside the doctrine of the superiority of English-- speaking peoples and social Darwinism, a deep imprint was made on Roosevelt's outlook by the frontier thesis. His turn towards a study of the American West was due to, among other things, his personal experiences. For two years, from 1884 to 1886, he lived on a ranch in North Dakota, where he observed the life of the American frontier---- backwoodsmen, Indians, and frontier folk. In The Winning of the West he not only developed his views about the superiority of English-speaking peoples but also underscored the influence of local, American conditions on the progress of ' AngloSaxon' civilisation.
For Roosevelt the frontier was the crucible forging the bellicose, aggressive character of the American nation. He depicted the Western settler as the ideal fighter, characterising the frontier folk as relentless and fearless, 'best fitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against all comers'.^^2^^ The conquerors of the American West, tempered by hardships and in the fighting with Indians, and knowing the value of strength and resourcefulness for their very existence, were for Roosevelt the bearers of the true 'American spirit', the spirit which he compared with the bayonet. Seeing in the democratic ideals of frontier settlement only aggressiveness, he proclaimed US imperialist expansion of the turn of the century to be the direct and natural continuation of Westward colonisation. 'The history of the nation,' he said, 'is in large part the history of the nation's expansion.'^^3^^
In his expansionist views Roosevelt gave total support to Mahan's big navy doctrine and programme. He was one of the first to note the significance of Mahan's ideas and enthusiastically welcomed the appearance of each of his _-_-_
~^^1^^ Edward C. Hill, Roosevelt and the Caribbean, Chicago, Illinois, 1927, p. 207.
~^^2^^ Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, Part 1. p. 156.
^^3^^ The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. II, pp. 1400, 1404.
108 writing. In October 1890, immediately after the publication of Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History, he wrote about it in the Atlantic Monthly as 'distinctively the best and most important ... book on naval history which has been produced on either side of the water for many a long year'.^^1^^ In his review of the book in Political Science Quarterly he accepted all the points of the sea power concept and concluded: '...we need to have the lesson taught again and again, and yet again, that we must have a great fighting navy in order to hold our proper position among the nations of the earth and to do the work to which our destiny points.'^^2^^ Roosevelt's speeches, articles, and letters were virtually studded with the words 'sea power' and 'great navy'. He subscribed entirely to Mahan's programme for US expansion. In May 1898 he wrote: 'My dear Captain Mahan: This letter must, of course, be considered as entirely confidential, because in my position I am merely carrying out the policy of the Secretary and the President. I suppose I need not tell you that as regards Hawaii I take your views absolutely, as indeed I do on foreign policy generally. If I had my way we would annex those islands tomorrow. If that is impossible I would establish a protectorate over them. I believe we should build the Nicaraguan canal at once, and in the meantime that we should build a dozen new battleships, half of them on the Pacific Coast.'^^3^^While Roosevelt did not add anything fundamentally new to Mahan's big navy doctrine, he did more than anybody to put it into effect. Suffice it to note that during the first four years of his tenure in the White House the USA built 10 first-class battleships, four cruisers, and 17 other warships of different classes with a total displacement of 250,000 tons. By 1906 the American Navy had grown second in size only to the British.
Long before the war with Spain, Roosevelt tried to influence government foreign policy personally and through his friends, and urged the earliest unleashing of war. 'We ought to drive the Spaniards out of Cuba,' he wrote to his _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Atlantic Monthly, October 1890, p. 563.
~^^2^^ Political Science Quarterly, March 1894, p. 172.
~^^3^^ The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. I, p. 607.
109 sister, Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 'and it would be a good thing, in more ways than one, to do it.... I always hate words unless they mean blows. But Cabot [Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.---/. D.\ and his followers do mean blows.'^^1^^ Writing to William W. Kimbal, a naval officer, on 19 November 1897, he noted: 'I would regard a war with Spain from two standpoints: first, the advisability on the grounds both of humanity and self-interest ... second, the benefit done our people by giving them something to think of which isn't material gain, and especially the benefit done our military forces by trying both the Navy and Army in actual practice.'^^2^^In order to compel the government to make up its mind fast, the temperamental Roosevelt sometimes took a gamble. For instance, on 25 February 1898, when John D. Long, the Secretary of the Navy, left his office earlier than usual, Roosevelt, who was his assistant, overstretched his authority by sending the following telegram to Hong Kong: 'Dewey: Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders. T. Roosevelt.'^^3^^ The next morning Secretary Long found that Roosevelt had acted prematurely.
As a matter of fact, Roosevelt's plans relative to the course of the future war had been well considered and his forecasts were amazingly accurate: the entire problem had evidently been closely gone over and discussed. In the summer of 1897 he submitted his recommendations for the conduct of the war to President McKinley, and he wrote to Lodge on 21 September 1897 that 'if ... we throw as quickly as possible an expeditionary force into Cuba, I doubt if the war would last six weeks so far as the acute phase of it was concerned. Meanwhile, our Asiatic squadron should blockade, and if possible, take Manila'.^^4^^
_-_-_^^1^^ Ibid., p. 522.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 717.
~^^3^^ Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography, New York, 1929, p. 214.
~^^4^^ Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884--1918, Vol. I, New York-London, 1925, p. 278.
110When war broke out, Roosevelt went to Cuba as a volunteer. From the theatre of hostilities he wrote to Lodge on 25 May 1898: 'I earnestly hope that no truce will be granted and that peace will only be made on consideration of Cuba being independent, Porto Rico ours and the Philippines taken away from Spain.'^^1^^ Lodge was in full agreement. 'We ought to take Porto Rico as we have taken the Philippines and then close in on Cuba,'^^2^^ he replied to Roosevelt on 31 May 1898. These were not merely wishful thinking, but points of the expansionists' programme whose fulfilment they were vigorously urging. On 12 June, from aboard a naval transport carrying troops of an expeditionary force to Cuba, Roosevelt wrote to Lodge: 'I know what a fight you have on strictly the line of your own duties, old man, and of course you must neglect that, no matter what happens to the Administration. You must get Manila and Hawaii; you must prevent any talk of peace until we get Porto Rico and the Philippines as well as secure the independence of Cuba.'^^3^^ (What the 'independence of Cuba' meant became clear when Theodore Roosevelt himself became President.)
Roosevelt had always had close ties with big business. Historians note that upon becoming President he listened to the advice chiefly of industrial and bank capital: Mark Hanna, Robert Bacon, and George W. Perkins of the House of Morgan; Elihu Root, Nelson W. Aldrich, and A. J. Gassat of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Philander C. Knox and James Stillman of the Rockefeller interests.^^4^^ However, he often scoffed at the commercial psychology of businessmen in areas where, he felt, they failed to understand 'national tasks'. For instance, he angrily brushed aside the calls of business circles for prudence and circumspection on the eve of the Spanish-American War. He was intimately involved in US political life and had no illusions about the honesty of politicians or about the links of politics with business. 'If I had money enough to keep in National _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. II, p. 833.
~^^2^^ Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884--1918, Vol. I, p. 302.
~^^3^^ The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. IT, p. 842.
^^4^^ Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, p. 218.
111 politics it would not be difficult, because the average New York boss is quite willing to allow you to do what you wish in such trivial matters as war and the acquisition of Porto Rico and Hawaii, provided you don't interfere with the really vital questions, such as giving out contracts for cartage in the Custom House and interfering with the appointment of street sweepers,'^^1^^ he wrote to Lodge on 31 July 1898.Unlike the `unpatriotic' businessmen, Roosevelt was tireless in championing the idea of the greatness of the American nation and the role he felt it had to play in world politics. In The Strenuous Life, a programme speech delivered on 10 April 1899 before the Chicago Hamilton Club, he said: 'We cannot sit huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond.'^^2^^
'I preach to you, then, my countrymen,' he said, 'that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavour. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.'^^3^^
One can conclude from individual pronouncements by Roosevelt that he saw a cause-and-effect relationship between the solution of acute social problems in the nation and broad political and economic expansion: '...we have also tremendous problems,' he wrote in August 1899, 'in the way of the relations of labor and capital to solve. My own belief is that we shall have to pay far more attention to this than to any question of expansion for the next fifty years, and this although I am an expansionist and believe that we can go on and take our place among the nations of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, Vol. I, p. 334.
~^^2^^ The Strenuous Life. Essays and Addresses by Theodore Roosevelt, London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York, pp. 19--20.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 33.
112 world, by dealing with the outside problems without in any way neglecting those of our internal administration.'^^1^^Roosevelt is associated with a new interpretation of the Monroe doctrine. In this doctrine there was a deep-seated contradiction: on the one hand, it propounded the anticolonialist idea of national sovereignty and demanded noninterference in the internal affairs of other nations; on the other, it contained the seed of future expansionist tendencies, representing a claim to US continental leadership. At the turn of the century an end was put to the contradictory character and vagueness of many provisions of the doctrine. 'America for Americans' was in its time aimed against the attempts of European powers to consolidate colonial rule in the Western Hemisphere. This was gradually converted into the slogan of 'America for North Americans', which spelled out the aspiration to establish US political and economic domination in Latin America. The 1895 doctrine of Richard Olney and the additions made to it by Theodore Roosevelt in 1901--1905 were milestones of this transformation.
In 1895 the USA intervened in the old border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana in order to strike at the positions held in Latin America by Britain and other European powers on the pretext of safeguarding the interests of the Western Hemisphere and bolstering the defence of a small American republic. In an unusually strongly-worded Note to Great Britain US Sectetary of State Olney stressed the alienation of Latin American nations from Europe and declared that their alliance solely with the USA was natural and expedient: 'The States of America, South as well as North, by geographical proximity, by natural sympathy, by similarity of governmental constitutions, are friends and allies, commercially and politically, of the United States.'^^2^^ But, more importantly, Olney gave a new interpretation of the Monroe doctrine, clearly formulating the idea of the USA's supremacy in the Western Hemisphere. 'To-day,' the Note said, 'the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. II, p. 1053.
~^^2^^ Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 28, Part I, Washington 1895, p. 195.
113 subjects to which it confines its interposition.... It is because, in addition to all other grounds, its infinite resources, combined with its isolated position, render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable as against any or all other powers.'^^1^^ Olney invoked the Monroe doctrine to declare that US arbitration was mandatory in any conflict of a Latin American nation with a European power. (The Russian Ambassador in Washington wrote with obvious reserve to St. Petersburg^in 1896: 'The theory, proclaimed by President Monroe in 1823, has since been strongly developed.'^^2^^)Expansionist circles in the USA hailed this new interpretation of the Monroe doctrine. Lodge declared: 'The path which we should follow lies closer before us. We must be leaders in the Western Hemisphere.'^^3^^ Mahan, McKinley, and Albert Shaw, among others, saw eye to eye with him. Roosevelt was one of the most ardent adherents of this policy. As early as 1893 he revealed the plans of the American expansionists relative to Latin America, declaring: 'I believe in ultimately driving every European power off of this continent, and I don't want to see our flag hauled down where it has been hauled up.'^^4^^ He was entirely with the government on the Venezuelan issue. His business and private letters of this period are replete with mention of the crisis. 'I earnestly hope,' he wrote in December 1895, eagerly expecting a war with Britain, 'our government don't back down. If there is a mess I shall try to have a hand in it myself! They'll have to employ a lot of men just as green as I am even for the conquest of Canada; our regular army isn't big enough.'^^5^^
The new interpretation of the Monroe doctrine was crystallised during the first years of Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency. The Roosevelt Corollary was formulated in 1901-- 1905 in a number of official speeches and statements. The _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, File 173, p. 34, Kotsebue to Lobanov-Rostovsky, 11 January 1896.
^^3^^ Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 28, Part I, Washington, 1895, p. 420.
~^^4^^ The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. I, p. 313. 6
^^5^^ Ibid., p. 501.
__PRINTERS_P_113_COMMENT__ 8---0284 114 Soviet historian N. N. Inozemtsev writes that it boiled down to US preventive intervention in the internal affairs of Latin American nations on the excuse of forestalling possible interference by other, notably, European powers, to a unilateral commitment by the USA to undertake the functions of an international police force allegedly in the interests of civilisation and security.^^1^^Roosevelt repeatedly aired his addition to the Monroe doctrine. In his first presidential message to Congress, 3 December 1901, in which he sought to press the Latin American nations into discharging their international financial commitments, he wrote: 'We do not guarantee any state against punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment does not take the form of the acquisition of territory by any non-American power.'^^2^^ In a letter to the Secretary of War Elihu Root in May 1904 he characterised the situation in Santo Domingo, defining the Monroe doctrine as follows: '...if we intend to say ``Hands Off" to the powers of Europe, sooner or later we must keep order ourselves~'^^3^^
These ideas were given their fullest expression in Roosevelt's presidential message to Congress on 6 December 1904: 'Any country whose people conduct themselves well, can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may iu America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.'^^4^^ The American historian _-_-_
~^^1^^ N. N. Inozemtsev, Foreign Policy of the USA in the Epoch of Imperialism, Moscow, 1960, p. 85 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 35, Part I, Washington, 1901, p. 88.
~^^3^^ Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt. A Biography, New York, 1)31, p. 295.
~^^4^^ Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 3rd Session. Vol. 29, Part I, Washington, 1904, p. 19.
115 Julius W. Pratt justifiably writes that in reformulating the Monroe doctrine Roosevelt remained a pupil of Burgess.^^1^^The new interpretation of the Monroe doctrine ideologically justified US interventionist policy towards Latin American states in the early years of the twentieth century, a policy that is known as the Big Stick. Theodore Roosevelt, who was, to quote Henry Adams, the embodiment of action, used the doctrine to resolve the second Venezuelan crisis. A vivid example of how Roosevelt invoked the doctrine was the US intervention in Colombia in 1903 and in Cuba in 1906. The USA's `right' of intervention was even recognised in the Constitution of Panama, Article 136 of which states: 'The Government of the United States of America shall enjoy the right of intervention throughout the territory of the Republic of Panama with the purpose of restoring peace and order in the spirit of Constitution in the event they are violated, inasmuch as by virtue of a formal treaty the aforementioned Nation shall assume or has assumed a guarantee of the independence and sovereignty of this Republic.'^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Julius W. Pratt, Expanjionists of 1898, p. 10, Note 18.
~^^2^^ Repilblica de Panama. Constituciones de la ftepiiblica de Panama (1904, 1941, 1946), Panama, 1963.
[116] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER SEVEN __ALPHA_LVL1__ EXPANSION AND THE PRESSIn the proliferation of expansionist sentiment a major role was played by the US press.
The profound political, organisational, and economic changes that took place in American journalism at the close of the nineteenth century made the press an increasingly important instrument for moulding public opinion.
The old, `personal' journalism, reflecting in large measure the political and business interests of the publisher, was superseded by a new journalism slanted more towards the promotion of the bourgeoisie's general social and political interests. The politics of newspapers and journals now came under much greater pressure from advertisers representing influential firms. The National Association of Manufacturers, one of the largest organisations of big business, began to make a practice of sending advertising and propaganda material to leading newspapers and journals. Although at the close of the nineteenth century the formation of press trusts had only just commenced, the biggest monopolies were already visibly controlling the press. For instance, John P. Morgan took over control of some New York newspapers in the 1880s through the newspaper publisher Frank A. Munsey. John D. Rockefeller bought newspapers personally or through agents and donated large sums of money to universities publishing scientific journals.
In view of the influence of the press on public opinion, the government likewise gave it increasing attention in order 117 to make it a spokesman of its policies. On the eve and during the Spanish-American War President McKinley held frequent press conferences (they became regular only after Theodore Roosevelt became President). McKinley's secretary John A. Porter had daily conferences with pressmen, giving them information favourable to the government.^^1^^ The President enlisted the support of the press also via another channel: Whitelaw Reid, editor of The New York Tribune, wished a cabinet post or an ambassadorship; John A. Porter had himself, prior to going to Washington, been on the Hartford Post and never lost his ties with newspapermen; McKinley's close friends included Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Alexander K. McClure, editor of the Philadelphia Times, and Herman Kohlsaat, who controlled the Chicago Times Herald, Post, and Inter-Ocean.^^2^^
A significant surface indication that the bourgeois press had gone over to new methods as a result of the increasing circulation were the new ways of news presentation, changes in language, style, character of headlines and illustrations. These features became typical both of journals and of newspapers. The oldest American journals---Harper's Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Century Magazine, Scribner's Magazine, Overland Monthly, The North American Review---which had formerly printed mainly literary works now widened their coverage to embrace economics, religion, and education. There was a more direct response to acute social problems on the part of the new journals. Prominence to columns on domestic and international politics was given in the journals Munsey's Magazine, Cosmopolitan, McClure's Magazine, and the Review of Reviews, which were established at the close of the nineteenth century. The efforts to attract readers, led to a fall in the price of publications and to a growth in circulation. The North American Review, The Forum, and Overland Monthly had what for those years was an impressive circulation---30,000 copies.
_-_-_~^^1^^ John L. Offner, President McKinleii and the Origins of the Spanish-American War, Ph. D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania Stale University, 1957, pp. 67--68.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 73.
118The new journalism was strikingly seen in the mass press. While the leading spokesmen of the `personal' journalism of the 1860s-1880s were James G. Bennett (the New York Herald), Horace Greeley (the New York Tribune), and Samuel Bowles (Springfield Republican), the new journalism was represented by Charles Dana (the New York Sun), Whitelaw Reid (who replaced Greeley), and Henry Watterson (Louisville Courier-Journal). They responded with alacrity to major events at home and on the international scene. As a rule they were connected with one of the two main political parties and were active in presidential election campaigns. In order to win a larger reader audience they not infrequently joined vociferously in campaigns against the social evils of the Gilded Age such as corruption, profiteering, and embezzlement.
The worst features of the new journalism were embodied in the yellow press, the most well-known representatives of which were Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World from 1883 onwards, and William Randolf Hearst of the New York Journal. The yellow press specialised in sensationalism and base entertainment, pandering to vulgar philistine tastes. Reporting of crime, disaster, and sex affairs, alternated with demagogic attacks on 'villains of wealth', became customary. It often printed provocative inventions designed to whip up domestic and international conflicts. Everything was merely business, a means to rake in money.
On the whole, calculation on the commercial returns of sensationalism and cheap demagoguery was justified, and it would be hard to overestimate the influence of the yellow press on American social life. By 1898, the New York World and Journal had grown to 12--16 pages and had a daily circulation of 1,000,000 copies at 2 cents per copy.
One way or another the methods of yellow journalism were adopted by some bourgeois newspapers. The New York Times was in a sense a counterweight. Its publisher from 1896, Adolph S. Ochs, rejected the incisive methods of the new journalism and gave his newspaper a respectable aspect, skilfully combining a rather conservative political guideline with diversified and more unbiased reporting.
119 __*_*_*__In the course of the last fifteen or twenty years of the nineteenth century influential journals preached expansion. The most vocal were the Review of Reviews (Albert Shaw) and Atlantic Monthly (Walter H. Page). A similar attitude was maintained by Overland Monthly, the most widely read journal on the Pacific seaboard, published in San Francisco by J. H. Bridge.
The spokesmen of expansionism appealed to a wide audience through journals. Fiske's Manifest Destiny had its first printing in Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Political Science Quarterly regularly featured articles by Burgess. Atlantic Monthly acquainted thousands of Americans with Turner's frontier thesis. The North American Review, The Forum, and other journals vied for first rights to articles by Mahan. Regular contributors to journals included Richard Olney, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Albert J. Beveridge, John Sherman, John Hay, and other statesmen and politicians; the diplomats Charles Denby, Jr. (the US Minister to China for 13 years), Mark B. Dunnell (US Deputy Consul-General at Shanghai) and John Barrett (retired diplomatic resident of the USA in Siam); representatives of militarist circles Navy Captains William H. Jaques and R. P. Hobson; and generals James H. Wilson and Thomas Jordan. They were followed by propagandists of a lower rank, who, writing on the topic of the day, usually regarded one or another expansionist concept as an axiom requiring no proof.
The propagation of each of these concepts had specific features of its own. The followers of Strong usually wrote for religious journals that contributed to the unleashing of the Spanish-American War. Mahan's followers were another large group. They accorded premier place to the Navy in foreign policy and demanded the realisation of a programme of naval construction. Captain William H. Jaques urged the reorganisation of naval colleges with the aim of improving the training of naval officers.^^1^^ 'The world influence can rest only upon sea power,'^^2^^ declared Captain R. P. Hobson. _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Forum, April 1900, pp. 161--70.
^^2^^ The North American Review, October 1902, p. 546.
120 Ulysses D. Eddy and J. H. Bridge were among the most active proponents of using the frontier thesis as the basis for the foreign policy. The latter wrote in an editorial in Overland Monthly: '...now that the continent is subdued, we are looking for fresh worlds to conquer.'^^1^^ However, the most popular theory was that of the USA's political exclusiveness and the superiority of the American Anglo-Saxons. It was the point of departure of articles by sociologists, politicians, military officers, and clergymen. Senator John R. Proctor believed that the Anglo-Saxons were the most enterprising people in the world. He wrote: 'Will not the same spirit that brought the Norse sea rovers to that beautiful Britain and sent their descendants world-ward from that island home ... with a love of adventure and gain, and an adaptability to commerce ---will not these forces, more patent than written laws, force American enterprise to look more and more, as we grow stronger and richer beyond the limits of our territorial restriction?'^^2^^However, it would be interesting not only to assess the influence of one doctrine or another in expansionist propaganda but also to consider the specific propaganda methods used in the press and the changes these methods underwent in response to major US political actions.
The economic arguments in favour of expansion are the first to attract attention. While in the concepts of the spokesmen of expansion about the social, political, and religious mission of the USA the economic motives of expansion were to some extent glossed over, from the mid-1880s onwards these motives were increasingly accentuated in the periodical press.
In 1885 The Century Magazine wrote that the surplus of manufactures and farm produce in the USA was becoming a serious question and making it necessary to find new markets abroad.^^3^^ This idea was enlarged upon in Overland Monthly^^4^^ and, in particular, the Review of Reviews. In April 1891 _-_-_
~^^1^^ Overland Monthly, August 1898, pp. 177--78; February 1898, pp. 115--19.
~^^2^^ American Journal of Politics, March 1893, p. 231.
~^^3^^ The Century Magazine, November 1885, p. 153.
~^^4^^ Overland Monthly, September 1889, p. 305.
121 the latter journal wrote that in many industries the output was larger than the nation's demand, and that businessmen were naturally interested in trade expansion. It hoped that this expansion would proceed in the direction of Latin America.^^1^^ A year later the Review of Reviews repeated the contention that there was such a crying need for markets that instead of looking for arguments in support of that need a more serious duty was to find consumers abroad and to adopt methods by which they could be reached.^^2^^ Whitelaw Reid summed up: 'Today we produce of manufactures more than any two nations of Europe; of agriculture more than any three; and of minerals more than all together. The necessity for new markets is now upon us, and with it the necessity for cultivating close commercial and political relations with the rapidly growing nations of South America and Australia and with the newly awakened empires of China and Japan.'^^3^^ Charles R. Flint, head of a rubber trust, wrote fervently: 'We cannot remain wholly dependent for an active industrial life upon the home demand, and the markets of the world are open to us, ready to absorb the surplus products of our utmost manufacturing capacity.'^^4^^ Government officials also contributed to the press as spokesmen of the expansionist aspirations of American business. Senator John R. Proctor wrote in The Forum in September 1897: '...the cotton-growers of the South, the wheat-growers of the West, the meat-producers on our plains, and manufacturers and wage-earners all over our land' must realise 'that exclusion from Asia markets will be disastrous to their best interests'.^^5^^ A year later, he seconded the pronouncement of the Secretary of State, writing: 'Recently, however, the fact has become more and more apparent that the output of the United States manufactures, developed by the remarkable inventive genius and industrial skill of our people ... has reached the point of large excess above the demands of home consumption.... It would seem _-_-_~^^1^^ The Review of Reviews, April 1891, p. 215.
~^^2^^ The Review of Reviews, June 1892, p. 548.
~^^3^^ Walter LaFcber, The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860--1898, p. 147.
~^^4^^ The Forum, May 1897, pp. 290--97.
~^^5^^ Quoted from: Walter LaFeber, op. cit., pp. 322--23.
122 to be obvious that the United States has important interests at stake in the partition of commercial facilities in regions which are likely to offer developing markets for goods.'^^1^^ Charles Denby was more emphatic: 'I reassert that it is our duty to intervene in all matters occurring abroad in which it is to our interest to intervene. I mean our material interests---the interests of our railroads, our merchants, our manufacturers, our ships, our trade, and our commerce.'^^2^^Economic arguments in favour of expansion, so widespread in literary and political periodicals, were pressed home even harder by business journals.^^3^^ In 1885, The Age of Steel, mouthpiece of steel interests, wrote that the home market was oversatiated and foreign markets had to be found.^^4^^ The same argument was advanced by the American Exporter, which called for a market for textiles.^^5^^ There was an enthusiastic response to Secretary of State J. G. Elaine's pronouncement in August 1890 at Waterville that American industries had overrun the demands of the home market and that the USA had to look for new foreign markets. Economic expansion, Elaine said, was- the demand of the time. The Iron Age and the American Exporter supported this view as absolutely irrepressible.^^6^^ The economic crisis that commenced in 1893 still further spurred the drive for new markets. In 1894 the Iron Age wrote: 'As a result of the depression we have been reconnoitering in new territory and have been taking the first steps towards accomplishing our manifest destiny, the control of the world markets by _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Forum, September 1898, p. 25.
~^^2^^ The Forum, December 1898, p. 392. In 1895 Denby had submitted to the State Department a plan for expanding trade and guaranteeing foreign interests in China, a plan that in many ways anticipated the Open Door doctrine (A. A. Fursenko, The Struggle for the Division of China and the American Open Door Doctrine, 1895--1900, Moscow, 1956, pp. 36--38, in Russian).
^^3^^ R. D. Bald, The Development of Expansionist Sentiment in the United States, 1885--1895, as Reflected in Periodical Literature, Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburg, 1953, pp. 125--64.
~^^4^^ The Age of Steel, 17 January 1885, p. 9.
~^^5^^ The American Exporter, July 1885, p. 11.
~^^6^^ Philip S. Foner, A History of Cuba and Its Relations with the United States, Vol. II, 1845--1895. From the Era of Annexationism to the Outbreak of the Second War of Independence, New York, 1963, p. 343.
123 American manufacturers.'^^1^^ In 1895 The Age of Steel made its point bluntly: 'We must trade or sell out', 'we are sparing neither adjectives nor printer's ink in convincing ourselves and the rest of the world that we are in the contest, not for place, but for supremacy in the commerce of the world'.^^2^^ In an article headed `America's Need of Wider Markets', carried by The Engineering Magazine in May 1894, Howard G. Hill quoted John Sweuk, general director of American Association of Iron and Steel, as having said in 1893 that the blast furnaces were operating at only half their capacity. Hill's conclusion was that economic expansion was a burning necessity for the USA.^^3^^The insistence on new markets was rarely general. As early as the mid-1880s Latin America was regarded as the main orientation of economic expansion. In February 1885 the American Exporter urged expansion into the South American market, calling haberdashery the 'light horse', engineering products the 'advanced guard', and cotton fabrics the 'heavy infantry'.^^4^^ The Pan-American Congress of 1889 gave a spur to the debates on Latin America in the American press. William E. Curtis, who was soon afterwards appointed to a ranking position in the Pan-American Union, noted in The North American Review that more had been written in the United States about Latin America in the last four years than in the previous quarter of a century.^^5^^ The North American Review, the Review of Reviews, The Forum, and other periodicals campaigned systematically for expanding exports and increasing investments.^^6^^ The Age of Steel, The Engineering Magazine, and The American Wool and Cotton Reporter wrote more about the Latin American markets than any other business periodicals.^^7^^ Up to the end of the Spanish-American War of 1898 the US periodical press devoted less attention to Far Eastern markets, _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ The Age of Steel, 17 August 1895, p. 7.
~^^3^^ The Engineering Magazine, May 1894, p. 147.
~^^4^^ The American Exporter, February 1885, p. 12.
~^^5^^ The North American Review, September 1889, p. 378.
~^^6^^ The North American Review, October 1895, August 1898; the Review of Revitws, December 1891, February 1895; Th* Forum, March 1891.
~^^7^^ R. D. Bald, op. tit., pp. 132--33.
124 but what they did write was unequivocal, namely that the Asian markets were a necessity. Stress was laid on the Chinese market.^^1^^ Here the chief proponents were Charles Denby and John Barrett. The Chinese market, Denby wrote, was the most important in the world for the American manufacturer.^^2^^ Barrett assessed the Far Eastern markets in much the same terms.^^3^^ Mark B. Dunnell, the Deputy ConsulGeneral of the USA in China, wrote that American merchants were making an energetic push into the markets of the world and that in this context China offered a vast field for American manufacturers.^^4^^When the question of new markets and investment spheres was raised in the American press it was closely linked with the USA's foreign policy. This was shown clearly in the propaganda campaign mounted in the press in connection with the aspiration to annex the Hawaiian Islands and the demand for interference in Cuban affairs. The arguments on each of these issues had their own specific features. Relative to the Hawaiian Islands the main argument was that these islands were important strategically. Their annexation was considered in the context of more far-reaching designs and mainly as the first step towards the Far Eastern market.
In 1884 the significance of Hawaii was defined by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as follows: 'The expansion of world commerce in the Pacific and the importance of the islands to the American participation in this trade were cited as demanding a policy of dominant American influence in Hawaii. The transcontinental railroads of the United States and proposed Isthmian canal were pointed to as evidence of future American commercial development in Pacific areas. Increased American population and capital in Hawaii were results of reciprocity which helped make the islands an outpost of the United States.'^^5^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Forum, June 1891, p. 462; The North American Review. April 1895, p. 466.
~^^2^^ The North American Review, January 1898, p. 37.
~^^3^^ John Barrett, `America's Interest in Eastern Asia', The Nortli American Review, March 1896, pp. 257--65.
~^^4^^ The North American Review, Octoher 1898, p. 408.
~^^5^^ S. K. Stevens, American Expansion in Hawaii, 1842--1898, Harrisburg, 1945, p. 168.
125In the early 1890s, when the US government attempted to annex these islands, it received the wholehearted backing of the most influential section of the American press. The North American Review wrote in March 1891: 'The possession of Pearl Harbor as a naval station has been guaranteed to the United States government by treaty for a number of years. Why not improve the harbor and make this condition of occupation perpetual by treaty conferring perpetual reciprocal advantages upon Hawaii? The overshadowing influence of the United States in industries and trade of the Hawaiian Islands renders it eminently proper that it should protect its commerce and the investment of its citizens against any combination or attack from without.'^^1^^ The strategic importance of Hawaii to the USA was the keynote of Larrin A. Thurston's article 'The Sandwich Islands. The Advantages of Annexation', printed in the same journal: 'The possession or friendly neutrality of Hawaii is a political necessity to United States interests in the Pacific. With Hawaii in the hands of any hostile power, the only coaling station from Nicaragua to Hong Kong, from San Francisco to Samoa, would be closed to American cruisers ... and its commerce destroyed.'^^2^^ This idea was discussed by Ulysses D. Eddy in 'Our Chance for Commercial Supremacy' (The Forum), S. E. Bishop in The Hawaiian Queen and Her Kingdom' (the Review of Reviews), and P. E. Jones in 'Will It Pay the United States to Annex Hawaii?' ( Overland Monthly).^^3^^
The Hawaiian Islands were annexed by the United States only in July 1898. Their seizure was one of the side-effects of the Spanish-American War. However, since 1895 the Cuban question had been given prominence in United States foreign policy. Cuba was always in the mind of the American expansionists, but at the close of the nineteenth century the demands for its incorporation in the USA became particularly insistent, with economic advantages as the motivation. 'There are extensive mines in Cuba now lying idle for want of capital,' the newspaper Atlanta Constitution _-_-_
~^^1^^ The North American Review, March 1891, p. 291.
~^^2^^ The North American Review, March 1893, p. 281.
~^^3^^ The Forum, June 1891; The Renew of Reviews, September 1891; Overland Monthly, June 1895.
126 commented in 1888, 'and if the island were annexed to the United States, this field of production would be fully developed.'^^1^^ Two years later the Detroit Free Press declared: 'Cuba would make one of the finest states in the Union, and if American wealth, enterprise and genius once invaded the superb island, it would become a veritable hive of industry.... We should act at once to make this possible.'^^2^^ In 'Why We Need Cuba', carried by The Forum in July 1891, General Thomas Jordan answered the question as follows: 'These interests make it [Cuba.---/. D.] an essential complement to our industrial, agricultural, commercial, and military systems, and logically, should lead our people to desire its early acquisition.'^^3^^In 1895 when the people of Cuba rose against Spanish colonial rule, the American periodical press intensified its calls for Cuba's annexation. Prominence was given to humanitarian motivations---sympathy for the sufferings of the Cuban people was combined fantastically with racist doctrines of Anglo-Saxon superiority. It was declared as going without saying that the 'Anglo-Saxon race was superior to the Latin': it was inconceivable that any Anglo-Saxon government would be so brutal and tyrannical as the Spanish; American clergymen (meaning mainly Protestant clergymen) could not be so shamelessly corrupt as the Catholic; lastly, the Anglo-Saxons had no equal in commerce.
But verbiage about freedom, ideals, and so forth could not conceal the actual motivations. The Review of Reviews carried M. Halstead's article 'Our Cuban Neighbors and Their Struggle for Liberty', in which it was stated: 'Cuba is the island we want for inherent wealth, for the fact that her tropical productions would invigorate, augment and give symmetrical completeness to our commerce, and she assures us supreme control of those seas, as American as our Great Lakes.'^^4^^ Cincinnati Times Star wrote: 'The real liberators of the ill-fated island will not be bandits and political adventurers, but merchants and capitalists who will in time _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quoted from: Philip S. Foner, A History of Cuba and Its Relations with the United States, Vol. II, p. 344.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ The Forum, July 1891, p. 566.
~^^4^^ The Review of Reviews, April 1896, p. 419.
127 give her such government at home and such alliances abroad as her growing business interests will demand.'^^1^^ This was echoed by the Kansas City Journal, which wrote: 'Cuba either as an American state or under the protection of the United States would afford a very valuable ``market'' for our manufactures and source for the investment of American surplus capital.'^^2^^ Propounded by other press organs, these views steadily gained increasing support in the USA. In 1895 the American Magazine of Civics featured a symposium on the topic, 'Ought We to Annex Cuba?'. 'It makes the water come to my mouth when I think of the state of Cuba as one in our family,' wrote Frederick R. Coudert, a leading man in Wall Street. Another spokesman for the business community wrote: 'Canada will come in time; Mexico will follow Texas and California, and drop into her niche under the stars and stripes, when we are ready. But we want Cuba now.'^^3^^In 1896 the Senate demanded recognition for the belligerency of the insurgent Cubans, thereby opening the way for US intervention in the conditions obtaining at the time. In the Senate Henry Cabot Lodge said: 'Our immediate pecuniary interests in the island are very great. They are being destroyed. Free Cuba would mean a great market for the United States; it would mean an opportunity for American capital invited by signal exemptions; it would mean an opportunity for the development of that splendid island.... But we have also a broader political interest in the fate of Cuba---She lies athwart the line which leads to the Nicaraguan Canal.... I am prepared to put our duty on a higher ground than either of those, and that is the broad ground of a common humanity.'^^4^^
On the eve of the Spanish-American War the economic argument in favour of Cuba's annexation was complemented with a new motivation---American property was in danger _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quoted from: George W. Auxier, The Cuban Question as Reflected in the Editorial Columns of Middle Western Newspapers (1895--1898), Ph. D. Dissertation, Ohio State University, 1938, p. 17
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Quoted from: Philip S. Foner, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 345.
~^^4^^ W. Millis, The Martial Spirit: A Study of Our War with Spain, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931, pp. 46--47.
128 and the US government had to take steps to protect it. This was stated in a petition to the President signed by 300 'citizens of the United States, doing business as bankers, merchants, manufacturers, steamship owners, and agents of the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Savannah, Charleston, Jacksonville, New Orleans, and other places, also other citizens of the United States, who have been for many years engaged in the export and import trade with the Island of Cuba'.^^1^^ The next petition was from the committee of New York businessmen on 9 February 1898; it spoke of the 'heavy sums irretrievably lost by the destruction of American properties or properties supported by American capital in the Island itself, such as sugar factories, railways, tobacco plantations, mines and other industrial enterprises; the loss of the United States in trade and capital by means of this war being probably far greater and more serious than that of all the other parties concerned, not excepting Spain herself. The petition requested 'to warrant prompt and efficient measures by our Government, with the sole object of restoring peace ... and with it restoring to us a most valuable commercial field'.^^2^^Summing up these arguments, President McKinley wrote in his message to Congress on 11 April 1898: 'Our trade has suffered, the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba has been largely lost, and the temper and forbearance of our people have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own citizens, which has inevitably found its expression from time to time in the National Legislature--- 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.'^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Quoted from: Julius W. Pratt, 'American Business and the Spanish-American War', Hispanic-American Historical Review, May 1934, p. 172.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 172, 174.
~^^3^^ Documents of American History, Ed. by Henry Steele Commager, 3rd edition, Vol. II, New York, 1945, pp. 182--83, 184.
129 __*_*_*__Magazines played a significant part in shaping and spreading expansionist sentiment, but still more important in moulding the public attitude to the Spanish-American War were the daily papers. The yellow press led a campaign of stirring up anti-Spanish feeling and unleashing war. From 1895 onwards the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers (they had well-known correspondents in Cuba: the World was represented by William S. Bowen, Sylvester Scovel, W. W. Gay, and James Greelman, and the Journal by F. Lawrence, Richard H. Davis, and Frederick Remington) published reports, true and imagined, about the events in Cuba, with the sole purpose of arousing the reader against Spain. They peddled the idea that only US intervention could bring freedom to the Cubans. The main topics were: material loss to United States citizens from the civil war in Cuba; the brutality of the Spanish authorities; military support for the insurgents; the de Lome letter, and the blowing up of the cruiser Maine.
A report from Greelman to the World of 17 May 1896 stated: 'No man's life, no man's property is safe. American citizens are imprisoned or slain without cause. American property is destroyed on all sides. There is no pretense in protecting it.... Millions and millions of dollars worth of American sugar cane, buildings and machinery have already been lost. This year alone the war will strike $ 68,000,000 from the commerce of the US.... Blood on the roadsides, blood in the fields, blood on the doorsteps, blood, blood, blood! The old, the young, the weak, the crippled---all are butchered without mercy.... A new America lies within 80 miles of the American coast. Not a word from Washington! Not a sign from the President! On 29 May, Scovel wrote in the World about the treatment meted out by Spanish soldiers to the insurgents: 'The bodies had almost lost semblance of human form. The arms and legs of one had been dismembered and laced into a rude attempt at a Cuban five-pointed star, and were satirically placed on the breast of a limbless form. The tongue of one had been cut out, split open at the base and placed on the mangled forehead in a ghastly likeness of a horn. Fingers and Iocs were missing---And ihe ears __PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9---0284 130 were all missing. These could not be found and I was forced to the conviction of what I have often heard but never believed, that Spanish soldiers habitually cut off the ears of the Cuban dead and retain them as trophies. Our Indians were more cleanly than this.'^^1^^ The report was accompanied by drawings.
The Hearst newspaper printed similar stories. Under screaming headlines, the Journal reported that on orders of the Spanish Governor of Cuba General Valeriano Weyler imprisoned Cuban patriots were slain and their bodies thrown to sharks and dogs. 'This is wholesale murder, not war,' the newspaper said.^^2^^ Stories of this kind, published day after day, had wide repercussions not only because the yellow press had a large reader audience: many other American newspapers used stories from the World and Journal correspondents, and they were cited in Congress by William E. Mason, Eugene Hale, and other senators.^^3^^ V. A. Teplov, the Russian Consul in New York, reported his observations to St. Petersburg: 'Drawings depicting the victims of Spanish despotism have been circulated by the hundreds of thousands, and cases which I would say were the exception have been generalised.... The newspapers foam at the mouth, stirring feeling in favour of war, which is becoming increasingly more popular.'^^4^^
The following episode, which was largely responsible for the riot of anti-Spanish feeling in the USA, was characteristic of the propaganda methods employed by the yellow press. The American newspapers reported that beautiful young Evangelina Cisneros, daughter of an insurgent leader, had been arrested and charged with complicity in the rising. She was sentenced to a Spanish colony in Africa, her actual crime being that she had cold-shouldered a Spanish officer Colonel Berriz, nephew of the Spanish Prime Minister. According to these reports the treatment of this young lady _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. M. Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War, Baton Rouge, 1932, pp. 32, 33--34.
~^^2^^ J. M. Wisan, The Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press (1895--1898), New York, 1934, p. 206.
~^^3^^ M. M. Wilkerson, op. cit., p. 54.
~^^4^^ Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1898, File 113, p. 30, Teplov to Lamsdorff, 27 May 1898.
131 epitomised Spanish brutality. The Journal began a loud campaign for the release of the girl, who received wide sympathy in the USA. Mrs. Jefferson Davis, wife of the president of the former slave-owning Confederacy, sent a petition for mercy to the Queen of Spain. The campaign was joined by President McKinley's mother, by Mrs. Julia Dent Grant, wife of the Civil War hero General Grant, the wife of the Secretary of State John Sherman, and others. Many American Catholics requested the Pope to intervene. It was subsequently learned that Evangelina Cisneros had been charged with subversive activity and exiled to a remote province in Cuba. The continuation of this story was reported to St. Petersburg by the Russian Charge d'Affaires in Washington de Vollan in October 1897: 'Evangelina Cisneros, the Cuban girl who had caused suchj a sensation, has made the headlines again by her flight from the Casa de Recogidas, where she had been held recently. All the strings led from America.'^^1^^ De Vollan retold the romantic story of Evangelina's rescue, which had filled the American newspapers. It had all the trappings of a detective story: secret American agents in Cuba headed by a Journal reporter, the bribing of the Spanish guards, morphine given to the jailer, and, lastly, the beautiful 19-year-old Cuban girl, climbing down a rope ladder from the window of the jail. The finale of this story was vividly described by the Russian Charge d'Affaires: 'As might have been expected, Evangelina Cisneros's arrival in New York evolved into a huge demonstration in favour of Cuba's independence. Carl Decker, the New York Journal reporter, who delivered Evangelina from the Spanish prison, was the hero of the day. A crowd of fifty thousand assembled to welcome them in New York, and wherever they went they were met with an ovation and with the typically American squeals of admiration. These celebrations ended in Washington. In a theatre decorated with Cuban and United States flags the audience applauded Evangelina and her rescuers, and when the band struck the march Cuba Libre the hall reverberated with cheers. _-_-_~^^1^^ Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1897, File 118, p. 162, De Vollan to M. N. Muravyov, 2 October 1897.
__PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 9* 132`On the next day, i.e., 12/14 October, the demonstration was of an even greater size. Evangeliria accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Decker rode in triumph from the hotel they were staying at to the Convention Hall. The arrangers of the fete planned a whole procession through the streets with military bands and troops, but the military authorities refused to grant permission, and they had to remain content with a private orchestra and mounted National Guard, who escorted the Cisneros carriage. In the Convention Hall, brightly lit and decorated with flags, they were awaited by various deputations, while a crowd of 10,000 broke into stamping, yelling and squealing as soon as Cisneros appeared. The speakers invited for this occasion vainly tried to outshout the raving crowd; relative order was restored only when the band played the march Cuba Libre, This ended the fete for Cisneros, whom they now want to send to an educational establishment to enable her to complete her education.'^^1^^
The atmosphere was brought to white heat by two events in early 1898: the de Lome letter and the blowing up of the cruiser Maine. In both cases the yellow press acted provocatively.
In mid-December 1897 the Spanish Ambassador in Washington Depuy de Lome wrote a private letter to a friend, Don Jose Canalejas, editor of a Madrid newspaper, who was in Cuba at the time. In this letter the Ambassador stated his private unflattering opinion of President McKinley: 'Besides the ingrained and inevitable bluntness (groseria) with which is repeated all that the press and public opinion in Spain have said about Weyler, it once more shows what McKinley is: weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd, besides being a would-be-politician (politicastro) who tries to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party.'^^2^^ This letter was printed in Hearst's Journal on 9 February 1898. It presented an opportunity for whipping up anti-Spanish feeling, and the utmost use was made of it by the bellicose press and the government. No mention was made of the fact that it was a private letter and that it had been stolen. Everybody was _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 180, De Vollan to M. N. Muravyov, 16 October 1897.
~^^2^^ Documents of American History, Vol. II, 1945, pp. 181--82.
133 talking about the President having been insulted and the great republic humiliated.The Russian Charge d'Affaires in Washington De Vollan wrote: 'The outcry in the local newspapers following the publication of the letter surpasses anything that can be imagined. The letter, not intended for publicity, was presented as the most flagrant and unprecedented insult to the head of state and the entire American nation, and attacks of the most uncompromising and malicious character are showered upon the author of this letter. While it is unquestionable that it was inappropriate and careless to send this letter by post, on the other hand, it must be admitted that the local press has inflated this incident beyond measure and is not displaying a sense of moderation in its attacks.'^^1^^
Hardly had the furor over the de Lome letter died down that an event took place which, in effect, cleared the way to war. An explosion occurred in the evening of 15 February 1898 in the American cruiser Maine, anchored in the port of Havana. The vessel sank with the loss of over 250 lives. Before an inquiry ceuld be set on foot, the bellicose circles in the USA imputed the blame to the Spanish authorities and demanded a declaration of war. The propaganda machine was strained to its utmost. The headline in the Journal read: 'The War Ship Maine Was Split in Two by an Enemy's Secret Infernal Machine.' The newspaper carried a drawing showing the trajectory of a torpedo that had allegedly hit the warship.^^2^^ The US government set tip a commission to inquire into the sinking of the Maine. In parallel Hearst and Pulitzer, conducting their own investigation, sent the yachts Buccaneer and Anita to Havana, with their best correspondents on board. The Journal offered a reward of fifty thousand dollars 'for the conviction of the criminals who sent 258 American sailors to their death'.^^3^^ In February 1898 De Vollan wrote to M. N. Muravyov in St. Petersburg: 'The sensational news reported by the newspapers and the various _-_-_
~^^1^^ Foreign Policy Archives oj llussia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1898,' File 114, p. 53, De Vollan to M. N. Muravyov, 4 February 1898.
~^^2^^ Waller Millis, The Martial Spirit: A Sturii/ of Our War with Spain, p. 108.
~^^3^^ J, W. Wisan, op. cit., p. 390.
134 rumours that the explosion was the work of the Spaniards are kindling public excitement.'^^1^^ Commenting on these events three months later V. A. Teplov reported to V. N. Lamsdorff: 'Maine, the name of the unfortunate vessel, is used everywhere to incite popular vengeance: a big commercial house in St. Louis received an order to supply the Army with 610,000 biscuits each bearing the legend ``Remember the Maine".'^^2^^ The yellow press charged President McKinley with inaction, demanding the immediate declaration of war. 'Intervention in behalf of Cuban independence was our duty before the Maine was destroyed; it was our duty before de Lome wrote his letter, and it is our duty now,' the Journal declared on 18 February 1898.^^3^^ 'The time for discussion is past. The time for action has come,' the newspaper wrote on 7 March.^^4^^ The World, too, demanded immediate war: 'Everything is now ready; the Army is ready; the Navy is ready; the Treasury is ready; the Naval Court of Inquiry is ready; the case against Spain is ready; the people are ready.'^^5^^ In the spring of 1898, answering the Journal's correspondent in Cuba, Frederick Remington, who wrote that everything was quiet, Hearst telegraphed: 'Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war. W.~R. Hearst.'^^6^^The influence and successful propaganda of the yellow press are seen in the fact that the Journal's circulation rose from 200,000 in 1895 to 1,000,000 in 1896, and after the sinking of the Maine it topped 3,000,000. There were days when the newspaper brought out between ten and twelve extra issues. Writing in the Evening Post of Washington, Edwin L. Godkin, who was opposed to expansion, characterised the methods of the yellow press as follows: 'Gross misrepresentation of the facts, deliberate invention of tales _-_-_
~^^1^^ Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, File 114, p. 70, De Vollan to M. N. Muravyov, 21 February 1898.
~^^2^^ Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, File 113, p. 2, V. Teplov to V. N. Lamsdorff, 22 May 1898.
~^^3^^ J. W. Wisan, op. cit., p. 400.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 405.
~^^5^^ Ibid.
~^^6^^ George Seldes, Freedom of the Press, Indianapolis, New York, 1935, p. 217.
135 calculated to excite the public, and wanton recklessness in the construction of headlines which even outdid these inventions, have combined to make the issues of the most widely circulated newspapers firebrands scattered broadcast throughout the country.... It is a crying shame that men should work such mischief simply in order to sell more papers.'^^1^^ Other adversaries of expansion spoke more bluntly about the public image of the big press. Erving Winslow, Secretary of the New England Anti-Imperialist League, wrote: 'It is an unquestionable fact that many of the chief newspapers of this country are allied with its great capitalists and aggregations of capital. Of course, it is in their interest chiefly that the exploitation of new territories is valuable.'^^2^^There is thus no doubt that the yellow press did much to provoke the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. One must also agree with the American historian G. W. Auxier, who raised to a broader plane the question of the part played by the American press in clearing the way to the SpanishAmerican War. Quoting from mid-Western newspapers he showed that although the methods of the sensation-- mongering press were not characteristic of provincial newspapers, they, too, had a hand in whipping up war hysteria. The unceasing stress on the USA's economic and strategic interests in the Caribbean, the slanted reporting of events in Cuba, and the anti-Spanish bias given to news, usual of the widely-read press, fostered the spread of expansionist sentiments in the country.^^3^^
An analysis of the Washington Post shows how bellicose many American newspapers were and how close they were in this respect to the sensational press. On 16 February the Washington Post carried the big headline: 'MAINE DESTROYED. Terrific Explosion on Board the Warship at Havana. Cause of Explosion Unknown.' From then onwards the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism. A History of Newspapers in the United States Through 260 Years: 1690 to 1950, New York, 1950, p. 532.
~^^2^^ The North American Review, December 1902, p. 811.
~^^3^^ G. W. Auxior, 'Middle Western Newspapers and the SpanishAmerican War', Mississippi Valley Historical Review, March 1940, pp. 523--34,
136 newspaper presented every fact and every event as evidence of imminent war. On 17 February it drew attention to the 'expressions of sympathy' in the British press over the sinking of the Maine: 'The Daily News: ... ``The calamity sends a pang to every British heart."... The Times editorially expresses profound sympathy with the United States.... It says: ...``It is fervently to be hoped the investigation will prove the cause of the disaster an accident, although the conditions which can have led up to such an accident in such circumstances are rather obscure."\thinspace' On the next day, 18 February, the Washington Post published a statement by General William Booth, head of the Salvation Army in Britain: 'The Cuban butchery should stop. It should stop, if need be, by the intervention of the United States. England is not jealous of America. The individual Englishman would see young America prosper in peace. I do not think the fur of the British lion would rise should Uncle Sam fight the Dons.' Of course, reports of this kind were to give Americans the confidence that England would be on their side should the United States go to war against Spain. The same issue of the newspaper carried a statement by J.P.S. Gob in, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (as the Civil War veterans organisation was called):'If there is ever a time when Grand Army men should stand together, it is now, when the sword is half out of the scabbard. Leading opinion wants to know whether it was an accident or a dastardly crime [the sinking of the Maine.--- I. D.]. If it was an accident, amends can be made, but if a crime, God help someone who will have to pay the penalty.' Lastly, on the same day the newspaper carried a statement by the chief executive of the Cuban junta Tomas Estrada Palma on the Maine catastrophe under the headline TALMA THINKS IT PECULIAR': 'It certainly is a most peculiar accident, the like of which I have never heard in the history of any navy. Certainly the most rigid inquiry must follow and the entire civilized world will anxiously await the outcome. My heart still throbs painfully over the appalling loss of life. It is dreadful to contemplate and will carry a flood of misery into many American homes.'Naturally the mention of the victims and the vocal expressions of sympathy were designed to intensify 137 anti-Spanish feeling. How far the atmosphere had been electrified was reported by the newspaper on 19 February: ' Weliston, Ohio, Feb. 18. ...Orlander Alexandrier, a Spaniard, was killed by American miners at Crow's Nest, near Glenroy, three miles from here. Alexandrier was telling the American miners how soon Spain could whip the United States, when some one stuck a pick in his head, killing him instantly. Excitement is very high, as the people are only partly employed and very anxious for war.' Day after day the newspaper stirred passions with reports about the purchase of armaments by the government, the movements of the Navy, and the strong diplomatic actions.
From the very outset the newspaper focussed reader attention on the work of the commission of inquiry into the Maine disaster, but hardly a word was said of its findings, because no proof was found of Spanish complicity.
In late March and early April the newspaper carried the headlines: 'MAY BE INTERVENTION', 'GOLD CANNOT ATONE FOR MAINE\ 'READY FOR WAR'.^^1^^ In its issue on Sunday, 3 April, its front page contained a drawing of a warship with sailors on board, with Uncle Sam in the foreground declaring: 'Stout hearts, my laddies! If the row comes, REMEMBER THE MAINE, and show the world how American sailors can fight.' Then followed the headlines 'The Verge of War' and 'It Does Not Forget the Maine'.^^2^^
__*_*_*__The Spanish-American War did not last long: the forces were much too unequal. The first battle was fought on 1 May 1898, and the last on 13 August. For the Americans it was mainly a sea war. In the land fighting the US Army lost several hundred men.
The easy victory over the senile Spanish monarchy turned the heads of many, for it seemingly bore out the idea of the USA's exclusiveness and the superiority of the AngloSaxons. Ideas of this kind became an important instrument to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Washington Post, 16, 17, 18, 19 February, 23, 24, 25 March 1898.
~^^2^^ Washington Post, 3 April 1898.
138 justify colonial imperialist conquests.^^1^^ B. Adams wrote: 'If an inference may be drawn from the past Anglo-Saxons have little to fear in a trial of strength; for they have been the most successful of adventures.'^^2^^ Soon after the war broke out, the English sociologist Benjamin Kidd declared at a dinner in his honour in New York: 'In my judgement, the gun fired by Admiral Dewey in the Bay of Manila was the most important historical event since the battle of Waterloo.' F. H. Giddings, who spoke next, said: 'I find myself compelled to differ from the distinguished guest of the evening in his estimate of the battle in Manila Bay. In my judgement it was the most important historical event since Charles Martel turned back the Moslems.'^^3^^ This was approximately when the Atlantic Monthly wrote that the decadence of the Latin race was contrasted with the virility of the AngloSaxon.^^4^^ These ideas were vigorously propounded in the Outlook, a journal published by Lyman Abbot. This journal depicted the Spanish-American War as the culminating point of the long rivalry between the Anglo-Saxon and _-_-_~^^1^^ President McKinley described his feelings when making up his mind about the seizure of the Philippines in the following way: '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 war;
`(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 as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.' (Parker Thomas Moon, Imperialism and World Politics, New York, 1927, pp. 394--95).
~^^2^^ Brooks Adams. 'The Spanish War and the Equilibrium of the World', The Forum, August 1898, p. 651.
~^^3^^ Josiah Strong, Expansion Under New World Conditions, New York, 1900, pp. 185--86.
~^^4^^ The Atlantic Monthly, June 1898, pp. 721--27.
139 Latin races, as the 'final act in the great drama which began when the Armada sailed from England'.^^1^^A strong anti-European trend in American journalism was closely linked with this propaganda line about the superiority of American political and social institutions. The attitude of most of the European nations was portrayed as an essential external factor determining United States policy. The turn towards expansion was frequently explained as necessary for countering territorial claims of European powers. The mainsprings of this tendency lay to a large extent in the Monroe doctrine. At the close of the 1890s it was invoked to justify the USA's desire to drive Spain out of the Western Hemisphere. Distrust for Europe cultivated by isolationism inevitably led to an intensification of imperialist rivalry. Moreover, anti-European feeling was fostered by the constant counterposing of 'American republicanism' to 'European militarism and monarchism'. The fact that, with the exception of England, virtually all the European countries sympathised with Spain still further nourished this propaganda thesis. The Forum described the imperialist rivalry between the USA and the leading European powers as 'a conflict between two opposing systems, such as organized absolutism and competitive democracy'.^^2^^ In keeping with the Anglo-Saxon school John Proctor wrote: 'The world has been divided into two opposing colonial systems: (1) the Continental European, or government of provinces or dependencies from the central or home governmentacquiring colonies for the advantage supposed to accrue from the monopoly of their commerce; and (2) the AngloAmerican system, where the government is the creature of the union of previously autonomous parts, as in the United States and Canada, where colonies are encouraged to establish local self-government, and where colonies such as the English Crown colonies are thrown open to unrestricted trade. We thus pave two antagonistic systems and forces contending for world-supremacy.'^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Outlook, 1 May 1898, pp. 11--12.
~^^2^^ The Forum, August 1900, p. C7G.
^^3^^ The Forum, September 1898, pp. 15--10; Mayo W. Hazeltine. 'What Shall Be Done About the Philippines?', The North American lleview, October 1898, pp. 385-9?.
140At this time the concept of 'the white man's burden' and the 'civilizing mission of the USA and humane assistance to backward nations' was gaining currency in American journalism. Abbot was one of the first to use the phrase of 'the imperialism of liberty' as opposed to the 'imperialism of oppression', and called upon the United States and Britain to 'stand together against absolutism everywhere, and for liberty, justice, and a fair opportunity for nations just entering into the life of the world'.^^1^^ He demanded establishing a US administration in the Philippines in order to give the people 'justice, liberty, and popular education'.^^2^^
Social Darwinism, whose spread in the USA was fostered by Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution, was part and parcel of 'the white man's burden' concept. Truxtun Beale, an American protagonist of his concept, wrote in The Forum, arguing with the adversaries of colonial seizures: 'By asserting that the progressive races can never colonize the tropics, the Anti-Expansionists are denying that progress itself exists. One phase of progress lies in overcoming the dangers of environment.... Mr. Kidd points out that the temperate zones are rapidly being filled up by the white race, and that the richest and most productive part of this planet is in the tropics. Our conclusion from these statements is that the necessary trend of the white race, in its geographical expansion and distribution, will be toward the tropics.'^^3^^ John R. Proctor likewise referred to the Kidd concept: 'The Tropics are peopled with millions of low social efficiency; and it seems to be the fate of the black and yellow races to have their countries parcelled out and administered by efficient races from the Temperate Zone. If such administration be just, wise, and human, like the administration of Lord Cromer in Egypt, it will be for the upbuilding and enlightenment of the peoples of the Tropics, and the advance of the blessings of civilization over the world.'^^4^^
Civic and military personalities time and again referred to the `burden' of moral obligations. Henry Cabot Lodge declared that Americans 'should save the teeming millions _-_-_
~^^1^^ Outlook, 27 August 1898, p. 1004.
~^^2^^ Outlook, Hi July 1898, pp. (i(i2-(i4.
~^^3^^ The Forum, July 1899, pp. 534, 535.
~^^4^^ The Forum, September 1898, p. 22,
141 of China from the darkness of the Russian winter, and keep them free, not merely for the incoming of commerce, but for the entrance of the light of Western civilization'.^^1^^The American conquerors found valuable support among the spokesmen of British colonialism. In December 1898, when the debate in the USA over the Treaty of Paris and the fate of the Philippines was at its height, the Atlantic Monthly carried an article by Benjamin Kidd under the heading 'The United States and the Control of the Tropics', in which he not only urged the annexation of the Philippines in view of their economic value but also expanded on the civilizing mission of the United States in the Far East. There was an even larger response to Rudyard Kipling's poem The White Man's Burden, which McClure's Magazine printed in February 1899. In that poem Kipling asserted that the `burden' of administering colonies implied the desire to bring the blessings of civilisation to backward nations, not the drive for enrichment. The beginning of the poem reads:
Take up the White Man's Burden---
~ ~ ~ Send forth the best ye breed---
Go bind your sons to exile
~ ~ ~ To serve your captive's need;
To wait in heavy harness,
~ ~ ~ On fluttered folk and wild---
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
~ ~ ~ Half devil and half child.
This poem, timed to the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, which formalised the annexation of the Philippines, was reprinted by leading American newspapers on their front pages as pointing to the civilizing mission of the USA. The expansionists made much of the 'white man's burden' doctrine, which combined the old slogan of 'democratic expansion' with `obligations' towards 'little brothers'.
In the ideological polemics that developed after the Spanish-American War, the anti-expansionists, as we shall see, presented constitutional arguments in order to prove that colonial seizures were incompatible with the spirit and _-_-_
~^^1^^ American Imperialism in 1898, Ed. by T. P. Greene, Boston, 1955, p. 76.
142 letter of the American Constitution. For its part, expansionist publicism rarely referred to the Constitution. The attempts to justify annexations with references to Article IV, Section 3 of the US Constitution, which states that Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States, had no success. In arguing that the USA could govern territories even without the consent of the population, Senator Orvill H. Platt went so far as to dismiss the right of nations to self-determination.A much more characteristic hallmark of imperialist publicism of this period was its accentuation of the economic significance of colonial annexation. Compared with the prewar years, the economic argumentation was more sophisticated and backed up with various considerations. Charles A. Conant, an economist and the Washington correspondent of the influential Journal of Commerce, became a kind of theorist of this school. In 'The Economic Basis of Imperialism', 'The Struggle for Commercial Empire', 'The United States as a World Power, and other articles published in The Forum and The North American Review, he regarded colonies not only as markets, as had most of his predecessors, but also as areas of profitable investment.^^1^^ He tried to prove that imperialist expansion was vital chiefly to the economic growth of the European developed capitalist countries and the USA. He wrote that 'the true cause of existing conditions' was 'the over-equipment of the great industrial nations with the machinery of production and with surplus capital, and the need for new markets and new fields of investment'.^^2^^ He held that surplus capital and production _-_-_
~^^1^^ These arguments are brought together in Charles A. Conant's The United States in the Orient, Boston-New York, 1900.
~^^2^^ The Forum, June 1899, pp. 427--28. John Hobson, the English economist, showed how arguments of this kind were widespread in the USA and in Europe, writing of the USA in 1902: 'Her manufactures are saturated with capital and can absorb no more.... Industrial and financial princes in oil, steel, sugar, railroads, banking, etc., are faced with the dilemma of either spending more than they know how to spend, or forcing markets outside the home area. Two economic courses are open to them, both leading towards an abandonment of the political isolation of the past and the adoption of imperialist methods in the future (J. A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, London, 1902, p. 82.)
143 capacities, which is the natural outcome of the vices of the capitalist system, was due to the 'efficiency of machine production' that had reached such a high level 'that no advanced industrial nation will hereafter find a sufficient market at home for its products or will derive any essential benefit from stimulating an excess of production in particular directions by artificial means'.^^1^^ 'There are,' he wrote, 'three important solutions of this enormous congestion of capital in excess of legitimate demand. One of these is the socialistic solution of the abandonment of saving, the application of the whole earnings of the laborer to current consumption__ The second solution is the creation of new demands at home for the absorption of capital__ But there has never been a time before when the proportion of capital to be absorbed was so great in proportion to possible new demands ... there remains, therefore, as the final resource, the equipment of new countries with the means of production and exchange.'^^2^^Conant noted that European nations had found a way out by creating colonial empires and suggested that the USA should follow suit. He stressed that this was inevitable for a nation if it wished to survive, and that this was the only way to prevent the aggravation of the social conflict in the country. 'Within a few years,' he wrote, 'the eyes of the American manufacturer have been suddenly opened to the fact that there is a world market in which he must be a competitor if he would dispose of his products and find labor for the thousands expecting it at his hands, and that equal opportunities in this market could be preserved only by the resolute support of his government.'^^3^^ He dreaded any repetition of the crisis of 1893, which he called 'the salient economic lesson of the closing days of the nineteenth century' .^^4^^
John R. Proctor, too, maintained that imperialist expansion was in the economic interest of the USA. In an article for The Forum under the heading 'Isolation or Imperialism?' he stressed the economic and strategic significance of the Philippines and urged their annexation, concluding: 'From the blood of our heroes, shed at Santiago and Manila, there _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Forum, June 1899, p. 435.
~^^2^^ The North American Review, September 1898, p. 337.
~^^3^^ The Forum, July 1900, p. 610.
~^^4^^ The Forum, June 1899, p. 432.
144 shall arise a New Imperialism, replacing the waning Imperialism of Old Rome; an Imperialism destined lo carry worldwide the principles of Anglo-Saxon peace and justice, liberty and law.'^^1^^Other advocates of the seizure of the Philippines were not so bombastic; they noted their importance as a new market of ten million people. W. C. Ford regarded the annexation of the Philippines as an important step towards solving the problem of markets.^^2^^ F. F. Hilder urged drawing commercial benefits from this unexpected turn of events.^^3^^ Others saw the significance of these islands as a new source of primary materials.^^4^^ The sundry arguments were summed up by the Washington Post: 'All this talk about benevolent assimilation; all this hypocritical pretense of anxiety for the moral, social, and intellectual exaltation of the natives ... deceives nobody, avails nothing.... We all know, down in our hearts, that these islands ... are important to us only in the ratio of their practical possibilities.... Why not be honest?'^^5^^
Of course, the protagonists of imperialist conquest were well aware that the significance of the Philippines to the USA was not confined to their natural wealth or their potential as a new market. The main thing was that they opened the road to the wealth of the Far East. W. Reid wrote, assessing the results of the Spanish-American War: 'The Pacific Ocean ... is in our hands now__ To extend now the authority of the United States over the great Philippine Archipelago is to fence in the China Sea and secure an almost equally commanding position on the other side of the Pacific---doubling our control of it and of the fabulous trade the Twentieth Century will see it bear. Rightly used, it enables the United States to convert the Pacific Ocean almost into an American Lake....'^^6^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Forum, September 1898, p. 26.
~^^2^^ The Atlantic Monthly, September 1898, p. 321.
~^^3^^ The Forum, July 1898, p. 534.
~^^4^^ John T. Morgan, 'What Shall We Do with the Conquered Islands', The North American Review, June 1898, pp. 641--49; H. N. Fisher, 'The Development of Our Foreign Policy', The Atlantic Monthly, October 1898.
~^^5^^ America in Crisis, Ed. by D. Aaron, p. 196.
~^^6^^ D. Healy, U.S. Expansionism. The Imperialist Urge in the 1890s, Madison, 1970, p. 174.
145Charles Denby, a member of the US Philippines Commission, was particularly emphatic in urging the annexation of the Philippines, publishing several articles, including 'Shall We Keep the Philippines', 'Why the Treaty Should Be Ratified', and 'The Doctrine of Intervention'. He saw the Philippines as the springboard for penetration into China: 'Our retention of the Philippines will tend to prevent the destruction of the Empire [China.---/. D.], and to preserve for us an invaluable market.'^^1^^ He wrote that in China American businessmen should build railways and factories and urged the sending of more missionaries in order to develop what he called 'our market' quicker. The Philippines were considered in the same light in an article, 'The Problem of the Philippines', signed by John Barrett, Hugh H. Lusk, and the English expansionist Charles W. Dilke: 'We would have, in the Philippines themselves, one of the greatest undeveloped opportunities in all the world---a group of islands with numberless riches and resources awaiting exploitation and capable of providing a market for a large quantity of our manufactured products.' More importantly, they stressed, 'we would have an unsurpassed point in the Far East from which to extend our commerce and trade and gain our share in the immense distribution of material prizes that must follow the opening of China, operating from Manila as a base, as does England from Hong Kong'.^^2^^ Carl Schurz, a leader of the anti-expansionist movement, was right when he declared at a conference in Philadelphia in 1899: 'I am well aware that some imperialists have protested against the cynicism with which others have appealed to sordid motives.... But who will deny that if the motive of pecuniary profit were taken out of the imperialist movement that movement would lose its vital impulse and speedily collapse?'^^3^^
The attitude of the imperialist press relative to Cuba was basically the same as to the Philippines. Although it had been declared officially that the war was being fought for the `liberation' of the Cubans, the periodicals time and again _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Forum, March 1899, p. 51.
~^^2^^ The North American Review, September 1898, p. 264.
~^^3^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 32, Part 8, Appendix lo the Congressional Record, Washington, 1900, p. 157.
__PRINTERS_P_145_COMMENT__ 10---0284 146 called for the island's annexation, giving prominence to economic motives. The war could 'only have one issue ... the establishment of the authority of the United States over the Pearl of the Antilles',^^1^^ wrote the Review of Reviews. 'With a stable government and a guaranty of exemption from revolution,' stated the Century Magazine, 'the people of the United States could be supplied by the island with all the sugar they need, and at less cost than they can get it elsewhere.'^^2^^The periodic press clearly showed that the basic guideline of US imperialist policy towards Cuba was to turn that island into virtually a semi-colony. Cuba's proximity to the United States and its economic subjugation obviated the need for legally formalising its status as a colony.
In imperialist publicism the annexation of Spanish colonies and further expansion were linked closely with the need for resolving the nation's internal social problems. While the anti-expansionists held that the seizure of new territories would require considerable financial outlays, lead to militarisation, and divert the nation from resolving acute domestic problems, the proponents of such seizures sought to persuade public opinion that new markets and fields of investment would bring the nation prosperity and benefit all classes. These views had been suggested long before the Spanish-American War, in the main expansionist doctrines, notably the concepts of Strong and Turner. However, at this period they were presented more bluntly.
The Spanish-American War, Leonard Wood believed, put an end to the former antagonism between the North and the South: 'All the cost of this war is amply repaid by seeing the old flag as one sees it today in the South. We are indeed today once more a united = __NOTE__ Error in original: next double-quote should be single-quote. country.''^^3^^ William A. Peffer noted that 'the war of 1898 afforded opportunity to try the Americanism of the people.... The prompt response of all _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Review of Reviews, 15 April 1898, p. 351.
~^^2^^ The Century Magazine, August 1898, p. 593. On US press debates concerning the Philippines see: Philip S. Foner, The Spanish-- CubanAmerican War and the Birth of American Imperialism 1&95--1902, New York, 1972, Vol. II.
~^^3^^ Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism. Romance and Realities of a Profession, New York, 1937, p. 279.
147 classes---rich, poor, high, low, white, black, mulatto ... the plutocrat and populist---to the President's call for volunteers, testified to the universal patriotism of the citizens'.^^1^^L. Abbot, a leading light in the liberal social evangelical movement, felt that the Spanish-American War was a sort of political and social safety valve that the USA needed. Senator William P. Frye's opinion that unless the United States had new markets it would be rent by revolution was repeated in different variants by many publicists. Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal (one of the most influential of the provincial newspapers) and an intimate friend of President McKinley, told a reporter: 'From a nation of shopkeepers we have 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.... 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.'^^2^^ Peffer held that the crises of overproduction and the accompanying rise of social tension were due to the absence of new markets: 'But this condition [the economic boom of the late 1890s.---/. D.] could not last long under the old regime without some outlet for the surplus of the things we have to spare. We should overflow again. Panics have been periodical. The causes which brought dangers to our doors---dangers] arising from lack of employment for the people---would bring them again if new channels of trade were not opened, new markets found for our growing commerce, and new employment procured to engage the brains and hands of our industrious and enterprising people.'^^3^^
The social significance of new markets was underscored by the Cincinnati Inquirer, which wrote: 'With advanced technical^education and the enormous growth and perfection of labor-saving machinery, the rewards of capital have _-_-_
~^^1^^ The North American Review, March 1899, p. 313.
~^^2^^ America in Crisis, p. 196.
~^^3^^ The North American Review, March 1899, pp. 310--11.
__PRINTERS_P_147_COMMENT__ 10* 148 diminished, labor is everywhere a drag, discontentment and socialism threaten the stability of governments, and the one practical remedy sought by statesmen, though it prove but a temporary one for these conditions, is more extension of markets. There are but two ways of obtaining these---either by such a policy as will insure trade with foreign nations, or by such a control of its commerce.'^^1^^In order to enlist the support of large segments of the American people the expansionists frequently had recourse to demagogic promises. Said Lodge: 'In a policy which gives us a foothold in the East, which will open a new market in the Philippines, and enable us to increase our commerce with China, I see great advantages to all our people, and more especially to our farmers and our workingmen ...'^^2^^
These were the principal arguments offered in the periodical press, which played a most odious role during the Great Debate on foreign policy at the turn of the century. A similar stand was adopted by most of the American bourgeois newspapers. A study of the American press made in 1898 showed that expansion had the backing of most of the newspapers in the USA. In July 1898, according to the Literary Digest, the leading Republican newspapers were pro-- expansion. A sample of 65 newspapers taken by the magazine Public Opinion in August 1898 showed that 43 per cent were for permanent retention of the Philippines, 24.6 per cent were opposed, and 32.4 per cent were wavering. In this case, `wavering' usually meant formerly opposed to expansion but apparently changing views. Lastly, the New York Herald, which polled 498 newspapers in December 1898, found that 305, or 61.3 per cent, were favourable. The Western and mid-Western states showed clear margins in favour of expansion.^^3^^ The most influential Republican and Democratic newspapers were pro-expansion: New York Herald, Times, and Sun, Chicago Times Herald and Inter-Ocean, Boston _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. W. Auxier, The Cuban Question as Reflected in the Editorial Columns of Middle Western Newspapers (1885--1895), Ph. D. Dissertation, Ohio State University, 1938, pp. 300--01.
~^^2^^ American Imperialism in 1898, pp. 72--73.
~^^3^^ America in Crisis, pp. 187--88.
149 Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer arid Press, and maiiy newspapers in San Francisco, Atlanta, New Orleans, and other cities.Advocacy of economic expansion and of the 'mission of liberty' quickly evolved into cynical justification of military force and infringement of tho independence of weaker nations.
[150] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER EIGHT __ALPHA_LVL1__ AMERICAN ANTI-IMPERIALIST LEAGUEUS imperialist policy and expansionist propaganda did not remain unanswered. They triggered a protest movement on the part of democratic forces, a movement that involved different social strata. The ground for this movement had been prepared by the nation's social, economic and ideological development at the close of the nineteenth century.
Big capital was growing swiftly, increasingly gaining control of the economy and sharply aggravating all of capitalism's contradictions, particularly the contradiction between labour and capital. Eleanor Marx Aveling and Edward Aveling, who visited the United States in 1886, wrote that the 'distinction between the capitalist and labouring class ... stands out clearly and uncompromisingly'.^^1^^ By 1900 the numerical strength of the American workers had reached 10,400,000, a considerable proportion of whom were immigrants.
In the United States the workers, especially skilled workers, received a higher wage than in Europe. Nonetheless, this wage was far below the subsistence level. At the close of the nineteenth century there was in the USA a steep rise of the cost of transport, housing (which lagged behind the growth of the labour force), education, health service, and so on; labour was steadily intensified, and low-paid child and women's labour was employed. Moreover, there was no system of social insurance and, lastly, unemployment, which _-_-_
~^^1^^ Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx Aveling, The Working-Class Movement in America, London, 1887, pp. 13--14.
151 affected millions of workers during the crises of 1873, 1883, and 1893, became chronic.However, some factors continued to obstruct the development of the working-class movement. One of these was the specific manner in which the American proletariat took shape: `free' lands, national dismemberment, regional, religious and group division, and pressure from the bourgeois bi-party system. Some features of the USA's development sustained petty-bourgeois illusions in the working class. Capitalism evolved into its monopoly stage simultaneously with its development in breadth, when millions of settlers were developing the expanses of the American West and for a short while became small proprietors. Engels noted the impact of this factor on the working-class movement, the ups and downs of which 'depend on what took the upper hand in the mind of the average American---the consciousness of the industrial Kvorker or of the farmer developing virgin land'.^^1^^ On the other hand, the long formative period of the proletariat, when it still harboured the ideology of the small proprietor, was followed by the numerical growth of skilled workers and of a labour aristocracy, consisting chiefly of Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Nevertheless, the working-class movement rose to a higher rung during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Large numbers of proletarians were involved in the strike movement. Edward Bellamy, an eyewitness of this struggle, wrote: 'Strikes had become so common at that period that people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds. In one department of industry or another, they had been nearly incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few months at a time.'^^2^^ The main demands were the legislative establishment of an eight-hour working day and recognition of the right to form trade unions. The strike struggle reached a particularly high pitch during the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century. While in 1880--1885 the annual number of strikes averaged 500 with the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke, Vol. 39, p. 386.
~^^2^^ Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000--1887, Leipzig, 1890, p. 14.
152 involvement of 150,000 workers, in the period from 1885 to 1900 there were between 1,200 and 1,700 strikes annually with the number of strikers exceeding half a million.^^1^^Mass labour organisations sprang up hand in hand with the spread of the strike movement. The first of these was the Order of the Knights of Labor. Despite its shortcomings--- its muddled petty-bourgeois programme, which proclaimed that there had to be workers' producer and consumer cooperatives, and the vagueness of the methods of achieving the ultimate goal of putting an end to wage slavery---the Order did much good. For a time it united skilled and unskilled workers, regardless of colour, creed, and political conviction. Its motto, 'An injury to one is the concern of all', heartened thousands of workers. The Order put forward a programme for control of railways, and of telegraph and telephone networks, and repealing private banking.^^2^^ In 1886, a year when the strike struggle was at its highest level, the Order had 700,000 members. However, alongside other reasons, the refusal of its leaders to join in the campaign for an eighthour working day dealt that organisation an irreparable blow.
Initially, the American Federation of Labor had likewise mirrored the militant spirit of the workers. The preamble in the Regulations, adopted by the Federation in 1881, contained obvious signs of the influence of socialist ideas. It began with the following words: 'Whereas, a struggle is going on in the nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between capital and labor, which must grow in intensity from year to year and work disastrous results to the toiling millions of all nations if not combined for mutual protection and benefit.''^^3^^ The AF of L championed the right of workers to strike and took part in the struggle for an eight-hour working day. However, towards the close of the 1890s it was increasingly becoming an organisation of skilled _-_-_
~^^1^^ Florence Peterson, Strikes in the United States, 1880--1936, Washington, 1938, p. 27.
~^^2^^ T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor, Columbus, 1890, pp. 389-- 91.
~^^3^^ Proceedings of the American Federation of Labor Convention, 1881, p. 3 (further---Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1881).
153 workers. Its leaders concentrated on efforts to raise the living standard of the working-class elite and ignored the interests of the broad mass of unorganised workers.A new feature of the working-class movement of the close of the nineteenth century was the mounting instinctive attraction to ideas calling for a fundamental reorganisation of society and to socialist ideals. But there were formidable barriers to the assimilation of socialist principles. Before making any new advance, the movement returned, as it were, to a past stage, using immature socialist ideas as its starting point, and again having to surmount views of prescientific communism. An indication of these ideological quests and socialist aspirations was the interest in books describing a Utopian social system in the USA founded on humane cooperation. Some 40 books of this nature were published at the close of the 1880s and in the early 1890s.
During this period scientific socialist ideas were propounded among the workers by American Socialists. The Socialist Labor Party, founded in 1876, was the principal organisation propagating these views prior to the Spanish-American War. However, the party suffered from factional strife. With 90 per cent of its membership consisting of immigrant Germans, it was unable to make real contact with the mass of the workers.
In the 1890s it was headed by Daniel De Leon. A brilliant orator and publicist, he was implacably opposed to reformism. His description of the AF of L leaders as 'labor lieutenants of the capitalist class' became a winged phrase. But in the difficult conditions of the struggle against the anarchists and reformist policy De Leon was unable to chart a sure road for the party. His ideological staunchness and irreconcilability frequently expressed themselves in excessive narrowness and dogmatism. He failed to appreciate the link between the struggle for the end goal and the struggle to ensure the satisfaction of the day-to-day demands of the workers. He believed that action in favour of reform would only divert workers from the basic aim---the immediate overthrow of bourgeois power. 'Not immediate but safe ultimate victory should be the aim of the social reformer,'^^1^^ he wrote. _-_-_
^^1^^ The People, September C, 1891.
154 'Nothing short of Socialism' should be the motto of the Socialists. The SLP Programme adopted later, in 1900, contained only the call for a struggle to overthrow the capitalist system.^^1^^De Leon's sectarianism was seen distinctly in the SLP's policy towards the labour unions. After the setback in its struggle against the AF of L leaders, the SLP discontinued its association with reformist trade unions and in 1895 set up the so-called Red trade union, the Socialist Alliance, which was only an insipid double of itself. For the same reason the Socialists walked out of the Order of the Knights of Labor in 1895. In an outburst of sectarian fervour, De Leon got the SLP Convention in 1900 to pass a resolution forbidding party members to accept leading office in craft trade unions.^^2^^ De Leon embraced the Lassallean idea that the proletariat was faced with a hostile reactionary mass. He did not distinguish between the big bourgeoisie and the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie. 'The middle class,' he said, 'will have to be sold at auction by the sheriff. That alone will enlighten it as a class.'^^3^^ He regarded the anti-monopoly farmers' movement as a reactionary corrupt movement of the middle class.
The Socialist Labor Party's dogmatic guidelines and sectarian policy placed it in opposition to the organised workers and all the socialist and semi-socialist elements outside the party organisation. The crisis in the SLP itself deepened: many members and entire segments resigned. As a result, towards the close of the century, after having existed for nearly a quarter-century, it had not more than five or six thousand members in twenty-six states.^^4^^ This bore out Engels' warning made earlier in a letter to American Socialists: 'No movement is compelled to accomplish so much fruitless _-_-_
~^^1^^ Proceedings of the Tenth National Convention of the Socialist Labor Party, New York, 1900, pp. 255--56.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 211--13.
~^^3^^ Daniel De Leon, Reform or Revolution. Address Delivered Under the Auspices of the People's Union, at Well's Memorial Hall, Boston, January Twenty-Six, Eighteen Ninety-Six, New York City, 1924, p. 26.
~^^4^^ William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, New York, 1952, p. 88.
155 work as one that is still sectarian.'^^1^^ Later, when Lenin drew the conclusion that the democratic struggle was significant in awakening the masses politically and leading them to new achievement, he subscribed to the sharp criticism that Marx and Engels had levelled against the sectarianism of the SLP leaders. 'What Marx and Engels criticise most sharply in British and American socialism,' he wrote, 'is its isolation from the working-class movement. The burden of all their numerous comments on the Social-Democratic Federation in Britain and on the American socialists is the accusation that they have reduced Marxism to a dogma, to a ``rigid (starre) orthodoxy'', that they consider it ``a credo and not a guide to action'', that they are incapable of adapting themselves to the theoretically helpless, but living and powerful mass working-class movement that is marching alongside them.'^^2^^In the USA the socialist movement found expression not only in the activities of the Socialist Labor Party. A new socialist organisation, the Socialist Party of America, was formed at the close of the 1890s. It passed through several stages, with ideologically heterogeneous socialist groups joining it at each of these stages. To a large extent the establishment of that party was associated with the outstanding American Socialist Eugene Debs. By that time Debs had won nation-wide repute not only as a splendid orator but also as a crusader against craft unionism. A gifted organiser, he moulded the closed railway fraternities into a militant American Railway Union. In June 1897 the union amalgamated with the Social Democracy of America, an organisation which consisted of exponents of Utopian cooperative plans. Their views and aims were rather vague, they encompassed the demand for socialisation of the main means of production, but the chief practical goal of the organisation was colonisation of some Western territories to set up a cooperative commonwealth there.
The colonisation programme of the Social Democracy of America opened the door to all sorts of social reformers hoping to use the organisation for their own ideas. But, at _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke, Vol. 36, p. 665.
^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 12, p. 363.
156 the same time, there was an influx of socialist elements. It was joined by many former members and entire branches of the Socialist Labor Party, for instance, some branches in New York that were opposed to the SLP's sectarian policy. Also, it was joined by the independent socialists of Milwaukee led by Victor L. Berger.The struggle between the proponents of programmes of colonisation and the proponents of political actions ended with the latter's victory. In June 1898 the Social Democracy of America was reconstituted into the Social-Democratic Party, which expelled, the Utopian colonists. The unification of the Social-Democratic Party in 1901 with the Rochester Group (led by Morris Hillquit, Job Harriman, and Max Hayes), which had broken away from the SLP, led to the formation of the Socialist Party.
The new party gradually purged itself of extreme manifestations of dogmatism, which were implicit in the Socialist Labor Party. It recognised that it was necessary to fight for immediate economic demands (chiefly, higher wages and an improvement of working conditions) and to work in reformist trade unions. However, sectarian political views persisted.
A weakness of the left leaders of the entire socialist movement in the USA during the closing years of the nineteenth and the initial period of the twentieth century was that they did not thoroughly appreciate the significance of the profound changes that were taking place in the social structure of capitalist society. Their sectarianism led them to reject the possibility of cooperating with parties and groups that were playing a vigorous part in the anti-monopoly actions but had not seen the need for putting an end to capitalism. The Socialists did not understand that although the antitrust struggle of different strata of working people sometimes bore a petty-bourgeois stamp this struggle was objectively progressive and an inevitable phase on the road to social progress. Having this line in mind, William Z. Foster wrote: '...a mixture of De Leonism and a right sectarian attempt to apply European Social-Democratic policies artificially in the United States was to continue in force in the S. P. for many years, until after World War I, and the appearance of the Communist Party upon the scene. Such a policy of 157 abstention set up a high barrier between the S. P. and the spontaneous political movements of the masses.'^^1^^
The concentration of economic power and the principal means of political rule in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie profoundly affected the interests not only of the working class but also of the broadest strata: farmers, urban small proprietors, and a large section of white-collar workers arid intellectuals. Lenin characterised the life of the petty bourgeoisie, writing in 1903 that 'the petty bourgeoisie is steadily being ``thrust to the wall" and falling into decline, a process which does not always express itself in the outright and direct elimination of the petty bourgeoisie, but in most cases leads to a reduction of its role in economic life, to deterioration of its living conditions, and greater insecurity. Everything militates against it: technical progress in big industrial and agricultural enterprises, the development of the big shops, the growth of manufacturers' associations, cartels and trusts, and even the growth of consumers' societies and municipal enterprises. And, while the petty bourgeoisie is being ``thrust to the wall" in the sphere of agriculture and industry, a new ``middle social-estate'', as the Germans say, is emerging and developing, a new stratum of the petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, who are also finding life in capitalist society harder and harder and for the most part regard this society from the viewpoint of the small producer.'^^2^^
In the social structure of the USA at the turn of the century the percentage of the petty-bourgeois groups was considerable. In 1900 the economically active population of the USA numbered 29,030,000, of whom 10,401,000 were manual workers, 5,125,000 were farm labourers and foremen, 1,047,000 were service workers (exclusive of private household workers), 1,579,000 were private household workers, 5,763,000 were farmers and farm managers, 1,307,000 were sales workers, 5,115,000 were white-collar workers, 1,234,000 were professional, technical and kindred workers, 877,000 were clerical and kindred workers, and 1,697,000 were _-_-_
~^^1^^ William Z. Foster, History oj the Communist Party of the United States, p. 103.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 432.
158 managers, officials, and proprietors (exclusive of farm owners).^^1^^ These figures indicate that nearly half of the economically active population held an intermediate position between the working class and the big bourgeoisie.During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the disaffection of the masses evolved into democratic, anti-- monopoly movements that shook the USA. The petty-bourgeois strata, chiefly the farmers, were the social bulwark of these movements.
Oppression by the railway, banking, and purchasing corporations gave the impulse for a desperate struggle against the robber-barons. This was seen in the movement of the Grangers and the Greenbacks, and in the formation of the National Anti-Monopoly League, which entered the presidential elections three years later, in 1884, as the AntiMonopoly Party with its own presidential candidate, Benjamin F. Butler. It demanded that 'corporations ... should be controlled by law'.^^2^^ The protests of the farmers reached their highest pitch in the Populist movement formed on the basis of farmers' alliances.
Leaders of the farmers' movement came from the wheat fields of the West and the plantations of the South. Ignatius Donnelly, farmer, orator, and author of Caesar's Column, a Utopian novel, was known far beyond his home state of Minnesota; Thomas Watson called for the unity of Southern farmers; Mary Lease urged the farmers of the West to 'raise less corn and more Hell'.
In the 1880s and 1890s anti-monopoly sentiments increasingly penetrated the urban strata of the petty bourgeoisie. The first`muckrakers', writers and journalists launched a campaign of exposure in the press against all the abuses of the trusts. The articles of Henry D. Lloyd commanded the greatest attention, and in the widely read book Wealth Against _-_-_
^^1^^ Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957. A Statistical Abstract Supplement, Washington, 1960, pp. 74--78. Under the heading of farm labourers, American statistics include working members of their families.
~^^2^^ Benjamin Parke De Witt, The Progressive Movement. A NonPartisan, Comprehensive Discussion of Current Tendencies in American Politics, Seattle and London, 1915, p. 28.
159 Commonwealth (1894) he used the story of the Standard Oil Company to raise the question of the social and economic consequences of monopolisation. He traced the link between monopolisation and the intensification of reaction in different areas of social life more profoundly than any other American sociologist of his day. His political views were close to those of the Fabian Socialists.`Nationalist' clubs sprang up under the impact of Edward Bellamy's Utopian novel Looking Backward (Bellamy called his system `nationalism'). The socialism propounded by Bellamy was a triumph of abstract reason and not the effect of a revolutionary mass struggle. He maintained that social progress should be achieved peacefully, without grief and tears. However, his deadly criticism of the trusts and his dream of humanitarian cooperation in a classless society attracted attention. These ideas were disseminated chiefly among the urban petty bourgeoisie. The purpose of the `nationalist' clubs was to nationalise the big monopolies.
Social ferment and the bitter disenchantment with America were mirrored in literature. Leading writers criticised social reality. Most of them were far removed from the working-class, to say nothing of the socialist movement, but they saw the poverty and slums of the cities and the ruin of the farmers, and acutely felt the widening gulf between ideals and reality. It seemed that the Civil War of 1861--1865 should have put an end to America's most terrible evil and brought to realisation the farmer's age-old dream of land. But a smug and cynical plutocracy held the reins everywhere, and the USA was increasingly becoming a twin of the Old World. In Democratic Vistas Walt Whitman denounced moneygrubbing, while Mark Twain's satirical The Gilded Age gave a name to a whole epoch of flourishing big business. The shocking poverty to be observed in the big cities was described by Stephen Crane in Maggie: A Girl of the Street and by Rebecca Harding-Davis in The Life in the Iron Mills, while William Dean Howells, staggered by the Haymarket events of 1886, openly declared his sympathy for socialism. Hamlin Garland and Frank Norris wrote of the tragedy of American farmers enmeshed by the powerful corporations. The success enjoyed by the radical journal Arena was symptomatic. Edited by the democratically inclined Benjamin 160 0. Flower and partially conveying Populist sentiments, it had 70,000 subscribers.
The main anti-monopoly forces united in the course of the struggle. The People's Party was constituted at a convention in Cincinnati in 1891. Its nucleus consisted of Western and Southern farmers, and they were joined by black sharecroppers, who made themselves heard for the first time after the defeat during the Reconstruction of 1865--1877. The party became the centre attracting many anti-monopoly and reformative movements: the followers of Edward Bellamy, the followers of Henry George, demanding the abolition of monopoly private property in land, petty-bourgeois and liberal intellectuals denouncing corruption that could be found in almost all central and local bodies of authority, and in the apparatus of the main parties. Some labour clubs and unions, and chapters of the Knights of Labor were also active in the Populist movement.
The platform and resolutions adopted by the party at its convention in Omaha in 1892 called for, among other things, an eight-hour working day, and a ban on the use of Pinkerton hirelings against strikers. The following words were a grim warning to the powers that be: 'Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. If any will not work, neither shall he eat. The interests of rural and civic labor are the same; their enemies are identical.'^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ National Party Platforms, Compiled by Kirk H. Porter, New York, 1924, p. 168. Many spokesmen of the ruling class assessed the Populist demands as `socialistic'. Interesting in this context is the analysis of the political situation on the eve of the 1896 presidential election made by Kotzebue, the Russian Ambassador in the USA. He reported to St. Petersburg: 'The forces operating today are guided not by political conviction but by a desire to get the fat jobs being distributed by the new Administration to people who had worked in its favour. The third party, the People's Party (Populists), is kindred to the European Social-Democrats.' A month later Kotzebue enlarged upon this evaluation: 'On the one hand, capital with its enormous potential for winning supporters; on the other hand, working people of all kinds, embittered and in debt, in such numbers that it is impossible to bribe them__It seems to me that all these questions about mono- and bi-metallism do not signify a monetary system, and that by gold they imply the capitalist with his huge social power and by silver they imply the common run ever looking for the means to depose __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 161. 161
The People's Party was the first-ever threat to the twoparty system in American history. In the 1892 presidential election its candidate, James B. Weaver, polled upwards of a million votes. In the congressional elections in 1894 the People's Party won more than 1,500,000 votes. But this was its last success. The Populists pinned their hopes solely on parliamentary activity. In 1896, headed by a group championing the interests of big farmers, they acted jointly with the Democratic Party, with the result that the People's Party ceased to exist as an independent organisation. Its heterogeneous composition and the absence of a proletarian leadership led to instability and the ultimate defeat of the movement.
The anti-monopoly movements in the USA were complex and contradictory. Their representatives acted against monopoly oppression but, as a rule, remained defenders of the capitalist system and regarded the programme for restricting the monopolies and enforcing democratic reforms as a means of strengthening small private property.
The vast majority of the people in the anti-monopoly movement continued to believe in the ideals of 'true capitalism' and in the principles of laissez faire, but in the new conditions the old doctrine acquired an anti-monopoly significance. The movement's anti-monopoly orientation was increasingly accentuated in the course of the struggle. While the Grangers and the Greenbacks had attacked the abuses of the trusts, the Anti-Monopoly Party in 1884 formulated the principle of regulated commerce, meaning state intervention with the purpose of curbing the arbitrary actions of the trusts. The very fact that the question of banning individual monopolies and nationalising their properties was raised cast doubt on the sanctity of the laissez faire principles.
The People'.s Party platform of 1892 stated: 'We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 160. that force in the hope that while destroying it it will have something fall into their hands. The vast arena in which this struggle is waged among a 70-million-strong cultured nation makes it a struggle of no little significance.' (Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, File 173, pp. 131, 164, Kotzebue to Lobanov-Rostovsky, 2 May, 2 July 1896.)
__PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11---0284 162 either own the people or the people must own the railroads.'^^1^^ At the 1892 convention Ignatius Donnelly tabled a radical resolution, demanding, 'should all other measures fail, the enactment of laws to confiscate the real and personal property of all trusts and combinations'.^^2^^ The Populist representatives in Congress, headed by Thomas Watson, likewise demanded the nationalisation of the railways and the telegraph and telephone networks.^^3^^ The left wing led by Henry Lloyd and the `nationalists' went further; they demanded the establishment of public ownership of all the monopolies and the transition to 'cooperative commonwealth'.The Populist spokesmen believed that political power could be won with the aid of the ballot box, but even they began to realise that the corporations were linked with the policy of the government and the big parties. They saw that the many-stepped machine for the enactment of laws---the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President, and the Supreme Court---was a harrier to democratic reforms. For that reason they demanded the democratisation of the machinery of power, a simplification of the process of introducing amendments to the Constitution on the initiative of the people, direct popular legislation through referendum^, direct democracy---the election of the President, the VicePresident and Senators by a direct vote of the people, and the right of the people to recall Congressmen and judges.^^4^^ The Populists were the first to question the sanctity of the Constitution and critically analysed many of its provisions.
These were the basic aspects of the social struggle in the USA at the close of the nineteenth century. The militant actions of the American proletariat, the growth of the influence of the socialis-t organisations and the massive anti-- monopoly movements created favourable soil for opposition to war and colonial expansion. The democratic forces did not desire expansion and were its potential adversaries. The problem of fighting expansion was made urgent by the _-_-_
~^^1^^ National Parly Platforms, p. 168.
~^^2^^ John D. Hicks, The Populist Revolt. A History of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party, Minneapolis, 1931, p. 291.
^^3^^ Congressional Record, 52nd Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 23, Part 1, Washington, 1892, p. 598.
~^^4^^ National Party Platforms, p. 199.
163 Spanish-American War and the Treaty of Paris. The extent and forms of participation of individual social and political groups in the struggle against the theory and practice of expansion, and the strong and weak points of the ideological polemics that unfolded depended on many organisational and ideological factors. The American Socialists, who, on the whole, maintained a class, internationalist stance, were much better prepared to assess imperialist expansion than its petty-bourgeois and liberal critics. However, the ideological and organisational weakness of the Socialists, as of the entire working class, did not permit them to assume the leadership of the broad anti-war and anti-colonial movement. As in the period of the upswing of Populism, they remained sectarians. 'In the last thirty years of the nineteenth century,' Lenin noted, 'the proletariat displayed almost no political independence either in Britain or America.'^^1^^ As a result, the political leadership of the democratic anti-expansionist movement remained in the hands of the American Anti-Imperialist League, with petty-bourgeois and liberal intelligentsia at its head. The AF of L and the Knights of Labor cooperated for some time with the League.The ideology of the democratic movements and the further actions against imperialist foreign policy were strongly influenced by the progressive traditions of the American people. The great social battles in the USA were the impulse for the emergence and development of democratic and antimilitarist ideas. The revolutionary and humanitarian orientation of the activities of American enlighteners, added to the theories of the people's sovereignty and natural human rights proclaimed during the War of Independence, provided a new foundation for understanding relations between nations. From the ideas of the equality and natural right of people 'to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' the conclusion was drawn that nations had the right to selfdetermination. Governments, the 1776 Declaration of Independence stated, must derive their powers 'from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 12, p. 373.
164the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government'.
The USA was horn in the lire of a national liberation movement against colonial tyranny, and anti-colonialist ideas were mirrored to some extent in a series of foreign policy principles. For instance, leaders of the American bourgeoisie proclaimed isolationism as one of the means by which the American people would implement their right to independence and resist interference from European colonial powers in the nation's affairs. In the most democratic interpretation, this signified the assertion of the principles of US non-- interference in the affairs of other nations. The American historians J. Fred Rippy and Angie Debo found isolationist sentiments in evidence in America as early as during colonial times^^1^^; these sentiments became clearly manifest during the War of Independence when isolationism was one of the means of ideological and political struggle against British colonial rule. In the famous pamphlet Common Sense Thomas Paine wrote that it was 'the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions'.^^2^^ John Adams wrote in 1776: 'The principle of foreign affairs which I then advocated ... was that we should make no treaties of alliance with any European power; that we should consent to none but treaties of commerce; that we should separate ourselves, as far as possible and as long as possible, from all European politics and wars.'^^3^^
During the initial years of the USA's existence isolationism was used to safeguard the young republic against attacks by European colonial powers. To avoid intervention and other interference was the underlying tenor of the statements by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other American leaders who spoke against any military-political alliances with European powers. This interpretation of isolationism was given in George Washington's Proclamation of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fred Rippy and Angie Debo, 'The Historical Background of the American Policy of Isolation', Smith College Studies in History, AprilJuly 1924, Vol. IX. Nos. 3-4, p. 71.
~^^2^^ Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Other Political Writings, Ed. by Nelson F. Adkins, New York, 1953, p. 23.
~^^3^^ John Adams, Works, Ed. by Ch. F. Adams, Boston, 1856, Vol. I, pp. 200--01.
165 Neutrality of 1793 and then in his Farewell Address of 17 September 1796.Isolationism was a complex arid socially heterogeneous trend. It did not exist in a vacuum. Its interpretation and application was determined by the historical situation and the alignment of strength. The loose and even dual character of isolationism---condemnation of European interference in American affairs and the silence about the nature of the USA's relations with countries of the Western Hemisphere--- suggested various conclusions from this doctrine. In 1821, when John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, spoke against the USA forming alliances with European powers, this `isolationism' coincided only outwardly with the isolationist terminology of his father John Adams. In fact, this was the prelude to the Monroe doctrine, in which isolationist ideas were closely intertwined with expansionism.
However, despite the efforts of the proponents of territorial seizures to use the isolationist doctrine for their own ends, the democratic interpretation of this doctrine predominated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an interpretation that to some extent served as a factor restraining the implementation of plans of conquest. Geographical, militarystrategic, and economic factors likewise helped to consolidate the traditions of isolationism. The USA is separated from the European and Asian continents by oceans. All this gave the confidence that the USA could avoid entanglement in world conflicts and determined certain indifference that was shown to political developments in other parts of the world. Mexico and Canada, the USA's only neighbours in North America, were never a threat. Since 1814 the USA had not been subjected to foreign invasion. Up to the close of the nineteenth century it had little need for foreign markets---the growing industry could hardly keep up with the demands of the swiftly growing Western territories. At the close of the nineteenth century the democratic elements in the USA interpreted isolationism in an anti-war and anticolonial spirit, regarding it as a principle of non-interference in the affairs of other nations.
Anti-war and anti-militarist traditions were also an ideological mainspring of the movement against imperialist expansion. Outstanding leaders of the American 166 Enlightenment---Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine---presented rationalist arguments to show material loss and suffering brought by war. In Observations on War Franklin suggested the conclusion of a number of international treaties in order somewhat to diminish the disastrous consequences of wars.^^1^^ Similar arguments were presented by Jefferson. In his Notes on Virginia he denounced war as destroying the labour of farmers, the 'chosen people of the land'. Paine's arguments had a more moral slant: 'It is not among the least of the calamities of a long-continued war that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other times appear so amiable. The continual spectacle of woe blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight renders it familiar. In like manner are many of the moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity becomes an apology where it is truly a crime.'^^2^^
The American Revolution gave an impulse to popular action for the nation's democratisation, one of the manifestations of which was the anti-war, pacifist movement. Humanist ideals, the belief that all human suffering should be alleviated, spurred the democratic movements for the abolition of black slavery, the solution of the agrarian problem, the emancipation of women, and so on.
Some favourable conditions, chiefly the absence of a military caste and a bureaucracy in the pre-monopoly period, fostered the appearance of anti-militarist and pacifist ideas. Paradoxically, the continued expansion in the North American continent over a period of more than two centuries, an expansion that gave rise to so many aggressive and racist doctrines, took place in a specific situation (the backwardness of the Indian tribes, the military weakness of the USA's neighbours), which made it possible to avoid militarisation on the scale seen in European countries. Suffice it to note that military conscription was introduced only once---during the Civil War of 1861--1865, i.e., during an internal conflict. This was a major factor attracting European immigration. Among the immigrants there were many who were escaping from military conscription.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Works of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Essays, Humorous, Moral and Literary, Vol. 2, London, 1806, pp. 101--03.
^^2^^ Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Other Political Writings, p. 66.
167Anti-war and anti-militarist ideas took various forms. They were given expression in the pacifist preachings of Henry Ware, Samuel Fish, John Ogden, and William E. Charming, and partly in the declarations of the Quakers in the early nineteenth century. Anti-war writing? such as Mott's The Lawfulness of War and Well's Essay on War^^1^^ attracted a fairly large audience during this period.
The first pacifist organisations were formed in the USA immediately after the Napoleonic wavs and the Anglo-- American War of 1812--1814. The Society for Permanent and Universal Peace, headed by William Allen, an English Quaker, a well-known educator and linguist, was founded in 1816. This Society's Declaration stated that 'war is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity and the true interest of mankind'.^^2^^ In Massachusetts a Peace Society was founded by the Coiigregationalist clergy Noah Worcester. A report containing a detailed study of the government's expenses for 1833 was published. It was found that no less than half of these expenses were for military purposes.^^3^^ In 1828 about 30 local pacifist groups united to form the American Peace Society, and by the middle of the century there were at least 50 anti-war organisations. Representatives of the American anti-war movement were active at the peace conferences in Brussels (1848), Paris (1849), and Frankfurt (1850). These conferences (they were attended by Victor Hugo) demanded a reduction of armament?, the formation of an international tribunal to settle disputes threatening to erupt into war, a ban on the sale of military materials, and on loans to belligerent nations.^^4^^ Pacifist statements were made by the most prominent American writers of the day---Henry Thoreau, James Lowell, John Whittier, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
These ideological traditions were largely the mainstay of the democratic forces opposed to US imperialist expansion.
Each step taken by the USA towards expansion at the close of the nineteenth century evoked mounting protests. There _-_-_
~^^1^^ Merle Curti, Peace or War. The American Struggle 1636--1936, New York, 1936. pp. 34--35.
~^^2^^ Dover Allen, The l-'ight for Peace, New York. 1930. p. 4.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
~^^4^^ Merle Curti, up. cit., p. 198.
168 was opposition to the establishment of a protectorate over Santo Domingo and Haiti, to the Military threats to Chile in 1891--1892, to interference in the Anglo-Venezuelan dispute, and to the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands in 1893. However, this opposition became really broad and organised only during the Spanish-American War. The history of the anti-war and anti-colonialist movement, which adopted the name `anti-imperialist', was closely linked with the work of the anti-imperialist leagues. The fact that the protests against the policy of colonial conquest had various motivations--- defence of American democratic traditions, viability of the pacifist doctrines, the apprehensions of some agrarian-- industrial circles over competition from cheap colonial primary materials, the staunchness of isolationist sentiments, repugnance for militarism, and fear of competition from Asian workers---determined the movement's broad and heterogeneous composition.As distinct from the preceding anti-monopoly movements, in the anti-war and anti-colonialist movement a much more active part was played by innumerable elements from the urban petty bourgeoisie and partly the middle bourgeoisie. The voice of the farmers was not at all loud: this was due to the decline of the Populist movement at the close of the 1890s. For the first time in the history of the USA a broad movement against imperialist conquest was led politically and ideologically by petty-bourgeois and liberal intellectuals.
Many leading personalities of the anti-imperialist leagues had earlier denounced the most glaring abuses by the corporations and other vices oi the Gilded Age. These critics included George S. Boutwell, Moorfield Storey, and Gamaliel Bradford of the Massachusetts Reform Club, and municipal reformers from all over the country: James C. Carter and Edward M. Shepard of New York, Edwin B. Smith of Chicago, Hazen Pingree of Detroit, the distinguished black personality of New England W. H. Scott, the prominent black leaders Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, to mention a few. The anti-expansionists included wellknown personalities who championed workers' rights Ernest H. Crosby and William Potts, the famous suffragette Jane Addams, the Indian rights spokesman and member of the civic reforms movement Herbert Welsh, the first of the ' 169 muckrakers' Henry Demarest Lloyd and Lincoln Steffens. Many of the participants in this movement were members of the pacifist organisation International Peace Movement (Edward Atkinson, Erving Winslow, Moorfield Storey, David S. Jordan, and others). The anti-imperialist leagues won growing prestige through the efforts of the nationally popular liberal critics Edwin L. Godkin and Carl Schurz.
There were increasingly more vocal protests in many university campuses. David S. Jordan, President of Stanford University, wrote a vivid pamphlet entitled Imperial Democracy, Hermann Eduard von Hoist, historian of the American Civil War and head of the department of history at the University of Chicago, spoke eloquently against imperialism. Other prominent representatives of the academic world who joined the anti-imperialists were: Henry W. Rogers, President of Northwestern University, Jacob Schurman, President of Cornell University, professors William V. Moody, Charles E. Norton, Felix Adler and Adolph Cohn. The Philippines seizure was opposed by the reformist sociologists Thorstein Veblen and William James.
Although some clergymen, like Josiah Strong, were in favour of the war against Spain, sermons of quite a different nature were also delivered from the pulpits of churches. The fear that the war against Catholic Spain might trigger the persecution of Catholics in the USA did much to foster anti-war sentiments. Henry van Dyke, Edward E. Hale, Charles II. Parkhurst, Leonard W. Bacon, Henry C. Potter, and other clergymen became nationally known for their anti-war sermons.
American writers were significantly unanimous in their condemnation of imperialist colonial expansion. They included the great satirist Mark Twain, the American classic William Dean Howells, and the realists Frank Norris, Henry Fuller, and Hamlin Garland.
In the anti-imperialist movement there was a group of politicians championing interests close to those of the farmers. Prominent among them was Senator Richard Petti grew.
The movement was also joined by other socio-political groups. One of these consisted of the 'Silver Democrats' headed by William Jennings Bryan, whose criticism of 170 imperialist expansion at the 1900 election was essentially of a tactical nature; another included big planters of the American South fearing that colonial expansion would bring them competition in the shape of cheap primary materials and labour (this group had many representatives in Congress: Benjamin R. Tillman, George C. Vest, John Williams, and others). Among the members of the anti-imperialist leagues there were businessmen, chiefly in the sugar-beet business, who were apprehensive of competition from cane sugar (Robert F. Cutting and George F. Peabody). The millionaire Andrew Carnegie urged dollar expansion, but was opposed to direct colonialist conquests. The stance on colonial seizures of ex-president Grover Cleveland's right-wing group in the Democratic Party was, in many ways, prompted by party rivalries.
An essential feature of the anti-expansionist movement was the leading role played in it by New England. The movement was not only started in that state, but had the largest number of adherents and lasted longer than anywhere else in the USA. Gamaliel Bradford, Winslow Warren, Erving Winslow, Moorfield Storey, Charles F. Adams, Leonard W. Bacon, James P. Munroe, George F. Hoar and many other New Englanders predominated among the movement's leadership. The journalists Edward Atkinson, Samuel Bowles, Albert Parsons, and Herbert Welsh rose to eminence there. E. L. Godkin's journal The Nation was established and financed largely in New England.
For half a century New England had been the seat of the anti-slavery movement and, as D. B. Schirmer showed in his study, the traditions of the anti-slavery struggle and the ideal of the equality of all people strongly influenced the views of the Boston anti-imperialists.^^1^^ Many of the New Englanders in the movement were Republicans of the older generation who had fought in the Civil War of 1861--1865. For instance, George S. Boutwell, a.vigorous opponent of Southern secession, was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1850 when the Whig leader Daniel Webster died; Edward Atkinson published a work on the economic unprofitability _-_-_
~^^1^^ D. B. Schirmer, Republic or Empire. American Resistance to the Philippine War, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972.
171 of slavery in 1861; George F. Hoar rose to prominence in the Republican Party as early as the 1850s; E. L. Godkin wrote anti-slavery articles during the Civil War; Moorfield Storey fought for racial justice in his capacity of secretary to the famous Senator Charles Sumner; Carl Schurz was a general in the Union Army during the Civil War; Thomas W. Higginson was active in the struggle against slavery. The antiexpansionists themselves spoke with pride of this feature of the movement's composition. A resolution passed by the Washington league stated that 'the Anti-Imperialist League of Washington is composed of men of all parties, hut mostly Republicans of the ``Lincoln type"\thinspace'.^^1^^ (These were elderly people, of course. When the Spanish-American War broke out Boutwell was 80, Higginson 75, Hoar 72, Atkinson 71, Schurz 69, and Godkin and Bradford 67.^^2^^)The generation of Republicans who had witnessed the Civil War and Reconstruction kept alive the old liberal ideals of the epoch of 'free capitalism', ideals that were part and parcel of their experience of life. This was not accidental. In colonial times and onwards New England was an advanced region of capitalist development. The industrial revolution started there at the beginning of the nineteenth century, earlier than in any other part of the country, and until the last thirty years of the century New England was the leading industrial state, representing the development of 'free capitalism' in its classic form.
It is not surprising, therefore, that New England produced the leading American spokesmen of liberalism. This was also due to the fact that for two and a half centuries it had been the centre of the nation's intellectual life, and Boston _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Organisation and Minutes of the Anti-Imperialist League of Washington, D. C., Meeting, April 19, 1900. W. L. Garrison, son of the great Abolitionist who published The Liberator, wrote: 'To Aguinaldo, fighting in the same cause for which John Brown died, sustained by the same hopes and aspirations, our sympathies are due as were the sympathies of all lovers of liberty to John Brown. The contenders of Aguinaldo would have been the denouncers of John Hrown in the dark days preceding the glare of the Civil War.' (E. B. Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States'. The Great Debate, 1890--1920, Philadelphia, 1970, pp. 151--52.)
~^^2^^ R. L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire. The Anti-Imperialists, 1898--1900, New York, 1968, p. 9,
172 supplied traditions and fashions for the entire American literature, history and political economy.In the USA Manchester liberalism was perhaps formulated most distinctly by Edwin Lawrence Godkin, an English liberal who settled in America and was later to join the anticolonial movement. He propounded the laissez faire principles in his journal, The Nation, for many years, writing: 'The Government must get out of the ``protective'' business and the ``subsidy'' business and the ``improvement'' and the ``development'' business. It must let trade, and commerce, and manufactures, and steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs alone.... It is almost as much as this Government can do to maintain order and administer justice.'^^1^^
With the evolution of `free' into monopoly capitalism, the old liberalism acquired the nature of an opposition. The crisis of traditional liberalism was in many cases regarded in the context of the loss by New England of its accustomed economic, political, and cultural leadership. But the basic factor underlying the movement led by petty-bourgeois and liberal reformers was ultimately a protest against monopoly domination. Their criticism of US foreign policy, which met with the interests of the monopolies, was also motivated by the principles of laissez faire and 'free capitalism'. The direct bond between the principles of 'free trade', 'free competition' and the movement against colonial expansion was shown distinctly also by the spokesmen of imperialist expansion. Henry Cabot Lodge criticised the adherence of the antiimperialists to the Manchester school, which maintained that 'territorial extension or national expansion must be stopped because they were likely to interfere with complete freedom of trade',^^2^^ while Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to Mahan was irritated by the 'fact that we have in America among our educated men a kind of belated survivor of the Little England movement among the Englishmen of thirty years back'.^^3^^
The anti-imperialist movement went through a number of stages. It was initiated on 15 June 1898 at a meeting in Boston convened by the journalist Gamaliel Bradford, a _-_-_
~^^1^^ Boston Evening Transcript, 2 June 1898.
~^^2^^ L of CMD, M. Storey Papers. Anti-Imperialist Speeches at the Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, 15 June 1898. pp. 19--25.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 148--49.
173 member of the Massachusetts Reform Club. In an address published in the lloston Evening Transcript he wrote that he had been opposed to the Spanish-American War and that now there had to be an organised protest, for there was the danger that the American republic would be turned into a colonial empire.^^1^^ The meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, which had been used for many meetings during the American Revolution and the struggle against slavery.Only six weeks had passed since 1 May, the day on which Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet, but this period proved sufficient to bring the political orientation of American imperialism into bolder relief.
The main anti-colonial arguments that were to be used against imperialist propaganda were formulated in the speeches in Faneuil Hall. The fullest anti-expansionist argumentation was given by the Boston lawyer Moorfield Storey, who declared that 'to seize any colony of Spain and hold it as our own, without the free consent of its people is a violation of the principles upon which this government rests'. By taking that action the government would break with its preceding policy. 'We not only abandon the boasted Monroe Doctrine.... We not only disregard that wise policy of nonintervention in European troubles, which Washington taught and until now we have followed. We become a military power, burdened with a standing army and an enormous navy, threatened with complications thousands of miles away.'^^2^^ Lastly, such action would divert the nation from urgent internal social problems.
The resolution passed by the meeting summed up the basic moral and constitutional arguments against expansionism advanced during the debate, rejected the plans for imperialist expansion, and urged concentrating attention on internal problems: 'Our first duty is to cure the evils in our country, the corrupt government of which New York and Philadelphia afford only conspicuous examples, the disturbed relations between labor and capital, our disordered currency, our unjust system of taxation, the debasing influence of _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, 30 January 1873, p. 68.
~^^2^^ E. B. Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States' The Great Debate, 1890--1920, p. 148.
174 money at election and on legislation, the use of offices as spoils.'^^1^^The meeting adopted clearly worded decisions on organisation and elected a committee of correspondence (on the pattern of the committee of correspondence formed by Samuel Adams in Massachusetts in 1772, on the eve of the War of Independence) with Moorfield Storey, Gamaliel Bradford, David G. Haskins, Albert Parsons, and Erving Winslow as its leading members. The purpose of this committee was to make contact with organisations and individuals throughout the nation opposed to colonial seizures. As its reports showed, the committee made these contacts and vigorously propagated its views, printing articles in journals and newspapers, and distributing its printed matter by mail.^^2^^ Its activities had considerable response.
Many observers noted that anti-war and anti-colonial sentiments were widespread in the country. In June 1898 the Russian Ambassador in the USA reported to St. Petersburg that 'a good half of the Americans do not approve the policies adopted by the government'.^^3^^ Three months later he wrote of the 'broad and trenchant' criticism of the government's policies and named the most prominent members of the opposition: George F. Hoar, Senator Justin S. Morrill, Carl Schurz, and Henry C. Potter^^4^^.
An Anti-Imperialist League was instituted on 19 November 1898 at a meeting held in Boston on the initiative of the committee of correspondence. The capital, Washington, was decided upon as the location of its headquarters.
George Sewall Boutwell, a leading political personality and one of the founders of the Republican Party, was elected president of the league. As a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War, he won nation-wide renown for his opposition to the pro-slavery policy of President Andrew Johnson. In the 1870s _-_-_
~^^1^^ IbId., pp. 2-3.
~^^2^^ Record Book of the Executive Committee Meetings of the AntiImperialist League, 18 November 1898--21 November 1901.
~^^3^^ Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, File 114, p. 201, Kassini to Muravyov, 21 June 1898.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 301, Kassini to Lamsdorff, 29 October 1898; p. 239, Kassini to Muravyov, 20 August 1898.
175 Boutwell was Senator from the State of Massachusetts. Although he had retired from active politics due to age, he vigorously condemned colonial seizures when the Spanish-American War broke out. His views were later set out in greater detail in his book The Crisis of the Republic (1900).Leading positions in the Anti-Imperialist League were held by prominent members of the Massachusetts Reform Club: Erving Winslow was secretary, Francis A. Osborn was treasurer, and the members of the executive committee were Winslow Warren, James Meyers, David G. Haskins, James P. Munroe, Albert Parsons, and William Endicott.
The Anti-Imperialist League was conceived as a national organisation consisting of people of different political views. In accordance with the aim of broad representation, provision was made for a large number of vice-presidents (there were 41 in 1899).
The Boston meeting adopted an address to the people of the United States, which in fact was the programme of the Anti-Imperialist League and repeated the main arguments presented against colonial policy at the Faneuil Hall meeting. It noted that colonial acquisitions outside the USA were both unfair and unlawful for they would be violations of the US Constitution and of basic democratic principles. 'A true republic of free men must rest upon the principles that all its citizens are equal under law, that a government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and that there must be no taxation without representation. No American, until to-day, has disputed these propositions, it remains for the new Imperialism to set up the law of might and to place commercial gain and a false philanthropy above the sound principles which the Republic was based.' The address expressed 'full sympathy with the heroic struggles for liberty of the people in Spanish Islands' and protested against the attempts of self-determination to deprive them of 'their rights by exchange of masters'.^^1^^
The meeting called for a campaign against the USA's conversion into a colonial power and decided to organise a _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Address to the People of the United States, Boston, 19 November 1898.
176 protest movement throughout the nation and collect 10 million signatures under a petition to the US President.In response to the call made in Boston, anti-imperialist leagues sprang up throughout the country. The Boston League's report for 1899 stated : 'It is prohable that at least a hundred active centres of anti-imperialist work, under various titles, have followed our pioneer effort in the name of liberty; and are carrying on the propaganda, besides the hosts of individual workers throughout the country. The largest and most notable bodies are those in New York, Philadelphia, Springfield, Cincinnati, Washington, D. C., Los Angeles, Portland Ore., and the recently established society in Minneapolis.'^^1^^ The movement's leaders reported the success of their propaganda in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Indiana,^^2^^ declaring that they knew of no case where 'the President's policy has one supporter in the press devoted to the interest of agriculture'.^^3^^
The structure of the new leagues and their aims were analogous to those of the first Anti-Imperialist League. The Washington League, formed in September 1899, was typical in this respect. The charter stated that 'its object is to oppose, by every legitimate means, the prosecution of war for the conquest of the Philippine Islands or the annexation or government of any territory against the will of its inhabitants'.^^4^^ A resolution adopted by the league declared that 'the President's policy in the Philippines is a blunder morally, politically, commercially, and financially'. Explaining this point, the resolution noted that the war in the Philippines signified betrayal of the Filipinoes---who were the USA's allies---the threat of competition from cheap Asian labour, and new taxes for the people of the USA. 'If this government could not permanently exist half-free and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Report of the Annual Meeting of the Anti-Imperialist League, Now the New England Anti-Imperialist League, at Wesleyan Hall, Boston, Saturday, November 25, 1899, p. 7.
~^^2^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers, W. J. Muze to W. Birney, 23 November 1899.
~^^3^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Address of Executive Committee of Anti-Imperialist League, 15 August 1899.
~^^4^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Organization and Minutes of the Anti-Imperialist League of Washington, D. C., Meeting, April 19, 1900.
177 half-slave, it cannot exist in a part of its territory by law and in another part by military despotism.'^^1^^The growth of the number of anti-imperialist leagues made it increasingly difficult to coordinate their activities from Boston, where the organisation's headquarters remained. In order somewhat to resolve these difficulties, meetings of the Anti-Imperialist League were held not only in Boston but also in other cities: New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The headquarters were in the end moved to Chicago. This move was found to be expedient on account of the city's geographical location and the spread of the anti-expansionist movement in the mid-Western states.
A big meeting, convened by 466 intellectuals, was held in Chicago on 30 April 1899. More than 3,000 people assembled in the huge Music Hall. The speakers presented mainly constitutional and moral arguments against colonial seizures. The meeting was chaired by Henry W. Rogers, President of Northwestern University, who underscored the right of the people of the Philippines to be free and independent.^^2^^ Jenkin L. Jones said when the words `colony', `invasion', and `conquest' 'come into our dictionary then the words ``democracy'' and ``republicanism'' must be blotted out'.^^3^^ 'The imperialism of today may be the militarism of tomorrow and the Caesarism of the day after tomorrow,'^^4^^ said S. Zeisler. Professor J. Lawrence Laughlin made the first attempt at a big meeting to take issue with the arguments that expansion was necessary on economic grounds.^^5^^ The nationally known suffragette Jane Addams spoke eloquently, reminding the meeting that the question of the means of proletarian struggle against war had been raised as early as 1864 by the International Association of Workingmen. At its Brussels conference the International had recommended that the workers should 'resist all war as systematic murder' and in case of war a universal strike should be declared. She said that by adopting an anti-imperialist resolution at its _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. The Chicago Liberty Meeting Held at Central Music Hall, April 30, 1899, Chicago, p. 10.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 12--13.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 29.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 18.
__PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12---0284 178 convention in 1898 the American Federation of Labor had continued this noble anti-war tradition.^^1^^ The resolution passed by the meeting stated: 'We hold that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism, an evil from which it has been our glory to be free. We regret that it is now necessary in the land of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men of whatever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We still maintain that governments derive their just power from consent of the governed.'^^2^^Less than within six months, on 17--18 October 1899, ten thousand delegates from all over the nation founded a national organisation, the American Anti-Imperialist League, in Chicago. G. S. Boutwell was elected the league's president. (The Boston league became a branch of the American Anti-Imperialist League and was named the New England Anti-Imperialist League. But, in fact, it continued to be not only the most active anti-imperialist body but also the movement's actual centre.)
As in the previous documents of the anti-imperialists, the point of departure in the platform adopted in Chicago was Lincoln's postulate that 'no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs himself and also governs another man that is more than self-government---that is despotism'. In keeping with this principle, the league characterised the government's policy in the Philippines as criminal aggression. 'The real firing line is not in the suburbs of Manila. The foe is of our own household. The attempt of 1861 was to divide the country. That of 1899 is to destroy its fundamental principles and noblest ideas,'^^3^^ the platform stated.
It would be hard to give an exact estimation of the membership of the American Anti-Imperialist League. The first annual report of the treasurer spoke of more than half a million donations, from 25 cents to several thousand dollars.^^4^^ _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 36--37.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 50.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
~^^4^^ Maria C. Lanzar, 'The Anti-Imperialist League', Philippine Social Science Review, August 1930, p. 20.
179 In his message of 20 November 1900 Secretary-Treasurer Huges wrote that the National Association of Anti-- Imperialist Clubs had a membership of over 700,000 in the fortyfive states and five territories.^^1^^From the close of 1898 onwards the Anti-Imperialist League directed its efforts against the Treaty of Paris. It launched a campaign of petitions remonstrating against the USA's intention to extend its sovereignty over the Philippines. Petitions were sent to the Senate from both individuals and organisations. The petitions from Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Virginia, New York, Minnesota, and Georgia declared that they were signed by 'all the citizens of the state'^^2^^ (of course, this should not be understood literally).
The months of Congressional debate over the peace treaty were a period of contacts and sometimes of joint actions by the Anti-Imperialist League and the American Federation of Labor. George E. McNeill, one of the leaders of the working-class movement, had been invited to the first meeting in Faneuil Hall, where he had noted the bond between the interests of the monopolies and the US foreign policy. He expressed the apprehension that the annexation of the Philippines would bring the American workers dangerous competition from the 'cheap Asiatic labour', and denounced colonial expansion.^^3^^ Many trade unionists and individual trade unions affiliated to the AF of L were active in the protest campaign against the ratification of the peace treaty with Spain.
The anti-expansionists campaigned vigorously in the US Congress as well. Richard F. Pettigrew, George F. Hoar, George C. Vest, and other Senators stigmatised the _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CA1D, W. A. Croffut Papers. Secretary-Treasurer C. C. Huges, Washington League, November 20, 1900. Approximately the same figures are given by other sources. For example, Pettigrew spoke of half a million members (Richard F. Pettigrew, Triumphant Plutocracy. The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920, New York City, 1922, p. 323).
~^^2^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd Session, Vol. 32, Part I, Washington, 1899, pp. 398, 781, 884; Part 2, p. 1639. The text of the petitions is not given in the supplements to the Record, which contain only a precis of all the petitions made to Congressmen.
^^3^^ L of CMD, M. Storey Papers. Anti-Imperialist Speeches of the Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, June 15, 1898, pp. 28, 29, 31.
__PRINTERS_P_179_COMMENT__ 12* 180 annexation of the Philippines as a colonial policy inconsistent with the principles of the US Constitution. On party considerations they were supported by many Democratic members of Congress. The fate of the Treaty of Paris was decided by a narrow margin. There were 57 votes for its ratification and 27 against^^1^^ (a two-thirds majority is required for the ratification of foreign treaties in the Senate).The national liberation movement in the Philippines stimulated the activities of the Anti-Imperialist League. Following the ratification of the Treaty of Paris in February 1899 the league campaigned against US intervention in the Philippines and insisted that the islands be granted independence. The league's Executive Committee declared that the ratification of the treaty with Spain was no cause for any change of the intentions of the anti-imperialists relative to the future of the Philippine Islands and that the struggle would go on.^^2^^
Through the efforts of many leading journalists and publishers the anti-imperialist movement won the support of a section of the press. An anti-war stand had been adopted by Godkin's The Nation and the New York Evening Post long before the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. In Boston the seizure of the Philippines was opposed by the Transcript, the Herald, and the Post, in Baltimore by the Sun, in Philadelphia by the Public Ledger, and in Pittsburgh by the Dispatch. In Chicago, where the bourgeois press was strongly in favour of a colonial policy, there was opposition from the Democratic Party's Chronicle. The Southern papers _-_-_
~^^1^^ This is discussed at length in: A. A. Guber, The Philippine Republic of 1898 and American Imperialism, Moscow, 1948, pp. 282--87 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Many facts testify to the assistance rendered by the anti-- imperialist leagues to the Filipino national liberation movement. For example, General Funston, commander of the American troops in the Philippines, said in one of his speeches: 'Had it not been for the socalled peace party in the States insurrection would have been suppressed finally in January 1900.... From the lips of Aguinaldo himself and from other leaders of the insurrection, I know that for the last two years they have been encouraged to shoot down our men and continue their warfare by the copperhead sentiments of the people in the States.' (William J. Pomeroy, American Neocolonialism, New York, 1970, p. 1100
181 critical of expansion included the Richmond Times and the Charleston News and Courier.The anti-imperialist leagues never got round to starting their own press, but some journals and newspapers pursued a political line kindred to that of the leagues. In addition to Godkin's publications, they included Herbert Welsh's City and State weekly (Philadelphia) and the journal AntiImperialist published by the Vice-President of the AntiImperialist League Edward Atkinson. Welsh was the first to bring the atrocities committed by American troops in the Philippines to public attention. Atkinson's pamphlets The Cost of War and Warfare, The Hell of War, and others, and the Anti-Imperialist's appeal to young men to refuse to enter into military service alarmed the authorities to such an extent that they demanded Atkinson's arrest. In the long run it was decided to confiscate his publications mailed to troops on active service.
The newspaper Springfield Republican, which represented the views of the radical wing in the New England Anti-- Imperialist League, noted the link of US imperialist policy with the interests of the monopolies and consistently attacked all forms of imperialist expansion: US economic expansion in Latin America, the Open Door doctrine in China, and the Platt amendment reducing Cuba to semi-colonial bondage to the USA.^^1^^
One of the important propaganda methods used by the
anti-imperialist leagues was the dissemination of pamphlets
and leaflets. In the report of the secretary of the New England
Anti-Imperialist League for 1902 it was stated: 'In these
four years leagues have been formed in eight principal cities
of the country, and those leagues have distributed not less
than 4,000,000 books, pamphlets, speeches and leaflets.'^^2^^
George S. Boutwell's Republic or Empire?, David S.
Jordan's Imperial Democracy, George D. Herron's American
Imperialism, William G. Sumner's The Conquest of the
_-_-_
~^^1^^ Daniel B. Schirmer, Republic or Empire. American Resistance
to the Philippine War, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972, pp. 163--66
193--96, 228. ~^^2^^ /, of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Report of the Fourth Annual
Meeting of tlie New England A nti-Imperialist League, November 29,
1902 and Its Adjournment, December 2, Boston.
In addition to major works by known writers, the antiimperialist leagues distributed letters, articles, poems, and speeches (some had been published earlier in journals and newspapers). They sometimes reprinted Congress documents. There was a large demand for leaflets and pamphlets explaining the aims of the anti-imperialists or caustically ridiculing the expansionists. For instance, in the pamphlet A Liberty Catechism, composed on a question and answer pattern, the question why a nation should not govern other nations is answered as follows: 'Because all peoples have an inherent and inalienable right to their liberty---the right to live their own lives in their own way and to govern themselves or to be governed as they choose.'^^1^^ To the question whether the Filipinos were enemies of the USA, he replied: 'No.... They are simply a people who have learned the lesson we taught the world in 1776, who have listened to the noble and inspiring words uttered by Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Owen Lovejoy, Abraham Lincoln and others of our champions of liberty, and who are fighting for their freedom, for their right to govern themselves in their own way.'^^2^^ The Imperialist Religion, a pamphlet by Charles B. Spahn, ridiculed the attempts to give the US war in the Philippines the flag of liberty. As given ironically by the author, the credo of the expansionists was: 'I believe in home rule for Ireland but in alien rule for the Spanish islands. I believe that whites and blacks have a right to govern themselves but not browns.'^^3^^ In order to reach a wider audience, postcards and proclamations contained the request that the addressee make ten copies and send them to a friend with the same request.
Anti-imperialist criticism was quite sharp, and the appeal to the American people's democratic traditions and the reminder that nations had the right to self-determination were of considerable importance in the struggle against jingoist _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick W. Godkin, A Libert;/ Catechism, Chicago, November 1899, p. 5.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 11.
~^^3^^ L of CMD, W. A. Crofful Papers. Charley B. Spahn, The Imperialist Religion.
183 propaganda. However, the platform of the American Anti Imperialist League, like its programme adopted a year earlier, failed to explain why the USA had abandoned democratic principles and gone over to a colonial policy. The antiexpansionists believed that this was due to delusion and errors.^^1^^Nonetheless, the year of struggle brought its results. 'We propose to contribute to the defeat of any person or party that stands for the forcible subjugation of any people,' the Chicago platform stated. 'We shall oppose for re-election all who in the White House or in Congress betray American liberty in pursuit of un-American ends.'^^2^^ This was a significant step towards recognising the need for independent political actions at the 1900 elections. The league gave a solid organisational foundation for the movement for a third party. Commenting on this section of the Chicago platform, Erving Winslow, secretary of the New England Anti-Imperialist League, said in December 1899: 'This national Conference decides, if it decides anything, that it is not now for us to cast presidential horoscopes, or to discuss candidates, or to promote party movements ... we must ... stand shoulder to shoulder, Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Populist, Goldman, Silver-man, and Mugwump, for the one momentous, vital, paramount issue, Anti-Imperialism and preservation of the Republic.'^^3^^
As the movement gained momentum efforts were made to form a strong political party opposed to expansion. Many years later Senator Richard F. Pettigrew described the most serious of these attempts. A conference of leading personalities of the movement was held in the Pla/a Hotel, New York, on 6 January 1900 with the purpose of agreeing on practical steps towards establishing a new party. Among those present were Carl Schurz, Gamaliel Bradford, Richard F. Pettigrew, ex-Senator Henderson, Franklin H. Giddings, _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Platform of the American AntiImperialist League.
^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Report of the Annual Meeting of the Anti-Imperialist League, Now the New England Anti-- Imperialist League, at Wesleyan Hall, Boston, Saturday, November 25, 1899, p. 9.
184 and Andrew Carnegie. 'It was agreed,' Pettigrew recalled 'by Carnegie and Schurz and Henderson and by Prof. Giddings that the two old political parties---Democratic and Republican---were just alike; that as parties they were simply the servants of the great combinations and corporations who were the real rulers of the country; that it was foolish to depend upon either of them to oppose a policy which was being pushed by their financial backers and, therefore, it was decided to start a third party and to organize it in every county in the United States.'^^1^^ They agreed that the new party would be called Anti-Imperialist and laid their plans accordingly. When the question of finances came up Carnegie subscribed 25,000 dollars on the spot and promised to donate again as much as all the others put together. But he failed to keep his word: the American magnates conceived the idea of forming the largest steel trust in the world with a capital of a billion dollars. Carnegie was one of the main backers of this operation. When the steel kings learned that he was among the group planning to form the Anti-Imperialist Party they warned him that if he did not abandon that plan there would be no steel trust. Carnegie preferred profits.^^2^^The question of a third party was brought up again in the summer of 1900 in connection with the coming presidential elections and the foreign policy platform of the two main parties. The Republican election platform approved the results of the Spanish-American War and the USA's actions in the Philippines and Cuba.^^3^^ The Democratic leaders hoped to exploit the anti-colonial sentiments and therefore condemned 'the imperialism that grew out of the SpanishAmerican War and was threatening the republic's existence'. Moreover, they criticised the Jole that was being played by the USA in the Philippines. However, the propagandist and largely demagogic character of the Democratic foreign policy platform was clearly showa \n practical recommendations. While the American Anti-Imperialist League demanded an _-_-_
~^^1^^ Richard F. Pettigrew, Triumphant Plutocracy. The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920, p. 324.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 295--96, 325, 327--28.
~^^3^^ National Party Platforms, Compiled by Kirk H. Porter, NewYork, 1924, pp. 233--34.
185 immediate declaration granting independence to the Philippines, the Democrats suggested making them a US protectorate for an indefinite period.^^1^^But even in this situation the leaders of the American AntiImperialist League failed to agree on united action. Some of them, headed by Schurz and Storey, held that a new party had to be formed. Others, like Senators Hoar and Hale, failed to break with the Republican Party, despite their sharp criticism of McKinley's policies. Many of the Gold Democrats and Silver Republicans in the anti-imperialist movement expected the opposition to expansion to develop into support for the Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
The league's stance at the 1900 election was finally decided upon at its convention in Indianapolis in August. Here, too, it was unequivocally stated that there should be an antiimperialist ticket. One of the leaflets, entitled Third Ticket Movement, declared: 'The Democratic Party is conducting a direct attack upon the institutions of our country. It advocates dishonest money and threatens the integrity of the judiciary. The Republican Party is conducting an indirect attack upon the institutions of our country. At home, it corrupts the public morals by selling public offices and special privileges to the highest contributors to party assets; abroad, it wages a wicked war of conquest in violation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.'^^2^^ However, the majority at the convention decided that a third ticket would have little hope of success and opted for the 'lesser evil'. The adopted resolution recommended voting for senatorial candidates opposed to territorial seizures, and also for Bryan as what was described the most effective way of crushing imperialism.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 212. The Russian Ambassador in Washington noted the tactical character of Bryan's pronouncements on foreign policy, writing: 'Taking advantage of the present Administration's setbacks in the Philippines, Bryan advised his supporters to give priority to antiimperialism and the fight against the trusts in their platform for the coming presidential election' (Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, File 110, p. 254, Kotzebuc to Muravyov, 6 August 1899).
~^^2^^ L of CMD, M. Storey Papers. Leaflet of Third Ticket Movement.
~^^3^^ Literary Digest, 25 August 1900, p. 216.
186The anti-expansionists vigorously propagated their views during the election campaign of 1900. The annual report of the secretary of the New England Anti-Imperialist League noted that 'more than four hundred thousand documentspamphlets, leaflets, and broadsides---have been distributed'.^^1^^ More petitions were sent to Congress. Yet the influence of the anti-imperialists was limited, while Bryan departed ever farther from them, giving prominence to the currency question in his election campaign. Deprived of a realistic alternative, many electors preferred to refrain from participating in the elections. As a result, McKinley was re-elected.
The anti-imperialist movement ceased to be a notable political force following the 1900 election. However, it continued making a large contribution to drawing public attention to the excesses of the military in the Philippines. Despite the stringent censorship, some information about the atrocities in the Philippines seeped into the American provincial press in 1899--1901, but it remained unnoticed. The actual state of affairs became widely known only when Herbert Welsh's newspaper printed the pamphlet By Way of Manila^^2^^ in which many facts had been put together. The evidence of American troops was cited to show that torture and slaughter of local population were common in the war. The American Anti-Imperialist League started a large protest campaign. Articles were published in newspapers and leaflets were put out containing eyewitness accounts of these crimes.^^3^^ It was largely this activity that led to the formation of a Senate committee of inquiry. At the same time, the league formed its own committee of inquiry composed of Moorfield Storey, Charles F. Adams, Carl Schurz, George F. Peabody, and Herbert Welsh.^^4^^
This campaign was the last major action of the American Anti-Imperialist League. The struggle against imperialist foreign policy could be continued only by enlarging the movement's social basis and radicalising its programme. Some _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Report of the Annual Meeting of the New England Anti-Imperialist League, November 24, 1900, p. 3.
~^^2^^ City and State, 2 January 1902; M. C. Lanzar, 'The Anti-- Imperialist League', Philippine Social Science Review, July 1932, pp. 183--88.
~^^3^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Leaflet 'The Evidence Reviewed'.
~^^4^^ M. C. Lanzar, op. M., July 1932, p. 240.
187 steps were taken in that direction by its leadership. A meeting at which the league's President George S. Boutwell read an appeal to American workers was held in Washington on 11 January 1900. Somewhat later, in 1902, addressing workers in Boston, Boutwell said: 'The final effort for salvation of the republic is to be made by laboring and producing classes.'^^1^^In a speech in 1903 commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the abolition of slavery, Boutwell called Lincoln's Proclamation the second most important step in the development of democratic ideas after the Declaration of Independence. Addressing the black section of the population, he said: 'Your fate in America is involved in the fate of the Philippine Islands, and it may be that the fate of the Philippine Islands is in your hands. The Republican Party cannot maintain the principles of freedom in America and at the same time set up a government of tyranny in Asia.'^^2^^ These words were true, but they were spoken much too late. The break-up of the league was now irreversible.
The heterogeneous forces that had temporarily united under the aegis of the anti-imperialist leagues could act in _-_-_
~^^1^^ The President's Policy of War and Conquest Abroad. Degradation of Labor at Home. Address by G. S. Boutwell at Masonic If all, Washington, D. C., January 11, 1900, Chicago, 1900; Daniel B. Shirmer, op. cit., p. 258.
~^^2^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers. Address by the Hon. G. S. Boutwell Delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, January 1, 1903, at the Celebration of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation by the Colored People of Boston and Vicinity, p. 11.
The attitude'of black Americans to imperialist expansion lias hardly been studied, but some information is given in Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, Ed. by H. Aptheker, New York, 1951. Some research has been conducted by W. B. Gatewood, Jr., who wrote an article on the basis of an analysis of the local black press ('Black Americans and the Quest for Empire, 1898--1903', Journal of Southern History, November 1972, pp. 545--66). In this article it is shown that their experience of racial oppression made black Americans naturally hostile to the jingoist propaganda about the civilising mission of the USA. The idea that the interests of black Americans concurred with those of the colonial peoples fighting for independence was sometimes advanced in the writings and pronouncements of individual black leaders. A National Black Anti-Imperialist, Anti-- Expansionist and Anti-Trust League was formed in the state of Illinois at the close of 1899 to oppose US expansionist policy in the Philippines.
188 harmony for only a short time. The dollar expansionists quit the movement; they were satisfied with the proclamation in 1899 of the Open Door policy in China, which they had good grounds for regarding as embodying many of their ideas. Bryan's defeat at the 1900 election had shown him that tactical anti-imperialism was devoid of political dividends. In the American South, too, the opposition dwindled. The agrarian-industrial circles realised that their fears of possible competition from Philippine and Hawaiian primary materials had been exaggerated. Henceforth they concerned themselves with maintaining high customs tariffs on the import of colonial goods.However, the cardinal reason of the failure of the movement, as of the petty-bourgeois anti-monopoly actions of those years, was that it did not have the leadership of the working class.
At the close of 1905 virtually only one, the oldest---the New England---of the imperialist leagues was still functioning. The last convention of the American Anti-Imperialist League was held in 1920, but as early as 1913 its President Moorfield Storey wrote to Erving Winslow: '...the truth is that if we come down to facts, you and I are substantially the Anti-Imperialist League.'^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ M. C. Lauzar, op. cit., pp. 226--27.
[189] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER NINE __ALPHA_LVL1__ LIBERALS AND RADICALSThe basic ideological principles of the anti-expansionists were embodied in the platforms of the American Anti-- Imperialist League and its local branches, and were enlarged upon in the pronouncements of their leaders. Attention is attracted by the views of Edwin L. Godkin, Carl Schurz, George F. Hoar, Edward Atkinson, and Richard F. Pettigrew. These mirrored the anti-war and anti-colonial attitudes in various fields: publicism, political economy, at rallies, and in Congress.
Godkin (1831--1902) was prominent in the movement of anti-imperialist leagues. His attitude during the SpanishAmerican War was the logical continuation of his many years as a leading American critic of the Gilded Age. The link between old liberalism and criticism of imperialist foreign policy was seen in bold relief in his world outlook.
He was born into an English Protestant family residing in Ireland. He studied law at Lincoln's Inn, London. By the time he went to America in 1856 he was an already accomplished Victorian liberal. As he put it himself, he was 'brought up in the Mill-Grote school of radicals'.^^1^^ The History of Hungary and the Magyars, an early work, was written with warm sympathy for the freedom struggle led by Lajos Kossuth. Following the defeat of the 1848 revolution in Europe, Godkin and many other liberals saw America as the only promised land and this made him decide to go there. During _-_-_
~^^1^^ Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. II, p. 156.
190 the Civil War in the USA, as the New York correspondent for the London Daily News, Godkin showed a distaste for the planters and denounced their allies, the British Tories.In 1865 he founded the politico-literary journal The Nation. His erudition, critical spirit, and immaculate style of writing made the journal extremely popular in American intellectual circles. He was close to James Russel Lowell, Henry James, James Bryce, Henry White, Carl Schurz, and other reformers.
Liberal philosophy underlay the ideas that Godkin tirelessly expounded in the USA for 35 years. Since this system of views was founded on the laissez faire theory, Godkin drew a distinct line between economics and politics. He believed that any interference in the operation of 'natural law' brought more harm than benefit. He saw economic competition as a struggle between individuals, and held that the state should rest content with the role of policeman enforcing order. His ideal was a society of free and educated individuals conscious of the link between the interests of society and their personal interests. Their freedom should not be restricted, for any law meant compulsion, and freedom began where law ended.
In comparing America with Europe, he initially gave the New World preference, noting its democracy and the absence of a caste spirit. However, the disparity between Godkin's ideals and American reality was so glaring that later he called the USA of the 1870s-1890s a 'cheap civilisation'. He was caustic in his criticism of many of the vices of the Gilded Age. He saw that the expanding trusts were making a chimera of free competition, which he regarded as the foundation of society. He had the disgust of the refined intellectual for the emergent vulgar plutocracy. He attributed the growth of monopolies solely to what he regarded as unreasonable state stewardship of commerce and industry. He believed that a return to free trade could be effected by restricting the authority of the government. He urged the abandonment of the practice of state subsidies to manufacturers, who were turning Congress into an auction hall, involving it in disgraceful scandals such as the exposure of Credit Mobilier. He denounced the allotment of public lands to the railway companies and the government's protectionist policy relative to the 191 big monopolies. He stigmatised the venality and corruption of the American system where 'the seat in the Senate has really been bought',^^1^^ and suggested barring the trusts from political power by a reforjn of the civil service. The amazingly unrealistic character of the means proposed by Godkin for fighting the trusts was still further accentuated by his negative attitude to anti-trust legislation: such legislation signified interference in society's economic life and Godkin regarded it as the 're-introduction of the old despotic control of trade by Government' and called it `criminal'^^2^^. From this standpoint, The Nation considered even Bryan's pronouncements too radical.^^3^^ Godkin was suspicious of the farmers' movements. He considered that the use of `greenbacks' was a scheme of dishonest debtors to cheat creditors.^^4^^ 'The demand of free-silver is demand for a division of property,'^^5^^ Godkin declared and wrote of the `savageries' of the farmers' movements. He charged that the farmers were trying to cure economic ills by political means. The teaching of freedom in its farmers', and particularly proletarian, interpretation was unacceptable to Godkin. He regarded these interpretations no longer as a deepening of democratic principles but as egalitarianism destructive to the development of individuality. In reply to the workers' demands for steps to reduce unemployment, Godkin wrote that the unemployed should be assisted through organised charity only if they were not 'grasping or discontented or anarchical'.^^6^^ He attacked Debs for demanding the nationalisation of industry,^^7^^ declaring that socialism had 'despotic tendencies'.^^8^^
He believed that the principles of free trade should be applied not only inside the USA but also in international relations where the competitors were no longer individuals but states. He was against settling international disputes by military means (for, apart from everything else, this would _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, 19 April 1900, p. 295.
~^^2^^ The Nation, 15 July 1897, pp. 44--45.
~^^3^^ The Nation, 23 March 1899, p. 214.
~^^4^^ The Nation, 27 February 1873.
^^5^^ The Nation, 2 July 1896, p. 1.
~^^6^^ W. Armstrong, £. L. Godkin and American Foreign Policy, New York, 1957, p. 37.
~^^7^^ The Nation, 15 July 1897, p. 44.
~^^8^^ The Nation, 29 April 1897, p. 316.
192 mean strengthening state authority), and urged free international trade.In opposing colonial expansion, Godkin, like most of the anti-imperialists, rarely used economic arguments. He stressed its moral, ethical and constitutional aspects. This was a weakness of the anti-expansionists: they abided by the rules of the polemic set by their adversaries and rarely ventured to use such `vulgar' arguments as material interests. This was perhaps due to the century-old tradition of debate over the Constitution, a debate that was almost entirely estranged from economics.
Godkin was one of the few people who began resisting expansion and expansionist ideology long before the SpanishAmerican War. He was consistently outspoken against the acquisition of islands in the West Indies, and the establishment of a protectorate over Santo Domingo. In 1895 he said that President Cleveland was pursuing a `traitorous' policy in the Venezuelan dispute.^^1^^ He characterised the Americanstaged coup in Hawaii as 'the action of the sugar, for the sugar and by the sugar' and protested against the drive to annex the islands in 1893 and 1897.^^2^^
In the 1890s he levelled withering criticism at the big navy doctrine. Every book published by Captain Alfred T. Mahan was comprehensively reviewed in The Nation. The anti-expansionist arguments that were developed during the Spanish-American War were crystallised in these reviews. For instance, in its comments on Mahan's Hawaii and Our Future Sea Power, The Nation wrote that the American republic was threatened by militarism.^^3^^ In a long review of The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future, Godkin warned that the naval armaments race would not bring security to the USA.^^4^^ He repeated this warning time and again, calling the doctrine of sea power an 'earthquake and physical power doctrine'.^^5^^ He drew attention to the inner contradictions in Mahan's arguments. 'He [Mahan.---I.~D.] _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, 26 December 1895, p. 456.
^^2^^ The Nation, 2 March 1893, p. 154; 9 March 1893, p. 170; 11 November 1897, p. 365.
~^^3^^ The Nation, 16 December 1897, p. 468.
~^^4^^ The Nation, 14 July 1898, pp. 34--35.
~^^5^^ The Nation, 3 October 1895, pp. 234--35.
193 has consistently argued for more powerful armaments only as a defensive measure. We doubt if a plea, or an excuse, for an aggressive navy can fairly be found in all his books.'^^1^^ Godkin's opposition to possible military entanglements was based not only on abstract pacifist considerations but also on quite realistic arguments. He advocated the solution of social problems and reasoned that the country's militarisation would only aggravate these problems. Regarding the expansionists' manifest destiny theory he wrote that 'if we have any ``destiny'' at all... it is the destiny and the honor of working out in peace the industrial and social problems that are taking on such vast proportion in our land'.^^2^^ He rejected Strong's calls for expansion, saying that Americans should think not of the role of armed missionaries but of the ways and means of resolving the nation's internal problems.^^3^^Considerable courage was needed to confront the jingoist hysteria that was sweeping across the USA in connection with the events in Cuba. The Nation censured the expansionist senators, particularly Henry Cabot Lodge who stretched the truth and misrepresented facts in order to start a war.^^4^^ When the Maine was sunk The Nation carried an article under the heading 'National Hysteria', in which it was noted that in Congress Spain was being charged with responsibility for the Maine disaster at a time when the naval tribunal had found that it was impossible to impeach responsibility to anybody, since those who bore the responsibility had gone to the bottom together with the ship. While war preparations were hurried with the cry 'Remember the Maine', Godkin tirelessly argued that war was no method of settling disputes.^^5^^
In his efforts to prevent war Godkin developed his earlier argument about the danger of militarism and expansion to republican liberties in the USA. The Nation wrote: 'We know what happened to the Roman republic when it became all-powerful.... When she [Rome] no longer had rivals to _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, 13 April 1899, p. 270.
~^^2^^ The Nation, 29 September 1892, p. 57.
~^^3^^ The Nation, 16 March 1893, p. 191.
~^^4^^ The Nation, 5 March 1896, p. 187.
~^^5^^ The Nation, 21 April 1898, p. 297.
__PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13---0284 194 engage herstrength, her militarism engulfed her. One civil war followed another, until she found relief in a monarchy which gave her^peace in exchange for liberty. The military republic which grew out of the French Revolution ran.nearly the same course, except that the monarch took away the nation's liberty without giving her peace.'^^1^^When war with Spain broke out Godkiii redoubled his anti-war efforts. He was disgusted with the hypocrisy of official propaganda and bitingly ridiculed the government's statements that the USA had gone to war to liberate Cuba.^^2^^ During the war The Nation kept count of the brutalities of American troops in Cuba.
Godkin regarded the annexation of the Philippines a 'manifestation of imperialism', writing that the USA had no right to these islands.^^3^^
In Godkin's criticism of US expansionist policy in the Philippines, as in the criticism of most of the anti-- imperialists, the central argument was that colonialism was inconsistent with democratic principles and, chiefly, with the principle of national sovereignty. In an article headed `MoralCatastrophe' Godkin wrote that the annexation of the Philippines signified violation of four basic principles set forth by the Declaration of Independence: '!) That all just power is derived from the consent of the people who live under it. 2) That armed resistance is presumptive evidence that this consent has not been obtained. 3) That the people who offer this resistance are the supreme judges of its justifiability__ 4) That fitness for self-government can be determined only by the people themselves.'^^4^^ Relative to McKinley's notorious statement that the Filipinos had to be ' civilised' in order to become fit for self-government, The Nation wrote: 'We have no reason for concluding that the Filipinos cannot set up as good a government as any other revolted Spanish state.'^^5^^
Godkin's attitude to war and expansion was consistent and uncompromising. But the profundity of his analysis and _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, 5 March 1896, p. 190.
~^^2^^ The Nation, 26 May 1898, p. 396.
~^^3^^ The Nation, 1 September 1898, p. 161; 6 October 1898, p. 253.
~^^4^^ The Nation,e 2 March 1899, p. 158.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 159.
195 the efficacy of his anti-war declaration? depended to a large extent on his understanding of the actual reasons for war and of the forces interested in expansion. And here he was fettered by the narrowness of liberal bourgeois philosophy. There was an occasion when The Nation carried the phrase that the 'Jingo reflects the fears and hope? ... of Wall Street',^^1^^ but this was rather a slip of the tongue, a phrase wafted into the editorial office of the liberal journal by the wind from the street.Godkin pinpointed many factors that had induced the USA to embark upon expansion and war, and made many keen remarks and observations, but they belonged largely to the constitutional-ethical field. In considering foreign policy issues he usually lost sight of the link between material interests and politics. Frequently he imputed the war to statesmen who had jettisoned the basic democratic principles of the USA. In 'Diplomacy and the Newspaper', an article written as early as 1895, he noted that there was a particularly large number of jingoists among 'naval officers, and Republican politicians of greater or less standing'.^^2^^ Later he underscored the responsibility of Congress and President McKinley. However, when asked about what had motivated politicians to act in that manner, Godkin gave an unrealistic answer: passion, ambition, and, above all, the specious theories that had deafened them. The Nation wrote bitterly: the idea that if a nation is to be great it must, 'like Rome, be ``imperial''', that is, it must reign over a large number of communities of one sort or another', 'do them good, and elevate them, not in their own way but in yours', had run through Europe and had even made its way to America.^^3^^ Godkin deplored the fact that the expansionist message of Kipling---White Man's Burden---had had a success on either side of the Atlantic.
As a journalist Godkin knew the power of the press and saw the significance of the expansionist propaganda in newspapers and journals. A few years before the outbreak of the war he noted the appearance of sensation-mongering _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, 2 January 1896, p. 6.
~^^2^^ The North American Review, May 1895, p. 571
~^^3^^ The Nation, 30 December 1897, p. 511.
__PRINTERS_P_195_COMMENT__ 13* 196 newspapers, for which circulation was the main source of existence and which were willing to write on any subject if it helped to boost circulation. While informed people would read their stories with a smile, somewhere in the backwoods of the Mississippi Valley they would be taken seriously.^^1^^ Writing in The Nation on 5 May, 1898 he made the point that in no other country was the press so sinister as in the USA. He excoriated the yellow journals, which 'profit enormously by what inflicts sorrow and loss on the rest of the community'.The narrowness of Godkin's criticism was also seen in his interpretation of the essence of imperialist expansion. Actually, he only condemned direct, forcible annexation of foreign territory, i.e., attempts to create a colonial empire on the old English pattern. However, he ignored other manifestations of imperialist expansion,notably economic penetration. This attitude was seen in the journal's indifference to the penetration of North American capital into Latin America under the flag of the Monroe doctrine and to US policy in China.
Despite his bourgeois-liberal limitations, Godkin was always an uncompromising opponent of US colonial expansion. During the last years of his life he waslncreasingly pessimistic about the possibility of resolving the nation's social problems. His disenchantment was largely due to US colonial policy. Shortly before his death he wrote: 'I came here fifty years ago with high and fond ideals about America.... They are now all shattered, and I have apparently to look elsewhere to keep even moderate hopes about the human race alive.'^^2^^ He returned to England in 1901 and died a year later.
While Edwin Lawrence Godkin was the chief of the ' Mohicans of bourgeois democracy' supported by the elite of the American liberal intelligentsia, Carl Schurz (1829--1906) was the spokesman of a more pragmatic school that had considerable political experience. This group of men were familiar with the 'corridors of power' of their day and were therefore free of doctrinaire illusions.
Carl Schurz's life was full of stormy events. He was born in a small town on the Rhine, Germany. He was active in the revolution of 1848 as a student leader at the University of _-_-_
~^^1^^ The North American Review, May 1895, pp. 570, 572.
^^2^^ Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought. Vol. I, p. 167.
197 Bonn, and then as an officer of the revolutionary army. His bold rescue of Professor Gottfried Kinkel from a jail made him a popular figure throughout Germany. He emigrated to the USA in 1852 and quickly became involved in politics. He was one of the founders of the Republican Party and took part in the famous polemic between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas on the side of Lincoln. Lincoln wrote warmly to him in 1860: '...to the extent of our limited acquaintance, no man stands nearer my heart than yourself.' In the Civil War Schurz was one of the most radical Union generals; he insisted on the immediate emancipation of black slaves. During the Reconstruction he was a leading radical Republican and demanded the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson for his sympathies for the Southern planters. Later, as Secretary of the Interior he championed a more liberal policy towards American Indians and initiated bills protecting the country's natural wealth.In the 1880s-1890s Schurz no longer held high government office, but this did not mean he had retired into private life. At first he wrote for Godkin's The Nation and for The Evening Post; from 1892 to 1897 he was editorial writer for Harper's Weekly Magazine. In this period he wrote the biographies Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. In 1892--1900, as president of the influential National Civil Service Reform League, he urged liberal reforms and the uprooting of the glaring corruption and bribery. His voice was heeded in Washington becaxise of his political influence and also because he was regarded as one of the most popular personalities of the German associations in the USA.
He began his sharp criticism of US expansionist policy as earlyJas the 1880s. His articles (frequently unsigned) attacking the big navy doctrine appeared in Harper's Weekly Magazine.^^1^^ In 1893 he branded the plans to annex Hawaii, noting that while these islands would be a good naval station a navy bigger than the one the USA already had would be needed to protect them,^^2^^ and in 1896 he denounced the US government's stand in the Venezuelan dispute.
Schurz did not succumb to the jingoist campaign over the sinking, of the Maine. His article `Patriotism', printed in _-_-_
~^^1^^ Harper's Weekly Magazine, 20 July 1889; 22 April 1893.
^^2^^ Harper's Weekly Magazine, 25 February 1893, p. 170.
198 Harper's Weekly Magazine in March 1898 on the eve of the Spanish-American War, urged exploring every means for maintaining peace. In a speech before the New York Chamber of Commerce on 7 April 1898 he declared that it would be criminal to start a war against Spain.When the Anti-Imperialist League was formed he became one of its most active members, not only as an honorary vicepresident but also as a leading orator. His energy was amazing.^ Theodore Roosevelt, who had once been on friendly terms with Schurz, wrote irritably to Lodge: 'If we ever come to nothing as a nation [meaning the fight in Congress over the ratification of the peace treaty with Spain.---/. D.} it will be because [of] the teaching of Carl Schurz, President Eliot, the Evening Post and the futile sentimentalists.'^^1^^
In opposing thellS imperialist policy Schurz frequently referred to the so-called compact territory doctrine and the homogeneous racial composition of its population as the foundation of the stability and development of Republican institutions. Unlike the proponents of colonial seizures, who regarded them as the continuation of the USA's expansion over the preceding 200 years, Schurz saw the annexation of the Philippines as a rupture with the practice of promoting the nation's continental development. The former expansion was characterised, Schurz said, by the acquisition of territory adjoining the USA's frontiers and situated in a moderate climatic zone where democratic institutions could nourish and the people could settle in large numbers; the population of these territories could be easily assimilated and accepted into the Union. This expansion did not involve any significant enlargement of the US army and navy. The new territories, which the expansionists wanted, were a different matter: a considerable military force would be needed to hold them. The war against Spain, undertaken on the pretext of `liberation', had been turned into a war of conquest, an act of criminal aggression.^^2^^ The annexation of the Philippines, Schurz declared, would pose the USA with issues, any solution of which would imperil democratic institutions. _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Letters of Theodore llwsevelt, Ed. by E. E. Morison, Vols. I-III, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1951, Vol. l', p. 108.
~^^2^^ Carl Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers, Ed. by Frederick Bancroft, Vols. 1-6, New York, 1969, Vol. 6, pp. 3--4.
199 If the annexed islands were to become States of the Union the USA would be faced with a myriad of new economic, administrative, religious, military, and other problems, and, lastly, it 'would bring us another lot of about 13,000,000 Spanish-Americans mixed with Indian blood, and perhaps some twenty Senators and fifty or sixty Representatives, with seventy to eighty votes in the electoral college, and with them a flood of Spanish-American politics, notoriously the most disorderly, tricky and corrupt politics on the face of the earth'.^^1^^ To back up his argument Schurz alleged that the peoples of tropical countries had shown no convincing instance of their ability to carry on democratic government.^^2^^ Schurz,unquestionably, had some racial prejudices but they were not the determining element either of his outlook or of his attitude to colonial conquest. This is shown by his participation in the Civil War against the slave-owners and his resolute stand^during the Reconstruction. These considerations were shared by many bourgeois democrats, whose views were shaped in the 1850s-1860s under the impact of the geographical school in bourgeois sociology (Henry T. Buckle, John W. Draper, and others). Historians note that Schurz was impelled into this attitude by, among other things, his efforts to refute the theories of Benjamin Kidd (who was popular in the USA), who preached the 'white man's burden' in the tropical countries.Schurz held that any other solution of the question---the annexation of the Philippines by the USA as conquered provinces with the inhabitants denied the rights of citizenship---was even more unacceptable than their incorporation in the Union on an equal footing with the other States. In that event the USA would have governing and governed Americans, with the result that the foundations of the republic would be undermined.^^3^^
Dismissing the arguments of the expansionists that the Filipinos were unable to govern themselves, Schurz wrote: '...there is an overwhelming abundance of testimony---some _-_-_
~^^1^^ Our Future Foreign Policy, Address Delivered by the Hon. Carl Schurz at the National Conference at Saratoga, New York, 19 August 1898, p. 9.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 5.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 4.
200 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1979/UIAI351/20070621/299.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.06.26) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ top __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ of it unwilling---that the Filipinos are fully the equals, and even the superiors, of the Cubans and the Mexicans.'^^1^^He suggested an international convention to safeguard the independence of the Filipino people.^^2^^ He reminded Americans of the assistance rendered to American troops by Filipino insurgents, of the treaty concluded between Dewey and Aguinaldo, and of the latter's betrayal by Americans. 'I am pleading,' he said, '...for the cause of the American people against an administration of our public affairs which has wantonly plunged this country into an iniquitous war; which has disgraced the Republic by a scandalous breach of faith to a people struggling for their freedom whom we had used as allies; which has been systematically seeking to deceive and mislead the public mind by the manufacture of false news; which has struck at the very foundation of our Constitution government.'^^3^^ He denounced the false patriotism expressed in the maxim, 'Our country, right or wrong!', saying that it should be reworded: 'Our country---when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'
On the question of the forces behind expansion Schurz offered much more realistic arguments than Godkin and frequently underscored the material interests of 'some influential Americans'. In an article written in 1893 he examined the evolution of the manifest destiny theory, which was a cornerstone of the expansionist doctrines, and in large measure showed the forces behind it. He noted that the manifest`destiny'doctrine, earlier used'by the slave-owners, had acquired`a'new.meaning in the 1880s and 1890s and that it 'finds favor with several not numerically strong but very demonstrative classes of people---Americans who have business ventures in foreign lands, or who wish to embark in such; citizens of an ardent National ambition who think that the conservative traditions of our foreign policy are out of date, and that it is time for the United States to take an active part and to assert their power in the international politics of the world ... and lastly, what may be called the navy interest---officers of the navy and others taking especial _-_-_
~^^1^^ Carl Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers, Vol. 6, p. 81.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 34.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 119.
201 pride in the development of our naval force, many of whom advocate a large increase of our war fleet'.^^1^^Following the outbreak of the Spanish-American War Schurz spoke time and again of the interests pressing for the conquest of foreign territory. At a conference in Saratoga on 19 August 1898, he said: 'We hear already of the formation of numerous syndicates with much money behind them, to exploit the resources of our new acquisitions, and also their anxiety to have United States officers appointed who will favor their operations, and also of influential politicians being largely interested in these syndicates.'^^2^^ Addressing a conference in Chicago on 17 October 1899, he emphasised 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'.^^3^^
Like Godkin, he advocated the expansion of American commerce and the acquisition of new foreign markets, but not through forcible colonial expansion. Without denying that it was possible to expand American commerce in the Pacific, he said: 'But does the trade of China really require that we should have the Philippines and a great display of power to get our share?... Trade is developed, not by the biggest guns, but by the best merchants. '^^4^^ On the basis of US Department of Commerce statistics on United States exports in the 1890s he drew the conclusion: '...we have made wonderful progress in selling goods abroad, not only without possessing colonies and without owning the respective markets, but competing with nations which do possess colonies and do own the markets we invaded. It seems, therefore, that the possession of colonies on our part is not necessary to open markets for our goods.'^^5^^
Schurz never stopped his crusade against the creation of a US colonial empire. At the 1900 election campaign he fought for the formation of the Anti-Imperialist Party, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Harper's New Monthly Magazine, October 1893, p. 738.
~^^2^^ Our Future Foreign Policy, Address Delivered by the Hon. Carl Schurz at the National Conference at Saratoga, New York, 19 August 1898, p. 11.
~^^3^^ Carl Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers, pp. 109--10.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 28.
~^^5^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers, 'Our Foreign Policy', p. 13.
202 to the end of his life remained a champion of the independence of the Filipino people.Like Schurz, George F. Hoar (1826--1906) was one of the leading 'practical anti-imperialists'. But while Schurz's audience consisted of large meetings arranged by the AntiImperialist League, Hoar spoke from the rostrum of Congress.
His life was typical of the old guard of founders of the Republican Party who sustained the principles of the AntiImperialist League. He was born in Massachusetts, and it was there that he began his long political career: he was one of the founders of the Republican Party in his state, called for the abolition of slavery during the Civil War, and joined the radical Republicans during' the period of Reconstruction. He then continued to play a prominent part in the nation's political life: he was a member of the House of Representatives for four terms, a Senator from 1877J to 1904, and headed several Senate committees. In the 1880s and 1890s he was close to liberal circles criticising the most unseemly aspects of American reality. Moreover, he was known for his educational activities: he helped to organise a polytechnical college in Worchester, was a trustee of Harvard University, and a member of the board of the Smithsonian Institution, and did much to enlarge the Library of Congress.
Hoar was not as consistent as Godkin and Schurz in condemning American expansion. He militated against the annexation of Santo Domingo and US intervention in Cuban affairs. However, he approved the government's attitude to the Venezuelan dispute and called the seizure of Hawaii a measure of coastal defence. At the same time, he was consistently anti-annexationist relative to the Philippines and was one of the main anti-imperialist speakers in Congress. Opponents of the Treaty of Paris sent him their petitions. In the period from 12 December 1898 to 4 February 1899 Hoar personally canvassed nearly 15,000 signatures under the petition against the treaty. (Hoar headed the list drawn up by the Russian Ambassador in Washington of the leading critics of US foreign policy.^^1^^)
_-_-_~^^1^^ Foreign Policy Archives of Russia, Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, File 114, p. 301. Kassini to Muravyov, 20 October 1898.
203As other anti-expansionists, Hoar criticised colonial seizures with moral, humanitarian, and constitutional arguments,andregarded them asextremely'uripleasant but accidental retreats from traditional American policy. In reply to Lodge, who urged enlarging the army, he said: 'The American flag is in more danger from the imperialists than it would be if the whole of Christendom were to combine its power against it. Foreign violence at worst could only rend it. But these men are trying to stain it.'^^1^^ He not only made passionate speeches. In difficult debates he showed that he was a skilled and tenacious polemist able to drive the most cynical opponent into a corner. A sample of this is his polemic with the expansionist Senator Orville H. Platt, who advocated the annexation of the Philippines. Quoting the laws of States, where, for various reasons, the participation of the population in elections was restricted, Platt attacked the doctrine of people's sovereignty. Hoar maintained that attempts to govern a nation without its consent was a violation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The following dialogue took place:
'Mr. Hoar: May I ask the Senator from Connecticut one question at this point?
'Mr. Platt of Coanecticut: Certainly.
'Mr. Hoar: It is whether, in his opinion, governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed?
'Mr. Platt: From the consent of some of the governed.
'Mr. Hoar: From the consent of some of the governed?
'Mr. Platt: Yes. The State of Massachusetts governs people who cannot read and write, and it governs them pretty effectually, too. If they commit any crime, it punishes them, but it does not allow them to vote.
'Mr. Hoar: Will the Senator from Connecticut pardon me for informing him that the State, however, tells them that it will teach them to read and write and puts it in their power to comply with that condition almost as much as does the State of Connecticut when it has a registration law.
'Mr. Platt: 1 do not know how it is in Massachusetts now---~
_-_-_~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 33, Part 5 p. 4306.
204'Mr. Hoar: If the Senator will further pardon me for one moment---and I beg his pardon---I do not believe there is a native-born citizen in Massachusetts who cannot read and write__ For persons who come in from abroad we provide, I suppose, the most costly system of common school education in the world to fit them....
'Mr. Platt: Mr. President, I suppose since the information---
'Mr. Hoar: May I ask the Senator from Connecticut one further question?
'Mr. Platt of Connecticut: Certainly.
'Mr. Hoar: Does the Senator from Connecticut seriously claim that the great doctrine which is at the foundation of our Revolution and the Declaration of Independence is a falsehood; that it should be qualified by saying governments derive their just powers from the consent of some of the governed, and that the violation of that principle in regard to 10,000,000 people, without any discrimination between ignorance and intelligence, is justified by the reading and the writing clause of some of our State constitutions?'^^1^^
He offered a cogent argument against the annexation of the Philippines in his speeches in the Senate on 9 January 1899 and 17 April 1900. He said: 'The constitutional question is: Has Congress the power, under our Constitution, to hold in subjection unwilling vassal States?
'The question of international law is: Can any nation rightfully convey to another sovereignty over an unwilling people who have thrown off its dominion, asserted their independence, established a government of their own....
'The question of justice and righteousness is: Have we the right to crush and hold under our feet an unwilling and subject people whom we had treated as allies, whose independence we are bound in good faith to respect, who had established their own free government, and who had trusted us?'^^2^^
He was more vehemently against racism than any other _-_-_
~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd Session, Vol. 32, Part 1, Washington,*1899, pp. 296--97.
^^2^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 33, Part 5, Washington, 1900, p. 4280.
205 anti-expansionist. He took every opportunity to denounce the doctrine of superior and inferior races. He argued that God had made of one blood all the nations of the world and that the love of liberty did not depend on the colour of the skin.^^1^^ Many of his caustic remarks were directed against those who^ought to profit from the annexation of the Philippines. 'The nerve in the pocket,' he said, 'is still sensitive, though the nerve in the heart may be numb.... We are to turn our guns on that patriot people ... for the baser and viler motive ... that we can make a few dollars a year out of their trade.'^^2^^ He cautioned the USA against entering into competition with the great powers in the plundering of China, in the division of Africa, in forcing commerce upon unwilling peoples at the cannon's mouth, saying that this would be disastrous to the morals of the nation and its democratic political institutions.~^^3^^With the exception of Richard F. Pettigrew, nobody in Congress was so eloquent as Hoar in exposing the treachery of American official circles in regard to their ally, the Filipino people, in the war against Spain. In one of his speeches he recounted the history of the relations with Aguinaldo, and then the history of the US colonial war in the Philippines. He said: 'You have sacrificed nearly 10,000 American lives---the flower of our youth. You have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desire to benefit. You have established reconcentration camps. Your generals are coming home from their harvest, bringing their sheaves with them, in the shape of other thousands of sick and wounded and insane to drag out miserable lives, wrecked in body and mind. You make the American flag in the eyes of a numerous people the emblem of sacrilege in Christian churches, and of the burning of human dwellings, and of the horror of the water torture.'^^4^^
Despite his consistent stand against colonial expansion, Hoar could not break the links binding him to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Part 1, p. 714.
^^2^^ Ibid., Part 5, p. 4305.
~^^3^^ George F. Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 2, New York, 1903, p. 311.
~^^4^^ Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 35, Part 6, p. 5792.
206 Republican Party. While justifiably criticising Bryan's platform,^^1^^ lie found no alternative in 1900 to voting for the re-election of President McKinley.Edward Atkinson (1827--1905) was one of the few who criticised US expansionism exclusively from economic positions. It would have been difficult to find a more suitable person for this role: a textile manufacturer who took an interest in political economy, he was both a practitioner and theorist of free trade. In 1861 he published a book entitled Cheap Cotton by Free Labor, in which he proved that slavery was unprofitable. For forty years after the Civil War he was President of the Boston Insurance Company and an economist preaching the laissez faire principles. In The Industrial Progress of the Nation, a book published in 1889, he based himself on the authority of Adam Smith and Frederic Bastiat to enlarge upon the ideas of free competition, and wrote against state interference in the nation's economy. Like other liberal champions of 'free enterprise' he had mixed feelings about the trusts. He sympathised with the criticism levelled at some of the trusts by the first muckraker Henry D. Lloyd, but he classified trusts into `good' and `bad'. He wrote to Lloyd: '1 have very frequently had occasion to say that there were trusts and trusts. On the one side we may cite the Standard Oil Company and the American Sugar Company. They have been organized by men of the greatest ability. They deal with subjects which require an immense capital very much concentrated, in order that the work may be done in the most effective manner.... Now, on the other hand, in my professional practice as underwriter I have come into direct contact with several trusts of a very different type: trusts organized for the purpose of monopolizing and putting up prices.'^^2^^ Moreover, he was apprehensive of the trade unions. Meaning the Knights of Labor, he wrote that they were secret societies that imposed a 'subtle restriction upon individual liberty, affecting all the methods of production and distribution'.^^3^^ He advised _-_-_
~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 33, Part 5, p. 4279.
~^^2^^ Wisconsin Historical Society, Manuscript Department, Henry D. Lloyd Papers, Box 15, E. Atkinson to H. D. Lloyd, 9 May 1898.
~^^3^^ Edward Atkinson, The Industrial Progress of the Nation, New York, 1890, p. 245.
207 labour leaders to abandon what he called ambitious plans for reshaping society's entire structure and to turn to more practical recipes.^^1^^He made his first statement on foreign policy when he censured the US attitude to the Venezuelan dispute. Then he protested against the jingoist campaign on the eve of the war of 1898. His activities during the Spanish-American War---publication of the journal The Anti-Imperialist, pamphlets, and speeches---made him one of the most influential members of the Anti-Imperialist League.
His approach to imperialist expansion, however, was that of a bourgeois economist of the epoch of free competition speaking for the non-monopoly bourgeois that had no stake in colonial conquest. He wrote that exports had reached 10 per cent of the output in only a few industries, that the bulk of the exports consisted of farm products (in 1898 the entire^ export was valued at $1,204,123,134, with farm products accounting for $784,999,009).^^2^^ But these statistics were evidence only of the fact that at the turn of the century there was an imbalance between the USA's economic potential arid the relatively small volume of exports of manufactured goods. It was this imbalance that the monopolies wanted to rectify when they pressed for the seizure of foreign markets.
He criticised the one-sided character of US commerce with Latin American and Far Eastern countries as nonequivalent exchange and urged the abolition of the high tariffs obstructing imports into the USA. 'We may buy more from some states than we sell to them,' he wrote, 'but, if we still obstruct the import of many articles which other nations might supply, especially Eastern and Latin American states, we thereby limit their power of purchasing from us.'^^3^^ Moreover, lower customs tariffs would enable American manufacturers to obtain cheaper primary materials and thereby increase the quantity of goods for export.'^^4^^ Like Godkin, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 239--40.
~^^2^^ The Anti-Imperialist, 3 June 1899, p. 26; 15 September 1899, p. 4.
~^^3^^ The North American Review, February 1900, p. 295.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 298.
208 he championed laissez faire in international commerce, advocating natural trade and an end to government subsidies to individual firms.His main argument was that only industrialised nations could be effective partners in trade and that the seizure of colonies was therefore senseless. He made a detailed analysis of American commerce with the leading nations of the world. In 1899 the American export was valued at $1,227,203,088, of which $511,816,475, or 41.71 per cent, were accounted for by trade with Britain. Canada, Australasia, the British West Indies, Bermuda, British Guiana, and Honduras accounted for $122,129,368, or 12.17 per cent. The export to Europe was: $155,772,279 to Germany, $60,596,899 to France, and $123,605,237 to the Netherlands and Belgium. Thus, the exports to Europe and to English-speaking countries amounted to $1,058,198,496, or seven-eighths of the total US exports. On the other hand, 49,822,378 worth, or only 4 per cent, of the total American exports went to Asia and Africa. In other words, about 800 million Asians and Africans purchased American goods and wares to the value of only $77 million at the annual rate of less than ten cents per head, while Canadians did so at $18 per head.^^1^^ On the basis of these statistics he held that the seizure of colonies in Asia would give the USA nothing in the way of expanding its market. 'But where [meaning China.---I. D.\ masses of people are on the edge of starvation all the time,' he wrote, 'and where we already buy all the tea, raw silk and a few other commodities that China can produce and that we want, what is the measure of the possibility of an increase of traffic?'^^2^^ The same situation obtained in India and many other Eastern states.
This shows that Atkinson's analysis was based on realistic observations: by destroying the natural economy, capitalism was creating a larger market. On other points his line of thinking was vulnerable. As early as during the pre-- monopoly period the commerce of the imperial state with the colonies had never been an equivalent exchange; it was _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 295--98, 299.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 299.
209 sooner legalised plunder. But the main thing was that Atkinson overlooked a key factor introduced by the imperialist epoch, namely, the export of capital, which became one of the principal objectives of colonial seizures. 'Typical of the old capitalism, when free competition held undivided sway,' Lenin wrote, 'was the export of goods. Typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when monopolies rule, is the export of capital.... The need to export capital arises from the fact that in a few countries capitalism has become ``overripe'' and ... capital cannot find a field for ``profitable'' investment.'^^1^^ The profits from investments in economically backward countries, where land was relatively cheap and wages and the price of primary materials were in most cases low, were what impelled the monopolies to demand colonies. Control of sources of primary materials was of special significance in the.imperialist epoch, in the sharp struggle between the monopolies and the imperialist powers backing them. However, Atkinson failed to see the link between imperialist conquest and domination by the trusts. This robbed his economic arguments against US colonial policy of much of their potency.His statement that 'trade does not follow the flag, but is governed by the price and quality of goods'^^2^^ was a more effective argument against imperialist colonial expansion. Counterposed to the expansionist slogan of 'trade follows the flag', this proposition was a manifestation of Manchesterism and a convenient stance for opposing costly 'criminal aggression'. 'We throw away our previous exemption from militarism, which constitutes one of our advantages in establishing low cost of production coupled with high rates of wages or earnings,'^^3^^ Atkinson wrote. His standpoint was obvious: in the final analysis, his opposition to expansion was an expression of the views of the old free trade bourgeoisie.
In characterising the part played by Atkinson in the Anti-Imperialist League, Erving Winslow wrote to W. A. Croffut in February 1900: 'Mr. Atkinson is not a lively speaker but he is a most impressive one and it is of the utmost importance that the economic fallacies of _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, pp. 240, 242.
~^^2^^ The Anti-Imperialist, 15 September 1899, p. 6.
~^^3^^ The Anti-Imperialist, 3 June 1899, p. 6.
__PRINTERS_P_209_COMMENT__ 14---0284 210 expansion, which are taking more or less hold of the cities of the South, should be met by such arguments as he is more capable of employing than any other man in the country.'^^1^^ It was this aspect of economic criticism that largely attracted the attention of other opponents of colonial expansion. For instance, Professor James L. Laughlin said at a meeting in Chicago on 30 April 1899: 'They tell us, indeed, that trade follows the flag. It would be equally sensible to say that game follows the hunter, or that the horse follows the cart. You may wave the flag until its honored stripes have been worn into tatters, or you may cover the waters of Luzon with a new navy, but you have not increased our trade one whit, unless you have the economic advantages above enumerated; and, if we have them, we will inevitably have the trade with or without the army and navy.'^^2^^ This was also the keynote of the leaflet 'Save the Republic' brought out by the Anti-Imperialist League: 'All the ends of trade can be obtained without territorial expansion. The key to trade and commerce lies in the best terms and the best value. The fable that ``trade follows the flag" is fit only for children or fools.'^^3^^ __*_*_*__Criticism along the lines of traditional liberalism, however sharp and emphatic, had many weaknesses. A more profound analysis of the mainsprings of imperialist expansion was made by spokesmen of the radical wing, which consisted of some leading members of the AntiImperialist League of New England and a number of people with Populist leanings.
The struggle against the monopolies drew the attention of the Populists to economic problems, and this enabled them to trace the bond between the growth of the trusts and expansion. Only a few Populists swallowed the `new _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers, E. Winslow to A. CroiTut, 9 February 1900.
~^^2^^ Ibid., The Chicago Liberty Meeting Held at Central Music Hall, 30 April 1899, Chicago, 1899.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Leaflet `Save the Republic'.
211 frontier' propaganda in the hope that the condition of the farmers would be improved with Hie seizure of foreign territories, i.e., markets. Historians note that the growth of isolationist sentiments in the farming slates of the American West at the close of the nineteenth century was in many ways inspired by hatred of the monopolies, by the intuition that the monopolies were at the back of US expansion.^^1^^US foreign policy problems were not discussed by the Populists at their conventions or in their programme documents. During the Spanish-American War the Populists departed from the political scene altogether. However, in the early 1890s their spokesmen in Congress usually adopted an anti-imperialist and anti-war stand. They spoke emphatically against the USA building a big navy. Jerry Simpson, for example, believed that battleships were useless, that it was necessary to build a merchant marine. William A. Peffer was apprehensive that navies would be used 'to suppress rebellion and insurrection and revolution amongst the common people'.^^2^^ Senator Thomas Watson declared that 'we have nothing to fear from any European nation whatsoever'. Referring to 'the enemies we have to dread~' he explained:6 I mean overgrown and insolent corporations here at home; I mean the greed of the monopolies here at home.' A bill to turn the militia into a National Guard was defeated largely through the efforts of the Populists. They denounced it as a militarist bill.^^3^^
Some of the Populists characterised the imperialist seizures during the Spanish-American War as yet another Wall Street conspiracy against the working classes.^^4^^ One of them, Thomas Watson, charged: 'National bankers will profit by this war. The new bonds give them the basis for new banks, and their power is prolonged. The privileged classes all profit by this war. It takes the attention of the people off _-_-_
~^^1^^ R. A. Billington, 'The Origins of Middle Wcslorn Isolationism', Political Science Quarterly, March 1945, p. 51.
~^^2^^ Congressional Record, 53rd Congress, 3rd Session, Vol. 27, Part 3, Washington, 1895, pp. 2244, Part 4, 3095.
~^^3^^ Congressional hecord, 52nd Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 23, Part 4, Washington, 1892, p. 3361.
~^^4^^ The North American Review, June 1900, pp. 753--71.
__PRINTERS_P_211_COMMENT__ 14* 212 economic issues, and perpetuates the unjust system they have put upon us.... VVhat are we going to get out of this war as a nation? Endless trouble, complications, expense. Republics cannot go into the conquering business and remain republics. Militarism leads to military domination, military despotism. Imperialism smooths the way for the emperor.'^^1^^Ignatius Donnelly used his newspaper The Representative to denounce the USA's imperialist aims in the war. Henry Demarest Lloyd gave his support to the Anti-Imperialist League.^^2^^
Imperialist expansion was consistently .opposed by Richard F. Pettigrew (1848--1926), whose views were close to those of the Populists. His father was an Abolitionist and, moreover, a conductor on the Underground. He spent his childhood on his father's farm in Dakota. When the State of South Dakota was constituted Pettigrew was elected its first Senator. To quote Scott Nearing, 'Senator Pettigrew brought the spirit of the pioneer West into the Senate Chamber and kept it during twelve eventful years.'^^3^^ It was not often that such strong denunciations of the trusts were heard in the Senate. Pettigrew inveighed against the annexation of Hawaii, and then led the opposition in the Senate against the annexation of the Philippines. This 'bilious Senator', as he was called by the powers that be, was ultimately defeated in the 1900 elections.
The keynote of Pettigrew's pronouncements was that the power of the trusts should be restricted. In pressing for the relevant bills, he cited eloquent facts showing that wealth was being concentrated in the hands of a few and that there were poles of poverty and wealth. He gave the following facts in a speech in the Senate in June 1898: 'Millionaires, 4,000 families, less than three one-hundredths per cent of our population; aggregate wealth, $12 billion, 20 per cent of the wealth of the people of the United States. _-_-_
~^^1^^ C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson. Agrarian Rebel, New York, 1938, p. 334.
~^^2^^ The Representative, 4 May and 11 May 1898; 1 June 1898; 10 August and 17 August 1898; C. Destler, Henry Demarest Lloyd and the Empire of Reform, Philadelphia, 1963, pp. 449--50, 454.
~^^3^^ Richard F. Pettigrew, The Course of Empire, Introduction by Scott Nearing, Boni and Liveright, New York, 1920, p. IX.
213 Rich, 1,139,000 families, or 8.97 per cent of our population; aggregate wealth, $30,600,000,000, making a total for these two ... of $42,600,000,000 or 71 per cent of the wealth of the people of the United States, leaving 29 per cent for the 91 per cent of our population.'^^1^^Pettigrew's radicalism reached its highest point when he indicted not only the trusts, repeating Proudhon's famous words that 'capital is stolen labor, and its sole function is to continue stealing labor'. However, there was no mistaking the narrow, petty-bourgeois character of even his sharpest criticisms: while tirelessly flaying the trusts, he remained a champion of capitalism and laissez faire, looking for magical means of curbing the pernicious effects of competition that was leading to the emergence of trusts.
In June 1897 Pettigrew said that 'our civilization is founded upon the theory of evolution, upon the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, upon the law of competition, and is opposed to socialism.... Let man untrammeled and unrestrained, work out his destiny.... To-day, under the operation of this law of competition, we are drifting toward socialism on the one side and plutocracy on the other. It is for us to say whether we will stop the march of events in their course, and make this again a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, or allow the present to crystallize and thus continue to be what we now are--- a government of the trusts, by the trusts, and for the trusts.''^^2^^
In the Senate (in the period from 1894 to 1900) Pettigrew moved scores of resolutions demanding an inquiry into the illegal activities of the big monopolies and exposing the land acquisitions of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific and the machinations of the Standard Oil Company, the American Sugar Refining Company, the General Electric Company, the Joint Traffic Association, and other corporations.^^3^^ He made the point that the trusts were dominating the nation's economic and political life.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 31, Part 6, Washington, 1898, p. 5743.
~^^2^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 30, Part 2, Washington, 1897, pp. 1700--01.
^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 1700--13.
214Like many other Populists, he believed that state intervention in the nation's economic life was a major means of fighting the trusts. He suggested a new system of customs tariffs, the introduction of a graduated income tax (and an effective system of fines in the event it was violated) and, lastly, a silver currency ('honest dollar'). However, he sometimes doubted if all these measures would stop the trusts. At such moments he was inclined to think of public ownership as the last remedy against the trusts, adding that although he was no proponent of socialism'' the latter was preferable to despotism.^^1^^
Pettigrew's radical petty-bourgeois views underlay his attitude to colonial expansion. Many of his arguments were identical with the arguments of the exponents of classical liberalism, but they had a different edge and accent. Like other anti-expansionists, he appealed to morality and the Constitution. He cited cases where conquest had led to the downfall of republics, and spoke of the inevitable growth of militarism that would divert the nation from urgent internal problems. Following the ratification of the Treaty of Paris he suggested changing the official title of the US President, that he should 'hereafter be the President of the so-called Republic of the United States and the Emperor of the Islands of the Sea'.^^2^^
However, references to the Constitution were not generally characteristic of a person who did not believe in the sanctity of the Constitution and was engaged in finding the ways and means of democratising it. Of the Constitution, which was the banner of struggle for most of the anti-imperialists, Pettigrew later wrote: 'It [the Constitution of the United States.---/. D.] was a document designed to protect property rights and, through the century and a quarter that it has endured, it has served its purpose so well that it stands today, not only as the chief bulwark of American privilege and vested wrong, but as the greatest document ever designed by man for the safeguarding of the few in their work of exploiting and robbing the many.'^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 1713.
~^^2^^ Ibid., 56th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 34, Part 3, p. 2870.
~^^3^^ Richard F. Pettigrew, Triumphant Plutocracy, p. 140. This book was translated into Russian and it was read and highly appreciated __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 215. 215
By shifting the accent to economic arguments against expansion, he tried to prove that the newly acquired lands were a poor market, giving as his example the market of Hawaii: `If you look at their commerce, you will find that there has been ... a decrease of commerce between these islands and the United States since 1890. Why? Because the population is Asiatic and they want nothing that we produce. They live upon rice and they wear different clothes from what we wear. There is nothing that the United States produces that the laborers of those islands want.'^^1^^
One of Pettigrew's frequent arguments was that it was dangerous for the USA to annex East Asian territories. 'They can produce sugar for less than a ceiTt and a half a pound, and I venture to say you cannot produce it in Louisiana for less than 3~1/4 cents a pound.... The importation of Hawaiian sugar will kill the beet-sugar industry in this country absolutely,'^^2^^ he said. He tried to find an analogy in history, giving the following example: 'The price of farm products [in Rome.---I. D.] had fallen, as they were compelled to compete with the rich granaries of Egypt. Roman legions were no longer recruited among the farmers who tilled the soil.'^^3^^ He drew attention to what he believed was the ruinous competition of Eastern countries for some other United States industries. He believed that the New England wool and textile industries would be ruined by the rapidly growing industry of Japan, where workers' \vagps did not exceed 30 cents a day.^^4^^ He used other arguments against US expansion: annexed territories had no strategic value, expansion would increase the tax burden of the people in the USA, and so forth. There were racist undertones in some of his pronouncements. He said that no republics could be proclaimed in tropical countries for 'white men will not _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 214. by Lenin (Daniel R. Snirrner, American Anti-Imperialism and Russian Revdlut/un in R. S. Cohen et al. feds.], For Dirk Struik, Dordrecht, Holland, 107/1, p. 615).
~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 31, Part 7, Washington. 1808, p. 6260.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Part 2, pp. 6615,
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 6230.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 6618.
216 live there because of the climate',^^1^^ and called Hawaiians and Filipinos 'indolent savages of the South Seas'.On the whole, Pettigrew's economic arguments against US expansion differed little from the arguments presented by Atkinson. However, he went much deeper into the substance of the question, having a more profound understanding of what motivated the US policy of aggression. In a speech in the Senate in June 1898, he said: 'Among all plutocracies of the past, as well as among all monarchies of the past, whenever all power and all property have been gathered into the hands of the few and discontent appears among the masses, it has been the policy to acquire foreign possessions, to enlarge the army and the navy, to employ discontent and distract its attention.'^^2^^
Pettigrew groped for the economic mainsprings of US expansion, noting that the Hawaiians were being exploited as bonded labour congenial to foreign companies. The missionaries, he said, were looking not only after the morals of the natives but also after their property. 'So the Europeans and Americans who went to the paradise of indolence for the purpose of converting its people to Christianity have secured a solid title to 1,052,000 acres, while the poor, miserable natives have the remnant 257,000 acres.'^^3^^ He rejected the opinion that the acquisition of colonies would improve the life of large segments of the American people, pointing to the example of Britain, which had the richest colonies in the world, yet 66 per cent of its population had nothing.^^4^^ It would have been unnatural to have expected him to bring the link between expansion and the interests of the monopolies into bold relief. Nonetheless, he came close to this conclusion. 'Do our laborers favor this treaty?' he asked rhetorically in the Senate in July 1898, having the annexation of Hawaii in mind. 'Not a labor organisation in the United States favors it. Do our farmers favor this treaty of annexation? I have heard of none. A special interest favors the Hawaiian and American sugar trust, and the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 6259.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 6229.
~^^3^^ Richard F. Pettigrew, op. cit., p. 77.
~^^4^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 33, Part 1, Washington, 1900, pp. 800--09.
217 President of the United States falls into the line.'^^1^^ Later he wrote: 'Why this rush to control the Philippines, Haiti; Costa Rica? The answer can be given in one word---- exploitation! It is the search for markets; the search for trade; the search for foreign investment opportunities that is leading us to the South and to the East.^^2^^In a speech in Congress in early 1900 he used the example of several corporations to show how the monopolies were lining their pockets from the building of ships for the navy.
His pronouncements about manifest destiny show how radical his statements were. He called it a doctrine that had caused the strong to rob the weak, saying that it 'has committed more crimes, done more to oppress and wrong the inhabitants of the world than any other attribute to which mankind has fallen heir'.^^3^^
In 1898--1901 he referred time and again to the American intervention in the Philippines, making a particularly eloquent speech on 31 January 1901.^^4^^ He spoke of the heroism of the Filipinos and the brutality of the American troops. United States troops were flogging the natives to death, using the water torture, shooting prisoners, plundering and torturing even priests. Pettigrew declared that this barbarity could only be compared with the behaviour of the British in Africa. In another speech he presented his plan for the Philippines: 'You ask me what I would do with'the Philippines. I would draw our army back to Manila, I would send to the Philippine people assurance that they could set up their own government---a republic, such as they have set up under their constitution ... providing as it does, for universal education, for the protection of life and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Richard F. Pettigrew, op. cit., p. 40.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 351. An analogous statement was later made by Moorfield Storey, who declared that 'it is capital which brought on the Boer War, it is capital which led to the conquest of India, it is capital which pushed Russia into the war with Japan, it is capital which promotes the aggression of stronger upon weaker peoples, and to the policy of improving the Philippine Islands by capital from without we are absolutely opposed' (Merle Curti, Peace or War. The American Struggle, 1636--1936, New York, 1936, pp. 179--81).
~^^3^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 31, Part 7, Washington, 1898, p. 6258.
~^^4^^ Ibid., 56th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 34, Part 2, Washington, 1901, pp. 1713--19.
218 property, and I would say to the world ``Hands off!"\thinspace'^^1^^ In a letter to Pettigrew and Hoar General Alejandrino of the Filipino revolutionary army wrote: 'In the name of the Filipino people, and particularly in the name of my comrades in arms who suffer and are willing to suffer to the end the hardships of this cruel war for the freedom and independence of the Philippines, I thank those true and good Americans for the generous compaign they are making in the Senate and in the House.'^^2^^Pettigrew was the most eloquent but not the only spokesman of radical criticism. One of its exponents was the Congregational clergyman of Lake City, George Davis Herron, whose declarations against the plutocracy attracted attention. In'some of his sermons`he'indicted the immoral methods of hig business from the standpoint of Christian socialism. In a pamphlet entitled American Imperialism (1899) he drew a picture of the hard lot of the working people in his own country, denounced the hypocrisy of the US ruling circles and their spokesmen, and from this stance condemned'expansion. 'Pray, where can we turn'to find the Gospel more brutally misunderstood than in the pulpit---the pulpit that proposes to send ``the blessings of our Christianity and of our civilization" to the peoples across the seas? Shall we send to them the blessed condition of the thousands who spend their lives in mines for two hundred dollars a year? Shall we send to them the blessings of the men and women who toil in the 900 sweat-shops of this city of Chicago? Shall we send to them the blessings of civilization which enables private corporations to openly and insolently govern seventy millions of people for private profit? May God deliver the islanders of the sea from our civilization!'^^3^^ The war in the Philippines, he said, had been brought on by the avarice of the American monopolies.
A bitterly sarcastic pamphlet written by W. A. Andrews and publisher] by the Anti-Imperialist League stated: 'You Filipinos don't know what you are missing by not wanting to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 33, Part 1, p. 810.
~^^2^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers, Alejandrino to Senators R. F. Pettigrew and G. F. Hoar, 12 April 1900.
~^^3^^ Charles A. Beard and Mary R, Beard, The American Spirit, New York, 1962, pp. 504--05.
219 become citizens of this grand country of ours. There isn't anything like it under the sun. You ought to send a delegation over to see us, the land of the free, of fine churches and 40,060 licensed salons; bibles, forts and guns; houses of prostitution; millionaires and paupers; theologians and thieves; ... where we have a man in Congress with three wives and a lot in the penitentiary for having two wives; ... where we put a man in jail for not having the means of support and on the rock pile for asking for a job of work; ... where newspapers are paid for suppressing the truth...; where professors draw their convictions from the same place they do their salaries; ... where trusts hold up and poverty holds down.'^^1^^Democratic pronouncements of such sharpness were not frequent in American political life, and criticism of this severity was lacking in the platforms of anti-imperialist leagues which were worded in a somewhat abstract humanitarian spirit. All the more valuable, therefore, is this evidence of the struggle against the power of the 'triumphant plutocracy' and its imperialist foreign policy.
__*_*_*__American writers were a powerful group criticising imperialist foreign policy.
Only a few second-rate authors aligned themselves with expansionism. The vast majority were wholeheartedly in sympathy with the anti-imperialist movement. They included America's leading authors Mark Twain and William Dean Howells, and little-known young poets grouped around the newspaper Springfield Republican; adherents of the refined traditional school Henry James and Thomas Bailey Aldrich; and the realists Henry Fuller, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and Hamlin Garland; the lesser writers Moncure Daniel Conway, Ambrose G. Bierce, Finley P. Dunne, and James L. Allen; and the poets Edgar Lee Masters, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Ernest II. Crosby, and William V. Moody.
_-_-_~^^1^^ L of CMD, M. Storey Papers, Leaflet by W. A. Andrews of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
220The forms and extent of their participation in the antiimperialist movement differed. Some were vigorous proponents of the movement: Hamlin Garland, spokesman of the farmers, was an active Chicago anti-imperialist; William Dean Howells was vice-president of the New York AntiImperialist League, and Ernest Crosby was its president. Parodying Kipling, Crosby wrote:
Take up the White Man's Burden, Send forth your sturdy kin, And load them down with Bibles And cannon-balls and gin.
Another poet, John Chadwick, who was one of the vicepresidents of the New York Anti-Imperialist League, paraphrasing Kipling wrote of the Black Man's Burden in connection with racial oppression in the USA.^^1^^
In addition to being the political seat of the anti-- imperialist movement, New England was its literary and publicist centre. Innumerable anti-war works were written there. In An Ode in Time of Hesitation, On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines, and some other poems William Moody^^2^^ wrote bitterly against the predatory war in the Philippines as trampling the principles that had inspired the 1861--1865 Civil War of liberation. Colonial wars and seizures were denounced even more sharply by Henry Fuller, who was one of the first American realist writers to protest against the tyranny of the trusts, against their infringement upon the individual. He expressed his horror at the Spanish-American War in the poem The New Flag, in which he attacked President McKinley and his policies.^^3^^
William Howells added his voice to the opposition to the Spanish-American War. He had championed the victims of the Haymarket tragedy in Chicago and condemned the Boer War. His letters to his sister and to Henry James and Mark Twain show that he had been against the SpanishAmerican War from the outset. In the article 'Our Spanish Prisoners at Portsmouth', printed in Harper's Weekly on 20 August 1898, he wrote of his impressions of a visit to _-_-_
~^^1^^ F. H. Harrington, 'Literary Aspects of American Anti-- Imperialism, 1898--1902', New England Quarterly, December 1937, pp. 050--67.
~^^2^^ Atlantic Monthly, May 1900, pp. 593--98; February 1901, pp. 29--30.
~^^3^^ Henry Fuller, The New Flag, Chicago, 1899.
221 Spanish prisoners and denounced the war.^^1^^ In 1899 he wrote a series of articles exposing imperialist expansion and the role played in it by the jingoist campaign.^^2^^ To the end of his life he was a convinced opponent of wars of aggression and colonial adventures.While many American writers were outspoken against imperialist aggression, there were some who stated their feelings less bluntly. One of them was Stephen Crane, author of the anti-imperialist novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), who showed the callous mechanism of war (he wrote of the Civil War of 1861--1865). During the Spanish-- American War he was a correspondent at the scene of battle. In the outward objectivity of his observations there was a pacifist reproof of the inhuman shambles, but he failed to understand the social and political significance of American expansionism. Judging by their private correspondence, some other American authors, Thomas Aldrich to name one, were against colonial seizures but wrote nothing to denounce imperialism. F. II. Harrington attributes this small literary activity on the part of some anti-expansionist writers to the difficulties of getting such output published. As a rule, the leading literary-political journals---Harper's Magazine, Century Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and The North American Review---did not in this period publish articles attacking US foreign policy. Anti-expansionist writings appeared only in relatively small journals like the Arena, the Dial, and The Nation, and in several newspapers.
Mark Twain holds a special place in protest literature. The voice of this great American satirist resounded across the nation and his writings were the summit of American anti-imperialist publicism of his day.
As early as the 1870s he exposed the hypocrisy of the arguments of the American annexationists and spoke against the annexation of the Hawaiian islands. 'Let us annex,' he wrote sarcastically. 'We could make sugar enough there to supply all America, perhaps, and the prices would be very easy with the duties removed. And then we would have _-_-_
~^^1^^ Life and Letters of William D. Howells, Ed. by M. Howells, Vol. II, New York, 1928, p. 90.
~^^2^^ W. M. Gibson, 'Mark Twain and Howells: Anti-Imperialists', New England Quarterly, December 1947, pp. 438--39.
222 such a fine half-way house for our Pacific-plying ships; and such a convenient supply depot and such a commanding sentry-box for an armed squadron; and we could raise cotIon and coffee there and make it pay pretty well, with the duties off and capital easier to get at---We could pacify Prince Bill and other nobles easily enough---put them on a reservation. Nothing pleases a savage like a reservation--- » reservation where he has his annual hoes, and Bibles arid blankets to trade for powder and whisky---a sweet Arcadian retreat fenced in with soldiers.... We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers arid Government defaulters.... We can let them have Connolly; we can loan them Sweeny; we can furnish them some Jay Goulds who will do away with their old-time notion that stealing is not respectable.'^^1^^Mark Twain saw European colonial practices at first hand during his travels around the world in 1895--1896 (he visited British colonies in the South Pacific and also in Asia and Africa). In Following the Equator (1897) he wrote angrily about British imperialist colonial policy, leaving no doubt that he had all colonial powers in mind. In place of the word `civilisation', which screened the suppression and extermination of entire colonial peoples, he used the word `plunder'. With one stroke of the pen he demolished the arguments about the 'white man's burden'. 'There are many humorous things in the world,' he wrote, 'among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.' After a visit to South Africa just before the Boer War lie wrote of Cecil Rhodes: 'I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.'^^2^^
Nonetheless, Mark Twain did not at once see the motivations for thejSpanish-American War. True, this was due largely to his living in Europe for nine years, from 1891 to 1900: he had lost touch with American reality and had been deluded by the hypocritical arguments that the war _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, New York, 1963, pp. 27--28.
~^^2^^ Mark Twain, Following the Equator, New York, 1925, pp. 192, 378.
223 was being fought to liberate Cuba. His attitude to it changed when the USA began the conquest of the Philippines. In a letter toJ. H. Twichellin January 1900, he wrote: ' Apparently we are not proposing to set the Filipinos free and give their islands to them; and apparently we are not proposing to hang the priests and confiscate their property. If these things are so, the war out there has no interest for me.'^^1^^Upon his return to the USA in October 1900 Mark Twain joined actively in the anti-imperialist movement. Not a month went by without him giving an interview or publishing a letter or pamphlet mercilessly flaying imperialism. His words reached millions, for in the USA people were eager to know what their greatest writer thought about the main issue of the day. On landing in the USA he told newspaper reporters: 'And so 1 am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.' Two weeks later, in an address before the Public Education Association he took United States policy in China to task, declaring publicly, 'I am a Boxer.'^^2^^ On 13 December 1900, at a dinner in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel given in honour of Winston Churchill, who had returned from South Africa where he was a British war correspondent and had been held prisoner by the Boers, Mark Twain spoke of the bonds between the British and American colonialists: 'England and America; yes we are kin. And now that we are also kin in sin, there is nothing more to be desired. The harmony is complete, the blend is perfect.'^^3^^
Mark Twain's anti-imperialist pamphlets of this period form the summit of anti-imperialist publicism: they sting and scorch, they breathe fire. On 30 December 1900, the New York Herald carried a brilliant piece of Twain's satire under the heading, 'A Salutation---Speech from the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth'. On behalf of the receding century Twain wrote: 'I bring you the stately matron called Christiandom---returning bedraggled, besmirched and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mark Twain's Letters, Vol. II, New York and London, 1917, p. 694.
^^2^^ Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain Social Critic, New York, 1958, pp. 261, 264.
~^^3^^ Mark Twain's Speeches, New York and London, 1910, p. 129.
224 dishonored from pirate raids in Kiaochow, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines; with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the lookingglass.'^^1^^ The `Salutation' was then printed on postcards and disseminated throughout the nation by the Anti-Imperialist League. Mark Twain's anti-expansionist passion and strength grew from pamphlet to pamphlet. In February 1901 The North American Review published his iinest pamphlet, 'To the Person Sitting in Darkness'. It begins with two extracts from the New York Sun. The iirst describes the shocking conditions in New York's East Side 'where children that have adult diseases are the chief patrons of the hospitals and dispensaries; where it is the rule, rather than the exception, that murder, rape, robbery, and theft go unpunished'.^^2^^ The other is a report that after the Boxer Uprising American missionaries in China were demanding huge indemnities for `damages'. Intolerance of rapacity, extortion and violence enabled Twain to bring into bold relief the key to an entire epoch in facts common to bourgeois civilisation. He stigmatised not individual missionaries for extortion, but showed that the entire missionary movement was an instrument of imperialism, writing: 'Shall we? That is, shall we go on conferring our civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things rest? Shall we bang right ahead in our old-time, loud, pious way, and commit the new century to the game; or shall we sober up and sit down and think it over first?'^^3^^ In the shape of an historical review, he cited facts about imperialist interference in the Philippines, noted the part played by the Filipinos in the war against the Spanish, the treacherous actions of Admiral Dewey, and the bloody suppression of the Filipino uprising by American troops.Of course, Twain's pamphlets contained nothing that was not already known, but his strength, too, lay not only in irony and satire. Although he wrote that the Americans were only following in the wake of the Europeans, he _-_-_
^^1^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croflut Papers, Mark Twain, 'A SalutationSpeech from the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth'.
~^^2^^ Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race. New York, 1963, p. 0.
^^3^^ Ibid.
225 sometimes came close to understanding the connection between the horrors of East Side and the plunder in the Philippines by the 'almighty dollar'. He caustically recommended somewhat redesigning the American flag: '...we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and crossbones.'^^1^^ Edwin Burritt Smith, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Imperialist League, commented on the pamphlet: 'I can say, as one familiar with the literature on the subject, that it is the strongest indictment of imperialism with all its cant and humbug that has yet appeared.'^^2^^ The league brought out the' pamphlet in an edition of 125,000 copies.During this period Mark Twain took a direct part in the work of the American Anti-Imperialist League. In 1901 he signed the league's manifesto, published on Independence Day, calling upon all freedom-loving people to unite in defence of human rights and secure the independence of the Philippines. Together with William Dean Howells he signed a petition for an inquiry into American brutalities in the Philippines. He vented his anger in many works, including 'To My Missionary Critics', 'King Leopold's Soliloquy', and 'In Defense of General Funston'. Mark Twain's pamphlets of the 1900s were a powerful indictment of the makers of imperialist policy.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 21.
~^^2^^ Philip S. Foner, op. cit., p. 275.
__PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 15---0284 [226] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER TEN __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE BRYAN SCHOOL AND CARNEGIEPolitical elements far removed from the petty-bourgeois and liberal opposition to imperialist expansion tried to use the movement for their own mercenary aims and temporarily united with the anti-imperialist leagues on a partially coinciding tactical programme, namely, opposition to turning the Philippines into a US colony.
The Bryan school, for example, criticised colonial expansion for basically tactical reasons. Ideologically and politically, Bryanism was much more moderate than Populism. The programme of far-ranging anti-monopoly measures up to the abolition of trusts advanced by the radical leaders of the farmers' movement was truncated, with attention focussed on `cheap' money. The Populist programme of democratic reforms was superseded by bourgeois reformism. The vaguely formulated aim was that of banning 'illegal methods of competition'.
William Jennings Bryan (1860--1925), the politician whose name was taken by a trend, to some extent championed the interests of the American farmers, the big farmers in particular, but he was first and foremost a politician, a man who easily dropped one principle or conviction for another. As a young Congressman, Bryan, a lawyer and journalist by profession, became popular for his free-silver advocacy. In 1896 he won the Democratic nomination for the presidency. His programme took into account the farmers' discontent with the railway companies and domination of the banks. He made political capital by criticising the trusts. His words, 'You shall not press down upon the brow of labor 227 __NOTE__ Error in original: page 226 is "326" in original! this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold', were nothing more than an attack on the gold standard, but outwardly they had a radical ring. Gold was the symbol of successful big business, and the millions of farmers desperately in debt still seriously believed that their poverty was due to a defective system of money circulation. With coal-black hair, black, piercing eyes, and a booming voice, he impressed many people. His speeches, punctuated with quotations from the Bible, captivated the farmer audience.
When jingoist propaganda against Spain swept across the nation, Bryan did not hold aloof. His opinion was important, for he was regarded as the spokesman of the six million Americans who had voted for him in 1896. In a speech on 31 March 1898, he said: 'Humanity demands that we should act.... War is a terrible thing and cannot be defended except as a means to an end, and yet it is sometimes the only means by which a necessary end can be secured.'^^1^^ He requested President McKinley to use him on military service and was soon appointed colonel of the volunteers. The war in the Philippines laid bare the USA's plans of aggrandisement, and there was a shift in the sentiment of many Americans. Bryan, too, adopted a new attitude. 'When trade is secured by force,' he said, 'the cost of securing it and retaining it must be taken out of the profits, and the profits are never large enough to cover the expense. Such a system would never be defended but for the fact that the expense is borne by all the people, while the profits are enjoyed by a few. Imperialism would be profitable to the shipowners, who would be able to carry live soldiers to the Philippines and bring dead soldiers back; it would be profitable to those who seize upon the franchises, and it would be profitable to the officials whose salaries would be fixed here and paid over there; but to the farmer, to the laboring man and to the vast majority of those engaged in other occupations it would bring expenditure without return and risk without reward.'^^2^^ In addition to noting _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quoted from: M. Curti, 'Bryan and World Peace', Smith College Studies in History, April-July 1931, p. 117.
~^^2^^ William J. Bryan, Speeches, Vol. II, New York-London, 1913, p. 42.
__PRINTERS_P_327_COMMENT__ 15* 228 the danger of competition)] from cheap colonial primary materials and labour, he drew upon the principles of Declaration of Independence^^1^^ to back up his arguments against the annexation of the Philippines.Many Americans came to regard Bryan as a sworn opponent of the Treaty of Paris, but he voted for its ratification. His pharisaical argumentation in favour of the treaty was that it would be easier to end the war by ratifying the treaty, and once that was done it would be possible to direct matters into the desired channel. His stand proved decisive for the ratification of the treaty: the Democratic Senators followed his lead. 'The Philippine Treaty would have been lost but for Mr. Bryan's personal interposition in its behalf,' George F. Hoar was to recall.^^2^^ David S. Jordan wrote to Bryan: 'Twice you have failed us. Once when you justified the war with Spain, and once when you advised the ratification of the Treaty of Peace with infamous provisions.'^^3^^
There is no division of opinion among historians that in this case Bryan was motivated by selfish political interests. He believed that in order to win the elections the Democrats had to offer some new bait, in addition to free-silver. He felt that colonial seizures could be that bait and that the ratification of the treaty would make it even more alluring.^^4^^
In order to enlist the largest possible support at the elections, Bryan sometimes criticised colonial seizures on the grounds that they would negatively affect the condition of the labouring classes. 'Grave domestic problems press for solution; can we afford to neglect them in order to engage unnecessarily in controversies abroad?'^^5^^ he demanded. He attacked the ruling classes for ignoring the interests of the workers: `Labor's protest against the black list and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 24.
~^^2^^ George F. Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. II, New York, 1903, p. 110.
~^^3^^ M. Curti, 'Bryan and World Peace', Smith College Studies in History, April-July 1931, p. 133.
~^^4^^ Richard F. Pettigrew, The Course of Empire, New York, 1920, p. 271; Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit: A Study of Our War with Spain, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931, pp. 401--03.
^^5^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 33, Part 8, Appendix to the Congressional Record, Washington, 1900, p. 451.
229 government by injunction, and its plea for arbitration, shorter hours, and a fair share of the wealth which it creates, will be drowned in noisy disputes over new boundary lines and in the clash of conflicting authority. 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?"\thinspace'^^1^^ He spoke of the 'indirect cost of annexation', having in view the losses from the shelving of problems vital to the farmers and workers. 'What will it cost the people to substitute contests over treaties for economic issues? What will it cost the people to postpone consideration of remedial legislation while the ship of state tosses about in the whirlpool of international politics?'^^2^^ Replying to the expansionists, who said there was 'surplus capital' in the nation, he declared: 'If there is surplus money seeking investment, why is it not employed in the purchase of farm lands, in developing domestic enterprises, or in replacing foreign capital?'^^3^^ He argued: 'The farmers and laboring men constitute a large majority of the American people; what is there in annexation for them? Heavier taxes, Asiatic emigration, and an opportunity to furnish more sons for the Army. Will it pay?'^^4^^Bryan knew his audience, accentuating the issues it wanted to hear and handing out promises. In the long run a large segment of the electors was at a loss and could not make out what the central issue of the Democratic election platform was about. The Evening News wrote on 5 November 1900, on the eve of the elections, that it was deluged with letters asking what the main issue of the election campaign was, while the New York Tribune cartoonist portrayed the elections as a game in which the players were trying to find the main issue.^^5^^
The anti-imperialists tried to induce Bryan to take a more definite stand. Moorfield Storey wrote: 'I think that _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
~^^4^^ Ibid.
~^^5^^ T. A. Baily, 'Was the Presidential Election of 1900 a Mandate on Imperialism?', Mississippi Valley Historical Review, June 1937, p. 45,
230 the only issue in this campaign is the issue of Imperialism.'^^1^^ Croffut told Bryan during the latter's election tour: 'The paramount issue this year was not what kind of money we should have and how much, hut what kind of liberty we should have and how much, and this was the paramount issue, indeed it is the exclusive issue. When this is settled, other smaller issues could be taken up.'^^2^^ Carl Schurz spoke in the same vein. But Bryan was moving farther and farther away from the issue of imperialist colonial expansion. When he was defeated at the elections he finally broke with the anti-imperialist movement. The point that must be made, however, is that Bryan was in large measure a spokesman of the American farmers and had the backing of the Democratic Party (its northern and southern wings), which carried considerable weight in Congress. __*_*_*__Large agrarian segments of the South were also opposed to colonial expansion. They were motivated mainly by their fear of competition from cheap colonial primary materials and farm products. Sugar cane, cotton, and tobacco planters were particularly apprehensive on this score.
Moreover, Southern opposition had features of its own. With the defeat of the slave-owning South in the Civil War and the etid-of-century swift development of monopoly forms in the capitalist economy, there arose a romantic mythology about the South, in which the reactionary elegy about the 'good old South' and racist propaganda merged with attacks on the monopolies.
Congress was the principal arena of the Southern opposition, which traditionally belonged to the Democratic Party. It was largely due to this opposition that motions recommending the annexation of Hawaii were repeatedly defeated in the Senate. The frequent argument against colonial seizures was that annexation contravened the principles of the US Constitution and the Monroe doctrine. In the _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CMD, M. Store;/ Papers, Anti-Tniperialist Leaflet No. 28: 'Support Bryan. Reason for Doing So'.
~^^2^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers, 'Weekly Press and Uacotan', 4_ October 1900.
231 June 1898 debate over the destiny of Hawaii Senator Donelson Caffery, who represented the interests of the Louisiana planters and sugar refineries, declared that the USA was embarking upon a dangerous path of colonial expansion: 'Is not this but the opening of a grand avenue of conquest and of power? The Philippines next. Part of Asia next. Where will be the limits?... This Hawaiian scheme is but the entering wedge that cleaves a way open for empire.''^^1^^ He was seconded by Bryanist Northern Senator William V. Allen, who said: 'Shall the United States abandon the well-defined and universally accepted Monroe doctrine and her traditional domestic policy, and at this time enter on the dangerous career of colonial expansion and European imperialism, encountering as a consequence all the dangers and assuming all the burdens incident to such a change?'^^2^^The Southern opposition was particularly active in the Congress debate on the peace treaty with Spain. The Senators who spoke strongly against it included John L. McLaurin, Donelson Caffery, Benjamin R. Tillman, Samuel D. McEnery, Augustus 0. Bacon, John W. Daniel and Hernando D. Money. Although, as in former cases, their arguments were largely based on the Constitution,^^3^^ this debate revealed the actual motivations of their opposition to colonial expansion. Senator Augustus 0. Bacon of Georgia declared: 'With that tropical climate and cheap Asiatic labor ... it would be impossible for the American sugar producer to compete with Philippine sugar.... Their development will doubtless enrich the syndicates and trusts that will invest their capital there for that purpose.'^^4^^ (In the summer of 1898 similar arguments were presented by Senators Caffery and McEnery, who represented Louisiana sugar interests.)^^5^^ This argumentation was supported by Democratic Congressmen of the Northern states.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 31, Part 7, Washington, 1898, p. 6483.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 6634.
~^^3^^ Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898, New York, 1951, p. 347.
~^^4^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 33, Part. 2, pp. 1309--10.
~^^5^^ E. Berkeley Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890--1920, Philadelphia, 1970, pp. 106--10; Julius W. Pratt, op. cit., p. 348.
232The big Southern planters appealed to morality and the Constitution and underscored the threat of competition from cheap colonial farm products, but rabid racism was at the bottom of their arguments.^^1^^ The Northern Democrats of the Bryan school and some members of the AntiImperialist League also had racist prejudices to one extent or another.^^2^^ However, racist bias was not the determining tone of the criticism from some 'Mohicans of bourgeois democracy'. It was rather a result of the inconsistency of their bourgeois democratism. At the same time, many members of the movement, for instance, Storey and Hoar, had no racial prejudices whatever.
The racism of the Southern opposition was quite a different matter. Its arguments against expansion were motivated more by racist bias than by moral and constitutional grounds or economic inexpediency. However, it was not only a matter of racist arguments. The Southern interpretation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution passed through the prism of racist views and acquired an undemocratic character. This is seen clearly in the pronouncements against the annexation of the Philippines by Benjamin R. Tillman, who was one of the most diehard Dixiecrats.
While vowing fidelity to democratic ideals, he repeated almost verbatim the argumentation of the spokesmen of the old slave-owning South: 'The disfranchisement of the ignorant Southern negroes in some of the States within Constitutional limits, does not in any way involve or destroy the truth of the Declaration that ``governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed''. Jefferson, who penned those immortal words, was himself a slaveholder, and the Constitution which our fathers gave us recognized Slavery.'^^3^^ Senator John W. Daniel of Virginia maintained _-_-_
~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 33, Part 2, pp. 1309--10.
~^^2^^ Ch. Lash, 'The Anti-Imperialists, the Philippines and the Inequality of Man', Journal oj Southern History, August 1958; James P. Shenton, 'Imperialism and Racism', Essays in American Historiograph}/. Papers Presented' in Honor of Allen Nevins, Ed. hy DonalcJ Shee'han and Harold C. Syrett, New York, 1960.
~^^3^^ The North American Review, October 1900, p. 443.
233 that the introduction into the USA of alien Asian races would merely compound the race problem.^^1^^ This was the burden of the pronouncements of Senator Hernando D. Money of Mississippi and Senator John L. McLaurin of South Carolina.^^2^^ Many Southern Senators held that 'like the Indians and the blacks', the Filipinos were unable to assimilate white civilisation. Underlying this racism was the doctrine of racial inequality, which had justified slavery in the USA; it was given a fresh impetus with the onset of the epoch of imperialism.Anti-black racism was most clearly enunciated by the 'Senator of Africa' (as Benjamin R. Tillman of South Carolina called himself): '...we understand and realize what it is to have two races side by side that cannot mix or mingle without deterioration and injury to both and the ultimate destruction of the civilization of the higher.'^^3^^ Or: 'We of the South have borne this white man's burden of a colored race in our midst since their emancipation and before.'^^4^^
The anti-imperialists had every reason for charging the expansionists of jettisoning democratic principles. But when the Southerners agreed with the expansionists on the basic principle that races were unequal and on these grounds concluded that the USA needed no colonial possessions, their criticism became unconvincing.
The only ideological satisfaction that the Southerners could derive and which was indeed convincing was the evolution, over the decades, of the views of many critics of slavery. For instance, answering the former Abolitionist Senator Knute Nelson, who during the Spanish-- American War maintained that the Filipinos were incapable of self-government, Tillman declared: '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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd Session, Vol. 32, Part 2, Washington, 1899, p. 1430.
~^^2^^ Essays in American Historiograph!/, p. 247.
~^^3^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd Session^Vol. 32, Part 2, p. 1532; Ch. Lash, op. cit., p. 324.
~^^4^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd Session, Vol. 32, Part 2. p. 1389.
234 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 these ex-slaves. Why the difference? Why the change? Do you acknowledge that you were wrong in 1868?'^^1^^ __*_*_*__The annexation of the Philippines was opposed by a group of big businessmen who had fallen out with their brethren ruling circles over the methods and forms of imperialist expansion. A distinct line of demarcation must be drawn between the economic doctrines of the proponents of laissez faire and the economic arguments of the spokesmen of big business. When Schurz, Godkin, Laughlin and other liberals of the old school advocated trade expansion and the acquisition of new markets this was a natural sequence to the spread of Manchesterism to international trade. However, in the interpretation of some big businessmen the principles of free trade on the international scene were an instrument for unbridled dollar expansion and the assertion of US economic supremacy in the world. The dollar expansionists accorded the state a key role in the implementation of domestic and foreign policy. These views sprang from the USA's emergence as a major economic power and from the fact that it had appeared on the stage when the world's political division had ended. They were embodied in the Open Door doctrine in China, proclaimed in 1899, but took final shape much earlier.
Andrew Carnegie (1835--1919), who in 1900 dealt a fatal blow to the attempts to form the Anti-Imperialist Party, was one of the most colourful personalities among the proponents of dollar expansion. If the American parable about the bootblack becoming a millionaire had a prototype, that prototype was Andrew Carnegie. His father was a poor Scots, a weaver, and as a child Andrew had known want and hunger. The Carnegie family sailed across the ocean in search of a happier life. Before becoming successful on the Stock Exchange and investing money in the iron and steel _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Part 1, pp. 836--37.
235 business, he held minor jobs in a textile mill and was a telegraph messenger boy. Energy, lack of principles in his choice of means, and luck turned this poor Scots immigrant into one of the biggest capitalists. In the 1890s his steel company was producing one-fourth of the nation's entire steel output. When the United States Steel Corporation was formed in 1902, Carnegie had property valued at 1,400 million dollars. Earlier, his steel company was a member of the American-China Development Company that in April 1898 obtained the first American concession for building a railway in China. Mark Twain, who knew Carnegie well, = __NOTE__ Next double-quote should probably be a single-quote. wrote: ``...he is himself his one darling subject, the only subject he for the moment---the social moment---seems stupendously interested in. I think he would surely talk himself to death upon it if you would stay and listen.'^^1^^ This trait of Carnegie's character was perhaps what explained his literary ambitions and later philanthropic activities. He published the book Triumphant Democracy (1886) and a number of essays, including The Gospel of Wealth (1889). He preached extreme individualism and was a passionate champion of the capitalist system. This, too, was a sort of moral self-defence, a justification of the 'right to honestly earned millions'. Much earlier than other spokesmen of the US bourgeoisie, Carnegie drew upon reformism as a means of combating socialist ideals in the working-class movement. He suggested recognising the workers' right to form trade unions^^2^^ and interesting them in acquiring shares in capitalist enterprises. However, this did not prevent the brutal suppression of the Homestead steel strike in 1892.An apologist of big business, he did not uphold the laissez faire principles---he was a militant social Darwinist, a protagonist of the survival of the fittest doctrine: '...whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the
_-_-_~^^1^^ Mark Twain, Mark Twain in Eruption. Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Krents, Harper and Brothers, New York and London, 1940, p. 37.
^^2^^ Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essai/s, New York, 1901, pp. 114--15,
236 individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department.'^^1^^ He denounced private philanthropists, who, he said, were out to weaken the operation of the 'iron law of competition' and thereby do evil to society. He wrote that the 'Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests'.^^2^^Carnegie glorified the trusts, describing them as the finest flowers of civilisation: 'We conclude that this overpowering, irresistible tendency toward aggregation of capital and increase of size in every branch of product cannot be arrested or even greatly impeded, and that, instead of attempting to restrict either, we should hail every increase as something gained, not for the few rich, but for millions of poor.'^^3^^ Explaining this, he referred to the economic efficiency of the trusts.
He joined the critics of the USA's colonial policy rather late (earlier he had approved the annexation of Hawaii and the government's policy relative to Cuba); but he carried weight in the movement and frequently contributedjmoney for the Anti-Imperialist League. In December 1898 he wrote to Schurz: 'Print your speech in pamphlet form and distribute it and I will be your banker. That is the way in which I can aid the good work. You have brains and I have dollars. I can devote some of my dollars to spreading your brains.'^^4^^
Already in Triumphant Democracy, along with conservative social ideals he proclaimed his adherence to national sovereignty. He advanced moral and constitutional arguments against the ratification of the Treaty of Paris.^^5^^ Unquestionably, he was something of a pacifist. But none of this was decisive. The keynote of all his essays and pronouncements of this period was that colonial expansion was unjustified and `archaic'. He was tireless in explaining that the USA had all the potentials---vast natural resources, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 4.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 5-6.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 91.
~^^4^^ Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire. The Anti-Imperialists, 1898--1900, New York, 1968, p. 180.
^^5^^ The North American Review, July 1898, p. 239.
237 a powerful industry, and small military expenditures--- for besting its economic rivals.^^1^^ In the autumn of 1898, whei/a Springfield Republican reporter asked him whether the United States was ready for a business revival, he answered: 'Not only ready for it, but it cannot be arrested. The United States does not know the destiny that is lying immediately at her feet, provided she turns from these phantom schemes of annexation of barbarous people in distant lands and just looks down at her feet and sees what the gods have placed within her grasp---the industrial domination of the world.'^^2^^ Naturally, he underscored the potential of the American steel industry, in which his own company was producing more steel than many European nations. In the article 'Americanism Versus Imperialism', he rejected colonial expansion, writing: 'For the first time in her (USA.---/. D.) history, she has become the greatest exporting nation in the world, even the exports of Britain being less than hers. Her manufacturers are invading all lands, commercial expansion proceeds by leaps and bounds; New York has become the financial centre of the world. It is London no more, but New York, which is today the financial centre.'^^3^^ In championing dollar expansion, he did not forget the ideas of a class peace. The question of expansion, he declared in August 1898, 'is not a matter of party, nor of class; for the fundamental interest of every citizen is a common interest, that which is best for the poorest being best for the richest'.^^4^^Carnegie's criticism of colonial expansion was motivated not only by economic considerations but also by a sober account of the USA's weakness in the face of real international complications. He formulated his stand in ' Americanism Versus Imperialism': 'The relative strength of the powers contending for Empire in the Far East is as follows: Great Britain has 80 first class ships of war, 581 warships in all; France has 50 first class warships, and a total of 403; _-_-_
~^^1^^ The North American Review, August 1898, p. 239.
~^^2^^ John W. Rollins, 'The Anti-Imperialists and Twentieth Century American Foreign Policy', Studies on the Left, No. 1, 1962, p. 17.
^^3^^ The North American Review, January 1899, p. 10.
~^^4^^ The North American Review, August 1898, p. 240.
238 Russia has 40 first class warships, 286 in all; Germany has 28 first class warships, a total of 216. Japan will soon rank with Germany, and be stronger there because close to the scene of action.'The United States proposes to enter into the zone of danger with 18 first class, and a total of 81 ships. These would hardly count as half that number, however, owing to her greater distance from the battle ground. Russia is 8,000 miles, the other Europeans about 9,000 miles from it. The United States is from 15,000 to 17,000 miles distant via the Cape and via the Straits; the route via Europe is about 12,000 miles, but that would be impracticable during war time, as the American ships going via Europe would pass right into the trap of their European enemies.
'The armies of the European nations are as follows: Germany's army on a peace footing numbers 562,352 men, on a war footing 3,000,000...; France's army on a peace footing 615,413, on a war footing 2,500,000; Russia's, on a peace footing 790,944, on a war footing, 2,512,143.... It is obvious that the United States cannot contest any question or oppose any demand of any one of its rivals.... Both its Navy and its Army are good for one thing only--- for easy capture.'^^1^^
Characteristically, while he urged flexibility in international politics, he was an advocate of unchallenged US supremacy in the Western Hemisphere. In a private letter written as early as 1854 he noted: '...we will let Europe manage its own affairs while we take care of the American continent.'^^2^^ Thirty-five years later, in 1889, he pushed forward this programme as the US delegate at a Pan-- American conference convened to clear the way for US economic domination in the Western Hemisphere.
Much time was to pass before the plans for American dollar expansion were to be put into effect on a grand scale, but one of the earliest substantiations of these plans was given by Carnegie.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The North American Review, January 1899, pp. 2, 4.
~^^2^^ Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire, p. 170.
[239] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER ELEVEN __ALPHA_LVL1__ WORKERS' ORGANIZATIONThe American Federation of Labor was the leading trade union organisation of the American workers at the close of the nineteenth century. Its membership grew from 138,000 in 1886 to 265,000 in 1896, and to 868,000 in 1900. Thirteen national unions founded the Federation in 1886, but by 1896 there were 58 unions affiliated to it. Most of the organisations affiliated to the AF of L were craft trade unions representing mainly skilled workers. The largest of these were: the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (about 57,000 members), the Typographical Union (34,000), the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (24,000), the Stone Cutters' Association (20,000), and the Cigarmakers' Union (27,000), the oldest of them all. Although the AF of L regarded itself as the central body of unions founded on the craft principle, it had to recognise the industrial principle of organisation in the textile and mining industries (the National Union of Textile Workers and the United Mine Workers of America). The AF of L also embraced some federally affiliated local unions (the Cleveland Central Labor Union, the New Jersey State Federation of Labor, the New York Central Labor Union, and others).
In the 1890s the principles of 'pure and simple unionism' or so-called business unionism received precedence in the ideology of the AF of L. The unions were oriented on fighting for better working conditions for union members.
These reformist principles are associated largely with Samuel Gompers, who headed the AF of L for 37 years (from 240 the day it was founded in 1886 to his death in 1924). He was born in 1850 of Dutch-Jewish parents, who in 1863 moved from London's East End to the East Side of New York. Like his father, Gompers was a cigarmaker. Soon after joining the old-established Gigarmakers' International Union he became its president, and then began his long career as president of the AF of L. He was no orator, but this was amply compensated by his outstanding abilities as an organiser, by his doggedness (he likened himself to an oak) and political shrewdness. He spoke to leaders of the European socialist movement as a man of radical views, but when he addressed businessmen he adopted the pose of a conservative.
In his youth he came under the influence of the Socialists Ferdinand Laurell and Adolph Strasser, who worked with him in his trade union. True, Philip S. Foner notes that they were `disillusioned' Socialists, who devoted themselves to `practicable' trade unionism.^^1^^ In 1887 Gompers declared: 'I believe with the most advanced thinkers as to ultimate ends, including the abolition of the wage system.'^^2^^ The AF of L's conservatism did not surface immediately. During the early years its leaders had to show flexibility, to adapt themselves to the demands of organised and unorganised workers for a militant, radical action programme.
In the 1890s Gompers steered a new course. In one of his speeches he boasted that he had never had a coherent economic theory. He flaunted his practicism. Actually, he had not only drawn up the strategy and tactics of the AF of L for many years ahead, but outlined the social creed of labour's right wing. Later he denned unionism as follows: 'True trade unionists are those wage workers, who realize as a fundamental principle the necessity of unity of all their fellows employed in the same trade or calling ... who decline to limit the sphere of their activity by any dogma, doctrine or ism.'^^3^^ He denounced many vices of American capitalism: _-_-_
~^^1^^ Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, International Publishers, Vol. I, New York, 1955, p. 513.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. II, p. 177.
~^^3^^ Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, Vol. I, New York, 1925, pp. 180--81.
241 exploitation of workers, uneven distribution of wealth, political corruption. But even while declaring war for a larger share of the nation's wealth to labour, he was in fact pressing to give a larger share to labour aristocracy.The Gompersites advocated pragmatism and voluntarism, which they viewed as an expression of individual freedom of union members, and state non-interference in thetrealm of economic affairs. Gompers was one of the first reformists in the working-class movement to begin evolving the social philosophy of 'progressive American society'. He held that in American society there were three basic forces: employers, wage workers, and consumers. He believed that the balance had tilted in favour of business and that it was the task of wage workers to build up their strength in day-to-day struggle and thereby get a larger share in the distribution of wealth. The next step was 'cooperation of all the groups with the pooling of information to determine control cf the industry. The industry would thus become self-regulating and disciplined while checks interposed by organised consumers would deter anti-social tendencies.'^^1^^ He contended that the most pressing conflicts between manufacturers and workers could be settled provided both sides sat down to 'discuss and determine the problems of industry, transportation, of standards of life and work and service.'^^2^^ In this Utopian society the government would be the regulating agency performing the function of eliminating stoppages in the operation of the tripartite partnership. This was the prism through which Gompers saw developments in the nation and, later, on the international scene.
Directed by the Gompers group, which dominated the AF of L Executive and set up a fairly stable union apparatus, the organisation drifted into reformism. The right wing became particularly strong from the mid-1890s onwards, when the leadership of the Socialist Labor Party turned sectarian and walked out of the AF of L. In 1897 the organisation moved its headquarters to Washington, where it soon formed close contacts with the government. Gompers _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 21--22.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 149--50.
__PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 16---0284 242 later recollected his cordial relations with President McKinley: 'I had as good opportunity to meet with him to discuss important matters as I have ever had with any President of the United States.'^^1^^Industrial unions, organised on more^democratic principles and partially consisting of unskilled workers, who had belonged to the Knights of Labor, comprised the mainstay of the Federation's left wing. Among them were many who insisted on labour taking independent political action. Craft unions that in many cases steered left included the Seamen's Union of the Pacific Coast headed by its secretary Andrew Furuseth (the union's newspaper The Coast Seamen's Journal was widely read in the American West), the New Jersey State Federation of Labor, and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers.
The Socialists, who fell out with the decision of the Socialist Labor Party's leadership to walk out of the AF of L, remained in the Federation. The largest group consisted of Chicago Socialists led by Thomas J. Morgan, who was popular in the trade union movement. In the Cleveland Central Labor Union and its newspaper, The Cleveland Citizen, a prominent part was played by Max S. Hayes, who subsequently resigned from the Socialist Labor Party and joined Eugene Debs. The Socialist Joseph R. Buchanan was one of the most prestigious theorists of the American working-class movement of those days. August Delabar was Secretary of the Bakers' and Confectioners' International Union. George E. McNeill, a veteran of the American working-class movement, was close to Socialists. He exercised considerable influence in the militant New Jersey Federation of Labor and was one of the policymakers of its newspaper, The National Labor Standard.
Until the mid-1890s the AF of L kept aloof from foreign policy. Only once, at its convention in 1887, it adopted a vague pacifist resolution condemning war: 'The demands of the working people will never be fully heard ... until the nations of the world mutually agree to refrain from the fratricidal strife that has so often brought _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 522--23.
243 misery and desolation into^ many jmillions of happy homes.'^^1^^However, there were some domestic problems that forced theAF of L to look into the nation's foreign policy. This was the point, of departure for subsequent assessments of the Spanish-American War and imperialist expansion. The most important were: the assessment of the trusts and their role in the nation, the attitude to foreign immigration and to the American blacks, and the question of independent political actions by the working class. Various understandings of the part played by the trusts in American society, approval of this part or, on the contrary, perception of its danger to the working-class movement, led directly to the link between the growth of the monopolies and imperials! expansion. The attitude to immigration and to blacks was the touchstone of the ability of the working class to stand up against chauvinistic and racist theories. The question of independent political actions by the working class was in fact a check of doctrines and the willingness of the AF of L leaders to adopt a militant attitude to elements advocating imperialist expansion. In the Federation there was a sharp debate on all these points between the Gompers group and the left forces.
At the close of the century, when the mammoth trusts were cornering one key branch of the American economy after another, the right-wing AF of L leadership expressed no disquiet. On the contrary, Gompers welcomed the emergence of trusts, seeing in them the agency of economic consolidation, partners of the unions who would help to create a 'progressive society'. Addressing a national conference of trusts in September 1899, Gompers admitted that the unions could do much in the fight against trusts but that this 'will not be necessary, nor will occur, for the trade unions will go on organizing, agitating and educating, in order that material improvement may keep pace with industrial development, until the time when the workers who will then form nearly the whole people develop their _-_-_
~^^1^^ Proceedings, American Federation of Labor Convention, 1893, p. 31; Delber L. McK.ee, The American Federation oj Labor and Foreign Policy, 1886--1912, Ph. D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1952, Ch. II.
__PRINTERS_P_243_COMMENT__ 16* 244 ability to administer the functions of government in the interests of all. There will be no cataclysm, but a transition so gentle that most men will wonder how it all happened'.^^1^^Gompers' policy towards the trusts encountered strong opposition from the AF of L rank and iile. Local unions reported to the AF of L leadership their inability to make any appreciable inroads into trust-controlled industries and demanded new organisational principles to enable them to withstand pressure from the trusts.^^2^^
Public response was especially strong to anti-trust pronouncements of veteran members of the working-class movement: John Swinton, Joseph R. Buchanan, and George E. McNeill. At the AF of L convention in 1895 Swinton said that urgent and effective measures had to be taken to reorganise the trade unions to enable them to counter the trusts successfully, otherwise it would spell out the 'doom of labor'.^^3^^ Buchanan declared in no uncertain terms that the principles underlying the American Railway Union, which had been organised by Debs, were a model for the entire American working-class movement.^^4^^ McNeill wrote an article, entitled 'The Trade Unions and the Monopolies', in which he urged the AF of L to call a conference of trade unionists at which a programme would be worked out to meet the challenge of monopoly. He noted that there had to be a re-evaluation of trade union structure in order to arrive at the one best suited to organise the unskilled and semi-skilled workers.^^5^^
On the initiative of the Socialists in the trade unions, the 1899 convention of the AF of L passed a resolution calling 'for the study of trusts and monopolies so as to permit an intelligent stand on nationalization'.^^6^^ But at the very next convention this resolution was annulled. Neither _-_-_
~^^1^^ Wisconsin Stato Historical Society, Manuscript Department, S. Gompers Papers, Box 46, 'Gompers Before Chicago Conference of Trusts, 1899'.
~^^2^^ Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, pp. 372--80.
~^^3^^ The American Federationist, February 1896, p. 219.
~^^4^^ Philip S. Foner, op. cit., p. 246.
~^^5^^ Ibid., pp. 370, 371.
~^^6^^ Ira Kipnis, The American Socialist Movement, 1897--1912, New York, 1952, p. 38.
245 the massive movement against monopoly domination nor the efforts of the left forces in the AF of L itself could make the right leadership budge. The latter blocked any programme imperilling the foundations of craft unionism.The guidelines and actions of the AF of L right leadership did nothing to foster the immunity of the Federation's members to racist ideas and jingoist propaganda. Many workers still believed that the American political system was perfect, and this generated a sense of national exclusiveness and arrogance (particularly among workers of AngloSaxon origin). These sentiments were spurred by the principles of 'business unionism'. The craft structure of the trade unions made it difficult to organise immigrant workers, because most of them were semi-skilled or unskilled. On this point the AF of L leaders were, as a rule, chauvinistic, making references to the 'Yellow menace' and the 'inborn inferiority' of the Asian peoples.^^1^^
This racist attitude to Asian workers soon covered immigrant workers from Southern and Eastern Europe. The AF of L leaders held that these 'downtrodden people from downtrodden nations' would not adapt themselves to American political and social institutions and that by agreeing to work on any terms they were bringing down the living standard of American-born workers.
In the 1890s the attitude of the leaders of the AF of L and of most of its affilitated unions to black workers was no less discriminatory than to immigrant workers. In those years very few black workers were admitted to the unions. Segregation became rife from 1900 onwards, following a convention at which on Gompers' suggestion an amendment was introduced into the statutes recommending the formation of local unions consisting entirely of blacks.
'Political neutrality' was yet another key postulate of the doctrine of 'business unionism'. Gompers had two arguments against political actions by workers. The first was that as long as the workers had but weak economic organisations it was futile trying to enter into political life. He wrote to the delegates of the Second Congress of the International (Brussels, 1891): 'We in America, who enjoy _-_-_
~^^1^^ Philip S. Foner, op. cit., p. 204.
246 absolute political liberty, have long ago recognized that without economic freedom, accomplished by economic organization, political liberty is but a phantasy and a delusion.'^^1^^He presented his second argument against trade union participation in politics in a speech in 1896: 'It is often imagined and asserted that political action exists exclusively at the ballot box. Nothing can be further from the fact than this. There is not an action which the unions can take, whether it be an increase of wages, an hour more leisure secured for the toilers, a factory rule modified, or even any other condition changed and improved, without it being at the same time a political act, having its political effect and its political influence.'^^2^^ Gompers was right, of course, when he noted that elections were not the only kind of political action. It would have been difficult to parry his attack against the American Socialists, who frequently limited their actions to the ballot box. But it was also apparent that his argument was directed against political actions by the workers.
These are some insights into the development of US trade unionism with a direct bearing on the evaluation of foreign policy problems.
__*_*_*__The major events that drew the attention of labour organisations to foreign policy was the Anglo-Venezuelan dispute of 1895--1896 and the USA's attempt to annex the Hawaiian Islands in 1897. The dispute itself aroused no particular interest among the workers, but when relations with Britain deteriorated and there was the threat, shortlived it is true, of an armed collision, the local trade unions and the AF of L leadership clearly stated their stand against war. At a protest rally organised by the Central Labor Union, Gompers said: 'Labor is never for war. It is always _-_-_
~^^1^^ Wisconsin State Historical Society, Manuscript Department, S. Gompers Papers, Box 1, 'S. Gompers lo Delegates of International Labor Congress, 4 August, 1891'.
~^^2^^ Samuel Gompers, Labor and Common Welfare, New York, 1919, p. 126.
247 for peace. It is on the side of liberty, justice and humanity. These three are always for peace.... Who would be compelled to bear the burden of war? The working people. They would pay the taxes, and their blood would flow like water.'^^1^^ This was the keynote of the resolutions passed by various trade unions.The AF~of~L uncompromisingly condemned war, but it argued mainly on moral and humanitarian principles. It was a rare argument that went beyond this framework and approached an understanding of the social aspects of war. For instance, when the bourgeois press reported that some Senators would welcome a war with Britain on the grounds that 'it would thin the ranks of the unemployed and idle men in the country', they were hauled over the coals by the labour press. The American Federationist, for instance, wrote: 'Just as we get rid of an infuriated dog by ``sicking him" at something else, so did the agents of the capitalists hope to stave off the rising wrath of an aroused working class.'^^2^^ There were relatively few pronouncements in this vein, most were pacifist or purely emotional.
The determined stand of the largest labour organisation played a certain role in the peaceful settlement of the Venezuelan dispute, but it was then that the weakness of the AF of L's anti-war stand and pacifist arguments became visible. While opposing the aspirations of the jingoists, the Federation's leaders showed that they were only against military interference as such but remained quite indifferent to the US economic and political drive into Latin America.^^3^^ This drive was served by the Pan-American Conference of 1889 and, particularly, by the Secretary of State Richard Olney's interpretation of the Monroe doctrine in relation to the Venezuelan dispute. Olney's recommendation for US arbitration in the British-Venezuelan dispute was supported by Gompers.
While this dispute required the AF of L to define its attitude to the threat of war, the USA's preparations for _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Federationist, December 1895, p. 221; Philip S. Foner, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 406.
~^^2^^ The American Federationist, February 1896, p. 22; Philip S. Foner, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 406.
~^^3^^ Delber L. McKee, op. cit., p. 39,
248 the annexation of Hawaii placed it before the necessity of stating its attitude to territorial seizures. The trade unionists of the Pacific coast opposed the annexation of Hawaii earlier than any others, and singlehandedly for a long time. Andrew Furuseth called upon the AF of L to denounce this policy at a convention as early as 1893.^^1^^ In 1897 The Coast Seamen's Journal wrote: '...wherever the matter has been discussed publicly, in debate and otherwise, the general voice has been against the plot.... Not a single voice has been raised in favor of it. Even the farmers and businessmen generally of the state have protested against annexation.'^^2^^The stand of the Pacific coast unions was denned distinctly in a series of resolutions passed by the San Francisco Central Labor Union in June 1897.^^3^^ Their motivations against the annexation of Hawaii were the threat of the Hawaiian system of bonded labour spreading to the USA and the menace from `cheap' Asian immigrant labour. But, at the same time, the arguments against the annexation went beyond a purely pragmatic approach and beyond the ' boundaries of Hawaii'. The workers' organisations were against any territorial expansion o.n the part of the USA. Their resolutions stated briefly that the annexation of Hawaii would kill isolationism and imperil the principles of republicanism and democracy'on which the United States was founded. The workers' class accent was seen more clearly in the press of the Pacific coast seamen. The Coast Seamen's Journal wrote: 'They ... say that we must annex, ``owing to the recent developments in the Orient''. If there is anything in this latter phase of the question, it is that annexation is necessary to protect the interests of American traders and preachers in the Orient.'^^4^^
The AF of L convention in 1897 voted against territorial expansion, declaring its opposition to the seizure of Hawaii and demanding that the Senate vote down ratification of the treaty. This hard line of the Federation was in large _-_-_
~^^1^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1893, p, 40.
~^^2^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 29 December 1897, p. 7.
~^^3^^ The Iron Moulders Journal, August 1897, p. 375; John C. Appel, 'American Labor and the Annexation of Hawaii: A Study in Logic and Economic Interest', Pacific Historical Review, February 1954, p. 6.
~^^4^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 12 January 1898, p. 7.
249 measure due to Gompers' volte-face relative to the destiny of Hawaii---from total indifference to condemnation of US policy. American historian John C. Appel notes that behind this evolution was Gompers' determination to take the initiative in the debate over expansion from the influential left Pacific Coast Seamen's Union.^^1^^ In an article headed 'Should Hawaii Be Annexed' (November 1897), Gompers stated why he was opposed to annexation. He summed up the arguments about the threat of the system of bonded labour spreading to the USA and about competition from `cheap' Asian immigrant labour. Further, he used the popular argument that the annexation of Hawaii would involve a larger tax burden and militarism, that it would 'require doubling, yes trebling, of our naval forces, entailing expenditures and taxation which in the end will be forced upon the shoulders of the workers'.^^2^^ He also took issue with the jingoists over the expediency of annexing Hawaii. Without questioning the need for US economic supremacy in Hawaii, he tried to prove that American capital would be unchallenged in the islands whatever flag waved there.^^3^^His arguments against annexation were inconsistent and contradictory, but with territorial expansion on the agenda this was not clearly seen at the time. Nevertheless, the AF of L contributed to wrecking the plan for annexing Hawaii in the summer of 1897.
The events in Cuba increasingly* held the' attention of American workers. Pegun in 1895 under the leadership of Jose Mart?, the Cuban uprising against Spanish colonial slavery won the sympathy of the American workers. The press reported that throughout the nation meetings were held to consider the revolution in Cuba and pass resolutions of solidarity with the insurgents. Many workers drew an analogy between the independence struggle of the Cubans and the War of Independence of the American states. However, the attitude to the rising in Cuba was much more complicated than to the Anglo-Venezuelan dispute and the Hawaiian issue. The expansionists sought to use the solidarity of the American people with the Cubans nnd prepare them _-_-_
~^^1^^ John C. Appel, op. cit., p. 6.
^^2^^ The American Federationist, November 1897, p. 215.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
250 for war with Spain. This situation required a certain political maturity on the part of the American workers' organisations: emotional opposition to war and expansion was clearly not enough. At the AF of L convention in 1895 J. McBride raised the issue of Cuba and declared that the American workers expressed their sympathy with and 'hopes for the success of the gallant band of patriotic Cubans who are now risking their life and property in their efforts to obtain freedom'.^^1^^ The convention recorded its sympathy with the Cuban people and approved a petition to Congress demanding the earliest possible recognition of the belligerent rights of the Cuban revolutionists.^^2^^It is beyond doubt that this petition sprang from the sincere sympathy of the American workers for the Cuban people. But it was also evidence of their political naivete. They did not understand that recognition of belligerent rights in the situation obtaining at the time opened wide the door for US intervention in Cuban affairs. Small wonder that the expansionists were a step ahead of the AF of L in putting to Congress the question of recognising the belligerent rights of the Cuban insurgents. The AF of L petition, submitted to the Senate on 21 December 1895 was used for the same purpose. The convention in December 1896 likewise passed a resolution demanding recognition of Cuban belligerency.^^3^^ At the convention Gompers said that the American workers had a stake in the outcome of the struggle in Cuba. He declared that the independence of Cuba would create more favourable conditions for organising Cuban labour and would in the long run be favourable to the AF of L, too.^^4^^
Later, in his reminiscences Gompers wrote that Cuba was 'of special interest to cigarmakers. It was important for us that not only Cuban cigarmakers in New York should be organized but that we should spread the gospeFof unionism in Cuba'.^^5^^ John C. Appel finds that Gompers' _-_-_
~^^1^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1895, p. 16.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 63.
~^^3^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1896, p. 51.
~^^4^^ Ibid., pp. 53--54.
~^^5^^ Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, Vol. II, pp. 64--65.
251 attitude to the independence movement in Cuba was largely prompted by his affiliation to the New York Cigarmakers' Union, which was eager to use the liberation movement to further its own interests.^^1^^ One of the oldest unions in the AF of L, it had to compete with the cigarmakers of Cuba and also of Florida, most of whom were Cuban immigrants. The AF of L failed to organise unions among the Florida cigarmakers on account of savage resistance from manufacturers and also because the cigarmakers had no union experience; besides, there was a language barrier. Gompers had every reason to expect that his pronouncements in support of an independent Cuba would make the Florida cigarmakers look with favour at the Federation and facilitate contact with them. (By that time Florida had become a key centre of revolutionary Cuban emigres. Sixty-one clubs had been formed in Key West, and 15 in Tampa; the Florida cigarmakers gave 10 per cent of their wages to the liberation movement in Cuba.^^2^^) With this in mind Gompers contacted the Cuban? junta in New York. Charles A. Dana introduced him to Jose Marti and Thomas Estrada Palma. Later he wrote that he had arranged to 'meet many of the Cuban revolutionary leaders at their headquarters in 48 Broad Street'.^^3^^However, after the 1896 AF of L convention Gompers' enthusiasm over the Cuban insurgents began to cool. Many issues were brought up at a meeting of AF of L representatives with' the US President on 19 April 1897, but Cuba was not among them. At the 1897 convention Gompers hardly mentioned Cuba. Although he later attributed his vacillation over Cuban independence to apprehensions that the United States might intervene militarily,^^4^^ it is obvious that the growing opposition in the AF of L to its leadership's Cuban policy was a factor of no less importance.
_-_-_~^^1^^ John C. Appel. 'The Unionization of Florida Cigarmakers and the Coming of the War With Spain', Hispanic-American Historical Review, February 1956, Vol. 31, No. 1. p. 48.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 42--43.
^^3^^ Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, Vol. II, pp. 64--65.
^^4^^ Ibid., p. 65.
252At the 1896 convention it was stated that Cuba and the Spanish colonies were no concern of the USA and that American intervention might lead to international complications. The most consistent stand was maintained by Andrew Furuseth. He noted that the working class should concern itself with international politics, but that the AF of L was encouraging the US government to interfere in Cuban affairs and that this was fraught with the danger of war. He declared that this interference would only mean a change from Spanish oppression to domination of Cuba by American capital, while for the American working class war would bring taxation and militarism.^^1^^
At the 1897 convention most of the delegates voted against a resolution calling for US intervention in Cuban affairs. The following extract from the minutes gives a good idea of the debate.
'Delegate Moore said he did not, as a hardheaded trades unionist, desire to play into the hands of the enemies. Let us free our slaves here. Already there is a tendency to put men into prison who declare against existing laws; and he wanted to know if Cuba secured her freedom, will the working people of Cuba be free.
'Delegate Miller said that if we have war with Spain the suffering and expense will be borne by the workingmen. He said that the workingmen would be food for powder....
'Delegate Crosby ... said the resolution simply meant that we should recognize the Cubans' right to their political liberty and their right to fight for it.
'Delegate Doyle said that the grand army of labor is an army of peace, and that the scene at our doors was a disgrace to our civilization.
'Delegate Kidd said he was very sorry to note that there is a very strong spirit of jingoism developing throughout the land, and that if the Cuban had the independence the American speculator wanted him to have, the Cuban would not be independent, because it would simply be a change from the Spanish speculator to the American, and he doubted if the change would be a benefit....
_-_-_~^^1^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1896, p. 51; Delber L. McKec, 'Samuel Gompers, the AF of L and Imperialism, 1895--1900', The Historian, February 1959, p. 189.
253'Delegate Kreft said that he was surprised that jingoism should iind defenders on the floor of the American Federation of Labor. It is simply a change of masters in Cuba, and he was not in favor of a change of masters until the workingmen became their own masters. He believed that jingoism, if not stopped, would result in involving the United States in war with the great European powers, and the wage-workers of this country would be the sufferers.
'Delegate Askew said he was in favor of the freedom of Cuba, but he was more in favor of freedom for the American laborer.
'Delegate Geraghty said that if delegates are in favor of freedom for Cuba, they should so decide. Why should the delegates deny an expression of sympathy for the Cuban people.'^^1^^
Meanwhile, developments were rapidly coming to a head. The explosion of the Maine in Havana, the mounting chauvinistic hysteria in the USA, and, lastly, the outbreak of war with Spain left no room for ambiguous assessments or an indeterminate posture: the American trade unions had to define their political stance clearly.
The USA fought its first imperialist war with the hypocritical mask of anti-colonialism. The demagogic claims that the USA was helping the oppressed Cuban people to win freedom, that it was out to crush one of the last European monarchies, and that it was a patriotic duty to avenge the loss of the Maine deluded many workers. In an article entitled 'Labor and the War', Joseph R. Buchanan vividly showed the mixed feelings of the workers. He wrote: 'How does labor feel about war? It is a hard question to answer. It is difficult because of the varied and sometimes conflicting opinions expressed by the spokesmen of labor.... A general proposition, it can be safely stated that, considering only the native-born population in the states, the percentage of patriots is higher among wage-workers than can be shown by the business, professional or leisure classes. This truth has rather a singular appearance when it is remembered that labor has so little at stake in the country.'^^2^^ _-_-_
~^^1^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1897, pp. 83--84.
~^^2^^ The Cleveland Citizen, 1 May 1898.
254 The workers, he noted, were the traditional enemies of despotic monarchies and wanted to help the oppressed people of Cuba. On the other hand, the workingman felt he 'is a fool to go to war to settle the quarrels of potentates or to protect the possessions which plutocracy has filched from labor'. He was asking himself: `Isn't this flag they are waving now and calling upon me to defend the same flag that the butcher of Homestead, Pullman, Brooklyn and Lattimore carried?'^^1^^At first the workers of many unions believed that the USA was fighting Spain in order to liberate Cuba from Spanish tyranny. The journal of the Granite Cutters' Union wrote that in this controversy the United States was not 'grabbing land or extending its territory but, as is claimed', was acting 'in the name of humanity'.^^2^^ 'We shall free Cuba and punish her oppressor,'^^3^^ wrote the organ of the New Jersey State Federation of Labor. Similar views were stated by some other unions affiliated to the AF of L.
Of course, sincere delusion played its part, but also significant is, as Philip S. Foner points out, that the ' economic gains resulting from the war were also responsible for silencing labor leaders who had voiced opposition to the war drive right down to the declaration of war'.^^4^^ The industrial boom brought higher wages and more employment and thereby helped to strengthen the hand of the working-class elite. The AF of L unions that favoured war included the Stone Cutters' Association, the Typographical Union, the Cigarmakers' Union and other long-established organisations, that had become strongholds of the workers' aristocracy. They were joined by smaller unions: the United Mine Workers, Glass Cutters' League of America, Woodworkers' Union, and others, and also by the independent conservative Railroad Brotherhoods.
'Business unionism' that had been preached by the right leadership for many years developed into undisguised _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ The Granite Cutters' Journal, May 1898.
^^3^^ The Paterson Labor Standard, 5 May 1898 (in 1899 this newspaper changed its name to The National Labor Standard).
~^^4^^ Philip S. Foner, op. cit., p. 415.
255 bigotry during the war. The National Labor Tribune wrote: '... the war with Spain has had a good effect already on the business of the country. Not alone in the iron and steel industry is the boom felt, but in all other branches. The government has already spent $ 4,000,000 for clothing for the soldiers, and contracts for $ 3,000,000 more will have been made.... Then many millions more have been spent for subsistence for the armies and transportation to and from the different camps.'^^1^^ The iron and steel workers' mouthpiece The Iron Moulders Journal editorially expressed the hope that the demand for war materials would keep the foundries and mills working at top speed.^^2^^ The United Mine Workers Journal underscored with satisfaction that the new American supply stations at sea were coaling stations.^^3^^ Many of the union leaders who took sides with the proponents of war were well aware that by echoing expansionist slogans they were supporting a war of aggrandisement. Hailing the American invasion of Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, The National Labor Tribune wrote: 'With island bases and coal supplies in Asiatic waters, in Central Pacific and West India waters, we have the foundation upon which to build our future commercial career. America is destined to become the leading and predominating commercial factor of the world.... What does this all mean for the wage-earner? Employment.'^^4^^ The leaders of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers went so far in their subservience as to encourage workers to enlist in the army. The National Labor Tribune reported that the Association's ex-president M. M. Garland had urged the union's members to form a volunteer regiment and set out for the front. In reply to this summons, one of the Association's branches, Lakeside Lodge No. 9, adopted an appeal on 24 April 1898 for the formation of a contingent of 30,000 volunteers 'to protect the stars and stripes of America'.^^5^^ The Chicago Federation of Labor ordered its _-_-_~^^1^^ The National Labor Tribune, 9 June 1898.
~^^2^^ The Iron Moulders Journal, May 1898, p. 220.
~^^3^^ The United Mine Workers Journal, 30 June 1898, p. 8.
~^^4^^ The National Labor Tribune, 9 June 1898.
~^^5^^ The National Labor Tribune, 5 May 1898.
256 members to boycott goods from countries that were in any way helping Spain.^^1^^The advocacy of class peace was the reverse side of chauvinistic and jingoistic ideas. It reached as far as traditionally left-wing periodicals of the AF of L. The organ of the militant New Jersey State Federation of Labor carried an article, 'Effects of the War', in which the author, using the pseudonym Labor Advocate, wrote: 'There is nothing on earth that will bring men of the world in closer touch with one another than the battlefield. There every man is made to feel that he is dependent upon his brother. War is no respecter of persons. The rich man's son as well as the poor man's boy is forced to experience the hardships incident to a soldier's life.... These truths are corroborated by the fact that organized labor has never been united on any plan calculated to ameliorate the condition of all the people collectively. In this great struggle there will be a marriage between the North and the South. Sectionalism will be wiped out and we will become one united people.'^^2^^ Even The Coast Seamen s Journal, that had earlier held antiimperialist views, considering in March 1898 that the 'war with Spain, unless forced upon us as a measure of defence, would be utterly unjustifiable from any point of view', declared in April that 'having got into a war, no matter how or why, we want to win out as speedily as possible and with as little damage as possible'.^^3^^
As for the traditionally conservative unions, their socialreformist propaganda reached its highest level. The journal of the Order of Railway Conductors wrote highly of the self-sacrifice of manufacturers, who had promised to keep jobs open for workers who volunteered for the war.^^4^^ The journal of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen wrote that the dissemination of anti-war views by some intellectuals should be halted.^^5^^
Many workers could not see through the propaganda mist, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The National Labor Tribune, 20 May 1898.
~^^2^^ The Paterson Labor Standard, 4 August 1898.
~^^3^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 2 March 1898, p. 6; 27 April 1898, p. 6.
~^^4^^ The Railway Conductor, June 1898, p. 412.
~^^5^^ The Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, J uly 1898, p. 62.
257 but even at the outbreak of war voices were heard in the AF of L speaking against the war and expressing the true interests of the American working class. As in the days of the 1897 Hawaii crisis, the anti-war sentiments of the workers sprang from various factors. Some were influenced by pacifist and isolationist views, but most realised that war was alien to their interests. The Monthly Journal of the International Association of Machinists replied to the jingoist call, 'Remember the Maine\\ with the reminder that thousands of workers were dying at the factories and in the mines but nobody cared.^^1^^ It noted that the war with Spain was a means of preventing 'a thorough union of labor's forces. The day will come, however, when laborers will realize that they must fight not each other, but the power by which it [labor] is oppressed, and then, with the overthrow of that system, war will be no more^^2^^.The Bakers' Journal exhorted workers to oppose the war: 'How much more cause have the workingmen to enlist in the army of organized labor and to do their duty in the campaigns and battles against the cohorts of capital than those men who have taken the field against Spain.'^^3^^ Commenting on a report that the Studebaker Company had pledged to keep on its pay-roll employees who volunteered for military service, The International Wood-Workers wrote: 'We have little use for this kind of patriotism.'^^4^^
Many union journals and newspapers noted that the war would make the capitalists richer and increase the burden borne by the workers. 'When a war does come,' The Carpenter declared, 'they [the workers] are only fit to be the food cannon, and when it is over, they can pay for all the damage and destruction.'^^5^^ Similar views were articulated by The Tailor, The Pattern Makers Journal, The Trackmen's Advance Advocate,^^6^^ and other journals.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Monthly Journal of the International Association of Machinists, April 1898, p. 192.
~^^2^^ The Monthly Journal of the International Association of Machinists, May 1898, pp. 255--50; Philip S. Foner, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 410.
~^^3^^ The Bakers' Journal, 15 June 1898, p. 358.
~^^4^^ The International Wood-Workers, May 1898, p. 123.
~^^5^^ The Carpenter, March 1898, p. 1.
~^^6^^ The Tailor, May 1898, p. 8; The Pattern Makers Journal, 20 April 1898; The Trackmen's Advance Advocate, May 1898, p. 250.
__PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17---0284 258While jingoist propaganda sought to prove that imperialist expansion would help to improve the condition of the American workers, the anti-war union press noted that the growth of militarism, if nothing else, was calling in question all the economic gains of the workers. The Craftsman, journal of the Connecticut Federation of Labor, wrote that with the USA's conversion into a world power, militarism would be its inevitable bedfellow, and then 'the capitalists will have the whole thing and, when any workingmen dare to ask for the living wage ... they will be shot down like dogs in the streets'.^^1^^ Another noteworthy argument of the trade union press was that the war with Spain was an imitation of the example of the European monarchies.^^2^^
Of the AF of L unions, the Cleveland Central Labor Union, in which Max S. Hayes was a leading personality, was most consistently anti-war and anti-colonialist. Throughout the war The Cleveland Citizen never ceased to urge the workers to take action against it. When M. M. Garland said that workers should form volunteer units, the newspaper wrote: 'We don't believe Garland will lead ten thousand or one thousand men or even himself against the enemy.' The newspaper supported the left wing in the New York Central Labor Union, which demanded that the Maine incident should be settled by international arbitration and noted that there was 'as much oppression of the poor in this country as in Cuba; that war will increase the suffering in Cuba and the United States; that speculators would make money while workingmen of the two nations shoot each other down'.^^3^^ In July 1898 the newspaper wrote: 'As soldiers, we must not even point guns at one another, but always aim steadily at the enemy of all mankind---those who would keep control of all public necessities in private hands for their own profit.'^^4^^
At the close of the summer of 1898, when the American _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Craftsman, April 1898, p. 256.
~^^2^^ The Journal of the Brotherhood of Boiler Makers and Iron Ship Builders of America, April 1898.
~^^3^^ The Cleveland Citizen, 23 April 1898; 30 April 1898.
~^^4^^ The Cleveland Citizen, 16 July 1898.
259 government made it clear that it was pursuing an expansionist policy (Hawaii was annexed in July and the terms were being drawn up for an annexationist peace with Spain), the ranks of the adversaries of imperialist expansion began to grow rapidly. It was only the press of the railway brotherhoods that continued to nourish chauvinism, lauding the feats of the US army, writing of the 'white man's burden' and advantages of having a colonial empire.^^1^^ Most of the AF of L unions that had been ultra-patriotic, now reversed their stand. This evolution followed different patterns and was due to different reasons. While the Seamen's Union of the Pacific Coast and the New Jersey State Federation of Labor firmly resumed their former anti-expansionist and anti-war stand and even acknowledged that they had been wrong in their assessment of the Spanish-American War, the Metal Workers' International Association, the United Mine Workers of America, the Cigarmakers' Union, and other unions based their attitude to imperialist expansion solely on the philosophy of 'simple and pure unionism'. George W. Perkins, president of the Cigarmakers' Union, stated that his new stand against annexation was motivated as follows: the Philippines had ten million 'semi-savage inhabitants' who knew nothing of republican institutions. 'It is said there are 20,000 people engaged in cigar and cigarette making on the islands. Can we compete with those people?'^^2^^ The National Labor Tribune presented similar arguments. It was against the annexation of the Philippines and further US expansion in the Far East only because it believed that the capitalists wanted not markets but cheap labour, and the factories built there would ultimately destroy American industry. 'Are not the commercial imperialists, like the military imperialists, following in the footsteps of Frankenstein and creating a monster by which they and _-_-_~^^1^^ The Railway Conductor, July 1898, p. 478; September 1898 p. 628; The Railroad Telegrapher, January 1898, p. 3; The Railroad Trainmen's Journal, August 1898, p. 677; September 1898, p. 763; February 1899, p. 177; The Locomotive Engineers Journal, September 1898, p. 612; March 1899, pp. 209--10.
~^^2^^ The National Labor Tribune, 28 September 1898.
__PRINTERS_P_259_COMMENT__ 17* 260 theirs alike will be devoured?'^^1^^ Identical apprehensions were articulated by The United Mine Workers Journal and The Iron Moulders Journal.^^2^^In the latter hall' of 1898 the anti-expansion campaign received a considerable boost in that section of the union press that had been against the war from the very outset. The Carpenter, The Pattern Makers Journal, The International Wood-Workers, The Leather Workers Journal, and other periodicals noted that further territorial conquests would demolish democratic principles in the USA and lead to militarisation and heavier taxation^^3^^. The question was given a particularly sharp edge by E. Fitzpatrick in The Monthly Journal of the International Association of Machinists: 'The struggle to-day is not merely a struggle between expansionist and anti-expansionist. It is a struggle, and should be made a struggle, between the laboring classes and the monopolists and plutocracy.'^^4^^
However, considerations of this kind were few and far between in the union press. Much more characteristic of its left segment was the stand of The Coast Seamen's Journal, which called in its April issue for a quick victory over Spain, while in June noting that the seizure of foreign territory was inhuman, a breach of the promise given to the Cubans and Filipinos, and a departure from republican principles.^^5^^ Gradually, the arguments against expansion grew more profound. The journal ridiculed the 'commercial idea' of expansion, according to which national strength depended 'upon the excess of exports over imports'. 'In the final analysis of this theory we shall be perfectly happy only when we are engaged exclusively in the production of wealth for the consumption of other nations. When our ``trade'' _-_-_
~^^1^^ The National Labor Tribune, 2 March 1899.
~^^2^^ The United Mine Workers Journal, 8 December 1898, p. 4; The Iron Moulders Journal, September 1898, p. 434.
~^^3^^ The Carpenter, August 1898; November 1898, p. 1; The Pattern Makers Journal, 20 December 1898, p. 2; The International WoodWorkers, February 1899, p. 14; The Leather Workers Journal, November 1900, p. 65; The Journal of the Metal Polishers, Buffers, Platers and Brass Workers Union, December 1898, January 1899.
~^^4^^ The Monthly Journal of the International Association oj Machinists, February 1899, p. 79.
~^^5^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, i June 1898.
261 is all export and no import, all foreign, and no home consumption, we shall have attained the summum bonum of human existence.'^^1^^ The journal failed to upset these commercial motivations in favour of expansion, but it is symbolic that they attracted its attention. In its August issue it wanted to know why the United States was looking for new markets when many Americans were lacking the necessaries of life.^^2^^In its subsequent issues the journal indicated that imperialist interests were the mainspring of expansion. For instance, commenting on the mission of Senators Shelby M. Cullom, John T. Morgan, and Robert R. Hitt to inquire into the juridical aspect of the annexation of Hawaii, it wrote that before setting out they had consulted not with the people but with the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants' Association. Further, it noted that the bourgeois newspapers and other publicity media had their own views, which usually coincided with those of the financial circles.^^3^^ In another issue the journal wrote that the 'better classes' in the USA had quickly found a common language with the 'better classes' in the Philippines and Cuba and that they were now in concert suppressing the insurgents fighting for their country's independence.^^4^^ In its November issue, the journal noted that in the United States 'there are the mercantile classes and the carpet-baggers, all of whom expect to, and no doubt will, reap a harvest from the exploitation of those pastures. Against these interests, what do the people of the United States stand to lose?'^^5^^ A resolution passed by the San Francisco Labor Council in January 1899 likewise declared that the annexation of the Philippines was being inspired by commercial interests, that were out to extend foreign markets and secure cheap Asian labour.^^6^^
By August-September 1898 the majority of the AF of L unions had unequivocally declared themselves against _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 21 July 1898, p. 7.
~^^2^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 17 August 1898, p. 7.
~^^3^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 10 August 1898, p. (5.
~^^4^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 21 September 1898, pp. 0-7.
~^^5^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 16 November 1898, p. 7.
~^^6^^ The Coast Seamen's Journal, 25 January 1899, p. 6,
262 annexation. Anti-imperialist feeling ran still higher among the American workers after the USA had signed the peace treaty with defeated Spain in December 1898. In the innumerable resolutions passed by the unions the workers insisted that Congress should reject the piratical treaty. Of the greatest significance at this stage was the stand of the AF of L leadership, which could be vital to mustering organised resistance to expansion. In the period from April to September its attitude to the war was not quite clear. True, The American Federationist, organ of the AF of L, wrote: '...no American, no sympathizer with liberty, no lover of humanity ought but give his undivided sympathy and co-operation to the cause in which our people are engaged.' But pronouncements of this kind were rare indeed, for most of the time the journal urged: 'While the cannon is booming do not forget to boom the union label,... business as usual'.^^1^^ Moreover, during the war the AF of L leadership made no attempt to call off strikes or prolong working hours, as the government desired.One of the AF of L leaders, Peter J. McGuire, who had earlier been against the war, sent Gompers a letter after the outbreak of hostilities in which he wrote that he and the other leaders of the labour movement should quickly abandon their former opposition lest they be accused of un-- Americanism and their economic demands be treated coldly by the government. Precautions should be taken to make certain that all labour spokesmen were 'men who favor loyal and unstinted support to our Government against Spain in the present War'.^^2^^ However, when the AF of L was split over the attitude to the war, Gompers preferred to manoeuvre and sit on the fence. He declared his stand in July 1898 at a meeting of the New York Central Labor Union, where he defined the war as righteous as far as the United States was concerned, although he was against colonial seizures.
In the summer of 1898 when it was found that most of the AF of L unions were anti-jingoist, Gompers' attitude to the war underwent a radical change. A national conference on foreign policy was held in Saratoga in August 1898. A large _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Federationist, May 1898, pp. 53, 55.
~^^2^^ Philip S. Foner, The History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, p. 415.
263 group of men, including Carl Schurz, Moorfield Storey, and Henry W. Rogers took the floor denouncing US expansionism, particularly the annexation of the Philippines. At the conference Gompers likewise spoke against imperialist colonial expansion: 'Imperialism points to large armaments and more frequent wars. It means greater demands upon the workers in taxes, blood and life. It tends to the more frequent and unblushing use of force against the weak and lowly. It subordinates rights and justice to an unwise or blind greed of gain, and the exploitation of islands whose millions are to be made the tools, willing or unwilling, of the few thousand. And this is what some men call a cure for social unrest.'^^1^^He was even more emphatically opposed to territorial seizures in October 1898, when President McKinley toured the USA in order to prepare public opinion for the ratification of the annexationist peace with Spain. In Chicago, where everybody hailed the victory of American arms and colonial expansion, the AF of L president condemned territorial seizures. He demanded independence for the Philippines and Hawaii.^^2^^ He repeated his condemnation of territorial expansion at the 1898 AF of L convention.^^3^^
Of course, when Gompers made these speeches he had his eye on the anti-jingoist mood of most of the union rank and file. However, his words should be judged against the background of his statements on other issues and his overall social posture. The important reason for his opposition to colonial expansion was his apprehension of competition from cheap colonial goods and Asian immigration. This was the general view of the labour aristocracy. Hence Gompers' frequent insulting racist attacks. He called Puerto Rico a country of 'semi-nude people', and said that the Filipinos were 'half-breeds and a semi-barbaric' people, that they were 'perhaps nearer the condition of savages and barbarians than those of any islands possessed by any other civilized nation on earth'.^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The American Federationist, September 1898, p. 140.
~^^2^^ The American Federationist, November 1898, pp. 179--80.
~^^3^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1898, p. 27.
~^^4^^ Horace B. Davis, 'American Labor and Imperialism Prior to World War I', Science and Society, Vol. 27, No. 1, Winter 1963, p. 73,
264To an even larger extent, his attitude to US foreign policy and expansion was determined by his socio-- philosophical concept of a 'progressive American society', in which the wealth of the nation should be distributed among employers, wage workers, and consumers. He believed that when a state founded on this 'tripartite partnership' emerged, the USA would reach a level of labour productivity enabling it to control the markets of the world. In this light economic expansion was preferable in all respects to territorial expansion. Speaking at the Saratoga conference in August 1898, he said: 'The nation which dominates the markets of the world will surely control its destinies. To make of the United States a vast workshop is our manifest destiny, and our duty.... But to attain this end is the acquirement of the Philippine Islands, with their semi-savage population, necessary?... Surely not. Neither its gates nor those of any other country of the globe can long be closed against our constantly growing industrial supremacy.'^^1^^
The arguments in favour of economic expansion presented by Gompers in his speech on 20 August were repeated by him in Chicago in October, when he urged conquering foreign countries not by force of arms but by force of industry and civilisation. Polemising with Gompers in a letter to The American Federationist in November 1898, Francis B. Thurber, president of the US Export Association, contended that new territories had to be annexed to find markets for surplus products. He assured the American workers that they should not worry about overseas competition, for the US could erect high customs barriers and pass laws against immigration from the East. Beplying to this letter, Gompers made it plain that he disagreed with Thurber only over the choice of the means of attaining the end goals that were so near. 'I realize,' he wrote, 'that we are not living in an altruistic age, and that commercialism requires expansion in trade; nor are we opposed to such expansion.' After listing the moral and material losses involved in military expansion, he wrote that 'it is not necessary that _-_-_
^^1^^ The American Federationist, September 1898, p. 138.
265 we shall subjugate by the force of arms any other people in order to obtain that expansion of trade.'^^1^^He developed this view at the AF of L convention in 1898: 'We do not oppose the development of our industry, the expansion of our commerce, or the power and influence which the United States may exert upon the destinies of the nations of the earth. On the contrary, we realize that the higher intelligence and standard of the life of the American workers will largely contribute towards attaining the highest pinnacle of industrial and commercial greatness.'^^2^^ This was the substance of many of his other speeches.
Meanwhile, the spread of anti-expansionist sentiments, largely under the influence of the Socialists in the AF of L, made the struggle against imperialist policy the main issue at the 1898 convention. It passed a statement against annexation signed by ranking AF of L functionaries and a resolution condemning the terms of the peace treaty with Spain. The statement declared: 'As citizens we protest against forcing our system of government upon an unwilling people; against the maintenance of a huge standing army, that has no place in a republic such as ours; we protest against the manifold dangers attendant upon European and Asiatic entanglements, and as workingmen emphatically protest against the unfair competition of the wretched peoples who would become, without voice or vote, our fellow citizens.'^^3^^ In its resolution the convention sharply criticised the government's intention to pursue a policy fraught with new, serious consequences, a policy known as `imperialism' or `expansionism'. In the event this policy was approved by the Senate it would 'mean the building up of a large army and navy at the expense of the producers' and would be a menace to the republic.^^4^^ The convention recommended that that the AF of L should use all fair means to secure the nonratification of the Treaty of Paris. The unanimity with which these documents were passed was astonishing. There were only three negative votes, while Samuel Donnelly, president of the Typographical Union, was the only delegate who _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Federationist, December 1898, pp. 205, 207,
~^^2^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1898, p. 28.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 87.
~^^4^^ Ibid., pp. 62--65.
266 spoke in favour of expansion. Delegate Lloyd of Boston declared that these decisions should be taken seriously by American politicians and that any Senator voting for the annexationist peace treaty'was the deadly enemy of labor'. Delegate McNeill said: 'If the trade unionists had sent up a concerted protest against expansion at its inception it would have been defeated.'^^1^^ The opinion of the AF of L carried so much weight that even the jingoist newspaper The World had to acknowledge labour's opposition to expansion.^^2^^ Many unions approved the convention's decisions, sending letters and telegrams to the AF of L leadership congratulating the Federation on speaking out against expansion.But the resolutions of the union conventions, the editorials in the workers' newspapers, and the speeches of the labour leaders were not enough to secure the renunciation of the Spanish colonies. There had to be joint actions by the working class and all the other anti-monopoly forces. A combined effort by the AF of L and the Anti-Imperialist League might have provided a sound basis for this sort of broad political movement. Some labour leaders had been associated with the League from the day it was founded. George E. McNeill was one of the participants in the Feneuil Hall meeting in Boston on 15 June 1898 at which the AntiImperialist League was set up. In November 1898 Gompers was elected a vice-president, and held the same post in the American Anti-Imperialist League following its foundation in October 1899. The popular labour leaders Patrick A. Collins and Patrick Ford were also active members.
The decisions of the 1898 AF of L convention enabled the unions to establish closer contacts with the Anti-- Imperialist League. Its Secretary, Erving Winslow, wrote to Gompers: 'I want to congratulate you for the admirable and ringing resolutions adopted by the Federation. We should be glad to act upon any suggestions from you for promoting the work among the unions.'^^3^^ For several months the AF of L and the Anti-Imperialist League collaborated _-_-_
~^^1^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1898, pp. 88, 91.
~^^2^^ The World, 16 December 1898.
~^^3^^ Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, p. 422,
267 in order to induce Congress to reject the treaty with Spain. Thousands of trade unionists and various AF of L unions signed an AF of L-League petition to the US President and Congress. During the Congress sitting that considered the peace treaty, i.e., from December 1898 to March 1899, the minutes recorded 31 petitions from trade unions: the Cigarmakers' International Union, Mine Workers of Michigan, and the San Francisco Labor Union, to mention a few.^^1^^ The sentiments of the militant workers of those days were described by the American Communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: 'My father was vocal and vitriolic in his opposition to it [Spanish-American War.---7. D.]. He said the blowing up of the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba, was an inside job to cause hostilities and that Hearst had a hand in it.... My father joined the Anti-Imperialist League of that day, founded by Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, to oppose the United States taking over Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.'^^2^^Gompers was one of the 24 leading personalities who sent the Senate a memorial recommending an amendment to the US-Spanish peace treaty---the deletion of the articles on the annexation of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. The memorial stated: '...the Constitution was established for the United States of America and not for the United States of America and Asia. That the transfer proposed is a transfer of sovereignty, is obvious from the fact that the consent of the people of the Philippines and Porto Rico is ignored.'^^3^^
There were elements in the AF of L who were aware that joint action was essential, but they had to surmount the political indifference generated by 'business unionism', an indifference that was deep-rooted in the AF of L. It is indicative that while the 1898 convention passed an antiexpansionist resolution, it did not state how that resolution _-_-_
~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd Session, Vol. 32, Part I, Washington, 1899, p. 882; Part 2, pp. 1443, 1639.
~^^2^^ Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 'I Speak My Own Piece. Autobiography of ``The Rebel Girl"\thinspace', Masses and Mainstream, New York, November 1955, pp. 22--23.
~^^3^^ New York Public Library, Division of Manuscripts, S. Gompers Collection, 'Memorial to the United States Senate with Respect to the Spanish Treaty'.
268 should be implemented. The same convention passed a resolution castigating independent political action.^^1^^ Moreover, whenever a movement for independent political action arose in a local union the right leadership of the AFL invariably extinguished the initiative by pointing out that the AF of L charter forbade interference in politics. When a number of union leaders in Minnesota and Arkansas organised a sponsoring committee to mobilise political action around the issues of 'Anti-Trusts and Anti-Imperialism', Gompers did not even bother to answer their appeal for endorsement and support. When several AF of L unions in Ohio took steps to form an independent political party around the issue of anti-imperialism, Gompers opposed the plan. 'The establishment of a political party among the workingmen is the division of their forces,' he told the Ohio unions. Under pressure from him they abandoned their plan.^^2^^One of the last attempts in that direction was the action by the New Jersey State Federation of Labor in August 1900. Its journal, The National Labor Standard, drew the conclusion that there were no essential distinctions in the platforms of the two main political parties in the USA, called for the establishment of a 'genuine anti-imperialist party', and expressed the confidence that if that party were formed then 'in spite of the trusts and all their ill-gotten millions, the year 1900 may witness the end of Imperialism and the dawning of a new and better era for mankind.'^^3^^ In September 1900 the New Jersey State Federation of Labor announced the establishment of the New Jersey Anti-- Imperialist Labor League with the 'defense of the republic against empire' as its general platform. The National Labor Standard called for the foundation of anti-imperialist labour leagues in all the states.^^4^^ But it was too late---only a few weeks were left before the elections. As many others, this initiative died.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1898, p. 104.
~^^2^^ Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, p. 433.
~^^3^^ The National Labor Standard, 16 August 1900.
~^^4^^ The National Labor Standard, 13 September 1900; 27 September 1900.
269The efforts of militant workers to take independent political actions were not supported by the Socialists in the trade unions. They failed to appreciate the movement of anti-imperialist leagues and held aloof from it. Max S. Hayes (Cleveland Central Labor Union), F. Carey ( Massachusetts Central Labor Union), and other Socialists criticised colonial seizures but did nothing to fight them. At the 1898 AF of L convention they declared that the issue of foreign expansion was irrelevant and that all efforts should be bent towards the immediate overthrow of the capitalist system.^^1^^ The Cleveland Citizen, whose editor Hayes was, justifiably censured Gompers for opposing the plan of the Ohio unions to form an independent political party with an anti-expansionist programme. 'The governmental bosses do not care a snap for labor's opinion, knowing that labor represents no crystallized political power,'^^2^^ the newspaper wrote. At the same time, it held that it was a 'waste of time' to fight colonial policy.
Although fairly sharp anti-expansionist resolutions were passed at the 1899 convention and by the AF of L Executive Council in 1900, the Federation's leaders began to move away from collaboration with the Anti-Imperialist League as soon as the Senate ratified the treaty with Spain in February 1899. It would be hard to agree with Foner that Gompers was active in the American Anti-Imperialist League.^^3^^ This is far from the case. Rather, the data obtained from the Federation's archives by Foner are evidence of the fact that Gompers only created the outward impression of activity: he assisted in the distribution of the league's circular letters, furnished it with the names and addresses of the secretaries of the principal labour unions, and so forth. Actually, from February onwards he did not make a single significant anti-expansionist speech or statement. This is borne out by documents from the archives of the American Anti-- Imperialist League, which show that Gompers used all sorts of pretexts to absent himself from its sittings. Even when the Washington Anti-Imperialist League invited George S. _-_-_
~^^1^^ Proceedings, AF of L Convention, 1878, pp. 89--91.
~^^2^^ The Cleveland Citizen, 10 December 1898; Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, p. 531.
~^^3^^ Philip S. Foner, op. cit., pp. 422--23, 427.
270 Boutwell to speak on labour's opposition to expansion, Gompers did not find it necessary to be present.^^1^^ When Edward W. Ordway, secretary of the Chicago Anti-- Imperialist League, pressed him to make a statement on behalf of the AF of L, Gompers replied that he was busy and referred him to 'copies of my reports to the last two conventions of the American Federation of Labor, which fully convey all that I care to express on the subject'.^^2^^ Neither did he show up at the Plaza Hotel in January 1900, where the formation of an anti-imperialist party was discussed.After the peace treaty with Spain was ratified by the Senate only a few union periodicals like The National Labor Standard, The Coast Seamen's Journal and some others, continued to oppose imperialist policy. This was the obvious result of the workers' disenchantment with the inefficacy and non-partisanship of the AF of L leadership. Nevertheless, the union press of those days stated the view that the American workers and the colonial peoples were fighting one and the same enemy, who was encroaching upon their liberty. A machinist from Chicago, writing of the Filipino people, put this view sharply: 'Because men such as Theodore Roosevelt of New York declare them savages and say that they ought to be repressed ... does not make it so, for if such men as he had it in their power they would repress you and me from becoming members of the International Association of Machinists.'^^3^^
The use of troops against striking miners in the Coeur d'Alene District of Idaho in 1899, the imprisonment of strike leaders in Havana by Brigadier-General William S. Ludlow in September 1899, the arrest of strikers in Puerto Rico, and, lastly, the mass murders in the Philippines gave further eloquent testimony of what militarism held out for the working class and started a tidal wave of protests. 'Democracy and the ascendancy of the military _-_-_
~^^1^^ L of CMD, W. A. Croffut Papers, S. Gompers to W. Croffut, 1 January 1900.
~^^2^^ New York Public Library, Division of Manuscripts, S. Gompers Collection, S. Gompers to E. W. Ordway, 28 December 1900.
~^^3^^ The Monthly Journal of the International Association of Machinists, March 1900, p. 104; Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, p. 450.
271 power cannot long dwell together,' wrote the journal The Garment Workers. 'Witness, for instance, the usurpation of civil authority in the mining regions during the late labor troubles. What a multitude of sins is covered by the word ``patriotism!''~'^^1^^ The official journal of the Indianapolis Central Labor Union declared: 'If you want an emphatic evidence of military tyranny, if not downright imperialism, all you have to do is to direct your attention toward Porto Rico. A military edict has just been issued for the suppression of all species of trade unionism on the island, and the presidents, secretaries and other officers have been thrown into prison.... It is the cause for serious reflection in the ranks of organized labor.'^^2^^ Even the moderate journal of the Cigarmakers' Union saw a direct connection between the actions of the American military authorities in colonial possessions and the armed suppression of strikes in the USA: 'Expansion leads to imperialism which tends to militarism which leads to despotism, and all four lead to oppression and misery for the toiling masses as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.'^^3^^The inaction of the AF of L leadership and McKinley's re-election were a heavy blow to the opponents of imperialist expansion, including the trade unions. The AF of L ceased its opposition to war and colonial seizures during approximately the same years as the American Anti-- Imperialist League.
__*_*_*__A much smaller part was played in the anti-imperialist actions by the Order of the Knights of Labor. By the mid18908 the Order, which had only recently been one of the most powerful labour organisations in the USA, had declined. It retained some influence only in a number of rural areas, in Washington, D. C., where junior civil servants belonged to it, and in some industries that had not yet been penetrated by the AF of L.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Garment Workers, August 1899.
~^^2^^ Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, p. 432.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
272The Order's heterogeneous social composition and its loose programme, which gravitated towards petty-- bourgeois utopianism, gave rise to a wide spectrum oi' opinions: from purely bourgeois to mature proletarian. However pettybourgeois radicalism with its inconsistency and vacillation predominated. This was mirrored in its assessment of foreign policy issues. True, the programme adopted in 1878 spoke of the dangers inherent in the concentration of industry in the hands of a few and of the need for unity to check the power of big capital,^^1^^ but this was in no way part of a coherent conception and did not evolve into understanding of the connection between the monopolies and imperialist expansion.
Neither the Venezuelan dispute of 1895 nor the USA's drive to annex Hawaii evoked any particular interest among the Order's weekly---The Journal of the Knights of Labor--- or at the annual assemblies. In the former case there was a vague apprehension over the growth of militarism in the USA,^^2^^ while in the latter case fear was expressed that the possible annexation of Hawaii would trigger Chinese immigration.^^3^^ However, the revolution in Cuba at once attracted its attention. As early as 11 July 1895 its journal noted that the 'revolution is one of the most righteous ever declared in any country and should be supported by every lover of liberty and free government in this country'.^^4^^ The journal charged the Cleveland Administration with inactivity at a time when the Cuban people needed help. The campaign for assistance to the Cuban revolution was kept up for several months, the journal repeatedly urging 'recognition of Cuban belligerency' as the best help that could be rendered to the Cubans.^^5^^
There is no doubt that this evaluation mirrored the sincere sympathy of the Order, as of the majority of American labour, for the Cuban revolution. But the Order's membership were unable to understand the character of the events in Cuba, to say nothing of weighing the consequences of US _-_-_
~^^1^^ T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor, Columbus, 1890, p. 243.
~^^2^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, 26 December 1895.
~^^3^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, 13 January 1898.
~^^4^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, 11 July 1895.
~^^5^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, 3 October 1895.
273 intervention. Its journal wrote that after its liberation Cuba's development could be 'based on the demands contained in the declarations and platform of principles of the Knights of Labor, for instance'.^^1^^ On the other hand, in seeking to prove that all Americans were allegedly united in their striving to help the Cuban revolution, the journal published, without discrimination or comment, selections from what the American press was writing about the Cuban crisis. The following are samples: 'If Cuba were free, as its people wish it to be, the country would be fairly overrun and developed by American energy and capital, and the benefits that would accrue to the United States would be incalculable. Cuba is the natural source of supply for sugar and tobacco for the United States' (Detroit Tribune). 'It is the manifest destiny of Cuba to become free. By location and commercial intercourse the island is allied to this country' (Detroit Free Press).^^2^^Only a few of the Order's functionaries, notably the Socialists, could give a class evaluation of the developments. For instance, the prominent Socialist publicist Arthur Keep wrote an article headed 'Are We Better Off Than Cubans?', in which he noted that many American workers were sympathising with the Cubans but forgetting their own condition: 'I have heard it said that in Cuba a man can be thrown into jail without trial and for no cause. That is given as one of the reasons for our support of the Cuban revolutionists, but what about Debs and Dempsey in this ``blessed land of freedom"?' He pointed out that the workers and the capitalists pursued different aims relative to Cuba: 'All through the United States the capitalistic press is shouting for Cuban freedom. Capitalism never goes into hysterics over liberty unless it desires to suppress it. May not its present enthusiasm for liberty in Cuba be a scheme to remove some of the odium -now attaching to it and its adherents---the politicians?... In Cuba there are many valuable iron mines, the property of American capitalists. May not those same capitalists be working to secure freedom (?) for Cuba with the expectation of its annexation by this _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
__PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18---0284 274 country, thereby securing the free importation of their iron?' Keep's advice to the workers was 'that this is a matter in which it is hest to go ahead slow, examine every inch of the road ahead, and be ready to shoot the guide at the first sign of treachery!'^^1^^However, this was a very rare evaluation for the Order's press, and Keep's warning was soon forgotten. The Order's General Assembly in November 1895 passed a resolution stating: 'Whereas, the Cubans are at present engaged in a struggle to achieve their independence, against ... an alien and tyrannical government...; whereas, we, as the citizens of the foremost republic in the world, should at least be willing to see that all men fighting for the liberty of the land of their nativity, and their own deliverance from the grasp of an oppressor, should have a fair and equal chance to meet their opponents in open warfare ... the General Assembly of the Khights of Labor ... does hereby declare itself in favor of the recognition of the Cubans as belligerents.'^^2^^
This summarised the considerations voiced in the Order's journal. Like the AF of L leadership, the Order's leaders were not alarmed by the fact that in the USA the recommendation for recognising Cuban belligerency had the backing of the expansionists. The view that US intervention would benefit the Cubans was based largely on the illusion that there was a 'higher democracy' in the USA, that the USA was the 'most advanced republic in the world'.
The continuously repeated opinion that support from republican America would benefit the struggle of the Cubans against monarchist Spain gradually evolved into a demand for US armed intervention. Interviewed by a Washington Times reporter in the spring of 1897, Henry B. Martin of the General Executive Board of the Knights of Labor declared that the American workers were sincere in their sympathy for the struggle of the Cubans against the Spanish monarchy and believed that the American government should _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, 31 October 1895.
~^^2^^ Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor, November 12--22, 1895, p. 73. The General Assembly of the Knights of Labor in 1897 passed a resolution reaffirming solidarity with the Cuban struggle for freedom.
275 recognise Cuban belligerency and independence and 'should long ago have sent ships and soldiers if necessary ... to help the Cubans win their freedom at the earliest possible moment'. Martin said that the 'callous plutocracy' and the 'money oligarchy', which hated freedom in Cuba as in America, were opposed to such assistance to embattled Cuba.^^1^^In September the Order's journal wrote approvingly of the imminent war as 'a war which the masses of patriotic American citizens have been willing for years'.^^2^^ For several months running the journal urged the American people to pressure Congressmen in favour of vigorous US intervention in the war in Cuba, while in the spring of 1898 it welcomed the resolution introduced by Senator William P. Frye directing the US President to secure the immediate withdrawal of Spanish troops from Cuba.^^3^^ The abstract-- humanitarian stand of the Knights of Labor was thus based on total disregard for the social aspects of the events, on incomprehension that United States intervention in the war would bring Cuba not liberation but a change of masters. On the eve of the war only a few raised their voices to demand steps to prevent armed intervention. For instance, the 'Letter of the General Worthy Foreman I. D. Chamberlain', printed in the Order's journal, stated that Congress was planning the war in a way that 'the bondholders can make a new Cuban government, on the sly, that will make the pillage of that island legal', and warned that 'a great standing army will be a consequence'.^^4^^ But these warnings fell on deaf ears: the easy, victorious war infected many Knights of Labor with `patriotic' illusions.
The Knights of Labor, as many other Americans, sobered up from chauvinistic passions only when the Hawaiian Islands were annexed in the summer of 1898 and the terms of the imperialist peace treaty were drawn up. However, on this issue, too, the Order lacked the unanimity observed in the AF of L. When the question of Hawaii was debated in _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, 3 June 1897.
~^^2^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, 23 September 1897.
~^^3^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, i April 1898.
~^^4^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, May 1898. (In May 1898 this weekly became a monthly.)
__PRINTERS_P_275_COMMENT__ 18* 276 Congress, the expansionists made skilful use of the telegram sent by A. M. Lawson, head of District Assembly 66 in Washington, to Senator Charles 11. Grosvenor approving his speech in favour of annexation. Lawson wrote that Gompers did not correctly gauge the patriotic and economic significance of expansion to American labour, for if it was profitable for American commerce, it was profitable for the American workers as well.^^1^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, however, condemned the annexation of Hawaii and, albeit belatedly, asked: '...is this step the beginning of the imperialism with which we have been so long threatened?'^^2^^ There was some dissonance in the Order's voice also in November 1898 against the background of the unanimous anti-expansionist stance of the labour unions (the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor was held almost simultaneously with the AF of L convention). Grand Master Workman Hicks came out against expansion. But `No Annexation', the resolution passed by the assembly, contained reservations. In its first section it declared that none of the territories used as a battlefield should remain in the hands of the United States or Spain, that all should be free and independent. But in the second section it was contended that there had to be a close union between the former Spanish colonies, which would achieve independence, and the United States.^^3^^The Knights of Labor kept up their contradictory arguments against imperialist expansion in the subsequent period. An article, 'National Expansion', carried by The Journal of the Knights of Labor in February 1899, deprecated jingoism and territorial expansion but declared that American workers were in favour of any and every form of ' expansion that gives promise of more employment, shorter hours of labor, and better wages. But they see nothing of the sort in the countries which war has put in our possession'. The same idea was mooted in an article by Flynn discussing the issue of the future of the Philippines: `If _-_-_
~^^1^^ Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 31, Part C, Washington, 1898, p. 5874.
~^^2^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, July 1898.
~^^3^^ Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor, November 15--21, 1898, p. 7.
277 the acquisition of foreign territory either by purchase or by the force of superior arms will open up new and permanent avenues for the kind of labor which has made this country great both in commerce and conquest, it is a good thing, regardless of its conflict with the Constitution.'^^1^^ The authors of both articles regarded the threat of cheap native labour as the main criterion of the unprofitability of the new possessions. Even in their opposition to militarism, thefKnights of Labor could not maintain a consistent stand. Their journal wrote: 'My brothers, arouse you; cast off your sloth and stay this monster of militarism; hold indignation and write each Senator and member of your nation.' But in the same breath it wrote that, not 100,000 but only onethird of that number of soldiers would hold the USA's new possessions.^^2^^From 1899 onwards the Knights of Labor participated in the activities of the American Anti-Imperialist League. Their leader, John W. Hayes, was one of the vice-presidents of the League's Washington branch. The Knights of Labor helped to distribute the League's pamphlets and leaflets, while their journal printed pronouncements by its members. An analysis of the propaganda spread by the Order and by members of the American Anti-Imperialist League shows that the Order's leaders subscribed entirely to the constitutional arguments of the anti-imperialists. The formation of a system of colonies was condemned as contravening the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Monroe doctrine. The Order collaborated with the League on the basis of the letter's platform.
The last explosion of activity on the part of the Knights of Labor took place during the election campaign of 1900. Articles criticising American expansion in the Far East and noting that the interests of the American trusts were behind this expansion appeared in the Order's journal.^^3^^ At a special assembly convened in the summer of 1900, its leader I. D. Chamberlain stated that the war, begun for the liberation of Cuba, ended with that country's pillage, that `the great trusl; combinations now ruling the nation' _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, August 1899.
~^^2^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, March 1899.
~^^3^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, June 1900.
278 were ordering the killing of Filipinos and now proposed the plunder of China.^^1^^ However, while proclaiming the struggle against the `trust-imperialists' as the main issue of the election campaign,^^2^^ the Order was still divided. One ol its former leaders, James R. Sovereign, agitated tor Bryan, while another, Terence V. Powderly, favoured McKinley. _-_-_^^1^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, August 1900.
~^^2^^ The Journal of the Knights of Labor, September 1900.
[279] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER TWELVE __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE SOCIALISTSPrior to the close of the 1890s the American Socialists had neither experience of action on foreign policy issues nor a coherent attitude to wars and colonial expansion. Their views were shaped chiefly during the Spanish-- American War, evolving from hard and fast assessments of developments and keeping in line with the basic theoretical principles and tactical guidelines of various socialist parties and groups.
The American socialist press, whose contributors were mostly socialist publicists, grew appreciably towards the end of the century, at the same time mirroring the complex and contradictory growth of the socialist movement, its strong and weak points. In the period we are considering, the leading role was retained in the socialist press by The People (renamed The Weekly People in 1900), organ of the Socialist Labor Party. The spirit of the newspaper was in many ways influenced by the personality of its editor, Daniel De Leon. It was through his efforts that the newspaper switched to the English language (prior to this it was printed in German). The People did much to spread Marxism in the USA and combat the reformist union leaders. From 1895 onwards its editorials, usually written by De Leon, urged the Socialists to quit the reformist unions of the AF of L and the Knights of Labor. An erudite and talented publicist, De Leon wrote in a deliberately academic style, believing that much as a person wishing to become a sailor had to know the terminology of seamen, every socialist sympathiser had to know scientific socialist terminology. At the close of the 1890s, the influence of the newspaper, 280 whose readership had never been wide enough, waned in proportion to the growth of the crisis and division in the Socialist Labor Party. Of the other publications of the SLP mention must be made of The Worker's Call (organ of the Chicago branch) and The Class Struggle (organ of the Pacific branch). Towards the end of 1899 both these newspapers sided with the anti-De Leon faction that had broken away from the SLP.
The Social Democrat (successor to The Railway Times, newspaper of the American Railway Union and published by Eugene Debs), the official organ of the Social Democracy of America, was established on 1 July 1897 in Chicago. When the Social-Democratic Party was formed The Social Democrat was renamed The Social Democratic Herald and became the organ of the new party. From 1898 to 1899 its circulation increased from 3.000 to 8.000. Its editors were Eugene Debs, Theodore Debs, and Victor L. Berger. The newspaper mirrored the contradictory nature of the Social-- Democratic Party's programme and tactics and the discord in its leadership---views of the left and right wings.
By 1900 the Social-Democratic Party had the support of some 25 socialist newspapers, but most gave their attention chiefly to local problems. Besides The Social Democratic Herald, only the Jewish Daily Forward (published in New York) and Vorwdrts (published in German in Milwaukee) raised questions of national significance and enjoyed a large measure of influence. A^stand close to that of the Social-Democratic Party was maintained by the weeklies The Voice of Labor (San Francisco) and The Challenge (Los Angeles).
In July 1900 the Social-Democratic Party began the publication of a theoretical journal, International Socialist Review. This important journal contributed greatly to the propagation of scientific socialism (it often printed articles by Marxist authors), but it committed theoretical errors. It often propagated reformist views (suffice it to say that there were right Socialists on the editorial board: Werner Sombart and Max S. Hayes). Leftist views were propounded by A. M. Simons.
The Coming Nation, a weekly started by Julius A. WayInnd as early as 1893, was the organ of the Brotherhood of 281 the Cooperative Commonwealth. Wayland had had a hard life and had changed many trades. While he was working as a typesetter he found himself fascinated by the ideas of Henry George, and then he joined the Populist movement. In that period his social views' were strongly influenced by the Utopian theories of Edward Bellamy and John Ruskin. In 1894 he established the John Ruskin Cooperative Colony in Tennessee and The Coming Nation's income was the main source for financing this colony. The newspaper propagated a mixture of Populism and Utopian socialism, frequently carrying exposures of the manipulations of trusts and the financial oligarchy. In its editorials it called for the 'complete socialisation of industry and agriculture' through Utopian projects. After Wayland's departure from the colony Alfred S. Edwards became editor of The Coming Nation, which continued to propagate the idea of a Cooperative Commonwealth Brotherhood, but by that time the principles of Utopian socialism had acquired a pronounced religious slant. The newspaper printed the stirring sermons of the 'Red priest' Herbert N. Casson.|
In August 1895 Wayland started a new newspaper, The Appeal to Reason, in the small town of Girard (Kansas), where it was cheaper to print it. At first there was little to distinguish The Appeal to Reason from The Coming Nation. Criticism of the abuses of the trusts and support for the Populist movement went hand in hand with propagation of Utopian socialism. But the failure of the John Ruskin Cooperative Colony brought Wayland round to the conclusion that vigorous political action was needed. He agitated for the formation of a large socialist party that would come to power through election and put socialist reforms into effect. 'If you believe in socialism,' he wrote, addressing workers, 'it is your duty to at once connect yourself with a socialist political organization, for by no other means can socialism be peacefully accomplished.'^^1^^ Appeals of this nature found fertile soil in those days, and the newspaper played a large part in spreading socialist ideas and in uniting many small socialist groups into a party. Later, paying tribute to Wayland's work, Eugene Debs wrote: _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Appeal to Reason, 22 January 1898.
282 `Wherever the Appeal is at work, and that seems everywhere, socialism has at least a nucleus and the light is spreading.'^^1^^Until the spring of 1898 Wayland was neutral in the polemic between the supporters of Debs and the leadership of the Socialist Labor Partv, proposing unity of action in the struggle for socialism. But then he joined the opposition in the SLP against the sectarianism of De Leon. Although Wayland did not want to be associated formally with the Social-Democratic Party (largely because his opponent, Edwards, was editor of its official organ, The Social Democratic Herald}, the ideological stance of The Appeal to Reason 'was nonetheless identical with that of the party. Debs wrote frequently for this newspaper and then became its permanent correspondent and a member of the editorial board. At the turn of the century The Appeal to Reason was the most influential of the socialist newspapers. In 1900 it had a circulation of 100,000. Noting its popularity among the American workers, Lenin wrote in 1910 of the 'million copies of a socialist weekly which American courts harass and persecute shamelessly and which is growing and gaining strength under the fire of persecution'.^^2^^
Of other publications that embraced socialist ideals mention must be made of Wilshire's Magazine sponsored by the millionaire-philanthropist Gaylord Wilshire. This journal constantly campaigned against the trusts, denouncing corruption, but its general ideology unquestionably mirrored the views of the right wing in the Socialist Party.
The American Fabian, monthly journal of the American Fabian Society, had an incomparably smaller readership. The Fabian movement in the USA got its impetus from the London Fabian Society but it never rallied any considerable support, enjoying limited influence only in Eastern cities: Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Led by William D. Bliss and Laurence Gronlund, it was hostile to revolutionary theory, advocating reformist principles. This, too, was the policy of The American Fabian, which was established in Boston in 1895.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Julius A. Wayland, Leaves of Life: A Study of 20 Years of Socialist `Agitation', Girard, Kansas, 1912, p. 38.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 385.
283The Free Society, organ of the militant anarchist groups, had little influence. The anarchist movement in the USA was on the decline at the close of the 1890s.
__*_*_*__The socialist press had given no attention to foreign policy issues before the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. True, during the Venezuelan dispute The People from time to time opposed the USA's preparations for war.^^1^^
The developments in Cuba and the tangible approach of war made it necessary for the Socialists to define their stand and go over to concrete actions. The first step was taken by The People, organ of the SLP. Replying to the unbridled jingoist campaign in the USA over the blowing up of the Maine in Havana, the newspaper wrote: 'Among the ``patriots'' who wanted by all means to avenge the honor of our dead marines in the harbor of Havana the war-ship builders were prominent.... Other ``patriots'' there were--- the speculators in food, ammunition, guns and other requisites for war.'^^2^^ Further, it declared that the governing circles in the USA were out to lessen social tension by dragging the American people into a war.^^3^^
During the war the SLP's anti-war stand hardened and received additional arguments: it was stated that the war was being, fought to make the American capitalists richer. In an analysis of the motives inducing the USA to go to war, the secretary of the SLP branch in Minneapolis said that some capitalists, notably Marcus Hanna, still wanted peace in fear of losing their investments in Cuba, but most of them 'wish for annexation, that they may extend their field of exploitation,... a part of them hope to fill their purses by rich contracts and profitable speculation in case of war,... others wish to force a new issue of United States bonds.' All capitalists 'agree in wanting a strong navy to _-_-_
~^^1^^ The People, 22, 29 December 1895; Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. II, p. 412.
~^^2^^ The People, 13 March 1898.
~^^3^^ The People, 20 March 1898.
284 protect foreign investments of American capitalism,... all agree in wishing to cultivate a sentiment of jingoistic patriotism,... all agree in wanting a strong army to keep down the workers at home.'^^1^^In a May Day editorial headed 'The War. Review of the U.S. Attitude Towards a Free Cuba,' the newspaper wrote: 'Not a free Cuba is wanted now by American capitalism but a war that may secure gold bug domination---free Cuba is a pretext.' It said that for many decades in the nineteenth century the Latin American revolutionaries had endeavoured to help the Cuban people shake off colonial tyranny, but in every instance they had been blocked by the US government, which either feared that the liberation of the blacks in Cuba would threaten slavery at home, or itself looked for ways of seizing the island. And now, although the government had worked matters in such a way that 'freedom was not to be given to Cuba without a war', its aim was still to clear the road for Cuba's exploitation by the American capitalists. 'The nation stands before open graves into which thousands of her sons will ere long be laid---victims on the altar of the Capitalist system of tyranny,'^^2^^ it warned. Arthur Keep, a leading publicist of the SLP who also wrote for the journal of the Knight of Labor, made a profound analysis of the USA plans for expansion. He wrote that the American capitalists wanted not only to exploit Cuba and subjugate the Philippines but also penetrate the Far East, notably China. He attributed the eruption of expansionism in the United States to the fact that it had rapidly become a leading industrial power but, unlike many'European powers, had no colonies. The SpanishAmericnn War was a battle of the American capitalists for new markets.^^3^^
The SLP's publicists gave the lie to the jingoist press claims that successful expansion would give the USA access to new markets and thereby help to improve the living standard of the workers. In reply to these allegations, Benjamin _-_-_
~^^1^^ The People, 24 April 1898; H. H. Quint, 'American Socialists and the Spanish-American War', American Quarterly, Summer 1958, p. 136.
~^^2^^ The People, 1 May 1898.
~^^3^^ The People, 22 May 1898.
285 Hanford, the New York Socialist Party candidate for governor, cited the example of the huge British empire and asked, 'Why do the workinginen and women of England still die in the workhouse and almshouse? Why do the workingmen of England by the hundred thousand go on strike for a ``living wage"---and lose?'^^1^^In exposing the economic mainsprings of expansion, the SLP's publicists revealed its possible political consequences. The People noted that the ruling classes in the USA were hoping to use the war to truncate the rights of American workers and suppress revolutionary elements: 'A foreign war ever has been the refuge of tyrants from the danger of turbulent elements at home.... By means of a generous beating of the drum patriotic the very domestic element considered dangerous at home is lured into the army; war once engaged in, the carnage among these is looked upon as an incident of war.'^^2^^
In its denunciation of the tenacious doctrine that justified war as a way of spreading republican democratic institutions to new territories, the newspaper noted that the USA of the close of the 1890s bore very little resemblance to the USA republic of the 'founding fathers' and that the capitalist class was increasingly attracted to undemocratic forms of administration.^^3^^
As soon as war was declared the Socialist Labor Party adopted a clear-cut internationalist stand. In its message 'A Word to the Proletariat of Spain!', The People wrote: 'Fellow Workingmen---The respective Committees, called Governments, of the ruling class in our two countries have ordered us to fly at each others' throats. The decree is issued.
'The attitude in which you and we are placed towards each other exemplifies the deep inhumanity, the monstrous absurdity of the social system in which we live.
'What quarrel have you with us or we with you? None. Say that the soil of Cuba be the issue. Has its ownership by the class that rules you in the slightest benefited you? Has the wealth, the increasing wealth, drawn from Cuba's _-_-_
~^^1^^ The People, 11 September 1898.
~^^2^^ The People, 20 March 1898.
~^^3^^ The People, 17 April 1898.
286 soil flown into your hands in any perceptible amount? Is the ``Pearl of the Antilles" a gem that glistens on your brow? The question almost seems cruel. Not only did the wealth drawn from Cuba never fall to you, but constantly, at some periods less, at others more so, you have been forced to mingle the blood of your own veins with the sweat of the brow of Cuba's working class, to secure to your common exploiters the enjoyment of Cuba's fertility.... Together with this follows the principle that the working class of all nations has but one enemy---the capitalist class of all nations.'^^1^^The SLP leadership's strong anti-war stand had the support of all the SLP sections, with the exception of the Jewish Socialist section of New York, which demonstrated on May Day, 1898, with 'Cuba Libre' as its slogan. The May Day anti-war demonstration planned by the SLP leadership was banned by the city authorities of New York.^^2^^ According to M. Epstein, the attitude of the New York Jewish Socialists sprang from the fact that many of them had come from Cuba and had experienced the terrors of Spanish tyranny.^^3^^ It would sooner be true to say that this group of Socialists was unable to find sure ways of expressing proletarian solidarity with the Cuban revolutionaries and underrated the aggressiveness of US policy. Whatever the reason, this attitude weakened the already not very influential party.
The Social Democracy of America and then the SocialDemocratic Party disagreed with the SLP on many issues, but found much common ground in their evaluation of the causes of the Spanish-American War and the USA's expansionist ambitions. In early 1898 The Social Democrat attacked the jingoist campaign for war with Spain, a campaign that had won the support of many workers: 'Whether there be war or no war, these ``patriotic wage-workers" will soon be cured of their folly. Is it not ridiculous for our American wage-workers to howl for war?... 1 don't know, Brother John, what interest we poor wage slaves have to see Spain _-_-_
~^^1^^ The People, i May 1898.
~^^2^^ The People, 8 May 1898.
~^^3^^ M. Epstein, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A. 1882--1914, New York, 1950, p. 270.
287 go down. I say: ``Viva la Nacion Espanol!" but down with the Spanish plutocracy.'^^1^^ The newspaper wrote that the so-called surplus product, for which the US bourgeois press said overseas markets were vital, had to be used for the dayto-day needs of the American people.^^2^^When war broke out the Social Democracy of America adopted an even stronger anti-imperialist stand. The Social Democrat wrote: 'We should like to see Cuba freed from Spanish slavery, even if it were to enter industrial slavery, such as prevails in America; but with our government in its present hands war will unquestionably result more disastrously to the human race than will the avoidance with foreign entanglements.'^^3^^ Like The People, The Social Democrat held that war would hit the economic and political interests of the American workers: 'War will greatly augment the standing army, will burden the country with an immense debt ... will retard the progress of Socialism, and will entrench the enemies of the people in positions well-nigh unassailable.'^^4^^
Although the Socialists of the Social Democracy of America were uncompromisingly anti-imperialist, their publicism was on the whole weaker than that of the SLP, particularly in its analysis of the economic causes of war. The situation somewhat changed with the formation of the Social-- Democratic Party of America. As early as December 1898, speaking on the subject 'Production and Expansion', Seymour Stedman gave a fairly comprehensive economic analysis of what had led to 'surplus products' in the USA and to the striving to seize new markets. The low purchasing power of the consumer, he said, was the only reason for the exhaustion of the home market. 'New markets for surplus products are demanded by the capitalist.'^^5^^ Later, The Social Democratic Herald carried sharply polemic articles by John Oneal ('Senator Lodge on Expansion') and Charles Trench ('American Imperialism'), and other publicists, who showed that US foreign policy in the Far East was _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Social Democrat, 21 April 1898.
~^^2^^ The Social Democrat, 3 February 1898.
~^^3^^ The Social Democrat, 28 April 1898.
~^^4^^ Ibid.
~^^5^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 24 December 1898, p. 2.
288 economically motivated.^^1^^ Meanwhile, a reformist group headed by Victor L. Berger was formed in the party. This group was particularly strong among the 'Milwaukee Independents' and its views were mirrored in its assessments of the country's foreign policy. Berger held that there was a bright side to the Spanish-American War in that it would raise Cuba to a higher economic level, that of capitalism, and therefore bring closer its socialist stage.^^2^^However, a proletarian assessment of the war predominated. In June 1898 Eugene Debs told reporters that to his knowledge not a single one of the 10,000 members of the Social-Democratic Party had enlisted into the army. 'There are thousands,' he said, 'who are not swept from their feet by the war craze. They realize that war is national murder, that the poor furnish the victims and that whatever the outcome may be, the effect is always the same upon the toiling class. In 1894 the press denounced us [striking railwaymen.---/. D.] for the alleged reason that we were murderous and bloodthirsty, and now the same press opposes us because we are not. We are opposed to war, but if it ever becomes necessary for us to enlist in the murderous business, it will be to wipe out capitalism, the common enemy of the oppressed and downtrodden of all nations.'^^3^^ On another occasion he declared: 'The ``patriotic'' war in the Philippines blackens the blackest page in the 19th century. All war is murder and I am opposed to the shedding of human blood, but since this war is forced upon the Filipinos, I regret they lack the power and the means to blow up every battleship that lands there. I am with and for the Filipinos, and hope with all my heart that they yet repel the invaders and achieve their independence.'^^4^^ He was well aware of the danger of militarism, noting that war gave the government the pretext it wanted to enlarge the army in order to use it, when necessary, against striking _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 24 February 1900; 16 June 1900.
~^^2^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 27 August 1898; H. H. Quint, op. cit., p. 134.
~^^3^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 19 November 1898; Ray Ginger, The Bending Cross. A Biography of Eugene Victor Debs, New Brunswick, 1949, p. 203.
~^^4^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 2 September 1899.
289 workers, and that, moreover, a 'standing army is a ceaseless and stupendous burden upon the people.'^^1^^It took Wayland's paper Appeal to Reason much more time to understand the true nature of the war. As a socialistoriented newspaper, it was emphatically opposed to the expansionist appeals of the jingoist press, but like many other Americans Wayland's sincere sympathy for the liberation struggle of the Cubans initially prevented him from seeing the danger accruing from US military intervention. At first, The Appeal to Reason wanted recognition of Cuban belligerency, and later it urged US armed intervention and charged the McKinley Administration with inaction^^2^^. Wayland regarded the USA's declaration of war on Spain as assistance to the Cuban liberation struggle: 'Socialists are not in favor of war, but if ever armed intervention was justifiable in the name of right and liberty, then the assistance being rendered the Cubans is justifiable.'^^3^^ The newspaper's attitude to the war changed only in June 1898, when it became clearer that the US was pursuing an imperialist policy. In this context the newspaper editorialised: 'The war has been turned from a patriotic movement to help the cause of liberty into a farce for shoulder straps and stealings.'^^4^^
From then on The Appeal to Reason was consistently antiimperialist and anti-colonialist, exposing the USA's annexationist intentions. In August 1898, it summed up the situation as follows: 'Now the question arises what are we fighting for? Is it liberty for the Cubans or loot for the bondholders?... Liberty and conquest have never been copartners. The theory of conquest has ever led to the elevation of tyrants and the upbuilding of monarchies. Liberty was long ago crucified upon the cross of individual ownership through the creation of a monied aristocracy.'^^5^^ However, the analysis of the economic mainsprings of US expansion by its contributors was even subsequently more superficial than that of the contributors to The People and The _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 19 November 1898.
~^^2^^ The Appeal to Reason, 14 May 1898.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
~^^4^^ Ibid., 18 June 1898.
~^^5^^ Ibid., 20 August 1898.
290 Social Democratic Herald. It frequently limited itself to general declarations about `speculators', 'commercial pirates', and the 'monied aristocracy' wanting territorial expansion. More seiious articles linking expansionist foreign policy with the interests of the capitalists, spurred by the desire to have new markets and the possibility to invest their surplus capital, began appearing in it only in 1900.^^1^^A specific role in anti-war publicism was played by the newspaper The Coming Nation, which articulated the views of a school of Utopian socialism. The tone in it was set by the colourful Sunday sermons of the Reverend Herbert N. Gasson in the Lynn Labor Church near Boston. He combined references to God and calls for self-perfection and pacifism with sharp anti-capitalist criticism and a sober evaluation of the political situation. As a spokesman of Christian socialism, he declared: 'Competition is war; Christianity is peace. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon', and 'Socialism is simply a more Christian way of national house-keeping'. In March 1898 he delivered a sermon on the prevailing war mania, not only calling for peace and prayer but effectively explaining who and what were responsible for the war. 'The whole question,' he said, 'will finally be disposed of by the money power.... The people have no influence in matters of governmental policy. If Wall Street wants war the fighting will begin; if not, there will be peace. The people voted themselves out of the game at the last election. They are only the chips in this industrial Monte Carlo.'^^2^^ With a clarity that some committed Socialists lacked, Casson defined the stand the workers should take: 'For thousands of years the workers have been fighting for ``national honor'', and it has brought them nothing but poverty and death. We should fight nobody's battle till our own is won.' Although much of his reasoning against war was based on Christian-pacifist arguments (incidentally, expressed vigorously, such as, 'Any dog can fight, but it takes a human being to think'), his sermons always ended with the words: 'Our motto is: Workingmen of all Countries, unite!'^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Appeal to Reason, 25 August 1900.
~^^2^^ The Coming Nation, 12 March 1898.
~^^3^^ Ibid.; H. H. Quint, op. cit., p. 135.
291In other sermons Casson spoke just as strongly against war, saying that the war craze was bolstering despotism; addressing his words to bellicose Congressmen, he said: 'Every Congressman and Senator who votes for war should be obliged to join a regiment and go to the front. ... let them go to Cuba, and if they never come back there will be no valuable lives lost.'^^1^^ In a sermon, 'Lessons from the Paris Commune', commemorating the anniversary of the Paris Communards, Casson said: 'Military virtues are civic crimes. A good soldier is generally a bad citizen. Those words---``glory'', ``honor'', ``patriotism'', ``loyalty'', have always been used to enslave the workers. Beware of those words in the mouth of a politician__ The true lovers of this country are those who are rebels to every tyrant, at home and abroad, and who seek to establish, by peaceful means, the great American commune.'^^2^^ Although Casson believed the victory of the American proletariat would be bloodless, he spoke with warmth about the rising of the Paris workers in 1871, who established worker power in the city and held it for over two months.
Casson's sermons were in keeping with the anti-- imperialist tenor of other articles in The Coming Nation. For instance, Eltweed Pomeroy in analysing whether the USA would declare war on Spain noted that it was necessary to consider the commercial interests controlling 'our government and Spain': 'Where does the interest of the dollar lie? Answer that and you'll answer the question of peace and war.'^^3^^
The Coming Nation continued maintaining its anti-war stand when war broke out. The newspaper printed an article approving the declaration of war only on one occasion: it was written by Eltweed Pomeroy.^^4^^ However, the same issue carried Casson's pronouncement on patriotism: 'It is not shouting for war that will put millions of dollars into a few contractors' pockets, while the workers furnish both the money and the corpses.... True patriotism means to love your country so well that you do your best to remove _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Coming Nation, 19 March 1898.
~^^2^^ The Coming Nation, 26 March 1898.
~^^3^^ The Coming Nation, 9 Aril 1898.
~^^4^^ The Coming Nation, 21 May 1898.
__PRINTERS_P_291_COMMENT__ 19* 292 its faults, and develop its virtues.'^^1^^ The United States, the newspaper wrote, was now engaged in a war, not to secure the freedom of Cuba, but to conquer it.^^2^^ It was out to use Cuba as a slave plantation.^^3^^ The Coming Nation denounced the expansionist idea that the USA was bringing civilisation and liberty to colonial peoples: 'The arguments of duty to lower races have been very cunningly handled by the market-Peeking classes. They first appeal to the conscience of the nation and arouse a passion of sympathy for the oppressed Cubans and Filipinos. While this sympathy is a white heat, they get the country committed to their schemes---annexation or indefinite protectorate---and then they make the discovery that the peoples in question have been greatly over-valued.... The present war in the East was brought on by this device.'^^4^^ Noting that imperialist terminology showed the break of the USA's rulers with the democratic ideals of the past, the newspaper wrote: 'Those who oppose the continuance of war find themselves branded as ``traitors'' by the imperialistic press, while those who favor further bloodshed are ranked as ``loyalists''.... These ``loyalists'' of 1899 have the same argument against the Filipino patriots which the loyalists of 1776 used against the American patriots of that day, who were also declared to be incapable of self-government.'^^5^^The Christian Socialists were not unanimous in their evaluation of the Spanish-American War. The American Fabian, which represented the outlook of the small group of American Fabians, favoured US intervention in Cuban affairs. While the British Fabians, who believed that Socialists had to be with the 'majority of the people', supported the war against the Boers, the American Fabians accentuated the humanitarian motives for 'aiding the Cubans'. William S. Ghent, editor of The American Fabian, wrote: 'We might then have saved the lives of some 300,000 children, women and old men innocent of any overt act against _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Coming Nation, 21 May 1898.
~^^2^^ The Coming Nation, 11 June 1898.
~^^3^^ The Coming Nation, 8 October 1898.
~^^4^^ The Coming Nation, 6 January 1900.
~^^5^^ The Coming Nation, 24 June 1899.
293 Spain.'^^1^^ He charged that under the influence of the moneyed aristocracy the US government was procrastinating. During the war the journal gave the government its backing, approving American expansion.Social Darwinism was exemplified in the writings of Charlotte Perkins Stetson. She maintained that 'never was the force of natural selection used to better advantage' than in war, which developed 'physical strength, hardihood, courage, and endurance'.^^2^^ Subscribing to social-- chauvinistic views, The American Fabian argued that the subjugation of Cuba and the Philippines to the United States was a step towards progress. It declared: 'No nation can be perfect, with the rest of the world in darkness; and every now stage reached in progress has its certain influence upon the rest of the world. In giving democratic institutions to the islanders that heretofore have been kept in barbarous tutelage, the nation helps itself and the world.'^^3^^ It favoured further expansion, interpreting the USA's imperialist policy as objectively contributing to the spread of republican institutions throughout the world.~^^4^^
By and large, however, the American Socialists of various schools maintained a firm anti-imperialist attitude to the Spanish-American War. The assessment of the war by their publicists was more profound and accurate than that of the trade union press. Some successful attempts were made to apply Marxism to analyses of the motives of American expansion, the piratical nature of the war, and its grievous consequences to the working class. It is to the credit of the American Socialists that they held an anti-war stance and remained internationalists at a time when large segments of the American people were held captive by pseudo-patriotism, if not jingoism.
Both the strong arid weak sides of socialist publicism were closely linked with the specifics of the ideological development of the socialist parties and groups on whose behalf it spoke, and were determined, in the last analysis, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Fabian, April 1898, p. 4.
~^^2^^ The American Fabian, June 1898, p. 6.
~^^3^^ The American Fabian, July 1898, p. 5.
~^^4^^ The American Fabian, September 1898, p. 5.
294 by the extent Marxism was assimilated and applied to evaluations of American reality.Just as he did not understand the specific character of the black issue in the USA---the racial oppression of blacks--- maintaining that the black issue was nothing more than a class issue, De Leon missed the progressive significance of the independence struggle of the Cuban people. The SLP's incomprehension of the question of national selfdetermination was shown by The People, which wrote: 'And yet neither the Irish nor the Polish movement, not even the emancipation of American slaves, affected directly the interests of the wage-working class.'^^1^^ De Leon believed the insurgent Cubans were puppets of the USA in the American-Spanish controversy over Cuba. On the eve of the war The People called the Cuban patriots 'capitalist schemers' stage-managed from New York by the sugar, tobacco, and other companies.^^2^^ Enlarging upon this allegation, the newspaper declared in May 1898 that the rising in Cuba was inspired by American industrial companies, which were fed up with paying high taxes to the Spanish authorities.^^3^^ True, the author of the article in question tried to draw a dividing line between the revolutionary junta, which he said, was the agent of the American capitalists, and the radical Cubans---'revolutionists not for profit'---but this did not alter his over-all characteristic of the rising. A nihilistic attitude to the liberation struggle in Cuba prevailed in the Socialist Labor Party. A resolution passed by its New York organisation on the Spanish-- American War branded 'as equally spurious' the Spanish Cortes, the American sugar trusts, and the Cuban junta.^^4^^
The Appeal to Reason went to the other extreme in its evaluation of the Cuban liberation struggle. In August 1898 it wrote: 'The Americans have come in close enough contact to learn the hopes and aspirations of the Cubans, and the officers and newspapermen have discovered that it is the purpose of the Cubans ... to have the republic own all (he land, houses and machinery, so that no part _-_-_
~^^1^^ The People, 24 April 1898.
~^^2^^ The People, 17 January 1898.
~^^3^^ The People, 22 May 1898.
~^^4^^ The People, 8 May 1898; H. H. Quint, op. cit., p. 136.
295 of the people can monopolize them and reduce the balance to industrial slavery. In other words private property is to be made subservient to human rights---and that is of all things the worst that American capitalists can conceive.'^^1^^ (True, in reply to letters from readers asking for confirmation that the Cubans wanted 'to establish a socialist government', the newspaper had to apologise for its hasty conclusions.^^2^^)While the inaccurate evaluation of the Cuban revolution by The Appeal to Reason was due largely to its desire to reinforce its arguments about the change of US policy towards Cuba (it was alleged that the war had become a war of conquest only in the summer of 1898), the misconceived statements of the SLP's publicists were closely linked with the guidelines of De Leonism calling for immediate socialist reforms. In this respect, they pointed out that in the coming class struggle the American and Cuban capitalists would act in concert against the proletariat.^^3^^ Hence their conclusion that the American working class had no interest in the outcome of the national liberation struggle in Cuba. Although they brought to light the imperialist objectives of US foreign policy, their total isolation from reality made them incapable of mapping out a positive policy for the working class and defining the means of fighting the war. They held that the social revolution was the only and immediate aim of the working class: 'The Social Revolution will indeed be a purifying fire. Humanity is being asphyxiated in the fumes of capitalist immorality.'^^4^^ Such were the bombastic and futile conclusions of many of the articles in The People. It is indicative that the SLP conferences convened in the summer of 1898 in different states denounced the USA's role and aims in the war and usually ended their resolutions with the words that the working class should wrest the power _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Appeal to Reason, 20 August 1898.
~^^2^^ The Appeal to Reason, 10 September 1898. The newspaper was not always consistent on this issue. It sometimes stated the view that the establishment of an independent Cuba would be the best outcome (1 May 1898).
^^3^^ The People, 24 April 1898.
~^^4^^ The People, 13 March 1898.
296 of government from the capitalist class.^^1^^ However, there were other trends. The Class Struggle reported that a wellattended anti-expansionist meeting was organised by the SLP branch in San Francisco on 1 May 1899.^^2^^ Earlier, a conference of the SLP of the State of Washington had passed a resolution declaring that the US government should leave the Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos in peace so that they could organise their own administration.^^3^^ This striving for political action against imperialist expansion was not supported by the party leadership.On the question of collaboration with the anti-- expansionists the Socialist Labor Party adopted a doctrinaire stand. In its comments on the Congress debate between the proponents and adversaries of the annexation of Hawaii, The People wrote: 'When the anti-annexationists wrapped themselves in the American flag, they did so to conceal their beet sugar interests; and when they denounced the treaty as ``unpatriotic'', what they meant was that it was un-beet-sugary. On the other hand, when the pro-- annexationists wrapped themselves in the American flag they did so to conceal their stocks and bonds in Hawaiian sugar.^^4^^ Needless to say, there was more than a germ of truth in these statements. Indeed, many of the anti-annexationist Congressmen represented the mercenary interests of sugarbeet planters. But was it not the duty of the Socialists to use the discords in the political circles of the bourgeoisie to oppose imperialist expansion?
The SLP publicists were even more wrong in their attitude to the movement of anti-imperialist leagues. In commenting on the results of the Chicago anti-imperialist convention, The Workers Call, organ of the Chicago branch of the SLP, found it necessary to draw attention only to the fact that most of the 3,000 delegates to the convention were bourgeois figures. 'The prevailing tone of the oratory on this occasion,' the newspaper wrote, 'irresistibly reminds us of the story of the old hen, who having hatched a brood of ducklings, stood cackling in alarm on the shore of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ The People, 12 June; 4 September 1898.
~^^2^^ The Class Struggle, 7 June 1889.
~^^3^^ The People, 21 August 1898.
~^^4^^ The People, 27 March 1898.
297 puddle, in which her strange offspring, recognizing their natural elements, were disporting themselves. Confronted with the unavoidable results of the economic system which they [the anti-imperialists.---7. D.] still defend, they give forth a similar foolish and useless note of alarm.'^^1^^ Later, in an article 'Imperialism and Expansion', the newspaper gave further evidence of its lack of understanding of the problems of the anti-imperialist struggle: itdescribed the dispute between the anti-imperialists and the imperialists as a struggle between small and large masters, between half-bankrupt capitalists and the trusts, a dispute in which the Socialists had no stake.^^2^^The Social-Democratic Party, which had a programme of action, was better prepared than the SLP for working out the practical ways and means of resisting US imperialist foreign policy. Its newspaper, The Social Democratic Herald, in contrast to The People, campaigned consistently for the freedom of the Filipinos. In the article 'American Imperialism' Charles Trench wrote: 'Let us hope and pray that their [Filipinos'.---I. D.] heroic efforts may continue to be crowned with success. Remember, oh workingmen! that these patriots are fighting for you as well as for themselves. Is there a workingman let me ask, who has given this question any critical reflection, who can doubt that the triumph of Hannaism in Philippines will be attended with disastrous results to our working classes?'^^3^^ Nevertheless, on account of its sectarianism, the Social-- Democratic Party, like the SLP, took no part in the work of the American Anti-Imperialist League. As a result, the party's denunciatory anti-imperialist publicism was destitute of militancy and the power of organisation, its tone being largely moralising.
Without the De Leon dogmas to hamper him, Wayland found it easier than many others to take a step towards the movement of anti-imperialist leagues. The Appeal to Reason exposed the dirty war in the Philippines much more vigorously than the other socialist newspapers. It printed many reports about the atrocities committed by _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Workers Call, 13 May 1899.
~^^2^^ The Workers Call, 13 October 1900.
~^^3^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 16 June 1900,
298 the American military, and constantly pointed to the interest of the American capitalists in colonial expansion. It carried more or less full reports about the anti-imperialist movement in the nation and published articles written by some of the movement's leaders.The anarchists, too, attacked imperialist colonial expansion. The moment the Treaty of Paris was ratified, the newspaper Free Society printed an article under the heading, 'The Republic Is Dead---Long Live the Empire!' It noted that the US ruling circles 'have seized upon the present crisis to put into force their long-wished-for desire--- the desire of having a powerful army at their backs so that they may be in a position to quickly and forcibly suppress any manifestation of social discontent among the toilers and masses of the people'.^^1^^ While pointing to the threat of militarism and criticising the AF of L leadership for its hesitant and inconsistent pronouncements against colonial expansion,^^2^^ the anarchists were unable to suggest effective means of struggle. Besides, their voice was heard only by a few people.
The attitude of each of the socialist trends to various aspects of the Spanish-American War had its own flaws, but the general weakness of socialist publicism was its underestimation of new social and economic developments in the USA. The profundity of any analysis of the foreign policy of that period depended to a large extent on understanding the role of the trusts. The problem of trusts had confronted the Socialists long before the war, and they were agreed that the growth of the trusts spelled out increasing exploitation of the working class and the curtailmenl of political freedoms. (This was what basically distinguished the views of the Socialists from those of Gompers and other right leaders of the AF of L, who believed that the trusts with their more efficient organisation of production would give the workers better working conditions.) _-_-_
~^^1^^ Free Society, 19 February 1899, p. 2.
~^^2^^ Ibid. ('The American Federation of Labor, at their annual convention held at Kansas City the other day. seemed to dimly discern the coming danger to their class---If the laboring classes do not make a supreme effort now to avert this coming catastrophe, it will he too late to do anything,' the newspaper wrote.)
299 The programme of the Social-Democratic Party stated that the capitalist trusts were responsible for the indigence, cultural poverty, and degradation of most of the American people. But none of the socialist parties had any antitrust programme and none were involved in the anti-trust movement. This was not fortuitous. The Socialists believed that any effort to limit the arbitrary rule of the trusts and control them would be a Utopian attempt to reverse the waters of the Mississippi^^1^^ and return to bygone days of small entrepreneurs. They considered their growth only from the angle of preparing the material and technical conditions for socialist change. They believed that the sole alternative was to confiscate and nationalise the trusts when they came to power. They left unanswered the question of what the proletariat should do while it awaited these changes. In line with this standpoint, some socialist newspapers published weekly lists of new trusts as 'a herald of the coming triumph of socialism'.^^2^^At the turn of the century the material and technical conditions being created for socialism by the trusts were identified as socio-political conditions for socialist reforms not only by American Socialists but also by Socialists in many European countries (for instance, Guesdeism in France). This belief sprang from the absence of a Marxist understanding of the new, imperialist epoch and from the influence of reformist theories.
The one-sided view of many American Socialists about the role of the trusts was due not only to their overestimation of the spontaneous operation of the economic forces, an overestimation that led to fatalistic determinism. In many cases it went hand in hand with pseudo-revolutionary radicalism. In an article headed 'McKinley and Socialism', The Appeal to Reason wrote: 'On the theory that if you are opposed to kings in general you would prefer the worst possible king, because it would be easier to arouse the people against him, while a good king would enlist the adherence of many who would oppose a tyrant. McKinley is the best president that Ihe country can have. Socialists _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 31 March 1900.
~^^2^^ The Social Democratic Herald, 9 July 1898; 10, 24 June 1899.
300 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1979/UIAI351/20070621/351.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.06.28) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ top __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ should prefer him to Bryan or any conservative or reactionary.... The greater the oppression under it [the adminislrationl the sooner will it fall."^^1^^This explains why in analysing the motives for the Spanish-American War the Socialists did not raise the question of the part played by the monopolies. They dwelled on the role of the market-seeking manufacturers, merchants, and speculators, but did not see the increased strength of the trusts and banks that were looking for new fields of investment.
An important step forward was made only after the war with the publication in December 1899 of a pamphlet, Territorial Expansion, written by Lucien Sanial on assignment from the Executive Committee of the SLP. He traced the growth of industrial output and US foreign trade in the 1890s, stating that the rapid growth of production coupled with the immutable (at best) wages of the American workers and, consequently, the almost stable level of consumption in the country had induced the capitalists to look for markets abroad. From the conclusion of trade agreements and the establishment of trade agencies abroad, the USA had gone over to territorial expansion in order to secure control of new markets. (This is also the angle from which Sanial examined the conquest of the Philippines.)
Sanial contended that the concentration of capital enabled the giant corporations and trusts to dominate the nation's economic life: 'But there is a factor of great and growing magnitude which we have not yet taken into consideration; namely, the Financial Power, through which the trustification of industry and commerce is being accomplished, first nationally, then internationally.'^^2^^ He noted that the trusts were the biggest driving power behind expansion: 'Not only in Europe, but in South America, Asia, Australia and Africa, branches of great American firms, banks, corporations and trusts are steadily increasing in number!'^^3^^ For its part, the government was doing, the will of the corporations, pursuing a foreign policy congenial to them. This was characteristic also of the developed _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Appeal tc ficason, 23 September 1899.
~^^2^^ Lucien Sanial, Territorial Expansion, New York, 1899, p. 10.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 1.
301 capitalist countries of Europe, for which reason competition was now broader and more brutal than ever. Sanial regarded imperialism mainly as an expansionist policy of the capitalist powers relative only to economically backward nations and regions. Nevertheless, his pamphlet was a landmark in the socialist thought in the USA, an attempt to explain American expansion in the context of new tendencies in the nation's economic life.In the SLP press Sanial's pamphlet was followed by a series of comprehensive analyses of the country's expansionist policy. In 1900, following the proclamation of the Open Door doctrine in China and the suppression of the national liberation movement in the Philippines, public attention naturally turned to American policy in the Far East. In their attack on one of the main propaganda arguments in favour of expansion, namely, that the entire American people would benefit by penetration into China and the development of that vast market, the authors of these analyses gave striking examples to show that the capitalist class, chiefly the trusts, were the motor and interest behind expansionist policy. The People and The Daily People cited facts making it clear that members of the McKinley Administration were sharing in the profits of the biggest trusts and that the National Association of Manufacturers had a hand in shaping US foreign policy.^^1^^
The critical and denunciatory drive in the publicism of the SLP was convincing. The Socialists now underscored that the American working class had a stake in foreign policy. But, as before, none of them said what the attitude of the workers should be, what they should do to oppose imperialist expansion. The SLP's own attitude to it bore the imprint of fatalism. Many Socialists regarded the seizure of new colonial territories as the natural and irreversible process of capitalism's development in breadth, a process that was ultimately preparing the productive forces for socialist change. 'Expansion,' The Daily People wrote, 'is but the last resort of a class which has performed its mission, and now must pass out of existence. It is a _-_-_
^^1^^ The Daily People, 1 July 1900. (The Socialist Labor Party started this newspaper on 1 July 1900.)
302 mad move, but in the present development in manufacturing it could not be avoided. It draws nearer and nearer together the working class of different countries.'^^1^^ This idea was stated more distinctly in an article headed 'China and the Working Class' (signed by the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Labor Party). Making wrong assumptions concerning the reproduction of capital, the party's ideologists concluded that when imperialist expansion brought about the disappearance of backward agrarian countries, the capitalist world market would be exhausted and capitalism would no longer be able to exist: 'As a step to the Socialist Republic the Socialist Labor Party knew that machinery had to come, and said so. As the next step to the Socialist Republic the Socialist Labor Party knew that the Trust had to come, and said so. As the next step and nearly the final one to the Socialist Republic the Socialist Labor Party knew that Territorial Expansion must come, and says so. And the Socialist Labor Party knows that when the market of the world has been drained dry Capitalism will totter into the grave, and it says so.'^^2^^The theory that capitalism would automatically crumble was well known to European socialist thought as well. It was most clearly enunciated in The Accumulation of Capital, a book written by Rosa Luxemburg shortly before World War I. She misinterpreted extended capitalist production and on that basis believed that surplus value could not be realised entirely in a `pure' capitalist society. For its realisation it had to have a non-capitalist environment capable of absorbing goods unmarketable in a capitalist society. Capitalism would collapse throughout the world following its penetration into colonies and the accompanying destruction of the non-capitalist environment. Lenin showed the total untenability of the `addition' of the non-capitalist environment to Marx's theory of realisation: 'R. LJuxemburgl is the one who is wrong. Not for the sake of ``realising surplus value'', but for the sake of convenient exploitation (``Peitschen'', free labour) has _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Daily People, 16 September 1900.
~^^2^^ The Daily People, 20 October 1900.
303 capital gone out to wild countries. The interest is higher! That's all there j> to it. Seizure of land (free), loans at 12--13 per cent ... that's the root of it.'^^1^^The fatalistic interpretation went hand in hand with futile calls for an immediate social revolution: 'What is the paramount issue of the campaign? McKinley says: Sound money, expansion and prosperity. Bryan says: Imperialism. The Socialist says, as workingmen, that it is whether they shall continue to be wage slaves.'^^2^^ The SLP election platform, endorsed at its convention in June 1900, contained not a word about US foreign policy.^^3^^
The publicists of the Social-Democratic and then of the Socialist Party viewed American expansion from the same angle. A characteristic piece of writing about the substance and methods of American expansion was an editorial in The International Socialist Review (December 1900) devoted to the USA joining the so-called European concert in China. The editorial noted that in this case the government and the yellow press were using the same methods they had used to enslave Cuba and the Philippines. They started by expressing hypocritical sympathy for backward nations, and then armed intervention was encouraged on the specious pretext of helping the fighters for liberation, and finally the use of arms against the friends of yesterday in the interests of American capital was extolled. The spokesmen of the capitalists had given the assurance that the United States was in China for the sole purpose of protecting missionaries and the integrity of the Chinese empire. They alleged that under no circumstances would they subscribe to that empire's division. This stand mirrored the belief that the United States having the best exploited labourers in the world was able to undersell all the other nations anyhow, and hence an 'open door' would be more to its advantage than to that of any other set of capitalists. But it turned out that either the other members of the `gang' refused to 'stand for' this move or else, as seemed much more probable, this was only another case _-_-_
~^^1^^ Lenin Miscellany XXII, p. 390 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ The Workers Call, 22 September 1900.
~^^3^^ The Daily People, 8 July 1900.
304 of lying, for word had come that the United States had selected Amoy as its port and was busy slaking out the boundaries of its section of the Chinese pie.H. Gaylord Wilshire, Algie M. Simons, II. L. Bouthman, and other publicists attempted to bare the link of expansionist policy with monopoly interests. Wilshire analysed (in an article headed 'The Significance of the Trusts') statistics on the concentration of industry and the growth of production over the preceding two decades and drew the conclusion that expansionism was motivated by the striving to find new markets and fields of investment. 'American capitalists are today more in need of foreign fields for investment of their capital than are European capitalists,'^^1^^ he wrote. He foretold that the USA would soon be 'the most aggressive of nations in international politics'.^^2^^
Expansionism was somewhat differently interpreted by Simons in an editorial for The International Socialist Review (August 1900). Although he also attributed expansion to the capitalist's greed for new markets for goods unsaleable in the USA, he was too much under the influence of the Turner `frontier' doctrine (he had been Turner's pupil at the University of Wisconsin) to associate the narrowness of the domestic market with the growth of the trusts and their role in foreign policy. He put all the blame on the disappearance of `frontiers', of `free' lands.
We find a more profound explanation of the reasons for expansion in H. L. Bouthman's 'Philosophy of Imperialism'. He wrote that in parallel with the quest for new markets and sources of primary materials the desire to find new fields of investment was spurring expansion. The rapid concentration of production and the establishment of trusts had given capitalism a new dimension in the USA. It was becoming unprofitable for the capitalists to invest money in new enterprises; they were eager to export not only goods but also capital to undeveloped countries, where capitalist development was still embryonic and labour was cheap.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Wilshire s Monthly Magazine, November 1901, p. 22.
~^^2^^ Wilshire's Monthly Magazine, July 1903, p. 3.
~^^3^^ The International Socialist Review, November 1900, p. 233.
305Although the Socialist Party publicists had fairly accurately noted the motivations of expansion and its link with the power of the American monopolies, they tended towards vulgar economic determinism that brought them, as it had the publicists of the Socialist Labor Party, to a fatalistic interpretation of foreign policy problems. '``Trusts'' and ``Imperialism'' are both inevitable results of competition,'^^1^^ Wilshire wrote. This was expressed in more lucid terms by H. L. Bouthman: 'The drift towards expansion is the necessary and logical outcome of a chain of causes with which it would be useless to quarrel and against which we are powerless to fight. It is written in the inexorable decrees of fate that the United States shall develop into a colonial power.'^^2^^ This logically led to the conclusion that it was not the business of the working class to oppose the aggressive foreign policy of the USA. 'Our new foreign policy,' he declared, 'has no concern, one way or the other, with the material interest of this class. The one thing that alone primarily concerns the present well-being and future welfare of the workers of America is the condition of things at home, or the manner in which their exploitation is being aggravated by the rapid but inevitable growth of capitalism.' Imperialism, he held, was nothing more than a means of penetrating new markets where the capitalists could sell the surplus products of the labour of American workers.^^3^^
Alongside its sectarian attitude to the movement of anti-imperialist leagues, these views on imperialist expansion accounted for the Socialist Party's underestimation of foreign policy, which became a major issue of social life in the USA at the close of the nineteenth century. At the 1900 elections, like the Socialist Labor Parly, it found it had practically no foreign policy platform. Simons contended that the 'secondary issues' of anti-- imperialism and anti-expansionism had been deliberately accentuated by the bourgeois politicians in the election campaign in order to sidetrack hot issues.^^4^^ Replying _-_-_
~^^1^^ Wilshire s Magazine, July 1902, p. 2.
~^^2^^ The International Socialist Review, October 1900, p. 229.
~^^3^^ The International Socialist Review, November 1900, p. 303.
~^^4^^ The International Socialist Review, August 1900, pp. :04--105.
__PRINTERS_P_306_COMMENT__ 20---0284 306 to Bryan, who had raised the question of colonial expansion in his election campaign, Debs wrote that while the Democratic Party had declared that imperialism was the key issue, 'What but meaningless phrases are ``imperialism'', ``expansion'', ``free silver'', ``gold standard'', etc. to the wage-worker? The large capitalists, represented by Mr. McKinley and the small capitalists, represented by Mr. Bryan, are interested in these ``issues'', but they do not concern the working class. What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system . . . this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it.'^^1^^An identical attitude was adopted to expansion by another leader of the Social-Democratic Party, Job Harriman.^^2^^ The 1900 platform of the Social-Democratic Party contained only general phrases denouncing wars.^^3^^ The views of the Socialists on this issue underwent hardly any change in subsequent years. The militant, expository character of their anti-imperialist pronouncements was not backed up with a concrete positive foreign policy programme.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The International Socialist Review, September 1900, pp. 132--33.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 141--42.
~^^3^^ National Parti/ Platforms, Compiled by Kirk H. Porter, New York, 1924, pp. 239--42.
[307] __NUMERIC_LVL1__The historiography of the ideological struggle in the USA over expansion at the close of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century covers the entire spectrum of American foreign policy.
During the early 1900s the principal role in historiography was played by spokesmen of official policy (James M. Callahan, Archibald C. Coolidge, John Latane, French E. Chadwick,^^1^^ and others). These historians toed the political line enunciated in government publications and in the pronouncements of President William B. McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Secretary of State John M. Hay. The burden of their writings was that in its relations with Asian and Latin American nations the USA was guided by the ideals of the American revolution and endeavoured to make these relations mutually beneficial. They upheld the official reading that humanitarian motivations had induced the USA to go to war with Spain and maintained that US policy in Latin America and the Far East was helping to sustain the independence of the peoples of those regions and differed fundamentally from the policy pursued by the European powers.
_-_-_~^^1^^ James M. Callahan, American delations in the Pacific and the Far East, 1784--1900, Baltimore, 1901; Archibald C. Coolidge, The United States as a World Power, New York, 1909; John Latane, America as a World Power (1897--1907), New York-London, 1907; French E. Chadwick, The Relations of the United States and Spain. The SpanishAmerican War, Vols. 1-3, New York, 1911.
__PRINTERS_P_308_COMMENT__ 20* 308In the period between the two world wars the notion that US foreign policy was altruistic and humanitarian continued to he widespread in American historiography. Economic and psychological studies held a significant place in American historiography of the period. Historians of that trend held that the ruling class had to make concessions in order to smooth over the most acute social contradictions, and refrained from openly lauding imperialist expansion. They brought to light some economic problems, using fresh material to back up their analyses, made significant advances in the study of the Spanish-American War, and dealt with (he economic motives of US expansion in Latin America and the Far East. However, this school was unable to generalise the available material, much less interpret it scientifically. Whenever they found new processes in the development of capitalism they endeavoured to confine themselves to a description of individual phenomena (banks, trusts, export of capital, and so forth). A characteristic feature of the vast and varied bourgeois literature devoted to imperialism is thai it portrays imperialism solely as a policy of foreign expansion.
This applies fully to the works of Charles A. Beard, a leading American historian.^^1^^ In his early writings and also in works published in the 1930s and 1940s he analysed the Spanish-American War using economic criteria. He was one of the first bourgeois historians to tie up US expansion witli the domestic political situation. He polemised with official historiography, contending that the movement for the liberation of Cuba was largely demagogical. 'Without in the slightest minimizing the lofty sentiments which accompanied the war of the United States on Spain,' he wrote, 'it remains a fact that the American interests associated with Cuban industry and trade derived practical benefits from forcible intervention.'^^2^^ Yet Beard shared the view of imperialism, spread in the bourgeois literature, as merely a foreign policy. This was also the view of other prominent exponents of the economic school, for instance, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Charles A. Board, The Idea of National Interest. An Analytical Study in American Foreign Policy, New York, t934; Charles A. Beard, The American Spirit, New York, 1942.
~^^2^^ Charles A. Beard, The Idea of National Interest. An Analytical Study in American Foreign Policy, p. 70.
309 James H. Bobinson and Arthur M. Schlesinger.^^1^^The methodology of bourgeois economism influenced quite a large group of historians, who studied more local problems of US foreign policy of the turn of the century. Prominent among them were Leland H. Jenks, J. F. Bippy, Ch. D. Kepner, and J. H. Soothill, who critically evaluated US policy in Latin America.
Historians of the economic school believed that their main purpose was to elucidate the material motivations of imperialist expansion and paid relatively little attention to other problems. But even this approach gave them wide scope for studying the ideological and political struggle in the USA over foreign policy issues at the close of the nineteenth century: their analyses were not confined to tracing the filiation of ideas but groped for the threads linking the ideological climate with socio-economic reality. Beard considered these questions in greater detail than any other historian. He extensively studied the views of the spokesmen of American expansion. Obviously, he was influenced by the isolationist doctrine, which he championed until the eve of the Second World War. He used events of 40 years' vintage to warn against the USA becoming involved in another war. He gave many accurate and profound characteristics of US foreign policy and of expansionist ideology of the close of the nineteenth century. 'For this imperialist crusade in the name of civilization,' he wrote, 'propagandists had been striving to prepare the American people during the years that immediately preceded the outbreak of the Spanish war.'^^2^^ He named the principal proponents of US expansion: John W. Burgess, Alfred T. Mahan, Josiah Strong, and Theodore Boosevelt, among others. He pinpointed the key elements of their ideological views, opening the door wide for further investigation. _-_-_
~^^1^^ James H. Robinson and Emma P. Smith, Our World Today and Yesterday. A History of Modern Civilization, Boston, New York, 1934; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Political and Social Growth of the United States, 1852--1933, New York, 1939.
~^^2^^ Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The American Spirit. A Study of the Idea of Civilization in the United States, New York, 1962, p. 479.
310 In studying the roots of these views, Beard went deep into the nation's history, dispelling the long-standing myth of American pacifism and isolationism. He wrote that American isolationism (he called it 'continental Americanism') was a convenient recipe of US policy relative to the big European powers; at the same time it presumed the continuation of US expansion deep into the North and Latin American continents. No concise definition, Beard wrote, could characterise foreign policy in its entirety. Those who charted it were not isolationists; as they saw it, the European powers had no business interfering in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.In the early 1930s the mainstream of American historiography drifted in its interpretation of US foreign policy of the turn of the century towards the psychological school, which had emerged and grown strong as a radical departure from the economic interpretation. It began to take shape immediately after the First World War and was inseparably linked with the breakdown of many methodological and theoretical canons of bourgeois historiography. To quote the ironical words of Vernon L. Parrington, 'Out of the muck of the war had come a great discovery---so it was reported---the discovery that psychology as well as economics has its word to say on politics.'^^1^^
The methodology of the psychological school of American historiography was influenced to no little extent by Joseph Alois Schumpeter, a prominent Austrian economist, who had won eminence in Europe and taught at Harvard University from 1932 to 1950. In his Sociology of Imperialism (Zur Soziologie der Imperialismen), written in 1919, he attempted to prove that imperialist foreign policy had nothing to do with capitalism and had not sprung from its development, that imperialism was an atavistic growth, an element of social structure, which could only be explained against the background of conditions existing in the remote past. Imperialism, Schumpeter maintained, originated, at the latest, with the Assyrians and the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought. An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920, Vol. Ill: 1860--1920. The Beginnings of Criticial Realism in America, New York, 1945, p. 412.
311 Egyptians and had always tended towards expansion without definite aims and boundaries. Schumpeter's doctrine, obviously aimed at disproving the Marxist theory of imperialism, was a reactionary attempt to surmount the then surfacing weakness of bourgeois economism. If in this case we apply Lenin's characteristic of Friedrich Nietzsche, we may define the methodology of the new school as a 'psychological interpretation of imperialism', as 'idealism in the service of imperialism'.^^1^^One of the central postulates of the psychological school was its negation of the link between capitalism, monopoly rule, and US imperialist policy at the turn of the century. Marcus M. Wilkerson (Public Opinion and the SpanishAmerican War) and Joseph E. Wisan (The Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press)^^2^^ developed the suggestion that the press was mainly responsible for the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. 'The Spanish-American War, so momentous in its consequences, was a popular crusade. Neither the business interests of the nation nor the Government executives desired it. The public, aroused by the press, demanded it,' Wisan wrote. He was categorical in his conclusion about the part played by the press: '...the Spanish-American War would not have occurred had not the appearance of Hearst in New York journalism precipitated a bitter battle for newspaper circulation.'^^3^^
Needless to say, the main contention by both Wilkerson and Wisan that the yellow press was chiefly responsible for the USA going to war against Spain is naive. Although their analyses of the part played by the yellow press (if it is considered in the proper light) are thorough and contain vast new information, both works are contradictory. They transmit, if not echoes of social criticism, then at least strong pacifist sentiments. Wilkerson and Wisan _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 39, pp. 205, 457.
~^^2^^ Marcus M. Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War. A Study in War Propaganda, Baton Rouge, 1933; Joseph E. Wisan, The Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press (1895--1898), New York, 1934.
~^^3^^ Joseph E. Wisan, Tht Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press (1895--1898), pp. 455, 458.
312 gave their attention to William Randolf Hearst's Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's World, showing their unscrupulous methods of influencing American public opinion at the close of the 1890s: spurious reports of Spanish atrocities in Cuba, the whipping up of war hysteria following the sinking of the Maine, and so on. Other investigators added little to this question.The assertion that solely the yellow press brought on the Spanish-American War was unconvincing even to historians of the psychological school. George W. Auxier^^1^^ believed that the press perhaps played a key role in unleashing the war, but found that the influence of the yellow press did not range far beyond the Eastern states. He showed that the ordinary press played a part that was in no way less odious. Day after day, without sensation-mongering, it peddled the idea that it was in the USA's economic and strategic interests to intervene in the Cuban developments. Auxier drew upon considerable source material---nearly 5,000 editorials on the Cuban issue in 40 cities of the midWest, including Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Topeka.
A study of other aspects of expansionist ideology of the close of the nineteenth century was started in the 1930s. The principal spokesman and one of the founders of the psychological school was Julius W. Pratt. As early as 1934 he formulated one of the main ideas of his concept (in an article headed 'American Business and the SpanishAmerican War'), later developed in the book Expansionists of 1898 (1936). He raised the question of the extent American business was interested in a war with Spain and in the seizure of colonies, and replied in the negative: 'That business sentiment, especially in the East, was strongly anti-war at the close of 1897 and in the opening months of 1898, is hardly open to doubt.... This anti-war attitude on the part of several leading financial journals _-_-_
~^^1^^ George W. Auxier, 'Middle Western Newspapers and the SpanishAmerican War, 1895--1898', The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, March 1940, in: Essays in American Historiograph]/. Papers Presented in Honor of Allan Nevins, Ed. by Donald Sheehan and Harold C. Syrett, New York, 1960, p. 244.
313 continued up to the very beginning of hostilities.'^^1^^ To back up this thesis, he presented two arguments. First, the business world was well pleased with the flourishing state of affairs that had set in following the devastating economic crisis of 1893--1895 and was apprehensive that a war would be prejudicial. Second, the spectacular growth of American industry and trade had made American businessmen strong advocates of free trade; they believed that they were on the threshold of conquering the world's markets by peaceful means, without hazardous and costly colonial enterprises.Pratt depicts the capitalist class as extremely fragmented, accentuating the contradictions within it over the methods of putting foreign policy into effect. He made tendentious use of information about the part played by business in the Spanish-American War. For instance, as Pratt's critics later underscored, he omitted documents of the National Association of Manufacturers, which had unremittingly pressed for the conquest of new foreign markets. Pratt pronounced as inconsequential and a typical the data that cast doubt on his conclusions. He dismissed as immaterial the petitions of iron ore mine owners and sugar tycoons demanding US intervention in Cuba. He meted out similar treatment to some journals and newspapers reflecting the views of big business (the Financial Record, the American Banker, the Commercial Bulletin).
Reference to the history of the ideology of expansion was also part and parcel of Pratt's concept. This history, he wrote, contained the answer to the question of the principal motive forces of the 'American colonial experiment'. In 1927 he wrote an article devoted to the genesis of the term ' Manifest Destiny', and gave a broader dimension to the origin, sources, and significance of expansionist doctrines.^^2^^ He examined the expansionism of the 1840s and the interpretation of 'Manifest Destiny' as given by the Southern publicist _-_-_
~^^1^^ American Imperialism in 1898, Ed. by Theodore P. Greene. Problems in American Civilization, Readings Selected by the Department of American Studies, Boston, 1955, p. 27.
~^^2^^ Julius W. Pratt, 'The Origin of ``Manifest Destiny"\thinspace', The American Historical Review, July 1927.
314 John L. O'Sullivan, who was concerned with promoting slavery. In a paper read before the 46th convention of the Historical Association in Minneapolis Pratt enunciated his preliminary conclusions that annexation resulting from the Spanish-American War did not signify a sudden and dramatic change of attitude to the problems of expansion, but had been prepared by the preceding course of ideological development in the USA.In 'The Ideology of American Expansion',^^1^^ he gave a short but interesting account of expansionist ideology: the doctrines of Josiah Strong, Alfred T. Mahan, John W. Burgess, and John Fiske. In Expansionists of 1898 he somewhat deepened his analysis, showing the part played by the ecclesiastical press in justifying annexations. Further, he saw the roots of aggressive ideology in American history, noting at the same time the influence that Spencerianism and the methodology of 'comparative polities', developed by the English historian Edward A. Freeman, had on the shaping of expansionism in the USA. All this, according to Pratt, created a special intellectual climate in the USA in the 1890s'.^^2^^ On the other hand, despite his thesis that big business was indifferent to the war, Pratt noted some instances indicating that expansionist ideology was linked with business interests. 'Expansionists of different periods,' he wrote, 'had invoked a God of Nature, a God of Democracy, a God of Evolution. It seems appropriate enough that those who inaugurated the last phase of territorial expansion, at the close of the nineteenth century, should have proclaimed their faith in a God of Business.'^^3^^ But Pratt's main purpose was to prove that there was no link between expansion and business interests. What aims were the ideologists of expansion pursuing? According to Pratt, expansionist propaganda was merely a means of winning the interest of business, a sort of demagoguery designed to achieve political aims, while 'American _-_-_
~^^1^^ Julius W. Pratt, 'The Ideology of American Expansion', Essays in Honor of William E. Dodd, Ed. by Avery Craven, Chicago, 1935.
~^^2^^ Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898. The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands, New York, 1951, p. 19.
~^^3^^ Julius W. Pratt, 'The Ideology of American Expansion', Essays in Honor of William E. Dodd, Ed. by Avery Craven. p.*353.
315 business had been either opposed or indifferent to the expansionist philosophy which had arisen since 1890'.^^1^^The most comprehensive study of expansionist ideology in American historiography was made by Albert K. Weinberg, author of Manifest Destiny (1935).
As Weinberg explains it, expansionist ideology developed in the nineteenth century as a result of the impact of the Manifest Destiny doctrine on American thought. He showed that there were geographical, political, biological, philosophical, and other interpretations of Manifest Destiny. He cited diverse data on the development of expansionist ideology in the USA (notably, in the first half of the nineteenth century) and analysed its role in the conduct of foreign policy. However, he discussed ideological concepts in isolation from their social base, writing that the same ideological constructions persisted in colonial times, during the Jackson Administration, and during the Spanish-American War. Apart from everything else, this approach jumbles together different ideological schools. In his judgements of the part played by business in the war, Weinberg is in full agreement with Pratt.^^2^^ However, he described expansionist ideology in the USA as 'altruistic imperialism', 'expansion of liberty', 'moral altruism', and so forth. He held that the beginning of the twentieth century was a period when American expansion departed from the stage entirely. He wrote of 'the collapse of American imperialism'.^^3^^
Pratt and Weinberg were the leading spokesmen of the psychological school studying expansionist ideology. Other American historians of the same school did research in narrower fields. Some were attracted by expansionist propaganda in American historiography at the close of the nineteenth century. This subject was dealt with by Edward N. Saveth.^^4^^ The views of the 'second echelon' of spokesmen of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898. The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands, p. 233.
~^^2^^ Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny. A Study of Nationalist Expansionism, in American History, Chicago, 1963, p. 275.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 287, 452.
~^^4^^ Edward N. Saveth, 'Race and Nationalism in American Historiography: The Late Nineteenth Century', Political Science Quarterly, September 1939; Edward N. Saveth, American Historians and European Immigrants 1875--1925, New York, 1948.
316 expansionism were examined by D. Healy, Ralph D. Bald, J. L. Offner, and others.^^1^^After the Second World War the psychological school retained its importance in American historiography of foreign policy. Its proponents gave US expansionism a more apologetic interpretation. Pratt, for instance, developed the interpretation that imperialism was a short-lived period of the rise and decline of imperialist sentiments in the USA. 'To say that the United States became an empire in 1898,' he wrote, 'is not to condemn or even to criticize the course it followed. ... that policy, although often haphazard and occasionally inconsistent in implementation, has aimed steadily at the material and educational advancement of the colonial peoples and the development of their capacity for self-government. American imperialism has, on the whole, been benevolent, and it has been so accepted by those living under it.'^^2^^
Lack of new ideas---a hallmark of the psychological school in the postwar period---is conspicuous in the works of the wellknown historian Ernest R. May.^^3^^ He drew upon considerable unutilised archival material, gave many interesting, new details about the preparations for the war of 1898 and about what the people thought, but he merely repeated the old claims that the war was `undesigned', that the government was overwhelmed by the 'psychological agitation' of the people. In 1964 he offered the following substantiation of this interpretation of American foreign policy: 'Our chief reason for believing that public opinion has influenced and does influence foreign policy is our knowledge that American statesmen have traditionally thought themselves _-_-_
~^^1^^ D. Healy, US Expansionism. The Imperialist Urge in the 1890s, Madison, 1970; Ralph D. Bald, The Development of Expansionist Sentiment in the United States, 1885--1895, as Reflected in Periodical Litera, ture, Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburg, 1953; J. L. OffnerPresident McKinley and the Origins of the Spanish-American War, Ph. D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1957.
~^^2^^ Julius W. Pratt, America's Colonial Experiment, Gloucester Massachusetts, 1964, pp. 2, 3.
~^^3^^ Ernest R. May, Imperial Democracy. The Emergence of America as a Great Power, New York, 1961; Ernest R. May, From Imperialism to Isolationism, New York, 1964; Ernest R. May, American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay, New York, 1968.
317 responsible to, and supported or constrained by, some sort of general will.... American political leaders have harkened to the voice of the people as their seventeenth-century forebears did to the voice of God.'^^1^^The methodology of the psychological school was acclaimed by historians of the neo-liberal political school. Some exponents of this school, for instance, Richard Hofstadter, Eric F. Goldman, and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., have examined mainly the problem of bourgeois reformism in the USA. Their writings are a sort of historical commentary on a political formula: capitalism changes its character, improves steadily, and dynamically adapts its structure to the requirements of social development. They believe that the main milestones on the road to public prosperity were Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism, Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and, then, John F. Kennedy's New Frontiers. In the context of this conception the undisguised calls for colonial expansion at the close of the nineteenth century, the yellow press propaganda, and the Great Debate of the 1890s on foreign policy are, if not assessed as an obvious anomaly in American history, given out as long since rectified mistakes of the turbulent youth of the American nation in its first steps on the international scene.
In Social Darwinism in American Thought Hofstadter enlarged upon Pratt's judgements, asserting that at the close of the nineteenth century various aspects of ideological life in the USA were strongly influenced by positivism (in its Spencerian form). He traces minutely the rise of social Darwinism and ideas of its proponents. Though in this work he considered domestic social problems, his analysis of social Darwinism shed additional light on the outlook of such spokesmen of expansionism as Fiske and Burgess.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ernest R. May, 'An American Tradition in Foreign Policy: The Role of Public Opinion', in: Theory and Practice in American Politics, Editors W. H. Nelson and F. L. Loewenheim, Chicago and London, 1967, p. 121. In American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay, May notes that, in addition to the above factors, the example of European countries, chiefly Britain, influenced American politicians when they decided on colonial expansion. But this was a transient influence, he writes. The USA soon reverted to its traditional anti-colonial policy.
318Hofstadter's interpretation of American foreign policy is, on the whole, completely in lino with the psychological school. In an article entitled 'Manifest Destiny and the Philippines', he wrote: 'Since Julius W. Pratt published \risExpansionists of 1898 fifteen years ago it has been obvious that any interpretation of America's entry upon the paths of imperialism in the nineties in terms of rational economic motives would not fit the facts.' But he does not subscribe to the interpretation given by historians of the psychological school: 'The alternative explanation has been the equally simple idea that the war was a newspapers' war.'^^1^^ Hofstadter was one of the few historians of the psychological school who in any way linked the military crisis with the growth of trusts and the aggravation of the social struggle in the USA. Nevertheless, he accentuated causes and circumstances of an ideological-psychological order: 'The depression of the nineties found the American middle classes in an uneasy and fearful mood as they watched the trusts growing on one side and the labor and Populist movements massing on the other. For them ... a fight served as a destruction; national self-- assertion in the world theater gave them the sense that the nation had not lost its capacity for growth and change. The same emotions that made the people so receptive to the unnecessary Spanish War made them receptive to a man of Roosevelt's temperament.'^^2^^
To this day little has been accomplished in the way of studying the ideology of the adversaries of imperialist expansion. The framework of the predominant historiographical concepts asserting that big business was not implicated in the Spanish-American War and other imperialist actions of the USA and imputing the responsibility to the American people who had allegedly succumbed credulously to mass propaganda, left practically no room for the movement and views of the anti-expansionists. The few bourgeois historians who gave this subject their attention depicted the antiimperialist leagues of 1898--1900 as a movement of helpless moralists, perhaps attractive in its own way but hopelessly _-_-_
~^^1^^ America in Crisis, Edited by Daniel Aaron, New York, 1952, p. 197.
~^^2^^ Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1948, p. 208.
319 behind the requirements of the day.^^1^^ This view remained unchanged for a long time. F. H. Harrington noted the motley composition of the movement: political and social reformers, university professors, clergymen, writers, businessmen, and workers.^^2^^ But he did not see the social motivations of the anti-war actions of these heterogeneous groups. This brought him to the conclusion that the movement was devoid of common foundations with the exception of adherence to the principles of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, principles that had become a 'political abstraction' by the close of the nineteenth century.In the 1930s, the long-established concept about the antiimperialist movement was questioned only by Maria C. Lanzar. In a series of articles this Filipino historian traced the main stages of the movement,^^3^^ from the protest meeting in Boston on 15 June 1898 to its last days, citing documents and naming its most prominent personalities. Lan/ar offers the convincing conclusion that the leaders of the Anti-- Imperialist League, who represented hundreds of thousands of people opposed to war and colonial expansion and held political and social positions of no little significance, were not a handful of `Brahmins' and `eccentrics' sitting in an ivory tower.^^4^^ Lanzar was the first historian to outline the sequence of events on the basis of archival documents, but a shortcoming of his articles was that they were mostly descriptive.
The 1960s witnessed a re-activation of the study of the anti-imperialist movement at the close of the nineteenth century. The brutal US war in Vietnam and the broad protest movement in the nation awakened interest in democratic actions of the past, principally of the period of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931, p. 237.
~^^2^^ F. H. Harrington, 'The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898--1900', Mississippi Valley Historical Review, September 1935, pp. 211--30; F. H. Harrington, 'Literary Aspects of American Anti-Imperialism, 1898--1902', New England Quarterly, December 1937, pp. 650--67.
~^^3^^ Maria C. Lanzar, 'The Anti-Imperialist League', Philippine Social Science Review, August, November 1930; July, October 1932; July, October 1933.
~^^4^^ Maria C. Lanzar, 'The Anti-Imperialist League', Philippine Social Science Review, August 1930, p. 20.
320 Spanish-American War. Leon Wolff's Little Brown Brother. How the U.S. Purchased and Pacified the Philippine Islands at the Century's Turn was published in 1961; Robert L. Beisner published, in 1968, his Twelve Against Empire. The Anti-- Imperialists, 1898--1900, a book about some leaders of the antiwar and anti-imperialist movement. The twelve 'apostles of anti-imperialism' were united chiefly by their affiliation to the `mugwump' camp. Beisner portrays the mugwump antiimperialists of 1898 as 'patrician elite', as 'gentlemen of the old school, representatives of a past era'.^^1^^ Although they protested against the America contemporary to them, they were far removed from all the social forces of the new epoch. They abhorred big business, but were even more indignant at workers' strikes and farmers' actions; they feared the contrasts between wealth and poverty, but did not know how to tackle this problem.^^2^^ There are some subtle observations in Beisner's portraits of the anti-imperialists: he shows how their outlook was influenced by New England culture and brings to light the psychological motivations of their actions. Almost totally lacking a social basis, their struggle often lost its historical motive and significance. Social conditions were no more than a background for the self-expression of one or another champion of ideals. The 'anti-- imperialistmugwump' pattern led Beisner to an arbitrary selection of personalities, whose views he considers. Among his selection of twelve leading anti-expansionists are the former President Benjamin Harrison, Senator John Sherman, and the philosopher William James, who can on no account be called leaders of the Anti-Imperialist League. On the other hand, he omitted Senator Richard Pettigrew, who was extremely active in the struggle. Moreover, Beisner can hardly be said to have been objective in his characteristic of the actual adversaries of imperialist expansion. Prior to Beisner, Parrington had described the personal tragedy and contradictions in the actions of Edwin L. Godkin, a man who was true to the spirit of Victorian liberalism; he was a stern critic of the monopolies, but stood aloof from popular movements. Beisner, however, regarded Godkin as only a representative of _-_-_~^^1^^ Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire. The Anti-Imperialists, 1898--1900, New York, 1968, p. 10.
~^^2^^ Ibid,, pp. 17, 220.
321 the old intellectual elite very much in fear of the new, 'mass democracy' that had allegedly been brought by industrialisation at the close of the nineteenth century. Beisner wrote: 'He [Godkin.---/. D.] had long believed that expansionism and jingoism were growing in tandem with the growth of democracy. War itself was being democratized, with the masses laying their rude hands upon what had once been the affair of a small circle of gentleman statesmen.'^^1^^ These obvious shortcomings in Beisner's work are largely due to his following established canons. But it must be noted that he is well-disposed to the anti-imperialists. He regarded the anticolonial movement of 1898--1900 not as a trivial episode of American history but as a struggle for noble moral and political principles.^^2^^An unbiased analysis of the anti-expansionist movement in the USA is offered by E. Berkeley Tompkins in Anti-- Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890--1920. In fact, Tompkins enlarges upon Lanzar's theories, but uses far broader source material (the private archives of leading personalities of the Anti-Imperialist League---Edward Atkinson, George S. Boutwell, and Gamaliel Bradford). He shows the anti-imperialist movement for what it was: a mass movement that played an important role in American history.
However, his social analysis of the anti-imperialist camp is vague. While giving details about the regional affiliation of the participants in the movement, their age, education, and so on, he does not reveal the motivations of their actions, portraying them as pure idealists, thereby obscuring the distinctions between the big planters of the South and the radical Populists, between personalities such as Moorfield Storey, Richard Pettigrew, and the multi-millionaire Andrew Carnegie.
The most profound study of the anti-imperialist movement of 1898--1900 is to be found in Republic or Empire by D. B. Schirmer.^^3^^ On the basis of archival material, the press, and letters of participants in the events, he gives a detailed history of the anti-war and anti-colonial movement in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 73.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. XV-XVI, 216.
^^3^^ D. B. Scliirmer, Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972.
__PRINTERS_P_322_COMMENT__ 21---0284 322 State of Massachusetts, where it originated and developed most intensively. He analyses the social and ideological roots of the movement, showing that many of its participants denounced the vices of the, Gilded Age and were in many cases guided hy anti-monopoly feeling. Massive evidence is called in to show that the Anti-Imperialist League had the support of large segments of Americans; the participation of black personalities is considered, essentially for the first time in literature. Explaining why Massachusetts and other states of New England were the main theatre of the anti-war and anticolonial movement, Shirmer underscores the force of democratic traditions, springing mainly from the Civil War of 1861--1865. He rarely looks beyond the State of Massachusetts, and this accounts for some of his book's weaknesses, principally its inadequate attention to the role of workers' and socialist organisations. But, on the whole, this book is an important contribution to the study of democratic traditions in the USA.The New Left, a complex and motley trend, made a strong impact on American historiography in the 1960s. They levelled radical criticism at the conformist postulates of ' coordinated interests' and `successiveness' in American history, but their own theoretical credo was amorphous. Although many of them were familiar with the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, their methodology was essentially far from being Marxist. They began with a re-evaluation of the cardinal issues of American history.
Professor William A. Williams^^1^^ and his followers and pupils, including Walter F. LaFeber and John W.sRollins, questioned the dogma that big business was not implicated in the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. In a well-- argumented monograph, The New Empire,^^2^^ LaFeber convincingly continued the destruction of that dogma. He studied more sources than Pratt had drawn upon---journals, newspapers, speeches in Congress, and official documents---and drew the conclusion that although many big businessmen had _-_-_
~^^1^^ William A. Williams, Tragedy of American Diplomacy, New York, 1959 (this book has been translated into the Russian); William A. Williams, The Contours of American History, Cleveland, 1961.
~^^2^^ Walter F. LaFeber, Trie New Empire'. An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860--1898, Ithaca, 1963.
323 temporised relative to the US declaration of war on Spain, an influential group was unchangeably in favour of expansion. Moreover, he irrefutably showed that the turning point in the attitude of business to the war came not in the summer of 1898, as Pratt alleged, when it became obvious that Spain was beaten, but in mid-March. From that moment onwards big business and its press remained committed to war, predetermining the further steps taken by the President and Congress.^^1^^ Williams and LaFeber were the first to draw attention to the economic undertones of Turner's frontier theory.The traditional bourgeois postulate about the mainsprings of the Spanish-American War is criticised by John W. Rollins^^2^^ from the standpoint that imperialist policy is the result of capitalism's immanent development. Using the example of the debate over foreign policy at the close of the 1890s, Rollins shows that imperialist foreign policy does not always follow the channel of traditional colonialism, that the anti-imperialist movement was not unanimous, and that some of the personalities, in the Anti-Imperialist League advanced ideas that were subsequently embodied in US dollar diplomacy.
These are the positive elements in the work of LaFeber and Rollins, but in their striving to create an antithesis to the views prevailing in American historiography they adopted a pseudo-radical stand on some major issues. Whereas traditional historiography depicted the anti-imperialists as a helpless group of idealists, who created no particular difficulties for the expansionist ambitions of American statesmen, LaFeber and Rollins believed that the anti-imperialists were a strong and influential group in the ruling class and that they disagreed with the proponents of expansion only in the methods of implementing that policy.^^3^^ Rollins calls _-_-_
~^^1^^ Charles S. Campbell and.Thomas J. McCormick likewise show that in the Far East, chiefly in China, United States policy was determined by business interests (Charles S. Campbell, Special Business Interests and the Open Door Policy, New Haven, 1951; Thomas J. McCormick, China Market. A merica's Quest for Informal Empire, 1893--1901, Chicago, 1967).
~^^2^^ John W. Rollins, 'The Anti-Imperialists and Twentieth-Century American Foreign Policy', Studies on the Left, No. 1, 1962, pp. 9-24.
~^^3^^ Healy, who is not associated with the New Left, gives a similar interpretation, underscoring the weakness of the anti-imperialist __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 324. __PRINTERS_P_324_COMMENT__ 21* 324 the participants in the anti-war and anti-colonial movement 'anti-imperialist expansionists', holding that they won the debate over foreign policy in 1889--1900: the nation's ruling circles allegedly adopted their views, with the result that the USA embarked upon economic expansion without colonial seizures.
This paradoxical interpretation of American democratic traditions was substantiated theoretically by William A. Williams.^^1^^ Postulating that the drive for expansion and seizure of foreign markets is inherent in capitalism, he considers, on that basis, all the significant events of US internal history from colonial times to the beginning of the twentieth century.^^2^^
Expansionist ideology took shape in the USA in the course of a long period (it was not alien to the American farmers who settled in the American West). On the borderline between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the ideas of imperialist expansion were unquestionably embraced by the farmers, particularly the big planters. However, Williams calls in substantial data to reinforce these propositions. More, he depicts the American farmers as a leading force of imperialist expansion (entirely ignoring their class differentiation), attributing to them the main role in moulding not only expansionist ideology in the early period but also imperialist doctrines^^3^^ ('imperial anti-colonialism', or `neocolonialism' to use Williams' terminology).
The misconceived views of the New Left historians on many issues are a consequence of their muddled theoretical postulates: they do not analyse the social composition of _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 323. movement and in fact erasing Ihe distinction between the expansionists and their adversaries (D. Healy, U.S. Expansionism. The Imperialist Urge in the 1890s, Madison, 1970).
~^^1^^ William A. Williams, The Great Evasion, Chicago, 1964; William A. Williams, The Roots of the Modern American Empire. A Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society, New York, 1969.
~^^2^^ William A. Williams, The Great Evasion, pp. 32--34.
~^^3^^ William A. Williams, The Roots of the Modern American Empire. A Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society, pp. 19, 22--23, 36, 44--45; Lloyd C. Gardner, Walter F. LaFeber, Thomas J. McCormick, Creation of the American Empire: U.S. Diplomatic History, Chicago, 1973.
325 the anti-imperialist movement or the social differentiation among the farmers, and, more importantly, they identify the principles of 'free capitalism' ('free trade', quests for new foreign markets) with the expansionist doctrines of the imperialist epoch.The formation of an anti-imperialist ideology in workingclass and socialist publicism remained outside the field of vision for a long time. It was `discovered' only during the past two decades, and the first works devoted to it have appeared. The historians studying the attitude of the workers to foreign policy were influenced by Commons' pattern of the history of the American working-class movement. Accordingly, they accentuated specific socio-economic conditions of the formation of the working class (the availability of free lands, the enormous resources of the home market, the constant influx of immigrants) and the features of the US state system, and propagated the thesis that the American labour movement was an `exclusive' phenomenon. Hence, the unfounded conclusion that the American labour movement was purely trade-unionist, `pragmatic', and the negation of the possibility and necessity of independent political actions by the working class.
Through the prism of these doctrines, a study of the attitude of the largest working-class organisations in the USA, chiefly, the American Federation of Labor, to the foreign expansion of the close of the nineteenth century becomes an apology of 'business unionism'. The study of this subject was pioneered by John C. Appel and Delber L. McKee,^^1^^ who made considerable research into source material (the local press of individual branch unions, annual conventions of the AF of L) and described the actions of some major workingmen's organisations against imperialist expansion, the annexation of Hawaii, and the unleashing of war against _-_-_
~^^1^^ John C. Appel, 'American Labor and the Annexation of Hawaii: A Rtndy in Logic and Economic Interest', Pacific Historical Review, February 1954; John C. Appel, 'The Unionization of Florida Cigarmakers and (ho Coming of the War with Spain',' Hispanic-A nifrican Historical Ri-vicw, February'' 1956; Dolber L. McKee, 'Samuel Gornpers, the AF of L and Imperialism, 1895--1900'. The Historian, February 1959; Dolbor L. McKee, The American Federation of Labor and American Foreign Policy, 1886--1912, New York, 1953.
326 Spain. However, they ignored the class aspect of public actions and reduced the aims of the struggle to the direct material interest of individual groups of workers. They attributed the attitude of the different contingents and officers of the AF of L solely to their apprehension of competition from unskilled labourers and their fear of a tidal wave of cheap colonial goods. The keynote of Appel's article about the attitude of the AF of L to US intervention in Cuba is that the actions of that organisation were motivated by a desire to prevent competition from Cuban cigarmakers, who had settled in the USA and were rivals of the American Cigarmakers' Union. From this angle, the establishment of a free Cuba and the unionisation of the Cuban cigarmakers were the best solution of the problem.^^1^^ Appel attributed the attitude of the unions to the annexation of Hawaii to the conditions prevailing there for competition to American workers: 'In the Hawaiian sugar plantation economy most of the tasks were performed by unskilled workers. Since the American unionists were largely skilled workers, Hawaii had few opportunities to offer them and few workers who might emigrate to the United States as competitors.'^^2^^ Hence the indifference to the political status of Hawaii.These were, of course, the motivations of some AF of L leaders, but by`making'this explanation general these historians usually leave in the shade the actions of the labour unions that went beyond narrow economism and showed the workers' class awareness.
H. H. Quint was the first to produce a work on the attitude of the American Socialists to the Spanish-American War.^^3^^ He cites interesting facts and to some extent pries open the spectrum of problems awaiting study, but he is ironical in his own attitude to the attempts of the Socialists to apply what he calls `foreign' theories to American soil.
_-_-_~^^1^^ John C. Appel, 'The Unionization of Florida Cigarmakers and the Coming of the War with Spain', Hispanic-American Historical Review, February 1956, p. 48.
~^^2^^ John C. Appel, 'American Lahor and the Annexation of Hawaii: A Study in Logic and Economic Interest', Pacific Historical R°view, February 1954, p. 3.
~^^3^^ H. H. Quint, 'American Socialists and the Spanish-American War', American Quarterly, Summer 1958, pp. 131--41.
327The number of works by Marxist historians dealing with the condition of the working people and various aspects of the working-class struggle has increased appreciably since the Second World War. The efforts of the American workers to improve working conditions and ensure social progress are shown by Philip S. Foner in his fundamental work, History of the Labor Movement in the United States.^^1^^ In contrast to historians of the Wisconsin school, he examines not only the trade unionist struggle but also 'the role of the working class in outstanding democratic and social struggles throughout the history of this country'.^^2^^ Foner regards the Great Debate of the 1890s and the struggle against US imperialist expansion as one of these democratic and social struggles. In one of the chapters of his work he considers the attitude of the American working class to the Spanish-American War.^^3^^ He writes of the enormous difficulties that hampered concerted action by all the democratic forces against imperialist expansion (influence of the workers' aristocracy, the frequently mistaken tactics of the Socialists, the liberal and petty-bourgeois leadership of the American Anti-- Imperialist League). Nonetheless, he speaks of the tangible contribution of the American workers to the struggle against imperialist expansion.
Foner has written an interesting work on the SpanishAmerican War of 1898.^^4^^ Here he traces the birth and development of American imperialism and analyses the main causes that induced the USA to go to war with Spain. His conclusion is that this was not merely a 'Spanish-American war' but a 'Spanish-Cuban-American war', for the Cuban people were one of the principal parties in it. It was then, at the turn of the century, that the working masses of Cuba began their anti-imperialist struggle for liberation from their new master, the USA. This work is excellently documented, giving a comprehensive picture of the attitude of the leading workers' and socialist organisations to the events in Cuba.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vols. I-IV.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. I, p. 12.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 404--17.
~^^4^^ Philip S. Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895--1902, Vols. I-IT, New York, 1972.
328A significant contribution to the study of US foreign policy of the turn of the century has been made by the progressive American historian William J. Pomeroy.^^1^^ The strong aspect of his research is that he comprehensively examines the processes that underlay US foreign policy in Eastern Asia. He treats this policy in its relation to the socio-- economic features of the nation's development---the collision between various social groups over economic, political, strategic, and other issues. Pomeroy's book contains new, vivid information about the national liberation movement in the Philippines and the anti-war and anti-colonial movement in the USA in 1898--1900. However, he regards the sharp social conflict over foreign policy solely as a 'cleavage in ruling circles',^^2^^ and calls the opponents of colonial expansion `neo-colonialists'.^^3^^ Daniel Mason notes justifiably that Pomeroy is 'wrong to lump the middle-class reformers with the other self-interested anti-colonialists, among whom there were even monopolists. The middle-class reformers were sincerely interested in the welfare of the Filipino people and opposed from a humanitarian viewpoint the objectives of US imperialism. And they did help to keep alive the struggle against colonialism'.^^4^^ Pomeroy dealt little with the participation of workers' organisations in the antiimperialist actions and made no mention at all of the Socialists. Such are the main elements of the historiographical study of the ideological struggle in the USA over foreign expansion.
_-_-_~^^1^^ William J. Pomeroy, American Neo-Colonialism. Its Emergence in the Philippines and Asia, New York, 1970.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 12.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 10, 224--25.
~^^4^^ Political Affairs, Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis, New York, October 1970, p. 62. In a review of Pomoroy's honk carried in Science and Society, it is noted that his interpretation of the antiimperialists hears the imprint of the New Left concepts, that the antiimperialists of the late 1890s 'were not the forerunners of today's neocolonialists, hut rather of all those who oppose the Vietnam war, and who therefore oppose American imperialism at its most aggressive' (Science and Society. An Independent Journal of Marxism, Summer 1971, p. 221). Herbert Aplheker points out that 1he origins of the anti-imperialist movement were anti-monopolistic (Herbert Aptheker, 'Anti-Imperialism in the USA: The Growing Literature', Political Affairs, Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis, October 1972, pp. 57--58).
[329] __ALPHA_LVL1__ CONCLUSIONThe impassioned ideological polemic over the issue of US imperialist expansion at the close of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century brought into bold relief the social antagonisms of the imperialist epoch. What makes this polemic significant is that it witnessed the first democratic opposition to American imperialism in foreign policy.
A study of the expansionist theories propounded in the USA at the close of the nineteenth century shows that their evolution was linked with the growth of American capitalism into its monopoly stage. It was only natural for the monopolies to enter into the struggle for colonies and spheres of influence, for the redivision of a world already partitioned. On this path the ruling circles also sought to resolve the aggravated social conflicts.
Expansionism had deep ideological roots. The fact that for a long time American capitalism had the possibility of developing in breadth and also the fact that the colonisation of the vast territory of the North American continent proceeded in the lifetime of many generations, and the specific features of the USA's social and political development that were largely linked with these facts were what gave impetus to the appearance of nationalistic and expansionist theories and to the myths about national exclusiveness. Some of these theories were borrowed from European social thought and adapted to local, American conditions. A particularly powerful influence on the formation of expansionist ideology was exercised by the Germanist school in European 330 historiography, in which an authoritative school of American bourgeois historical thought found a comprehensively argumented theory about 'Anglo-Saxon political superiority'. The ideological soil for American expansionism was also prepared by the departure from the doctrines of classical liberalism and the elaboration of economic and sociological theories justifying rule by big business. A major role was played in this by the social-Darwinist interpretation of the principles of 'free competition'. The Manifest Destiny theory, racism, and the Germanist concept intertwined closely with social Darwinism, with the result that the principles of 'struggle for existence', of the 'survival of the fittest' were used to explain the relationship between states, nations, and races.
Many expansionist theories took shape in the USA much earlier than the end of the nineteenth century. But at the close of that century they were revised and adapted to the fulfilment of new tasks. Many contradictory processes of the nation's historical past and also many democratic traditions were re-evaluated. This gave the basis for the theories about the USA's special,'' Messianic role in the world, theories that foreran and substantiated expansionism.
The expansionist ideas underlying imperialist ideology at the close of the nineteenth century were distinctly mirrored in the Anglo-Saxon school of history, Josiah Strong's theological interpretation of Manifest Destiny, and Mahan's sea power doctrine.
All these concepts powerfully influenced American social thought, each having its own direction. The doctrine of Anglo-Saxon superiority pandered to the tenacious illusions that the USA was a nation with advanced democratic institutions and to the racist prejudices while the theological apologia of expansion was sustained by the belief of many American Protestants that the USA had a religiously `foreordained' destiny; the frontier theory, reappraising the democratic mythology which sprang from the long struggle for `free' lands, created the ideological foundation for expansionism; the sea power doctrine influenced military and political circles.
The propagation of expansion was purposeful, manyfaceted, and, to some extent, flexible. The ideas first 331 elaborated in fundamental works were then digested in popular editions and also propounded at many universities. In their dissemination a large role was played by a considerable segment of the bourgeois periodical press, which published the pronouncements of publicists, economists, and sociologists. Expansionism was often veiled. The US declaration of war on Spain was portrayed as a disinterested desire to liberate Cuba from colonial oppression and crush a feudal monarchy. A large part in preparing the ground for the war was played by the Hearst and Pulitzer yellow press.
Expansionist ideas were embraced by many political personalities, military leaders, and diplomats, with the Roosevelt-Lodge group forming their core. During the Spanish-American War they combined the propagation of these ideas with an aggressive foreign policy.
On the threshold of the twentieth century, American foreign policy ideology distinctly mirrored the road traversed by American capitalism over a period of somewhat more than a hundred years. The theories of progressive spokesmen of the bourgeoisie were stripped of their humanitarian content. From the idea of national sovereignty embodied in the Declaration of Independence the USA passed to imposing a colonial administration on subjugated nations; from the principles of equality proclaimed by the enlighteners, it passed to an apologia of the inequality of nations and races; from democratic isolationism, it passed to interventionism.
The aggressive policy of the USA evoked action by democratic forces. The Spanish-American War and the Treaty of Paris were the bone of contention in the ideological polemic. A feature of this polemic was that the bulk of the nation saw the aggressive character of US foreign policy not at once but only during the war and, particularly, with the annexation of the Philippines and Hawaii. The upsurge of the workingclass struggle during this period facilitated the development of democratic movements. However, the ideological immaturity of most of the workers at the time and the absence of an influential labour party that could head the mass struggle against imperialist foreign policy placed the political and ideological leadership of the movement of anti-imperialist leagues into the hands of liberal 332 intellecluals and the petty bourgeoisie. This v,as one of the main reasons for that movement's defeat. However, by their actions the democratic forces exercised a restraining influence on US foreign policy, on its forms and methods.
The anti-imperialist leagues were not a helpless protest on the part of a small group of `idealists'. They represented an impressive action against imperialist colonial seizures. In the final analysis, this movement articulated the protest against the monopolies, which were threatening the very existence of the petty bourgeoisie and a large proportion of the middle bourgeoisie, and against the expansionist foreign policy of the USA, which dovetailed with the interests of these same monopolies.
The exponents of dollar expansion made an attempt lo utilise the political weight of the anti-war movement and the petty-bourgeois opposition to colonial expansion. Their isolationism differed fundamentally from the democratic isolationism of the masses: it was a variety of imperialist foreign policy that came to the fore in subsequent decades.
Two factors attract attention when we assess the ideology of the anti-war and anti-colonial movement of the turn of the century. First, its obvious petty-bourgeois narrowness. The anti-imperialists based their criticism on the principles of 'free competition' and on bourgeois-democratic ideals. They were not out to remake the socio-economic system in the USA. All they wanted was to deliver the nation from one of the most odious manifestations of imperialism--- wars of aggression and colonial seizures. As a result, the entire question of imperialist policy was often narrowed down to criticism solely of direct colonial expansion--- ultimately to a struggle for the liberation of the Philippines.
Second, this was a democratic movement of the new epoch---the epoch of imperialism, which, to quote Lenin, 'accentuates the antagonism between ... democratic aspirations and the anti-democratic tendency of the trusts',^^1^^ and opens new prospects for the movement of the proletariat, bringing it new allies. Following in the footsteps of the Populist movement, the anti-imperialist movement _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 51.
333 absorbed some of the latter's elements. However, it was no longer an agrarian movement: it was supported by the urban petty bourgeoisie and by intellectuals. The demand for the renunciation of colonial expansion was in itself progressive ideologically and represented an objective challenge to the power of the monopolies. The anti-imperialists tangibly contributed to the development of democratic traditions--- anti-militarism and pacifism, and also isolationism. Actually they challenged the basic tenets of the expansionist doctrines. The appeal to republican democratic traditions and to the principles of national sovereignty was of no little significance at a time when the nation was deluged by chauvinistic and jingoistic propaganda. The profundity of their analysis of the motivations and character of imperialist expansion was directly linked with the anti-monopoly orientation of ideological principles. The left wing of the AntiImperialist League and its radical spokesmen (like Richard Pettigrew) came closest to laying bare the mainsprings of imperialist colonial expansion, to the fact that it was ultimately determined by monopoly interests.The working-class and socialist movements of those years were intimately involved in the struggle against imperialist expansion.
The publicism of the AF of L and of the Knights of Labor was not homogeneous. It consisted of a conglomerate of diverse ideological schools and groups, mirroring pacifist doctrines, an intuitive class approach, the egotistical interests of the workers' aristocracy, and the socialist ideals of left groups.
Most workers condemned war and annexation. Yet the ideological backwardness of the American workers manifested itself in the viability of old bourgeois-democratic illusions. They regarded the struggle for a redivision of coloniesthen a new phenomenon---through the prism of democratic ideals, and their assessments frequently coincided with the petty-bourgeois criticism of war and colonial expansion.
A spontaneous class attitude cleared the way for itself in anti-imperialist working-class publicism. Some bourgeoisdemocratic traditions were given a new ring. For instance, in the interpretation of left labour leaders anti-militarism, which was formerly an expression of pacifism, meant that 334 everybody should refuse to serve in the army, that militarism might be used by the capitalists not only for military adventures abroad but also for the suppression of the working-class movement in the country.
The proletarian approach was seen even more clearly in the ideas of internationalism. The idea that the American workers and colonial nations were making common cause against one and the same enemy was most distinctly enunciated in the left labour and socialist press. It is indicative that in the summer of 1898, when the contours of an imperialist peace with Spain crystallised and the bourgeois press was almost unanimous in supporting this peace, most of the AF of L publicists opposed colonial seizures.
The views of the left wing of the labour movement were articulated by the Socialists, who maintained an anti-- imperialist, internationalist stand. In a number of cases they succesfully applied Marxism in analysing the motivations of American expansion, in exposing the aggressive nature of war and the hardships it brought on the proletariat. The Socialists were united by the class character of their antiimperialist arguments: they noted that war would hit the economic and political interests of the workers, that it was motivated by the interests of the capitalists, who were determined to seize new markets, areas rich in primary materials, and spheres of investment. These elements in the anti-imperialist views of the socialist writers set them above the left-wing writings of the AF of L and the American Anti-Imperialist League.
The anti-imperialist publicism of each of the socialist trends had its merits and demerits, but a common weakness was that it failed to grasp the significance of the new phenomena underlying US imperialist expansion: it attached no serious importance to the struggle against the trusts, believing that by their growth the trusts were creating the material conditions for socialism. This attitude doomed the Socialists to isolation from the broad anti-monopoly movement. Their sectarianism manifested itself in the negative attitude to mass labour organisations and the petty-bourgeois movements. This attitude was what induced the Socialist Labor Party and the Social-Democratic Party to refuse to join in the movement of anti-imperialist leagues. As a result, 335 the stigmatizing anti-imperialist publicism of the Socialists never became an organising force.
During the Spanish-American War no political group in the USA was more consistently and uncompromisingly against war and expansion than the Socialists. This posture was a new factor in moulding American public opinion in questions of foreign policy.
It is, of course, difficult and not always possible to detect and trace the influence of each of the expansionist doctrines promoted eighty years ago. But racism, geopolitical patterns, social Darwinism, the concept of Manifest Destiny, the economic and political advocacy of expansion, etc., have entered the very flesh and blood of modern reactionary ideology, and can be found, in various modifications, in political, historical and philosophical doctrines. Many reactionary ideas of the modern age, particularly racism, are deeply rooted in the history of American imperialism, which dates from the Spanish-- American war.
The anti-militarist and anti-colonial movement at the time of the Spanish-American war marked an important stage in the democratic movement of the imperialist age. Many of the anti-expansionists' demands of 1898--1900 were revived in the programmes of progressive organisations, the muckrakers in particular, and have shaped traditions that are carried on by broad sections of American society today.
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Foster W. 7,. Outline Political History of the Americas. N. Y., International Publishers. 1951.
Fues C. M. Carl Schurz Reformer. New York, 1922.
Ginger R. The Bending Cross. A Biography cf Euf,?i:e Debs. New Brunswick, 1949.
Goldman E. liendezrous with Destiny. A History of Modern American /Worm. New York, 1950.
Grimes A. P. American Political Thought. New York, 1955.
Hale L. .!., ``Dream and Reality." American Expansion in the Late Nineteenth Century, ed. by Ilollingsworth. New York, 1968.
Hamlin C. The War Myth in the United States. New York, 1927.
Harrington F. IT. The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898--1900. Mississippi Valley Historical Review, September 1935.
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Hofstadter R. Tlie Age of Reform: From Bryan to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York, 1955.
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Kraus M. The Writing of American History. Norman, 1960.
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344Matre R. A. The Chicago Pres and Imperialism, 1899--1902. Ph. D. Dissertation. Northwestern University, 1961.
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May E. R. American Imperialism: A Reinterpretation. New York, 1968.
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[346] __ALPHA_LVL1__ NAME INDEXB
347Bridge, J. 77.---119
Brinton, Daniel G.---28 Bryan, William Jennings---169,
185, 188, 191, 206, 278, 300,
303, 306
Bryce, James---74, 190 Buchanan, Joseph R.--- 242, 244,
253Buckle, Henry T.---199 Burgess, John ^.---34, 38, 39,
48--55, 81, 91, 100, 104,
115, 119, 309, 314, 317 Butler, Benjamin F.--- 158 Butler, Marion---91
Curtis, William £.---123 Cutting, Robert F.---170
D
7;ana, Charles A.---118, 251 Darwin, Charles---30, 33, 40,
60Davis, Rebecca--l59 Davis, Richard 77.--129 Davison, Sol---73 Debo, Angle---164 De Bow, James---27 Debs, Eugene---155, 191, 242,
244, 273, 280, 281, 282, 288.
306Debs, Theodore---280 De Leon---154, 279, 282, 294 Denby, Charles---119, 124 Denby, Charles---145 De Vollan---131--134 Dewey---103, 138, 173, 200 Dewey, John---30 Dilke, Charles W.---145 Donnelly, Ignatius---158, 162 Donnelly, Samuel---265 Douglas, Stephen---197 Doyele---252
Draper, John W.---199 Dreiser, Theodore---30 Droysen, Gustav---49 Du'Bois, W. E. B.---168 Dunne, Finley P.---219 Dunnell, Mark B.---119, 124 Dunning, William A.---55
E
Eddy, Ulysses 7?.---120, 125 Edwards, A If red S.---281 Ely, Richard T.---14 Emerson, Ralph Waldo -167 Endicott, William---175 Engels, Frederick---21, 90, 151,
154, 155, 322 Evans, George 77.---71, 72
F
Fish, Samuel-- ItiV
Fiske, John--3(1, 31, 38--48, 51,
52, 64, 81, 97, 100, 119. 315,
319Abbot, Lyman---tiT, 138, 141,
147 Adams, Brooks---65, 99, 101-
103, 138 Adams, Charles F.---170,
186Adams, Charles K.---34 Adams, Henry--- 35, 36, 101,
115Adams, Herbert Baxter---34, SOSO, 75
Adams, John---iM, 165 Adams, John Quincy---165 Addams, Jane---168, 177 Adler, Felix---169 Aguinaldo---WQ. 200, 205 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey---219.
221Alejandrino---218 Alger, Russel A.---103 Allen, James L.---219 Allen, William---167 Andrews, W. A.--- 218 4p/>eZ, John C.---249, 250, 325,
326Aptheker, #.---187 Arthur, Chester 4.---23 Askew---253 Atkinson, Edward---169--171,
181, 190, 206, 208, 209, 216,
321Auxier, G. W.---135, 312 Aveling, Eleanor Mars -\50 Aveling, Eduard---150
Bacon, Augustus O.--- 231 Bacon, Leonard W.-169, 170 Bancroft, George---40 Barrett, /o/m-119, 124, 145 Barrows, John #.---67 Bastiat, Frederic---206 Beale, Truxtun---ikO Bean, R. B.-28 Beard Charles, 4.-70. 99, 100 Beecher. Henry Ward---30 Beisner, Robert L.-320, 321 Bellamy, Edward---151, 159, 160,
281Bennett, James G.---118 Berger, Victor L.-156, 280, 288 Beceridge, Albert J.---101, 103,
119Bierce, Ambrose G.---219 Billington, R- A.--- 82, 83 Bishop, S. £.-125 SZairce, /am« G.-101, 122 Bledsoe, Albert J.---27 Bliss, Cornelius TV.---19 BZiss, William D. P.---57, 282 Bluntschli, Johann Kaspar---36 Boas, Franz---28 Booth, William---136 Bouthman, H. L.-304, 305 Boutwell, George S.---168, 170,
171, 174, 178, 181, 187, 270, 321
Bowen, William S.---129 Bowles, SamueZ---118, 170 Bradford, Gamaliel---168, 170-
172, 174, 183, 321
Caffery, Donelson---231 Calhoun, John C.---27 Callahan, James M.---307 Campbell, Charles 5.---20 Carey, F.--- 269 Carnegie, Andrew---19, 170, 184,
238, 321
Carter, James C.---168 Cartwright, Samuel A.---27 C assort---291 Chadwick, John---220 Chadwick, French K.---307 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart---
33Chamberlain, I. D.---275, 277 Chamberlain, Joseph---97 Chandler, William £.---103 Channing, William E.---167 Cisneros, Evangelina---130--132 Clark, Charles 77.---16 Clark, Francis E.---67 Clark, John B.---55 Cleveland, Graver---13, 192 Cohn, Adolph---iW Collins, Patrick A.---266 Colomb, Philip Howard----91 Comte, A i/guste---40 Conant. Charles ,4.---142, 143 Conway, Moncure Daniel--- 219 Cooleti, Charles II. 30 Coolidgc. Archibald C. -307 Crane. Stephen - -159. 219, 221 Crevecocur, Joh n -71 Croffut, W. A.- 209 Crosby, Ernest 77.---168, 220
348Fitzhugn, ueorge---27 Fitzpatrick, £.---260 Flint, Charles R.--- 19, 121 Flower, Benjamin O.---160
H
Hale, Edward £.---169 Hale, Eugene---130, 185 Halstead, M.---126 Hanford, Benjamin---284 Hanna, Mark---iiO, 283 Harriman, Job---156, 306 Harrington, F. H.--- 221, 319 //arm, William T.---30 Harrison, Benjamin---23, 320 //ar«, ,4/fceri B.---28 Harvey, William H.--- 84 Haskins, David G.---174, 175 //a;/, /o/iK Af.---99, 100, 102,
' 119, 307
Hayes, John W.---277 Hayes, Max S.---156, 242, 258,
269, 280
Hayes, Rutherford B.---23 Hearst W. R.---129, 130, 132,
133, 134, 267, 311, 331 Henderson---183, 184 Herbert, Hilary---99 Herron, George D.---181, 218 Hicks---276
Higginson, Thomas W.---171 Hilder, F. F.---144 Hill, Howard G.---123 Hillquit, Morris---156 Hoar, George £.---170, 171, 174,
179, 185, 189, 202--204, 218,
232Hobson, R. P.---119 Hofstadter, Richard---32, 43, 60,
67, 317, 318
Hoist, Hermann Eduard---169 Hosmer, James K.---38 Howells, William Dean---159,
169, 219, 220, 225 Huges---llQ Hugo, Victor---167 Huntington---11
I
Ingalls, M. £.---17
Ingersoll, Robert G.-31, 62
349James, Henry---190, 219, 220 James, William---30, 169, 320 Jaques, William---119 Jefferson, Thomas---71, 164, 166,
319Jenks, Leland H.--- 309 Jomini, Antoine Henry---89, 91 Jones, Jenkin L.---177 Jones P. £.---125 Jordan, David S.---169, 181,
228 Jordan, Thomas---119, 126
K
Kearney, Denis---62
Keep, 'Arthur---273, 274, 284
Kennedy, Andrew---64
Kennedy, John F.---317
Kepner, Ch. D.---309
Kidd---252
Kidd, Benjamin---33, 138, 140,
141, 199
Kingsley, Charles---33 Kipling, Rudyard---i05, 141,
195, 220
Kjellen, Rudolf---93 Knies, Karl---75 Kohlsaat, Herman---117 Kotzebue---160 Krejt---253 Kriege, Herman---72
Lloyd, Henry D.---158, 162,
169, 206 Lodge, Henry Cabot---38, 99,
101, 103, 105, 109, 110, 113,
119, 127, 140, 148, 172, 193,
198, 203, 334 London, Jack---30 Long, John />.---109 Loria, Achille---75 Lowell, James---167 Lowell, James Russel---190 Luce, Stephen B.---87, 91 Lusk, Hugh H.---145 Luxemburg, Rosa---302
M
Mackinder, Halford John---93
Mahan, A Ifred T.---38, 65,66, 68, 86--101, 103, 107, 108, 119, 172, 192, 309, 314, 330
Manypenny, George W.---106
Marti, Jose---243, 251
Martin, Henry B.--- 274, 275
Marx, Karl---62, 155, 322
Mason, Daniel---328
Mason, William £.---130
Masters, Edgar Lee---219
May, Ernest R.--- 316
McBride, J.--- 250
McClure, Alexander K.---H7
McGee, W.---28
McGuire, Peter J.---262
McKee, Delber L.---325
McKinley, William B.---16, 23, 109, 113, 128, 131, 132, 134, 138, 147, 186, 206, 242, 263, 271, 278, 289, 299, 301, 303, 307
McNeill, George £.---179, 242, 244, 266
Melville, G. W.---103
Melville, Herman---167
Meyers, James---175
Miles, Nelson 4.---103
Mill---189
Miller--- 252
Miller, W.-16
Money, Hernando D.---103, 231
Moody, John---li, 12
,
Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley---2fi7 Foner, Philip S.--- 240, 254,
269, 329 Ford, C.---13 Ford, Patrick--- -266 Ford, W. C.---144 Foster, William Z.---156 Franklin, Benjamin---71, 160 Freeman, Edward A.---34--37, 314 Frye, William P.---14, 66, 103,
147, 275
Fuller, Henry---lf>9, 219, 220 Furuseth, A ndrew--- 242, 248, 252
Garfield, James A.---23 Garland, Hamlin---30, 159, 169,
220Garland, M. M.--- 255, 258 Gatewood, W. #.---187 George, Henry---160, 281 Geraghty---253 G/ieni, William S.---292 Giddings, Franklin //.---30, 138,
183GiZ/e«, Frederick #.---55 Gneist, Rudolf von---49 Gobin, J. P. 5.---136 Gobineau, Joseph Arthur---28,
33, 49 Godkin, Edwin L.---134, 169-
172, 180, 181, 190--197, 201.
202, 207, 320, 321 Goldman, Eric P.--- 317 Gompers, Samuel---13, 240, 241,
243--246, 249--251, 262--264,
266, 268, 269, 270, 276, 298 Goodrich, Carter---73 Gould, Jay---11, 222 Grant, Ulysses S.--- 23 Gray, Asa---30 Greeleij, Horace---118 Green, John~M, 35 Gronlund, Laurence---282 Grosvenor, Charles II.---276
LaFeber, Walter---W, 65, 68,
80, 99, 322, 323 Lamsdorff, V. N.---134 Lanzar, Maria C.--- 319, 321 Latane, John---307 Laughlin, James Lawrence---177,
210Laurell, Ferdinand---240 Lawrence, £.---129 Lawson, A. M.---276 Lease, Mary---158 Lenin, V. '/.---10, 12, 14, 21,
70, 72, 155, 157, 163, 209,
302, 322, 332 List, Friedrich---75 Lloyd---266
Jackson, Andrew---23, 26, 315 Jackson, Helen Hunt---106
350Moody, William F.-169, 219,
220Moore---252
Morgan, John P.--12, 110, 116 Morgan, John T.--- 91, 103 Morgan, Thomas J.---242 Merrill, Justin S.---174 A/ott---167
Munroe, James P.---170, 1(5 Muravyov, M. N.---133
N
Nearing, Scott---212 Nelson, Knute---233 N orris, /'ranfc-159, 169, 21!)
Norton, Charles E.---169 JVott, /osto/( C.-27, 28
0Oc/is, 4iZoJ/>// 5.- US Ogden, / o/i n---167 Olney, Richard--H2, 110 Onedl, John--287 Osborn, Francis 4.---175 Osgood, Herbert---§5 O'Sullivan, John A.--23, 26,
314P
Page, Waiter Mines---100, 119 Paine, Thomas---iM, 166 Palgrave, Francis---34 Palma, Thomas Estrada---136,
251Parkhurst, Charles //.---169 Parkman, Francis---fid, 47 Parrington, Vernon L.--- 310, 320 Parsons, Albert---170, 174, 175 Patten, Simon AT.---14 Pierce, Franklin---23 Peabody, George F.---170, 186 Peffer, William A.---146, 211 Perkins, George W.--- 259 Perkins, George W.---110 Pettigrew, Richard F.---169, 179,
183, 189, 205, 212--218, 333 Pingree, Hazen---168 PZatt, OrwHe #.-102, 142, 203 Pomeroy, Eltweed---29i Pomeroy, William J.--- 328 Porter, John A.---ill Potter, Henry C.-169, 174 Potts, William---168
NAME INDEX
Powderly, Terence F.---278 Pratt. /i(Zii/s W.--55. 07, 99,
312 314, 315, 316. 317,
318, 322, 323 Proctor. John /?.---120, 121,
139, 140, 143 Pulitzer, Joseph---118, 129, 131,
133, 311. 331
Q
Quint, H. #.---326
351Seeley, John Robert---33 Seligman E. R. 4.---55 Shaler, Nathaniels---28 Shannon, Fred A.---73 Sfcau;, 4H>er«---99, 100, 113, 119 Shepard, Edward M.---168 S/ierman, /onn---119, 320 Simons, vlZgie M.--- 76, 280, 304,
305Simpson, Jerry---84, 211 Skidmore, Thomas---71 Smith, 4dam---14, 206 Smith, £>.---67
Smith, Edwin B.---168, 225 Smith, W.---21 Sombart, Werner---280 Soothill, J. #.---309 Sovereign, James R.---278 Spa/in, Charles B.---182 Spencer---31, 40, 60 Stedman, Seymour---287 Steffens, Lincoln---169 SteUon, Charlotte P.---293 Stetson, Francis L.---14 Storey, Afoor/ieZd---168, 169, 170, 173, 174, 182, 185, 186, 188, 232, 263, 321 Strasser, Adolph---2^0 Strong, Josiah---38, 56, 58--68, 74, 99, 100, 119, 146, 193, 309, 314, 330 Stubbs, William R.--- 34, 35 Studebaker, Clement---19, 257 Sumner, William G.---13, 30-
32, 181
Swinton, John---244 Sybel---35
T
Taylor, Henry C.---103 Taylor, Zaclianj---23 Teller---103
Teplov, V. A.---130, 134 Thoreau, Henry---167 Thurber, Francis B.---264 Thurston, Larrin A.---125 Tillman, Benjamin R.- 170,
231--233
Tocquevillc, Alexis---25 Tolstoi--- 67
Tompkins, E. Berkeley---321 Tracy, Benjamin F.---91
Treitschke, Heinrich von---35, 36 Trench, Charles---29,1, 297 Turner, Frederick /.---38, 65, 68-
70, 74--85, 99, 119, 146 r^ain, Mark---159, 169, 219--225 Tyler, Moses C.---38 V
Van Evrie, John H.---21
Vanderbilt---il
Van Dyke, Henry---169
Veblen, Thorstein---169
Vest, George C.---170, 179
\V
Walker, Francis A.---2Q Ward, Lester F.---13, 30 Ware, Henry---167 Warren, Winslow---ilO, 175 Washington, George---23, 41, 43,
164, 178, 182, 197, 319 Watson, Thomas---158, 162, 211 Watterson, Henry---117, 118, 147 Wayland, Julius A.--- 280, 281,
289, 297
Weaver, James B.---161 Well---167 Welsh, Herbert---168, 170, 181,
186We;/Zer, Valertano---130, 132 White, Andrew D.--- 34, 38 White, Henry---190 Whiteman, Walt---159, 167 Whittier, John---167 Wilkerson, Marcus M.--- 311 Williams, John---170 Williams, William 4.---18, 81,
102 322--324 Wilshire, H. Gaylord---282, 304,
305Wilson, James #.---119 Wilson, Woodrow---85, 317 Winslow Erving---135, 169, 170,
174, 175, 183, 188, 209, 266 Wisan Joseph E.---311 Wolf, Leon---320 Wood, Leonard---103, 146
Y Youmans, Edward L. --30
Z ZeisZer, S.---177
R
11 a nke, Leopold ran---35 Ratzel, /'Viedric/i---93 Rauschenbusch, Walter---51 Held, Whitelaw--WQ, 117, 118,
121, 144
Jiemington, Frederick---129, 134 /?jp;,;/, /.' /--.-104, 309 rtobeson, George M.--- 91 Robinson, Edwin Arlington--- 219 Robinson, James---55, 309 Rockefeller---i2, 110, 116 floger, //enry W.-169, 177, 263 /foHins, /onn W.-322, 323 Roosevelt, Franklin D.--- 317 Roosevelt, Theodore---14, 23, 55,
70, 85, 88, 97--101, 103--115,
117, 119, 172, 198, 270, 307,
309, 317, 331 flooi, Elihu---iH Rosher, Wilhelm---75 Royce, Josiah---30 in, /onn---281
Sania/,, Lucien---300, 301 Saw*, Edward N.--- 35, 315 Scnirmer, 7). B.--321, 322 Schlesinger, Arthur M.--- 317 Schumpeter, Joseph Alois---310 Schurman, Jacob---169 Sc/turz, CaH---169, 171, 174,
183, 185, 186, 189, 190, 196-
202, 230, 234, 263 Scott, W. H.---168 Scovel, Sylvester---129 Searcfe, Theodore C.---15--17
[352] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END]REQUEST TO READERS
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[353] theories
and
critical
studies
Soviet historian Professor Igor Dementyev of Moscow University specialises in studies of US public thinking and US historiography. He collected material for this book during his fairly long stay in the United States. His works were awarded the 1975 Lomonosov Prize of Moscow University.
This is a study of important aspects of public thinking in the United States in the period when US capitalism was entering the monopoly stage. The imperialist ideology emerging at the turn of the century was the foundation of the US foreign policy of that time, elements of which have survived in more or less modified form to this day. The process was accompanied by the birth of an anti-expansionist ideology, a general democratic opposition to monopoly, which helped lay the progressive traditions of the American people.
This book examines the social-Darwinist sociology of William G. Sumner, the 'cosmic philosophy' of John Fiske, the Anglo-Saxon concept of John W. Burgess, the sea power doctrine of Alfred T. Mahan, and the theosophy of Josiah Strong. An analysis is given of the battle of ideas that erupted over the topic of colonial expansion and imperialist wars, of the platform and influence of the American Anti-Imperialist League, the forces behind its rise and its relatively rapid eclipse. Anti-war and anti-colonial actions are examined in the context of the anti-monopoly and class struggles in the USA at the turn of the century.