Chapter 22

Becoming a World Power, 1898-1917

© 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved.

 The United States Looks Abroad
• By the 19th Century, many Americans were
looking to extend their reach abroad:
– Protestant Missionaries
– Businessmen
– Imperialists

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 Protestant Missionaries
• Focused mainly on China
• Christian duty
• “Civilizing”

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 Businessmen
• Exports of American manufactured goods rise
after 1880
– American tobacco sold 1 billion cigarettes to China
• James J. Hill
• Frederick Jackson Turner
– “The Significance of the Frontier in American History"
• Senator Albert Beveridge

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 Leading U.S. Exports, 1875 and 1915
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
 Imperialists
• U.S. should be imperial nation like Britain,
France, Germany, and Russia
• Alfred Thayer Mahan
– The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890)
• “Big navy” policy
• Pago Pago, Samoa and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
• Hawaii
– Queen Liliuokalani
• “Jingoism“
• War and imperialism attempt to revive frontier
like masculinity
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
 The Spanish-American War
• Cuban Revolution (1895)
– Valeriano Weyler
• “Yellow journalism"
– William Randolph Hearst
– Joseph Pulitzer
• de Lôme letter
• Maine
• Teller Amendment
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
 “A Splendid Little War”
• Main reason for U.S. victory was naval superiority
• American soldiers racial perceptions of Cubans
confused and they refused to work with Cubans
• George Dewey
– Manila
• Theodore Roosevelt and the "Rough Riders"
– Kettle Hill and Negro Infantry
– San Juan Hill
• Spanish Atlantic fleet destroyed, Spain surrenders
• Treaty of Paris, 1898
– U.S. gets Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines
– U.S. pays $20 million
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
 The United States Becomes a
World Power

• McKinley casts his lot with imperialists

• Hawaiian annexation (1898)
• Lands gained from Spain colonies not territories
• Philippines
– Emilio Aguinaldo

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 The Debate over the Treaty of
Paris
• Anti-Imperialist League
• William Jennings Bryan and southern and western
democrats
– Against proposed acquisition of Philippines
• An assault on Filipinos’ rights
• Businessmen and laborers feared competition from Philippines
• Maintaining outposts more expensive than economic benefit
• Racist motives not to contaminate America
• Filipinos revolt, Anti-Imperialists lose

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 The American-Filipino War

• 4 years of fighting between U.S. soldiers

and Filipino rebels
• Were American actions in Philippines any
different than those of Spain in Cuba?
• Arthur MacArthur
• William Howard Taft

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 Controlling Cuba and Puerto
Rico
• Leonard Wood
• Platt Amendment
• Foraker Act (1900)
– Unincorporated territory
– Insular cases
• Caribbean becoming an “American
Mediterranean”

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 China and the “Open Door”
• Other countries controlled China’s trade
through spheres of influence
• John Hay
– “Open Door" policy
• Boxer Rebellion (1900)
• 2nd Open Door notes

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 Theodore Roosevelt,
Geopolitician
• Driving force in U.S. foreign policy
• Roosevelt believed the nation, like an individual,
must strive for greatness
– Americans were racially superior and destined for
supremacy in economic and political affairs
– Shrewd analyst of international affairs
– No patience for small countries’ claims to sovereignty
or human rights of weak peoples
• Latin America, Africa, Asia (except Japan) were inferior

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 The Roosevelt Corollary

• Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

• Venezuela
• Dominican Republic
• Roosevelt’s interventions concerned with
stability not democratic institutions or
social justice

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 The Panama Canal
• Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901)
• Hay-Herran Treaty (1902)
• Philippe Bunau-Varilla
• Panamanian revolt and the U.S.S. Nashville
• Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903)
– “The treaty which no Panamanian signed”
• Building canal impressive test of American
ingenuity and willpower
• Strategic importance of canal increased U.S.
determination to preserve order in Central
America
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
 Keeping the Peace in East Asia
• Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
– Treaty of Portsmouth, New Hampshire (1905)
• Taft-Katsura Agreement (1905)
• Root-Takahira Agreement (1908)
• “Gentlemen's agreement" (1907)
• “Great White Fleet”

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 William Howard Taft, Dollar
Diplomat
• Philander C. Knox and “Dollar diplomacy”
– Substitute “dollars for bullets”
– Setback in China
– United Fruit
• Nicaragua
– José Santos Zelaya
– Adolfo Diaz

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 U.S. Global Investments and Investments in Latin America, 1914

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

 Woodrow Wilson, Struggling
Idealist
• Wilson intervened in Caribbean more than any
President before
– Haiti and Dominican Republic
• Wilson more concerned with morality and justice
than Taft or Roosevelt
• Mexican Revolution: Wilson hopes for democracy
– Francisco Madero
– Victoriano Huerta
– Veracruz (1914)
– Venustiano Carranza and Francisco "Pancho" Villa
– John Pershing
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
 Conclusion
• Dramatic turns in U.S. foreign policy
– Control of Western Hemisphere
– Moved military and economic power into Asia
– Peoples of Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam,
Cuba, and Colombia were regarded as inferior
and denied right to govern themselves

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved