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HIST 112 US 1877- present Chapter 19 Part 4 Meanings of the War — Transcript

by History Class with Dr. W · 3,082 words · 577 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:01[Music]
0:11and so with the end of the
0:13spanish-american war and the treaty of
0:15paris the united states
0:16emerges as an imperial power
0:20becoming one of the leading powers on
0:23the globe
0:25americans had to wrestle with this on a
0:28number of levels
0:29and this was truly uh
0:32the the greatest point of debate and
0:34discussion in the country
0:36during this period you might imagine
0:38that american opinion was very much
0:40divided
0:41how we felt about obtaining
0:44colonies and obtaining these foreign
0:46people who are now going to be
0:48part of the country
0:51and so we see two different views
0:54forming around this one group that was
0:58formed during this time was
0:59called the anti-imperialist league and
1:02millions of americans argued against the
1:05idea of
1:06imperialism and they argued against it
1:09for
1:10lots of different reasons in many cases
1:13coming from completely different
1:16parts of the political spectrum or
1:18american life
1:20one argument to be made against
1:22imperialism
1:24was again hinged on the racist views of
1:27the day
1:28that these people are strange and
1:31different if we look at the filipinos
1:33people from
1:34puerto rico even hawaii and elsewhere
1:37they look different they speak different
1:39languages their customs are different
1:41their religion
1:42is different their view of the world is
1:44different and
1:46we don't want these people how are we
1:48supposed to take them
1:50into our country and accept them we
1:52don't want them and again this was very
1:54much in
1:54in line with what many people believed
1:56already with immigrants who were coming
1:58from
1:59eastern europe and russia and italy and
2:01elsewhere
2:04samuel gompers and others argued against
2:07imperialism because
2:08it was going to lead to cheap labor
2:12particularly if we look at the
2:13philippines people would come from the
2:15philippines and work for pennies on the
2:18dollar
2:19and gompers and others thought that this
2:22undermined
2:23american workers and american labor
2:27other people simply argued that
2:30imperialism was unamerican
2:34it violates some of the views at the
2:37very core
2:38of what this country is all about one of
2:40which
2:41being self-determination um
2:44people like mark twain the famous writer
2:46of that era who commented
2:48eloquently on all kinds of issues but he
2:51had great problems with imperialism
2:53in some ways it is simply hypocritical
2:55the united states was
2:57born by overthrowing a colonial
3:00power when we overthrew the british
3:03during the revolutionary war
3:05and now a hundred years or so later
3:08we are doing the same things to other
3:11countries
3:12uh and so many people just couldn't
3:14stomach
3:15the hypocrisy of this
3:20and yet as we know it is the imperialist
3:22forces that prevail we do
3:24in fact take and hold these colonies and
3:28so there are arguments in support of
3:30imperialism one of them views
3:34uh the taking of these colonies as
3:38a bridge or a series of stepping stones
3:40leading us
3:41to asia and again the open door uh
3:44the market in china uh
3:47was still a very important part of our
3:50diplomacy during that time and so there
3:52were those who argued well all of these
3:54little islands along the way
3:56are leading us over to asia and that
3:58great
3:59untapped market
4:02we continue to see the prominence of the
4:04idea of the white man's
4:06burden this is taking the same argument
4:08i mentioned above racism
4:10and just twisting it in a different way
4:12yes these are strange and different
4:14people yes they are heathens and they
4:16are
4:17uh in need of uplift so let us
4:20help them let us improve and civilize
4:23them
4:24and finally there is the the military
4:27argument and
4:28alfred thayer mahan and others very
4:31prominently made these kinds of
4:32arguments that these
4:34islands will serve as naval stations
4:37along the way
4:38and again marking the improvement and
4:40the strength of the american
4:42navy
4:47in fact the united states would come to
4:49learn
4:50and in very difficult fashion that
4:53maintaining such colonies
4:54was not going to be easy this is
4:58most clearly evident in the philippines
5:02where controlling that region
5:06turned almost immediately into an
5:09uprising
5:10by the filipinos against the united
5:12states this is known as the filipino
5:15insurrection just to note a little bit
5:19of
5:19of the background in the philippines
5:21their history was
5:23quite similar to that of cuba they had
5:25long been
5:26a spanish colony and then had in fact
5:29been engaged in a war
5:31against spain for their independence
5:34that war against spain was led by
5:37a man named emilio aguinaldo
5:41who you see in the picture here
5:45then the united states intervenes wages
5:48their war
5:48against spain in fact defeats spain
5:52but now the united states attempts to
5:56take
5:56control where spain had been in control
5:59and so
5:59emilio aguinaldo who had been leading
6:02his forces
6:03against spain simply turned his efforts
6:06against the united states they didn't
6:08want to be controlled
6:09by anybody whether it be spain or the
6:11united states
6:12or anybody else this insurrection
6:16fighting this war against aguinaldo in
6:19the philippines
6:21ultimately came to be far more costly
6:24and lengthy and draining for the united
6:27states
6:28than the spanish-american war itself
6:32this was no splendid little war it
6:35dragged on
6:36for years and years
6:40until finally in 1914
6:43the united states was able to put down
6:45this insurrection
6:48essentially dividing and conquering
6:50among the filipino forces
6:52and eventually capturing aguinaldo
6:56but along the way more than 200 000
6:59filipino soldiers and civilians were
7:02killed
7:05about 125 000 american soldiers were
7:08involved in the war and it was an
7:11incredibly costly
7:12undertaking dragging on for years
7:16it also brought to a whole new level the
7:19brutality
7:20of war and some people
7:23refer to this as something of a
7:25precursor to the war in vietnam not that
7:27it leads directly to vietnam in any way
7:30but just that the conditions the methods
7:34the challenges were very similar in a
7:37lot of ways
7:38this war was characterized by guerrilla
7:42warfare
7:43the enemy forces doing some of the same
7:46things they did in vietnam
7:47digging pits and using you know poison
7:50spikes and sticks and things
7:51that one might not think would be
7:54effective
7:54against a much more heavily uh
7:58and better armed enemy in in us
8:01the united states army um but in fact
8:04those kind of things can be very
8:06effective in dragging out the war
8:08by the end of the war the united states
8:10was forced to resort to
8:13some of the same methods that they had
8:15objected to the spanish using in cuba
8:18reconcentration camps torture
8:21brutality and all these sorts of things
8:25the philippines is only the most
8:27dramatic example of the difficulties in
8:29maintaining
8:30colonies and being an imperial power
8:34outright rebellion and warfare
8:37but it was difficult as well in places
8:39like cuba
8:40as i mentioned to you while we did not
8:41control cuba directly
8:44we intervened in cuba many many times
8:47this is going to contribute to a long
8:50deep-seated kind of resentment
8:53and you all know about the difficulties
8:55the united states has had with cuba
8:57uh recently and during the cold war cuba
9:02uh turning away from the united states
9:05and
9:05adopting communism
9:08and that's just one example maybe there
9:10were other options that the united
9:12states
9:13might have employed and similarly the
9:17situation in puerto rico is a difficult
9:20issue even now puerto rico's
9:24status is a topic of ongoing discussion
9:28especially on the island itself puerto
9:30rico is a
9:31commonwealth of the united states
9:34its citizens enjoy certain privileges
9:38particularly if they move to the united
9:41states
9:43but there are many puerto ricans even
9:45today who argue that they should have
9:48independence and they should move away
9:50from the united states
9:51so whatever the relationship ended up
9:54being
9:56imperialism was a very difficult thing
9:58to maintain and and
9:59led to a lot of difficulties that
10:03american leadership had not anticipated
10:09one of the great sources that historians
10:12refer to and study during this period
10:15are the
10:16political cartoons coming out of this
10:19era
10:20i mentioned to you the yellow journalism
10:23the rising prominence of newspapers and
10:25this is one of the ways that the papers
10:28competed with each other for american
10:31readers
10:32and sales of their newspapers
10:36and so i'm going to show you a few of
10:38these just to give you a sense of the
10:39kind of images that were commonly used
10:42and the tone
10:43in these cartoons and the ways that
10:45historians might look at it and study
10:48these cartoons as a side note i think
10:50students
10:52sometimes find political cartoons
10:55intimidating a little frightening
10:57hopelessly confusing um you know trying
11:01to read
11:01layers and layers of meaning into
11:04cartoons
11:05and while sometimes you know there are
11:07more than one way to interpret the
11:09cartoons
11:11most of the time it's a simple matter of
11:14understanding
11:15who the characters are that are being
11:17represented and then you can
11:19you know the the ironies that are being
11:20pointed out are are self-evident
11:23and so we'll look at a number of these
11:25as we go but this first
11:26one from the new york herald monday
11:29february
11:3028 1898 if you consider
11:34the timetable here where are we along
11:37the the calendar
11:38well the dilom letter
11:41has already happened the destruction of
11:44the uss maine
11:45has already happened but we have not yet
11:47declared war
11:49and so this is in that period when the
11:51newspapers
11:53were kind of playing on
11:57american views that we needed to do
12:00something that we need to intervene
12:02and so you see this cartoon titled don't
12:04bother
12:05the pilot well the pilot if you can read
12:08the
12:08label on his little hat there is the
12:11president william mckinley
12:12and it's difficult to say whether he is
12:15asleep
12:16although i think that's the the tone of
12:18this cartoon playing on the
12:20uh the cliche of being asleep at the
12:22wheel and you have the dove of peace
12:25kind of floating by maybe he's
12:27uh you know entranced by this idea of
12:30peace the idea of course being that
12:33mckinley is
12:34inactive he's not doing anything when
12:36most americans
12:37argue that he needs to be doing
12:40something
12:44here's another example from the same
12:47time period this is a beautiful
12:49cartoon spanish miss rule
12:53and if you can read the caption it says
12:55the duty of the hour
12:57to save her not only from spain
13:00but from a worse fate and
13:04her of course were referring to cuba
13:07so some of the things that we might note
13:09about this cartoon
13:12is that it depicts cuba as a woman
13:16frequently these kind of foreign nations
13:18were depicted in the cartoons as
13:20women or as children we'll see some
13:22examples of that
13:24as we go as well in either case
13:27the suggestion is that they need to be
13:30taken care of
13:31the view in that era was that women were
13:34not
13:35independent and capable of taking care
13:37of themselves now children
13:39need taken care of perhaps in a
13:40different way they need disciplining and
13:42they're unruly and they misbehave
13:45women are sort of defenseless and
13:48helpless perhaps well-intentioned but
13:50they can't handle things themselves and
13:52so cuba
13:53you know we we care about cuba but we
13:55need to take care
13:56of her now if we look at the actual
13:59cartoon itself
14:01to save uh to save her not only from
14:03spain
14:04but from a worse fate well what's the
14:07worst
14:08fate here you know we're playing on the
14:09old cliche of out of the frying pan into
14:12the fire out of one bad situation
14:14into a worse one so out of the frying
14:18pan of spanish misrule
14:20into the fire of anarchy
14:25but this is our view of
14:28what would be cuban independence right
14:32if the cubans were to overthrow the
14:34spanish
14:36they would be left on their own which in
14:37the views of this artist is even
14:39worse it would be anarchy you see cuba
14:42just sort of going up
14:43in flames so again this reflects the
14:46racism or the views of the day that
14:48nations like this and people like this
14:50were incapable of
14:52governing themselves they needed
14:54guidance they needed to be controlled
14:57and that that ultimately leads to the
14:59platinum amendment
15:03and here is another cartoon this one
15:05again requiring
15:06really no interpretation so you don't
15:08need to be intimidated by cartoons like
15:11this it's plain
15:12and evident what the cartoonist is
15:14suggesting
15:15suggesting here this is a very famous
15:17cartoon called the spanish
15:19brute adds mutilation to murder
15:23the main soldiers murdered by spain so
15:27in essence what has just happened is the
15:30destruction of the uss
15:32maine this conveys that feeling that
15:34everybody shared at the time that it was
15:36the spanish
15:38that had indeed done this horrific act
15:41and you see that
15:42the way that spain is depicted again
15:45virtually inhuman here the spanish
15:47brute depicted as this kind of vicious
15:50uh
15:51gorilla like creature
15:56here's another cartoon there are a
15:58number of different things going on here
16:00that we need to mention
16:01but this is in that period now of
16:04debating
16:05imperialism is this a good thing is this
16:08a bad thing
16:10the title of the cartoon is called the
16:12imperialism
16:13stunt i would argue that this cartoonist
16:18has
16:18concerns has reservations about the
16:21united states
16:22becoming an imperial power although not
16:24everything in this cartoon is
16:26negative but when we refer to something
16:29as a stunt
16:30that usually suggests that it is sort of
16:33reckless it's not very well thought out
16:35it's kind of dangerous
16:36and you see that with lady liberty kind
16:39of
16:40balancing across these very perilous
16:43waters between
16:45the united states and manila that's the
16:47philippines
16:48um some of the other things that we see
16:51in this picture of course you see
16:52uncle sam sitting there you see the
16:54eagle these things are presented in
16:56a pretty positive light and the figure
16:59on the right who kind of towers over
17:01everything else
17:02is teddy roosevelt and you note that he
17:05also is depicted in a very flattering
17:07light he's standing at a tension uh
17:10there's nothing
17:11you know negative there
17:14on the other hand we see the two small
17:17figures there towards the bottom
17:20i'm not sure whether you can make out
17:22the the labels on these figures but the
17:24one on the left
17:26is mckinley this is the president of the
17:30united states
17:31who is drawn as a little person
17:35childlike and also wearing a dress
17:38so this is clearly a not a very
17:40flattering
17:41depiction of the president and by the
17:44way many of the cartoons of this era
17:46show mckinley in a similar light
17:50a lot of people were very hard on
17:52mckinley at this time he was thought to
17:53be sort of a weak
17:55president not we saw the previous
17:58cartoon about him not
17:59acting and you contrast that with teddy
18:02roosevelt
18:03who kind of towers majestically over the
18:06whole scene
18:07the other figure next to mckinley uh
18:11also drawn as a little person was mark
18:14hannah who was a big businessman at that
18:18time
18:18wealthy um businessman
18:21and it was thought that he more or less
18:23controlled mckinley that mckinley was
18:25subject to his
18:27influence and you see mark hannah
18:29depicted in many of the cartoons
18:31of this era as well
18:36here's another famous cartoon of the day
18:38and you also see some of the the same
18:41themes or or tropes depicted here it's
18:43very well drawn i mean this would have
18:45kind of captured your attention
18:47if you were viewing it and again this is
18:49the aftermath
18:50of uh the imperial age some of the
18:53things that you note here is that a
18:55number of the
18:56um colonies are depicted as
19:00children right this is and uncle sam is
19:02the
19:03school teacher he's trying to maintain
19:05discipline he's whacking a few of the
19:07children with
19:09his stick there in the corner
19:12is aguinaldo wearing the dunce cap so he
19:16is kind of the ultimate
19:18unruly child that needs to be
19:20disciplined
19:21and obviously this is in the age of the
19:23filipino insurrection
19:26on the lower left we see the man reading
19:29the book there is actually
19:31alfred thayer mahan the great champion
19:34of
19:34imperialism maybe he's trying to impart
19:36some of his wisdom
19:38onto this whole scene and then in the
19:41background
19:42are two women or girls
19:47who are very dutiful in going about
19:50their business
19:51they represent hawaii and puerto rico
19:54as it was depicted at that time again
19:57you notice that they are shown
19:59as women or girls they're not unruly
20:02like the boys they don't need the
20:04discipline like the children over there
20:06but they still need our guidance and our
20:09protection at that time so they're
20:10thought to be sort of the well-behaved
20:12colonies but they still need us to
20:15oversee them
20:20this is another example of the uh the
20:23kind of
20:24torn views over imperialism um
20:28and again you see some of the same
20:30characters and the same ideas we've
20:32shown in some of the other cartoons a
20:35game that loses much
20:37to win little so if we think about what
20:40are we talking about here
20:42well aguinaldo is over there in the
20:44distance
20:46and uncle sam throwing soldiers
20:49in the direction of aguinaldo i get the
20:52sense from this obviously we're
20:53referring to the filipino insurrection
20:56uh this cartoonist seems to feel like
20:58we're just throwing soldiers away
21:00a game that loses much to win
21:04little and i think in in the grander
21:06scheme the game
21:07is imperialism on the whole maybe the
21:10filipino insurrection specifically but
21:13imperialism in general costs us a great
21:16deal we're losing soldiers we're losing
21:18american lives
21:20and what are we winning out of this what
21:22are we getting
21:23uh also just notice in this cartoon
21:24again we see mckinley
21:26uh as a little person wearing a dress
21:28mark hannah
21:30at his side
21:35and here's a final cartoon one of my
21:37favorites
21:38kind of sums up our views of
21:41the whole imperialist undertaking at
21:44this time you see june 16th 1898 so
21:48we are in the midst of the
21:50spanish-american war at that point
21:54and the caption says hurrah for
21:56imperialism uncle sam
21:59charging over the edge of a cliff
22:01blindfolded
22:03but heavily armed uh this sort of
22:05defined our view of that era and
22:08in some ways perhaps defines our view
22:10from that point
22:11to today bumbling in some ways along
22:15blindfolded
22:16but we've got a lot of weapons we're
22:18very powerful
22:20as we do it
22:30[Music]
22:46you

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