VIDEOTAPE LECTURE #12 OUTLINE
[00:00] Bars, Tone, and Countdown
[01:30] Intro
[04:00] Preamble
[04:10] Spanish-American War of 1898
[05:22] Three big points

1. War is an extension of a nation's diplomacy by other than peaceful means
2. War changes the relationship of citizens to one another and to their government
3. The rhetoric that justifies or opposes war reveals a great deal about the way a nation views itself

[55:50] Albert J. Beveridge

Some questions to keep in mind:

1. In the late 19th century was the U.S. essentially isolationist, essentially expansionist, or a combination of both?
   
2. What were the economic and political consequences of religious missionary work in the 19th century?

The following three general propositions form the foundation of our future discussions about war and foreign policy:

1. War is the extension of a nation's diplomacy by other than peaceful means.
2. For whatever reasons a nation enters a war, that war itself changes the relationship of its citizens with each other and with the national government.
3. The rhetoric that justifies or opposes a war reveals a great deal about the way a nation thinks about itself.

Historians have opposing interpretations about America's involvement in world affairs in the years after the Civil War:

1. Before 1898, America was isolationist
2. After the Civil War, America was expansionist.
3. America was isolationist in theory, expansionist in practice.

To decide which of these interpretations is more accurate, we must examine three major trends of the time from the isolationist and the expansionist points of view:

1. Industrial expansion
2. Western settlement
3. Growth of federal government

Those who would argue that America was basically isolationist before 1898 would say that these three domestic concerns prevented the U.S. from becoming involved in foreign affairs. In their viewpoint, national energies could not be spent on involvement with other nations.

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) was President 1885-1889 and 1893-1897. In his inaugural address of 1885 he summed up America's isolationist doctrine:

Industrial expansion

• Business cycles. Alternating cycles of prosperity and recession (and even economic depressions in 1873 and 1893) meant that production of U.S. goods often exceeded consumption.
• International investment capital. Between the late 1860s and the turn of the century, foreign concerns invested $3 billion in the U.S. economy.
• Desire to expand markets
• Shift in balance of trade. For example, Standard Oil had few petroleum exports in 1880, but controlled 70% of the world market in oil by 1890.

Western settlement

Recall that farmers settled and tilled more and more land in the West, in part, because they were sure of boundless international markets. As European demand for U.S. agricultural surplus declined from 1880 on, farmers had to seek new markets in order to survive.

Growth of federal government

Increasingly, the federal government made policies on economic matters, such as import tariffs and currency reform. Industrialists and farmers alike turned to the federal government for help in securing new markets.

William Everetts--U.S. Secretary of State 1877-1881. In his "Report upon the Commercial Relations of the United States" Everetts argued that the government should foster economic growth. He revitalized the consular service in foreign countries and appointed successful businessmen as consuls to represent America's interests in foreign countries.

"Pork Diplomacy" of the 1880s demonstrates the growing correlation between business and government. In the 1870s American farmers "were turning out pigs like they were going out of style" (Prof. Schultz), and exported their surplus pork to Europe. In the 1880s, because of protest from French and German farmers, these governments passed restrictions on the importation of American pork. U.S. farmers and businessmen were outraged and the U.S. government brought economic reprisals against the German states and France.

The "Missionary Factor"

Missionaries of Peace

After the Civil War, the pace of American Christian missionary work around the globe, especially in Asia and Africa, increased dramatically.

1. Soul saving and profit making go hand-in-hand. For example, the founder of the Dole pineapple fortunes was the son of a missionary to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Many other American businessmen learned about potential foreign markets from reports that missionaries brought back.
2. Government protection and international agreements. The U.S. government had a long-standing policy of protecting the needs of its citizens in foreign lands. More American missionaries around the world meant more U.S. citizens to protect from discrimination and attack, so the government was drawn into "entangling alliances" with other countries.
3. A faith in the destiny of Christianity to conquer the world.

Robert E. Spear was the head of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. In one of his speeches, he claimed:

"The civilized nations are beginning to perceive that they have a duty, which is often contemptuously spoken of, to police the world. The recognition of this duty has been forced by trade."

Missionaries of War

By the 1880s the once-respectable U.S. Navy was in shambles. Three factors allowed for its renewal and development:

1. Recovery from the Depression of 1873 gave the government surplus money to build a modern navy.
2. William Hunt became the first truly effective Secretary of the Navy.
3. Realization that U.S. was 10th-rate naval power raised concerns that America would be unprepared if commercial rivalries turned into military conflict.

Even landlocked Populists of the Midwest campaigned for a larger U.S. Navy. There was a widely-held belief that the U.S. needed ships, not to make war, but to protect its rights and prestige.

Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) was a naval strategist, historian, and leading advocate of a powerful U.S. Navy. He was very influential over his friend and colleague, Teddy Roosevelt. In his writings and speeches, Mahan stated:

1. Surplus production requires commercial colonies
2. Oceans should be highways, not barriers
3. A powerful navy is essential for commerce

Mahan believed in the power of modern arms to prevent war, and wrote:

"War now not only occurs more rarely, but is an occasional excess, from which recovery is easy."

Rhetorical Justification for Imperialism

In pro-expansionist rhetoric, justification for American imperialism was most often expressed in terms of American DESTINY and American DUTY.

Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932) wrote "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893), in which he argues that interaction with the frontier promotes democracy in America. As internal frontiers were pushed further and further west, some Americans expanded on Turner's thesis to view overseas expansion as the next great frontier. Woodrow Wilson was a friend and advocate of Turner and put Turner's writings into practice once he reached the White House.

The "Anglo-Saxon myth" was the dominant intellectual justification for American imperialism. This myth held that the Anglo-Saxons were the final result of cultural evolution. The United States, as the obvious seat of growing Anglo-Saxon power, had a duty to expand its influence throughout the world.

The two prevalent themes of American DESTINY and American DUTY are best summed up in the writings of Senator Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927) of Indiana. An historian as well as a politician, Beveridge stated in his 1898 speech "The March of the Flag:"

"Will you remember today, that we but do what our fathers did. We but pitch the tents of liberty further westward, further southward. We only continue the march of the flag. The question is not an American question but a world question. Shall free institutions broaden their blessed reign? The opposition to expansion tells us we ought not to govern a people without their consent. I answer that the rule of liberty applies only to those who are capable of self-government. Do we owe no duty to the world? Wonderfully has God guided us. It is ours to set the world its example of right and honor. We cannot fly from our world duties. It is ours to execute the purpose of a fate that has driven us to be greater than our small intentions. We cannot retreat from any soil where Providence has unfurled our banner. It is ours to save that soil for liberty and civilization. For liberty and civilization and God's promises fulfilled, the flag must henceforth be the symbol and the sign to all mankind."

This faith in destiny, duty and the morality of power would be played out in military expansion and war during the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. This, of course, is a very important and fascinating part of our story. So important, in fact, that we'll turn to it in Lecture 13: "The Morality of Power."

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