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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. Up next, another installment of the Story of Us, the Story of America series with Dr. Bill McClay, a Hillsdale College Professor of History. and the author of Land of Hope. On february fifteenth, eighteen ninety eight, the silence over the tranquil waters of Havana Harbor was broken by a massive and mysterious explosion.
261 sailors were dead. The USS main lay broken at the bottom of the sea. In President William McKinley's hands. They were tied. Let's get into this story.
Take it away, Bill. The war was on with the Spanish. The Spanish never had a chance in this lopsided affair. The war lasted a mere 114 days. America was on the rise.
Proof of this rested in America's first military act in this short war with Spain. Our military didn't strike Cuba first, but instead chose to attack a Spanish colony clear across the planet. The Philippines Even before the actual conflict commenced, A young Teddy Roosevelt. Then working in the Department of the Navy, put our military assets and leadership on alert. When war came, Commodore George Dewey sailed to Manila Bay and attacked the Spanish fleet.
It was an unmitigated disaster for the Spanish. All ten of their vessels were blasted to the bottom of the bay. And there were no American sailors lost in this attack.
So with deliberate speed, McKinley sent over 11,000 American troops to seize Manila and hold the islands. But there was more than one theater of operation and the second proved to be a little bit more difficult. The U.S. Navy had successfully blocked Santiago's harbor, pinning down Spain's naval forces. and also securing the high ground surrounding the area.
which left the Spanish navy little to no choice but to attempt to crash through The American blockade. On July 3rd, with flags flying high, the Spanish fleet powered out of the harbor. and fled west along the coast. but the effort was in vain. the Spanish ships were run down and destroyed.
The Spanish had been outmaneuvered and overpowered. There was little else left to do but to admit defeat. The war was over. An armistice followed with Spain surrendering Cuba. and America would annex Puerto Rico and Guam.
Across the globe America would occupy Manila, with the fate of the Philippines in the balance, and to be decided at a Paris peace conference. It was a great thing if you happened to be American, but a calamity if you were Spanish. It was a quick war and a short one. But there was a second positive effect. That had to do with the reconciliation between North and South.
Two of the principal generals driving the outcome of the war with Spain were themselves former Confederate veterans. Fighting and winning battles and wars together as one unified nation, Just a few decades after the Civil War was a much needed antidote to the old divisions that lingered. We were once again a united country, fighting together under one flag. We can't understate the importance of such a thing at that time. America was now a true world power.
And Spain had not merely lost a war, it had lost its place. and its status on the world stage. At home, the war that cost Spain so much, would be known to its people as El Disastre. The disaster. The war was won with little cost to America, but it turns out winning did have a cost.
And a downside, as America would soon learn as we took responsibility for making sure the people of the Philippines had a humane government. The question lingered, how to do such a thing in a way that comported with America's founding principles, our core values. One thing was certain, America couldn't hand the Philippines back to the Spanish or any other nation. Those were most certainly not viable options. What was also quite clear was the chance that the Philippine people could govern themselves.
a very low chance. All this would set the stage for an epic debate about the very nature and character of the American Republic. The debate is still going on today. Who were the anti-imperialists of the day? What was their beef with the expansionists, who were eager to meddle in the affairs of nations and interests far from our shores?
They were, as you might imagine, from varied backgrounds, with different philosophical leanings. Indeed, the mix of Americans who opposed this expansionist mindset. Couldn't have been much more different. Most Eastern Republican reformers and most Northern Democrats joined in lobbying against the idea of annexation of the Philippines and, more generally, the cause of imperialism. How else can you explain the fact that Labour leader Samuel Gompers, And industrialist Andrew Carnegie were on the same side.
against the imperialists. as were writers from across the cultural spectrum. From a novelist like Mark Twain to a social reformer like Jane Addams and the philosopher William James as well. Mm-hmm. There were also a variety of reasons for opposing annexation.
Some of these reasons were anchored in idealism. others and anchored in something less than idealistic. The idealists were informed by what they believed was the very nature of our nation and its founding ideals as represented in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. To rule over the people of another nation would, in essence, deny them the very notion of self-rule and self-governance. and the quintessential American principle that government derives its power from the consent of the governed.
But there were other factors that drove the anti-expansionist view, including some less attractive factors revolving around race and ethnicity. To put it bluntly, there were some anti-expansionists who had the view that annexation could never lead to statehood because the people of the Philippines had a vastly different racial and cultural identity. Add to that, worries from labor leaders about competition from foreign workers, an issue that we hear a lot about today.
Some of the language used by labor leader Samuel Gompers to describe these foreign workers is: let's just say it. not fit for the airwaves. William McKinley was an astute politician. He was well aware of the arguments and fears of the anti-imperialists and anti-expansionists. Indeed, he struggled mightily over the choice, Understanding the merits and the problems with both sides of this raging American debate.
In the end, McKinley concluded there was no good alternative. better than annexation. Believing the Filipino people could not be left to rule or govern themselves at this time. He feared that the people of the Philippines would be subject to endless chaos, warring factions, and loss of life. a result he simply could not live with.
American help, he thought, could prevent that.
So, by a simple process of elimination, McKinley came to his decision and believed he only had one choice. It was. The paternalistic choice. to educate, to uplift, to civilize the Filipino people. and Christianize.
There was only one problem with McKinley's plans. There already was a home grown anti Spanish movement led by the charismatic Emilio Aguinaldo, who saw themselves as the natural successors to the colonial rule of Spain. In more ordinary and older times that's precisely what would have happened. But these were different times, and America seemed determined to take possession of the island. And all that that entails.
And you've been listening to Professor Bill McClay tell the story of the Spanish-American War. and its aftermath. What happened to Spain?
Well they didn't just lose a war, they lost their place in the world. when we come back. More of the story. of the Spanish-American War and its aftermath. Here on Our American Stories.
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Stream anywhere. To get a free trial today, go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart. And we return to our American Stories and our Story of America series with Dr. Bill McClay. the author of Land of Hope.
When we last left off, America had decisively won the Spanish-American War, and now new questions emerged about territorial expansion. What would the people in these conquered territories think? What would they want? Let's return to the story. It didn't take long at all for a conflict to begin.
and this would prove a much tougher, longer fight. And the first. Nearly three years in all, with most of the fighting of the guerrilla warfare variety. The country would pay mightily 4,300 lost American lives, significantly a higher number than it took to defeat the Spanish. McKinley's next decision in the Philippines would prove to be his most consequential and his best.
He appointed William Howard Taft as the civil governor of the Philippines, and Taft turned out to be precisely the right man for the job. His desire to treat the Filipino people as partners rather than subjects was crucial.
So was his decision to treat the people as cultural equals. Indeed, Taft was insistent on this latter point. He rejected the notion that Filipinos were culturally, or socially, or racially, or in any way an inferior people. His treatment of them as equals was a quintessentially American idea that all men are created equal before God. Taft's leadership helped stabilize the political atmosphere, and it did so fairly quickly.
And let me provide one additional insight into the character of William Howard Taft. and his special bonds with the Filipino people. It was so utterly genuine. that he turned down a Supreme Court appointment to stay in the Philippines and finish his work there. This effort of McKinley and Taft would lead to congressional action, the Jones Act, which reinforced the intention of the American government to grant independence to the Philippines in the not too distant future.
And it did eventually happen on July 4th, 1946. 30 years after the Jones Act was passed. There were other problems facing America, and we pivoted in profound ways from our founders' vision. and George Washington's and became a world tower. It's worth examining a few cases, first of which was Puerto Rico, which was ceded to us from the Spanish Government.
Was Puerto Rico a state, a colony, or something in between? It wasn't at all clear to anyone. And then there was Cuba, the cause of the war. where an American military occupation was in operation. Though it was a temporary thing, that temporary occupation found itself in some really tough fights and battles with the local rebel forces that had opposed the old occupier, the Spanish.
Eventually, the Cubans, too, were granted independence.
Well, not quite full independence because when their new constitution was drafted. An amendment to a military spending bill passed by the US Congress. The plan amendment. had the effect of forcing the Cuban people to accept America's right to intercede and intervene in their country whenever and wherever the American government concluded it was necessary. And to do so in the name of protecting the Cuban people's independence.
And to protect the Cuban people's life, their property, ironically, their liberty. But that wasn't the only irony. Cuba also had to pledge to us that it would not sign off on any treaty with any other nation or third party that would affect the nature of its independence. and worse, to grant the full use of Guantanamo Bay as a US naval base. It didn't take much of an imagination or much common sense to realize what the Cubans' reactions would be.
They would come to resent them. More and more as the years rolled along, despite the fact the Platt Amendment was invoked only once. Then came the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, who first stepped into the region. to assert American power after a financial crisis rocked the Dominican Republic. Roosevelt would soon decide that he would be applying the basic theme of the Monroe Doctrine.
to the region. Which was beset by all kinds of instability, economic and political. Reluctantly, America became the de facto am de jure policeman. of the region. This new policy of Roosevelt's, known as the Roosevelt Corollary, Roosevelt delivered in a message to Congress in December of 1904, worked for a little while and well in the case of the Dominican Republic.
But the policy would, as the years passed, only increase Latin American resentment toward the United States in deep and profound ways. The fact is, for the most part, America's entry into the world stage was quite impressive. on balance. and the impact of our new found imperial presence was relatively nominal. especially when compared to the efforts of our European counterparts in the region.
And there was a reason. In the end, there was also a heart divided. Against itself. in our approach to imperial rule. and thus the reason why a majority of the land America acquired after the Spanish-American War.
was given independence. Which left open the big debate over the annexation of the Philippines, which was after all a proxy for the ever-growing issues that accompanied being a world power, or some version of an imperial power. Remember it was John Quincy Adams who'd warned America not to wander around the globe looking for monsters to destroy. And it was George Washington in his farewell address to the nation that warned us against permanent foreign alliances that might drag us into wars and compromise our national independence. He warned that a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.
The fact is, as America grew wealthier and more powerful. Our growing influence around the world and our interests were something our founders could not have imagined, let alone predicted. Would that mean that we were to take on the responsibility for the well-being of nations around the globe? In the end, the answer to the questions being posed as we embarked on our adventure in the Caribbean and the problems that went with it were expressed, if not very artfully, by Roosevelt's then Secretary of War. Elihu Root.
He used language that could easily have applied to the rest of the world. Yeah. We do not want to take them for ourselves. We do not want any foreign nation to take them for themselves. We want to help them.
No, this was not by any means an artful description of American policy in the region or around the world. But it was very accurate. The rub is this. The world as we knew it and still know it today. helping other nations almost always turns out to me a lot more complicated.
Then it appears. Yeah. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by Aron Monte Montgomery. And a special thanks to Professor Bill McClay. He teaches at Hillsdale College.
And Hillsdale is, well, it's the place to go to learn all that is good, all that is beautiful in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, if your kids or grandkids can't get to Hillsdale, well, Hillsdale, well, it can get to you and will get to you simply by clicking hillsdale.edu and going to their online courses.
Now what a story you just heard from McClay about what happened after the Spanish-American War. We were now a world power. and what to do with that power?
Well, we're still discussing and debating that very question today. George Washington had ideas, and then there is the practical reality of living in an interconnected global world. The story of the Spanish American War and its Aftermath. Here on Our American Stories. Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?
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