AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

Executive Mansion, Washington December 21, 1898 With the signature of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries at Paris on the 10th instant, and as a result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States... It will be the duty of the commander of the forces of occupation to announce and proclaim in the most public manner that we come, not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends, to protect the natives in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights. All persons who, either by active aid or by honest submission, co-operate with the Government of the United States to give effect to these beneficent purposes will receive the reward of its support and protection. All others will be brought within the lawful rule we have assumed, with firmness if need be, but without severity, so far as possible it should be the earnest wish and paramount aim of the military administration to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines by assuring them in every possible way that full measure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peoples, and by proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule. In the fulfillment of this high mission, supporting the temperate administration of affairs for the greatest good of the governed, there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of authority, to repress disturbance and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government upon the people of the Philippine Islands under the free flag of the United States. WILLIAM McKINLEY.

Response to Otis proclamation: I do most solemnly protest against all of the document and all the sentiments it contains. I protest with all my soul, conscience and strength against the unjust authority, which Major General Otis, as Military Governor, has assumed, in relation to our policies I was assured that the Americans did not desire the conquest of the Filipines, but would guarantee us our liberty and independence General Otis has contradicted every promise given me, for they have not been carried out I equally protest in the name of all my people against the policy of the United States. The people of the Filipines have given me a vote of confidence and I will struggle for liberty and independence until death Emilio Aguinaldo Malolos, January 5, 1899

Manifest Destiny Term coined by John O Sullivan Not a government policy; rather an idea that strongly influenced policies Contained three themes: Virtue Mission Destiny

American Progress, 1872 by John Gast

Take up the White Man's burden-Send forth the best ye breed-Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. Take up the White Man's burden-In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. Take up the White Man's burden-The savage wars of peace-Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought. Take up the White Man's burden-No tawdry rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper-The tale of common things.

The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go mark them with your living, And mark them with your dead. Take up the White Man's burden-And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard-The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-"Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?" Take up the White Man's burden-Ye dare not stoop to less-Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloke your weariness; By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your gods and you. Take up the White Man's burden-Have done with childish days-The lightly proferred laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers!

The White Mans Burden

Rudyard Kipling

MARK TWAIN New York Herald, October 15, 1900: I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with the Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which had addressed ourselves. But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . . It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

MARK TWAIN February 1901 article titled, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness, There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. . . True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world. . . And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one--our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.