The Debate over the Philippines, 1898 - 1900 (High School)

 Document #1: Judge P.S. Grosscup in The Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1898

"The Latin race...is a diminishing race; the Anglo-Saxon, pre-eminent in all the arts and ambitions that make this age powerful, is an increasing race. It is the only race that has, since the beginning of time, correctly conceived the individual rights of men, and is, on that account ... surviving, by fitness, the other races...

"The twentieth century will...undoubtedly cleanse and advance the stagnant peoples [of Asia]....Into this field the moral purposes and commercial courage of the Anglo-Saxon are bound to project themselves....This war has shown that we need a home port in Asiatic waters. The strategy of war has compelled us to obtain a temporary foothold in the Philippines. I believe we will find a way to make it permanent."

Document #2: Wm. Jennings Bryan, Presidential Candidate of the Democratic Party, 1896 and 1900, June 14, 1898

"History will vindicate the position taken by the United States in the war with Spain....If, however, a contest undertaken for the sake of humanity degenerates into a war of conquest, we...have added hypocrisy to greed.

"Shall we contemplate a scheme for the colonization of the Orient merely because our ships won a remarkable victory in the harbor of Manila?

"Our guns destroyed a Spanish fleet, but can they destroy that self-evident truth, that governments derive their just powers not from superior force, but from the consent of the governed?"

Document #3: Wm. James, philosopher and psychologist, June 15, 1898

"Our disclaiming all idea of conquest is sincere... Congress denied any project of conquest in Cuba [and] it meant every word it said....But here comes in the psychologic factor: once the excitement of action gets loose, the taxes levied, the victories achieved, the old human instincts will get into play....We shall never take Cuba;...but Puerto Rico, and even the Philippines, are not so sure. We had supposed ourselves (with all our crudity and barbarity in certain ways) a better nation morally than the rest, safe at home and without the old savage ambition....Dreams! Human Nature is everywhere the same; and at the least temptation all the old military passions rise..."

Document #4: Senator J.S. Morrill, June 20, 1898

"We cannot afford to denounce and forbid all acquisitions of territory in the Western hemisphere by European governments...and forthwith embark in a thus be-damned enterprise ourselves....We must practice what we preach."

Document #5: Henry Watterson, newspaper editor, interviewed in The New York Herald, June 22, 1898

"To surrender territory acquired by the outlay of so much blood and treasure would be a wanton and cowardly abandonment of obligations and opportunities literally heaven-sent....We cannot remand the Philippines to Spain, or commit them to a population incapable of self-government, to become a prey of Europe...

"The traditional stay-at-home and mind-your-own-business policy laid down by [George] Washington was wise for a weak and struggling nation...But each of the centuries has its own tale of progress to tell....The United States from now on is destined to be a world power...

"From a nation of shop-keepers we 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...We risk Caesarism, certainly; but even Caesarism is preferable to anarchism..."

DOCUMENT #6: The Burlington (Iowa) Hawk-Eye (Republican newspaper), June, 1898.

The United States now confronts a condition, not a theory. As a people we are the most practical of all races and care more for conditions than theories. Unexpectedly, and through the unseen hand of a developing destiny, we have the Philippine Islands. To assume that we are not competent to deal with this new problem is to assert that Yankee ingenuity has run its course and that popular government is unequal to the demands of modern civilization, inferior to monarchical rule, and unable to cope with the program of the world. The Hawk-Eye takes no stock in such a narrow standard of American statesmanship....

Document #7: New York Herald, Aug. 21, 1898

FILIPINOS WORSE

THAN THE INDIANS

Described by the Herald's Correspondent

as Repulsive in Appearance

and Brutal in their

Warfare

WOMEN PRISONERS

CRUELLY TREATED

Huts of the Natives in the Bamboo

Thickets Filled with Hoards

of Plunder

CUNNING AND UNRELIABLE

Passes signed by "General" Aguinaldo

Bear Such Titles as "the August

Dictator"

"The native Filipino is much a Malay, a good deal a Chinese and more of a Jap, with more or less Spanish meanness thrown in....None of the women are even good looking. They have very expressive eyes and the younger ones have good white teeth, and that's all."

Document #8: Revs. W.C. Steele and J.P. Peters, in "Preachers Say Hold Philippines", New York Herald, Aug. 22, 1898

"The dead nation [Spain] is evidence of the wrath of God. We have conquered them because we were fighting for humanity and God. The American idea is divine. The red, white and blue represents what the cross represents -- equality."

"Selfishness and exclusiveness act to the detriment of the individual....In the past the United States government has offered an asylum for the oppressed of all nations....The refugees have come to us. Now we have stepped outside of our own borders to aid other people in the march of freedom and the upholding of human rights."

Document #9: Rev. A.B. Leonard, "Prospective Mission Fields", Gospel in All Lands (Methodist publication), Aug., 1898

"Had Spain pursued an enlightened policy in politics and religion...she might rank now with Great Britain, rather than with decaying nations such as China and Turkey....She has kept her masses in dense ignorance and under the influence of blind superstition...

"An overruling Providence has thrust us out to the 'uttermost parts of the earth', there to break the power of Spanish despotism....Great opportunities are suddenly open before the Christian Church for advancing among long-oppressed peoples the kingdom of God....The Christian Church must follow the army and occupy the territory conquered by the war power of the nation."

Document #10: J.G. Carlisle, ex-Secretary of the Navy, "Our Future Policy", Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1898

"Our political institutions were not designed for the government of dependent colonies....This was intended to be a free republic, composed of self-governing States and intelligent, law-abiding, and liberty-loving people....The new policy [of annexing the Philippines] will demand large standing armies and great navies with consequent burdensome taxation..."

Document #11: Charles Denby, U.S. Minister to China, "Shall We Keep the Philippines?" Forum, Sept. 1898

"Dewey's victory has changed our attitude before the world. We took no part in international questions. We had no standing in the council of nations.....

"I recognize the existence of a national sentiment...against the acquisition of foreign territory; but...we have to compete with the commercial nations of the world in far-distant markets. Commerce, not politics, is king....There is a boundless future which will make the Pacific more important to us than the Atlantic....The possession [of the Philippines] gives us standing and influence. It gives us also valuable trade both in exports and imports....We are taking our proper rank among the nations of the world."

Document #12: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, Dec. 1898

"If the Philippines are annexed, what is to prevent the Chinese, the Negritos and the Malays coming to our country? If these new islands are to become ours,...can we hope to close the flood-gates of immigration from the hordes of Chinese and the semi-savage races coming from what will then be part of our own country?"

Document #13: Sen. G.F. Hoar (R-Mass.) and Sen. O.H. Platt (R-Conn.) in U.S. Senate, Jan 9, 1899

Mr. HOAR. The Monroe Doctrine is gone. Every European nation, every European alliance, has the right to acquire dominion in this hemisphere when we acquire it in the other....Our fathers dreaded a standing army; but the Senator's doctrine...renders necessary a standing army...

Mr. PLATT. The literal application of the Senator's doctrine would have turned back the Mayflower from our coast and would have prevented our expansion westward to the Pacific Ocean. He announces the doctrine that we must not attempt to govern any people except with their consent. Mr. President, what did we do with the Indians of this country?...Providence brought about...the great force of Christian civilization on earth. I believe the same force was behind...our ships in Manila Bay, that was behind the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. I believe that we have been chosen to carry forward this great work of uplifting humanity on earth...The English-speaking people...is charged with this great mission...We propose to proclaim liberty and justice and the protection of life and human rights wherever the flag of the United States is planted.

Mr. HOAR. You have no right at the cannon's mouth to impose on an unwilling people your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution and your notions of freedom and notions of what is good....The [Filipino] people...have got a government, with courts and judges, better than those of the people of Cuba, who it was said, had a right to self-government...and it is proposed to turn your guns on them and say, 'We think that our notion of government is better than the notion you have got yourselves'.

Document #14: Wm. Jennings Bryan, "Will It Pay?", New York Journal, Jan. 15, 1899

"Who can estimate in money and men the cost of subduing and keeping in subjection eight millions of people, six thousand miles away, scattered over 1200 islands, and living under a tropical sun?....

"Let us consider for a moment the indirect cost of annexation. Grave domestic problems press for solution; can we afford to neglect them...to engage unnecessarily in controversies abroad?...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?"

Document #15: Sen. Tillman (D-S.C.) and Sen. Nelson (R-Minn.) in the U.S. Senate, Jan 20, 1899

Mr. TILLMAN. You are undertaking to annex...islands inhabited by ten millions of the colored race, one-half or more of whom are barbarians of the lowest type. It is to the injection into the body politic of the United States of that [corrupted] blood, that debased and ignorant people, that we object...

Mr. NELSON. The fear of the Senator from South Carolina...is to a large extent based upon the idea that if we annex the people of these territories they become voters, full citizens in every respect. That is not true. A person may become a citizen of the United States and [be] entirely deprived of the right of suffrage. A minor is a citizen of the United States;... a woman is a citizen of the United States...

Document #16: A.L. Lowell, President of Harvard Univ., "The Colonial Expansion of the United States", Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1899

"For many Americans the word ['colony'] has disagreeable associations....[However,] since the Revolutionary War the inhabitants of the United States have increased twentyfold...and one-half live in communities that have at some time been organized as territories -- in other words, that have been founded by the process of colonization. ...Therefore, the United States has been one of the greatest and most successful colonizing powers the world has ever known...

"If our colonies are to thrive and add to our own prosperity, we must select only thoroughly trained administrators....It is necessary to create a permanent and highly paid colonial administrative service, which shall offer an honorable and attractive career for young men of ability."

Document #17: Wm. James, letter to Boston Evening Transcript, Mar.1, 1899

"We are now openly engaged in crushing out the sacredest thing in this great human world -- the attempt of a people long enslaved to attain to the possession of itself, to organize its laws and government....Why, then, do we go on? First, the war fever; and then the pride which always refuses to back down....[Our] national destiny must be 'big' at any cost....We are to be missionaries of civilization!...The individual lives are nothing...Could there be a more damning indictment of the whole bloated term 'modern civilization' than this amounts to?"

Document #18: Sen. Carl Schurz (R-Mo.), "The Policy of Imperialism", Oct. 17, 1899

"I am not in sympathy with those...who would sacrifice our National honor and the high ideals of the Republic, and who would inflict upon our people the burdens of...militarism for a mere matter of dollars and cents...But I will, for argument's sake,...ask: Will it Pay?

"Tropical countries like the Philippines may be field of profit for rich men who can hire others to work for them, but not for those who have to work for themselves....The profits of the trade with the islands...can never amount to the cost of making and maintaining the conquest of the Philippines...[and] many imperialists admit that..."

Document #19: Theodore Roosevelt, Gov. of New York, "Expansion and Peace", The Independent, Dec. 21, 1899

"The growth of peacefulness between nations...has been confined strictly to those that are civilized....Whether the Barbarian be the Red Indian on the frontier of the United States, [or] the Afghan on the border of British India,... civilized man finds he can keep the peace only by subduing his barbarian neighbor...

"Every expansion of a great civilized power means a victory for law, order and righteousness,...whether...France or England, Russia or America.

"Nations that expand and nations that do not expand may both ultimately go down, but the one leaves heirs and a glorious memory, and the other leaves neither. The Roman expanded and he has left a memory which has profoundly influenced the history of mankind."

Document #20: Wm. Jennings Bryan, "New Peoples Must Be Raised", New York Journal, Feb. 11, 1900

"The theory that half of our people can be free and half vassal...will blossom into the doctrine that some strong man has the divine right to rule the American people, and then the people at home will be targets for the large army raised to support a policy of exploitation in other lands."

Document #21: Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) in U.S. Senate, Mar. 7, 1900

"Our immediate duty is to suppress this disorder [the Philippine rebellion against the U.S.], put an end to fighting, and restore peace and order. That is what we are doing...

"Our Constitution gives full right and authority to hold and govern the Philippines without making them either economically or politically part of our system, neither of which they should ever be.

"It has been stated over and over again that we have done great wrong in taking these islands without the consent of the governed...The Declaration of Independence was the announcement of the existence of a new revolutionary government upon American soil. Upon whose consent did it rest?...All negroes...were not consulted....Were women included in the word ‘governed’?

"Under the guidance of Thomas Jefferson...we took Louisiana without the consent of the governed, and ruled it...Who is there today who will stand up and say that Thomas Jefferson did not do well and rightly when he bought Louisiana?

"Then came the Mexican War, and by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo we received a great cession of territory from Mexico....There were many Mexicans living within the ceded territory. We never asked their consent...

"The downfall of the Republic has been constantly... foretold many times since the foundation of the Government, ...and always when a great expansion of territory took place. Never has it come true."

Document #22: Theodore Roosevelt, Republican Candidate for Vice President, Sept. 7, 1900

"When in 1776 the U.S. declared itself a nation, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan formed part of Canada. Illinois and Indiana were acquired by conquest during the Revolution....The Indian aboriginal inhabitants of these States were not consulted in the treaty, nor were the white inhabitants of French extraction...

"Mr. Bryan and his associates cannot say enough about the ‘consent of the governed’ doctrine as applying to the Philippines. They dwell upon the fact that ‘no man is good enough to govern another’. In North Carolina, and other Southern States, we see...the disfranchisement of the negro..., the black man governed without his consent by the white man....If our opponents are sincere they must necessarily denounce what has been done in North Carolina... more...than what has been done in the Philippines.

"The policy of expansion is America’s historic policy. We have annexed the Philippines exactly as we have annexed Hawaii, New Mexico, and Alaska. They are now part of the American territory and we have no more right to give them up than we have the right to restore Hawaii to the Kanaka Queen or to abandon Alaska to the Esquimaux."

Document #23: Rev. Josiah Strong, Expansion, Sept. 1900

"Industrial expansion is an absolute necessity to competitive manufacturers...

"Wu Ting-fing, Chinese Minister to the United States, said: ‘We all know that China is one of the greatest markets of the world, with a population of 400,000,000 that must be fed and clothed...She wants your wheat, your cotton, your iron and steel...It is a fine field for American industry to fill these wants.’

"We [Americans] have become an Asiatic power, close to the Yellow Sea, and we find it easy to believe that ‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends’."

Document #24: Bishop J.L. Spalding, "Love of Country", 1899

"Why...should we go to the ends of the earth to take forcible possession of islands lying in remote oceans under tropical skies, inhabited by barbarous or savage tribes, where both race and culture preclude the hope of ever attaining to a high degree of culture?...

"What can imperialism bring us except the menace of ruin? As men are born to die, states rise to fall. Nineveh, Tyre, Babylon, Persia, Egypt and Greece, each had its day. States must perish, but empires are more surely and more quickly brought to ruin. Roman patriotism was dead when Rome became an empire."

Document #25: Andrew Carnegie, head of The Carnegie Steel Co., "Should the United States Expand?", 1900

"It has been said that the Philippines will be to the United States what India is to England....Do people really know what India is to England? England in India stands today upon a volcano. She has to keep 60,000 British troops there to hold the people in subjection....There is scarcely a statesman of Britain who does not wish privately: ‘Would that we were safely out of India!’

"India is the curse of Britain, and the Philippines will be the curse of the United States. If you teach suppressed people at all, you make them rebels. Education is fatal to the government of a superior race. The Declaration of Independence will make every ambitious Filipino a thoroughly dissatisfied subject."

Document #26: Interview with President William McKinley, Nov. 21, 1899

"I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them....I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me..: That we could not give them back to Spain -- that would be cowardly and dishonorable; that we could not turn them over to France or Germany -- our commercial rivals...; that we could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government...; and 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, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly..."