After
the defeat of Spain, Cuba became independent in name but virtually an American
colony. Spain was forced to cede Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and Hawaii
was formally annexed by the U.S. America now had stepping stones to the trade
of the Orient as well as possessions in the Caribbean. To keep the Philippines,
Americans had to wage a bloody and costly war against Filipino independence
forces. It began in February 1899 when the Philipine Republic declared war against
the United States. By its end in July 1902 casualties numbered more than 4,200
U.S. soldiers, 20,000 Filipino soldiers, and 200,000 Filipino civilians dead.
This new imperialism was deeply influenced by popular theories of race which
held that the different peoples of the world were not only culturally but also
biologically distinct. In a misapplication of Darwinian theory, these racialists
believed that each nation (and people) were involved in an unending competition
in which only the "fittest" would survive. This conveniently permitted successful
imperial powers to point to their conquests as proof of their own "fitness"
and to rationalize their empires as altruistic efforts to bring the benefits
of their "superior" civilization to their "little brown brothers," as President
McKinley referred to the Filipinos.
This map illustrates the extent of imperialism in Asia as of 1914. It is somewhat misleading in that it shows China as independent. This was only partially the case. Various powers, especially Great Britain, had established spheres of influence over portions of China, vast zones in which they held trade privilges. They alone could trade within these areas, a monopoly which the United States would protest in the Open Door Letter. The United States and Japan were the two non-European powers with extensive imperial possessions in the region. For a comparable map of Africa, click here.
When the McKinley administration confronted the question
of what to do in the Philippines, support the Filipino revolutionaries' quest
for independence or assert U.S. sovereignty over the former Spanish colony,
British author Rudyard Kipling urged the United States to join England in
taking up "The White Man's Burden." Imperialism, Kipling argued,
benefitted the "half-savage" races colonized rather than the imperial
power. Mark Twain reacted scornfully. This was the old "Blessings of
Civilization" fraud. Based upon the materials collected here, whose portrait
comes closer to capturing the imperial mindset?
The great spokesperson for American imperialism, ironically, was the British writer Rudyard Kipling, whose "The White Man's Burden" appeared in February 1899, just as the newly founded Philippine Republic declared war upon the United States. The U.S. had refused to withdraw its troops following the surrender of Spain and also had refused to recognize the new Republic.
In 1899 Rudyard Kipling was nearing the peak of his literary career. In 1907 he would win the Nobel Prize. Only thirty-four years old in 1899, he had already published best-selling children's books, collections of stories, and volumes of poetry. Many of his tales were set in India where he had been born and raised. India was, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli told Queen Victoria, the "jewel in the crown," the most important possession of the British Empire. Kipling considered himself a product of that empire, and he became a staunch advocate of western imperialism. It brought "civilization" to "new-caught sullen peoples." It was, in fact, a moral obligation. Favored nations and races had the responsibility to "take up the White Man's burden." Kipling wrote the poem to urge the United States to take over the Philippines. It was time for the United States to take its proper place as an imperial power.
Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" published in McClure's Magazine, Feb. 1899
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.Take up the White Man's burden!
Have done with childish days--
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.
Stop and Consider:
- Kipling insisted that the "white man" acquired imperial possessions to "serve" his "captive's needs." What, according to Kipling, were these "needs"? Choose specific images from the poem to illustrate your points.
- Imperialism, Kipling maintained, was a thankless task.
He wrote:
Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Why then should the "white man" take up this burden?
- How well does this cartoon, reprinted in the Literary Digest from a Detroit newspaper, capture the meaning of the poem? Again, cite specific features of the cartoon as well as specific images and passages from the poem.
One of those most impressed by Kipling's poem was Senator Benjamin ("Pitchfork Ben") Tillman of South Carolina, an opponent of the U.S. decision to annex the Philippines. On February 7, 1899 Tilman made a speech in the Senate:
As though coming at the most opportune time possible, you might say just before the treaty [with Spain that ceded sovereignty over the Philippines in return for $20,000,000] reached the Senate, or about the time it was sent to us, there appeared in one of our magazines a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the greatest poet of England at this time. This poem, unique, and in some places too deep for me, is a prophecy. I do not imagine that in the history of human events any poet has ever felt inspired so clearly to portray our danger and our duty. It is called "The White Man's Burden." With the permission of Senators I will read a stanza, and I beg Senators to listen to it, for it is well worth their attention. This man has lived in the Indies. In fact, he is a citizen of the world, and has been all over it, and knows whereof he speaks.
- "Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile,
To serve your captive's need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child."
I will pause here. I intend to read more, but I wish to call attention to a fact which may have escaped the attention of Senators thus far, that with five exceptions every man in this chamber who has had to do with the colored race in this country voted against the ratification of the treaty. It was . . . because we understand and realize what it is to have two races side by side that can not mix or mingle without deterioration and injury to both and the ultimate destruction of the civilization of the higher. We of the South have borne this white man's burden of a colored race in our midst since their emancipation and before.
It was a burden upon our manhood and our ideas of liberty before they were emancipated. It is still a burden, although they have been granted the franchise. It clings to us like the shirt of Nessus, and we are not responsible, because we inherited it, and your fathers as well as ours are responsible for the presence amongst us of that people. Why do we as a people want to incorporate into our citizenship ten millions more of different or of differing races, three or four of them?
But we have not incorporated them yet, and let us see what this English poet has to say about it, and what he thinks.
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead."
Ah, if we have no other consideration, if no feeling of humanity, no love of our fellows, no regard for others' rights, if nothing but our self-interest shall actuate us in this crisis, let me say to you that if we go madly on in the direction of crushing these people into subjection and submission we will do so at the cost of many, many thousands of the flower of American youth. There are 10,000,000 of these people, some of them fairly well civilized, and running to the extreme of naked savages, who are reported in our press dispatches as having stood out in the open and fired their bows and arrows, not flinching from the storm of shot and shell thrown into their midst by the American soldiers there.
. . . . . .
The city of Manila is surrounded by swamps and marshes, I am told. A few miles back lie the woods and jungles and mountains. These people are used to the climate. They know how to get about, and if they mean to have their liberties, as they appear to do, at what sacrifice will the American domination be placed over them? There is another verse of Kipling. I have fallen in love with this man. He tells us what we will reap:
- "Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of those ye humor
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
'Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?'"
Those peoples are not suited to our institutions. They are not ready for liberty as we understand it. They do not want it. Why are we bent on forcing upon them a civilization not suited to them and which only means in their view degradation and a loss of self-respect, which is worse than the loss of life itself?
Tillman tried to use Kipling's poem against itself, to turn it into a call to turn away from imperialism. Perhaps the most articulate opponent of U.S. policy in the Philippines was Mark Twain. He was perhaps America's best known and most widely read novelist and essayist. He was also an extremely popular public lecturer and reader (of his own works). His most influential attack on the decision to annex the Philippines was his "letter" "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." The title was a play upon the idea of western civilization being "enlightened." Kipling had used the image when he wrote of the:
The cry of those ye humor
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
'Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?'
The Republican platform for 1900 claimed: "Our authority could not be less than our responsibility, and wherever sovereign rights were extended it became the high duty of the Government to maintain its authority, to put down armed insurrection and to confer the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all the rescued peoples." This language clearly echoed that of Rudyard Kipling. To speak of "rescuing" the Filipinos, to describe their struggle for independence as "armed insurrection," and to promise to bring "the blessings of liberty" to them at gunpoint struck Mark Twain as monumental hypocrisy. it was, he maintained, something even worse. It was an abandonment of America's own best traditions. Twain wrote a number of stinging critiques. The most influential was "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," published in February of 1901.
To the Person Sitting in Darkness (excerpted) By Mark Twain
.
. . . . .
Shall we? That is, shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest? Shall we bang right ahead in our old-time, loud, pious way, and commit the new century to the game; or shall we sober up and sit down and think it over first? Would it not be prudent to get our Civilization-tools together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of Glass Beads and Theology, and Maxim Guns and Hymn Books, and Trade-Gin and Torches of Progress and Enlightenment (patent adjustable ones, good to fire villages with, upon occasion), and balance the books, and arrive at the profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to continue the business or sell out the property and start a new Civilization Scheme on the proceeds?
Extending the Blessings of Civilization to our Brother who Sits in Darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the whole; and there is money in it yet, if carefully worked -- but not enough, in my judgement, to make any considerable risk advisable. The People that Sit in Darkness are getting to be too scarce -- too scarce and too shy. And such darkness as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality, and not dark enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit in Darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for them or profitable for us. We have been injudicious.
The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered, is a Daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty, and other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and must certainly suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in Darkness have noticed it -- they have noticed it, and have begun to show alarm. They have become suspicious of the Blessings of Civilization. More -- they have begun to examine them. This is not well. The Blessings of Civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there could not be a better, in a dim light. In the right kind of a light, and at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish this desirable exhibit to the Gentlemen who Sit in Darkness:
LOVE,
JUSTICE,
GENTLENESS,
CHRISTIANITY,
PROTECTION TO THE WEAK,
TEMPERANCE,LAW AND ORDER,
LIBERTY,
EQUALITY,
HONORABLE DEALING,
MERCY,
EDUCATION,
-- and so on.
There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will bring into camp any idiot that sits in darkness anywhere. But not if we adulterate it. It is proper to be emphatic upon that point. This brand is strictly for Export -- apparently. Apparently. Privately and confidentially, it is nothing of the kind. Privately and confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special patterns of our Civilization which we reserve for Home Consumption, while inside the bale is the Actual Thing that the Customer Sitting in Darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That Actual Thing is, indeed, Civilization, but it is only for Export. Is there a difference between the two brands? In some of the details, yes.
We all know that the Business is being ruined. The reason is not far to seek. It is because our Mr. McKinley, and Mr. Chamberlain, and the Kaiser, and the Czar and the French have been exporting the Actual Thing with the outside cover left off. This is bad for the Game. It shows that these new players of it are not sufficiently acquainted with it.
It is a distress to look on and note the mismoves, they are so strange and so awkward.
. . . . .
And
by and by comes America, and our Master of the Game [President McKinley] plays
it badly. . . . It was a mistake to do that; also, it was one which was quite
unlooked for in a Master who was playing it so well in Cuba. In Cuba, he was
playing the usual and regular American game, and it was winning, for
there is no way to beat it. The Master, contemplating Cuba, said: "Here is
an oppressed and friendless little nation which is willing to fight to be
free; we go partners, and put up the strength of seventy million sympathizers
and the resources of the United States: play!" Nothing but Europe combined
could call that hand: and Europe cannot combine on anything. There, in Cuba,
he was following our great traditions in a way which made us very proud of
him, and proud of the deep dissatisfaction which his play was provoking in
Continental Europe. Moved by a high inspiration, he threw out those stirring
words which proclaimed that forcible annexation would be "criminal aggression;"
and in that utterance fired another "shot heard round the world." The memory
of that fine saying will be outlived by the remembrance of no act of his but
one -- that he forgot it within the twelvemonth, and its honorable gospel
along with it.
For, presently, came the Philippine temptation. It was strong; it was too strong, and he made that bad mistake: he played the European game. . . . It was a pity; it was a great pity, that error; that one grievous error, that irrevocable error. For it was the very place and time to play the American game again. And at no cost. Rich winnings to be gathered in, too; rich and permanent; indestructible; a fortune transmissible forever to the children of the flag. Not land, not money, not dominion -- no, something worth many times more than that dross: our share, the spectacle of a nation of long harassed and persecuted slaves set free through our influence; our posterity's share, the golden memory of that fair deed. The game was in our hands. If it had been played according to the American rules, Dewey would have sailed away from Manila as soon as he had destroyed the Spanish fleet -- after putting up a sign on shore guaranteeing foreign property and life against damage by the Filipinos, and warning the Powers that interference with the emancipated patriots would be regarded as an act unfriendly to the United States. The Powers cannot combine, in even a bad cause, and the sign would not have been molested.
Dewey could have gone about his affairs elsewhere, and left the competent Filipino army to starve out the little Spanish garrison and send it home, and the Filipino citizens to set up the form of government they might prefer, and deal with the friars and their doubtful acquisitions according to Filipino ideas of fairness and justice -- ideas which have since been tested and found to be of as high an order as any that prevail in Europe or America.
But we played the [European] game, and lost the chance to add another Cuba and another honorable deed to our good record.
The more we examine the mistake, the more clearly we perceive that it is going to be bad for the Business. The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say: "There is something curious about this -- curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land."
The truth is, the Person Sitting in Darkness is saying things like that; and for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him. I believe it can be done. . . .
Let us say to him:
"Our case is simple. On the 1st of May, Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet. This left the Archipelago in the hands of its proper and rightful owners, the Filipino nation. Their army numbered 30,000 men, and they were competent to whip out or starve out the little Spanish garrison; then the people could set up a government of their own devising. Our traditions required that Dewey should now set up his warning sign, and go away. But the Master of the Game happened to think of another plan -- the European plan. He acted upon it. This was, to send out an army -- ostensibly to help the native patriots put the finishing touch upon their long and plucky struggle for independence, but really to take their land away from them and keep it. That is, in the interest of Progress and Civilization. The plan developed, stage by stage, and quite satisfactorily. We entered into a military alliance with the trusting Filipinos, and they hemmed in Manila on the land side, and by their valuable help the place, with its garrison of 8,000 or 10,000 Spaniards, was captured -- a thing which we could not have accomplished unaided at that time. We got their help by -- by ingenuity. We knew they were fighting for their independence, and that they had been at it for two years. We knew they supposed that we also were fighting in their worthy cause -- just as we had helped the Cubans fight for Cuban independence -- and we allowed them to go on thinking so. Until Manila was ours and we could get along without them. Then we showed our hand. Of course, they were surprised -- that was natural; surprised and disappointed; disappointed and grieved. To them it looked un-American; uncharacteristic; foreign to our established traditions. And this was natural, too; for we were only playing the American Game in public -- in private it was the European. It was neatly done, very neatly, and it bewildered them. They could not understand it; for we had been so friendly -- so affectionate, even -- with those simple-minded patriots! We, our own selves, had brought back out of exile their leader, their hero, their hope, their Washington -- Aguinaldo;
brought him in a warship, in high honor, under the sacred shelter and hospitality of the flag; brought him back and restored him to his people, and got their moving and eloquent gratitude for it. Yes, we had been so friendly to them, and had heartened them up in so many ways! We had lent them guns and ammunition; advised with them; exchanged pleasant courtesies with them; placed our sick and wounded in their kindly care; entrusted our Spanish prisoners to their humane and honest hands; fought shoulder to shoulder with them against 'the common enemy' (our own phrase); praised their courage, praised their gallantry, praised their mercifulness, praised their fine and honorable conduct; borrowed their trenches, borrowed strong positions which they had previously captured from the Spaniard; petted them, lied to them -- officially proclaiming that our land and naval forces came to give them their freedom and displace the bad Spanish Government -- fooled them, used them until we needed them no longer; then derided the sucked orange and threw it away. We kept the positions which we had beguiled them of; by and by, we moved a force forward and overlapped patriot ground -- a clever thought, for we needed trouble, and this would produce it. A Filipino soldier, crossing the ground, where no one had a right to forbid him, was shot by our sentry. The badgered patriots resented this with arms, without waiting to know whether Aguinaldo, who was absent, would approve or not. Aguinaldo did not approve; but that availed nothing. What we wanted, in the interest of Progress and Civilization, was the Archipelago, unencumbered by patriots struggling for independence; and War was what we needed. We clinched our opportunity. . . . ."
At this point in our frank statement of fact to the Person Sitting in Darkness, we should throw in a little trade-taffy about the Blessings of Civilization -- for a change, and for the refreshment of his spirit -- then go on with our tale:
"We and the patriots having captured Manila, Spain's ownership of the Archipelago and her sovereignty over it were at an end -- obliterated -- annihilated -- not a rag or shred of either remaining behind. It was then that we conceived the divinely humorous idea of buying both of these spectres from Spain! [It is quite safe to confess this to the Person Sitting in Darkness, since neither he nor any other sane person will believe it.] In buying those ghosts for twenty millions, we also contracted to take care of the friars and their accumulations. I think we also agreed to propagate leprosy and smallpox, but as to this there is doubt. But it is not important; persons afflicted with the friars do not mind other diseases.
"With our Treaty ratified, Manila subdued, and our Ghosts secured, we had no further use for Aguinaldo and the owners of the Archipelago. We forced a war, and we have been hunting America's guest and ally through the woods and swamps ever since."
. . . . . .
Having now laid all the historical facts before the Person Sitting in Darkness, we should bring him to again, and explain them to him. We should say to him:
"They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies; yes, but they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous; but that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in Christendom and ninety per cent. of every legislative body in Christendom, including our Congress and our fifty State Legislatures, are members not only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust. This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice, cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right."
Now then, that will convince the Person. You will see. It will restore the Business. Also, it will elect the Master of the Game to the vacant place in the Trinity of our national gods; and there on their high thrones the Three will sit, age after age, in the people's sight, each bearing the Emblem of his service: Washington, the Sword of the Liberator; Lincoln, the Slave's Broken Chains; the Master, the Chains Repaired.
It will give the Business a splendid new start. You will see.
. . . . . .
And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one -- our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.
. . . . .
By help of these suggested amendments, Progress and Civilization in that country can have a boom, and it will take in the Persons who are Sitting in Darkness, and we can resume Business at the old stand.