Feb 2: U.S. Imperialism

Required Reading:

· Give me Liberty, 647-672

· Senator Alfred Beveridge excerpt of speech to Congress Beveridge was one of the strongest supporter of Imperialist policies in the U.S. Senate (Longer version of this is listed in Recommended sites)

· Charles Conant, The Economic Basis to Imperialism 326-330 Longer version is in the recommended website below What are his arguments?

· Pear’s Soap advertising the White Man's burden –study this ad carefully – Dewey was navy commander in Phillipines wartextbook) What message does the central picture and the 4 pictures surrounding Dewey represent? What is the message about progress and civilization?

· Mark Twain’s The Victory of the Loud Little Handful and The War Prayer

· Soldiers’ Letters from the Philippines War

· Voices of Freedom, 58-63 see questions at end of document

Questions: Read and reflect before class:

1)How was a system of racial segregation established in the South? Do you see any connection between these developments and the development of U.S as an imperial power? 

2 What are the main arguments by those who favor U.S. intervention and empire. How is U.S. imperialism during this period defined as progress? Do you see any significance for the present? Refer to Beveridge, Conant, and Pear’s Soap advertising, in addition to text.

3) Reflect on the sentiments expressed on U.S. soldiers’ letters above. Be able to discuss one of the most startling or surprising parts of these letters

4) What are some key arguments of those who oppose U.S. war abroad? Include here esp. Twain, some of the soldiers’ letters, and Ames reading.

5) How does the material presented here challenge your view of U.S. global role?

Recommended Websites:

• Browse the BOONDOCKS history website for imperialism and anti-imperialism movement and more about the Phillipines War and other imperialist interventions by the U.S. :
• Anti-imperialist poems by the author of the song "America the Beautiful"
• For more on Mark Twain and anti-imperialism – 15 of his essays, in response to the Spanish-American War; also 7 essays on Twain’s anti-imperialism
• Mark Twain’s The War Prayer
• World’s Fairs as windows on defining Ameirca’s role in world "progress" and imperialism:
• Full Version of Alfred Beveridge’s speech http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ajb72.htm
• More on The White Man’s Burden and It’s Critics: http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/kipling/
• U.S. Imperialism in Latin America
• Puerto Rico: Bitter Harvest
• Imperialism is Easy-John Dewey—information on Mexico
• U.S. in Haiti
• Truth About Haiti: An NAACP investigation
• How Wall Street created Panama

· http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/kipling/kipling.html The White Man’s Burden was the title of the famous Rudyard Kipling poem

1. A Reply to Rudyard Kipling’s "White Man’s Burden" satire on the famous poem, which had suggested that White civilization had the burden of civilizing the rest of the world (see below for the Kipling poem, if you are not familiar with it—I had to memorize it as a child!) This poem is intended to refute the premises of Kipling’s poem. What arguments are made through this satire? If you don’t know what satire is, you need to look it up

• To Abolish the Monroe Doctrine- Sandino and U.S. intervention in Nicaragua
• A website with links to numerous countries and their stories that relate to U.S. imperialism http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/
• The World of 1898: The Spanish American War

Labor on Imperialism

· Charles Conant, The Economic Basis to Imperialism Conant was the Wall Street Advisor to 4 American presidents in the late 19^th and early 20^th century

· More on The White Man’s Burden and It’s Critics: http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/kipling/

· Samuel Gompers, Imperialism, Its Dangers and Wrongs

· Jay Lovestone, Capitalist Imperialism and the Aristocracy of Labor

· American Labor Unions by Helen Marot (Women’s Trade Union League)-1914 book, entirely on-line

· The Enslavement of U.S. Labor published by the Anti-Imperialist League of Boston, 1902