AmPageantEtext23-32

600 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

Indian Reorganization Act (the “Indian New Deal”)
of 1934 partially reversed the individualistic ap-
proach and belatedly tried to restore the tribal basis
of Indian life (see p. 790).

Under these new federal policies, defective
though they were, the Indian population started to
mount slowly. The total number had been reduced
by 1887 to about 243,000—the result of bullets, bat-
tles, and bacteria—but the census of 2000 counted
more than 1.5 million Native Americans, urban and
rural.

Mining: From Dishpan to Ore Breaker

The conquest of the Indians and the coming of the Once the loose surface gold was gobbled up,
railroad were life-giving boons to the mining fron- ore-breaking machinery was imported to smash the
tier. The golden gravel of California continued to gold-bearing quartz. This operation was so expen-
yield “pay dirt,” and in 1858 an electrifying discov- sive that it could ordinarily be undertaken only by
ery convulsed Colorado. Avid “fifty-niners” or “Pike’s corporations pooling the wealth of stockholders.
Peakers” rushed west to rip at the ramparts of the Gradually the age of big business came to the min-
Rockies. But there were more miners than minerals; ing industry. Dusty, bewhiskered miners, dishpans
and many gold-grubbers, with “Pike’s Peak or Bust” in hand, were replaced by the impersonal corpora-
inscribed on the canvas of their covered wagons, tions, with their costly machinery and trained engi-
creaked wearily back with the added inscription, neers. The once-independent gold-washer became
“Busted, by Gosh.” Yet countless bearded fortune just another day laborer.
seekers stayed on, some to strip away the silver
deposits, others to extract nonmetallic wealth from Yet the mining frontier had played a vital role in
the earth in the form of golden grain. subduing the continent. Magnetlike, it attracted pop-
ulation and wealth, while advertising the wonders of
“Fifty-niners” also poured feverishly into the Wild West. Women as well as men found opportu-
Nevada in 1859, after the fabulous Comstock Lode nity, running boardinghouses or working as prosti-
had been uncovered. A fantastic amount of gold and
silver, worth more than $340 million, was mined by
the “Kings of the Comstock” from 1860 to 1890. The
scantily populated state of Nevada, “child of the
Comstock Lode,” was prematurely railroaded into
the Union in 1864, partly to provide three electoral
votes for President Lincoln.

Smaller “lucky strikes” drew frantic gold- and
silver-seekers into Montana, Idaho, and other west-
ern states. Boomtowns, known as “Helldorados,”
sprouted from the desert sands like magic. Every
third cabin was a saloon, where sweat-stained miners
drank adulterated liquor (“rotgut”) in the company of
accommodating women. Lynch law and hempen vig-
ilante justice, as in early California, preserved a crude
semblance of order in the towns. And when the “dig-
gings” petered out, the gold-seekers decamped, leav-
ing eerily picturesque “ghost towns,” such as Virginia
City, Nevada, silhouetted in the desert. Begun with a
boom, these towns ended with a whimper.

The Mining and Cattle Frontiers 601

WYOMING

NEBRASKA IOWA
Omaha
Cheyenne UNION PA CIFIC R.R.
Ogallala

Denver K ANSAS Atchison Kansas
COLORADO P A CIFIC R.R. City
Abilene

Pueblo ATCH I SON, TO PEKA & SANTA FE R. R . Topeka

Dodge City KANSAS MO.

Chisholm TrailOKLAHOMA
Western Trail
ARK.
Goodnight-
NEW
MEXICO

TEXAS

Loving Trail

MEXICO sometimes reached eight feet, were killed primarily
for their hides. There was no way of getting their
Cattle Trails meat profitably to market.

tutes. They won a kind of equality on the rough fron- The problem of marketing was neatly solved
tier that earned them the vote in Wyoming (1869), when the transcontinental railroads thrust their
Utah (1870), Colorado (1893), and Idaho (1896) long iron fingers into the West. Cattle could now be
before their sisters in the East could cast a ballot. shipped bodily to the stockyards, and under “beef
barons” like the Swifts and Armours, the highly
The amassing of precious metals helped finance industrialized meatpacking business sprang into
the Civil War, facilitated the building of railroads, and existence as a main pillar of the economy. Drawing
intensified the already bitter conflict between whites upon the gigantic stockyards at Kansas City and
and Indians. The outpouring of silver and gold Chicago, the meatpackers could ship their fresh
enabled the Treasury to resume specie payments products to the East Coast in the newly perfected
in 1879 and injected the silver issue into American refrigerator cars.
politics. “Silver Senators,” representing the thinly
peopled “acreage states” of the West, used their dis- A spectacular feeder of the new slaughter-
proportionate influence to promote the interests of houses was the “Long Drive.” Texas cowboys—
the silver miners. Finally, the mining frontier added black, white, and Mexican—drove herds numbering
to American folklore and literature, as the writings of from one thousand to ten thousand head slowly
Bret Harte and Mark Twain so colorfully attest. over the unfenced and unpeopled plains until they
reached a railroad terminal. The bawling beasts
Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive grazed en route on the free government grass.
Favorite terminal points were flyspecked “cow
When the Civil War ended, the grassy plains of Texas towns” like Dodge City—“the Bibulous Babylon
supported several million tough, long-horned cat- of the Frontier”—and Abilene (Kansas), Ogallala
tle. These scrawny beasts, whose horn spread (Nebraska), and Cheyenne (Wyoming). At Abilene
order was maintained by Marshal James B. (“Wild
Bill”) Hickok, a fabulous gunman who reputedly

602 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

killed only in self-defense or in the line of duty and overproduction. Breeders learned to fence their
who was fatally shot in the back in 1876, while play- ranches, lay in winter feed, import blooded bulls,
ing poker. and produce fewer and meatier animals. They also
learned to organize. The Wyoming Stock-Growers’
As long as lush grass was available, the Long Association, especially in the 1880s, virtually con-
Drive proved profitable—that is, to the luckier cattle- trolled the state and its legislature.
men who escaped Indians, stampedes, cattle fever,
and other hazards. From 1866 to 1888, bellowing This was the heyday of the cowboy. The equip-
herds, totaling over 4 million steers, were driven ment of the cowhand—from “shooting irons” and
northward from the beef bowl of Texas. The steer was ten-gallon hat to chaps and spurs—served a useful,
king in a Cattle Kingdom richly carpeted with grass. not an ornamental, function. A “genuwine” gun-
toting cowpuncher, riding where men were men
What the Lord giveth, the Lord also can taketh and smelled like horses, could justifiably boast of
away. The railroad made the Long Drive, and the rail- his toughness.
road unmade the Long Drive, primarily because the
locomotives ran both ways. The same rails that bore These bowlegged Knights of the Saddle, with
the cattle from the open range to the kitchen range their colorful trappings and cattle-lulling songs,
brought out the homesteader and the sheepherder. became part of American folklore. Many of them,
Both of these intruders, sometimes amid flying bul- perhaps five thousand, were blacks, who especially
lets, built barbed-wire fences that were too numer- enjoyed the newfound freedom of the open range.
ous to be cut down by the cowboys. Furthermore, the
terrible winter of 1886–1887, with blinding blizzards The Farmers’ Frontier
reaching 68 degrees below zero, left thousands of
dazed cattle starving and freezing. Overexpansion Miners and cattlemen created the romantic legend
and overgrazing likewise took their toll, as the cow- of the West, but it was the sober sodbuster who
boys slowly gave way to plowboys. wrote the final chapter of frontier history. A fresh

The only escape for the stockmen was to make
cattle-raising a big business and avoid the perils of

Landmark Land Laws 603

WASH. VT. ME.
28.3% 12.7% 0.8%

MONTANA N.D.
28.9%
4.2% MINN. N.H. 6%
WYO.
ORE. 46.3% 10.5% N.Y. MASS. 1.2%
52.4%
IDAHO S.D. WISC. 0.7%
81.4% R.I. 0.3%
5.7% 10.1% MICH.

IOWA 12.6% PA. CONN. 0.2%
0.9%
NEBR. OHIO 2.1% N.J. 3.1% Percentage of public
1.4% ILL. IND. 1.3% DEL. 2.2% lands within each state
NEV.
92.9% UTAH COLO. 2.7% 1.7% W. VA. VA. MD. 2.2%
83.9% 28.3%
CALIF. KANSAS MO. KY. 6.7% 6.3% Under 5%
44.6%
0.8% 4.7% 4.2% N.C. 5–10%
10–20%
OKLA. ARK. TENN. 3.7% 8%
1.6% 8.2% S.C.
ARIZ.
47.2% N.M. 3.7%
32.4% ALA. GA.
MISS. 3.3%
4.3% 4% 20–40%

TEXAS LA. Over 40%
1.3 % 2.6%

FLA.
9%

Myth and Reality in the West American folklore pictures the western United States as a land of
rugged individualists who tamed the wild region with grit and brawn. The reality is that the federal
government is by far the West’s largest landowner—and that federal projects, especially dam-building,
have done more to shape the region than all the cowboys and farmers put together. (Source: Center of
the American West.)

day dawned for western farmers with the Home- struggle against drought. Uncle Sam, it was said, bet
stead Act of 1862. The new law allowed a settler to 160 acres against ten dollars that the settlers could
acquire as much as 160 acres of land (a quarter- not live on their homesteads for five years. One of
section) by living on it for five years, improving it, these unsuccessful gambles in Greer County, west-
and paying a nominal fee of about $30. ern Oklahoma, inspired a folk song:

The Homestead Act marked a drastic departure Hurrah for Greer County! The land of the free,
from previous policy. Before the act, public land had The land of the bedbug, grasshopper, and flea;
been sold primarily for revenue; now it was to be I’ll sing of its praises, I’ll tell of its fame,
given away to encourage a rapid filling of empty While starving to death on my government
spaces and to provide a stimulus to the family
farm—“the backbone of democracy.” The new law claim.
was a godsend to a host of farmers who could not
afford to buy large holdings. During the forty years Naked fraud was spawned by the Homestead
after its passage, about half a million families took Act and similar laws. Perhaps ten times more of the
advantage of the Homestead Act to carve out new public domain wound up in the clutches of land-
homes in the vast open stretches. Yet five times that grabbing promoters than in the hands of bona fide
many families purchased their land from the rail- farmers. Unscrupulous corporations would use
roads, the land companies, or the states. “dummy” homesteaders—often their employees or
aliens bribed with cash or a bottle of beer—to grab
The Homestead Act often turned out to be a the best properties containing timber, minerals,
cruel hoax. The standard 160 acres, quite adequate and oil. Settlers would later swear that they had
in the well-watered Mississippi basin, frequently “improved” the property by erecting a “twelve by
proved pitifully inadequate on the rain-scarce Great fourteen” dwelling, which turned out to measure
Plains. Thousands of homesteaders, perhaps two twelve by fourteen inches.
out of three, were forced to give up the one-sided

604 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

In making the arduous journey across the armed geologist John Wesley Powell, explorer of the
western prairies, many women settlers Colorado River’s Grand Canyon and director of the
discovered new confidence in their abilities. U.S. Geological Survey, warned in 1874 that beyond
Early on in her trek, Mary Richardson Walker the 100th meridian so little rain fell that agriculture
(1811–1897) confided in her diary that was impossible without massive irrigation.

“. . . my circumstances are rather trying. So Ignoring Powell’s advice, farmers heedlessly
much danger attends me on every hand. A chewed up the crusty earth in western Kansas, east-
long journey before me, going I know not ern Colorado, and Montana. They quickly went
whither, without mother or sister to attend broke as a six-year drought in the 1880s further des-
me, can I expect to survive it all?” iccated the already dusty region. Western Kansas
lost half its population between 1888 and 1892.
Only a month later, she recorded that “There is no God west of Salina,” one hapless home-
steader declared.
“in the afternoon we rode thirty-five miles
without stopping. Pretty well tired out, all of In the wake of the devastating drought, the new
us. Stood it pretty well myself.” technique of “dry farming” took root on the plains.
Its methods of frequent shallow cultivation suppos-
The railways also played a major role in devel- edly were adapted to the arid western environment,
oping the agricultural West, largely through the but over time “dry farming” created a finely pulver-
profitable marketing of crops. Some railroad com- ized surface soil that contributed to the notorious
panies induced Americans and European immi- “Dust Bowl” several decades later (see p. 789).
grants to buy the cheap lands earlier granted by the
government. The Northern Pacific Railroad at one Other adaptations to the western environment
time had nearly a thousand paid agents in Europe were more successful. Tough strains of wheat, resis-
distributing roseate leaflets in various languages. tant to cold and drought, were imported from Russia
and blossomed into billowing yellow carpets. Wise
Shattering the myth of the Great American farmers abandoned corn in favor of sorghum and
Desert opened the gateways to the agricultural West other drought-resistant grains. Barbed wire, per-
even wider. The windswept prairies were for the fected by Joseph F. Glidden in 1874, solved the prob-
most part treeless, and the tough sod had been lem of how to build fences on the treeless prairies.
pounded solid by millions of buffalo hooves. Pio-
neer explorers and trappers had assumed that the Eventually federally financed irrigation projects
soil must be sterile, simply because it was not heav- —on a colossal scale, beyond even what John Wes-
ily watered and did not support immense forests. ley Powell had dreamed—caused the Great Ameri-
But once the prairie sod was broken with heavy iron can Desert to bloom. A century after Powell’s
plows pulled by four yokes of oxen—the “plow that predictions, arching dams had tamed the Missouri
broke the plains”—the earth proved astonishingly and Columbia Rivers and had so penned up and
fruitful. “Sodbusters” poured onto the prairies. diverted the canyon-gnawing Colorado that its
Lacking trees for lumber and fuel, they built homes mouth in the Gulf of California was dry. More than
from the very sod they dug from the ground, and 45 million acres were irrigated in seventeen western
burned corncobs for warmth. states. In the long run, the hydraulic engineers had
more to do with shaping the modern West than all
Lured by higher wheat prices resulting from the trappers, miners, cavalrymen, and cowboys
crop failures elsewhere in the world, settlers in the there ever were. As one engineer boasted, “We enjoy
1870s rashly pushed still farther west, onto the poor, pushing rivers around.”
marginal lands beyond the 100th meridian. That
imaginary line, running north to south from the The Far West Comes of Age
Dakotas through west Texas, separated two climato-
logical regions—a well-watered area to the east, and The Great West experienced a fantastic growth in
a semiarid area to the west. Bewhiskered and one- population from the 1870s to the 1890s. A parade of
new western states proudly joined the Union.
Boomtown Colorado, offspring of the Pike’s Peak

Examining the Evidence 605

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Transcontinental Jour- portrait of the trans-Mississippi West at the close of
ney, 1879 The celebrated Scottish writer Robert the era of the Indian wars. Like all travelogues,
Louis Stevenson, author of such enduring classics Stevenson’s colorful tale may reveal as much about
as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case the traveler as it does about the things he saw. Yet
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, journeyed from Scotland historians frequently make use of such documents
to California in 1879 to rendezvous with his Ameri- to reconstruct the original appearance and texture
can fiancée, Frances Osbourne. Between New York of places that were once the exotic destinations of
and San Francisco, Stevenson traveled on the adventurous travelers, before they were trans-
transcontinental railroad line completed just ten formed by the onrush of modernity. In the passages
years earlier, and he dutifully recorded his impres- reproduced here, inspired by the view as Steven-
sions of America, the West in particular, as he made son’s train passed through Nebraska and Wyoming,
his way toward California. Stevenson’s account of what features of the landscape does the author find
his trip provides an unusually gifted writer’s vivid most remarkable? How does he portray the railroad?

THE PLAINS OF NEBRASKA

. . . We were at sea—there is no other adequate expression—on the plains of Nebraska. . . . It was a world
almost without a feature; an empty sky, an empty earth; front and back, the line of railway stretched from
horizon to horizon, like a cue across a billiard-board; on either hand, the green plain ran till it touched the
skirts of heaven. . . . [G]razing beasts were seen upon the prairie at all degrees of distance and diminution;
and now and again we might perceive a few dots beside the railroad which grew more and more distinct as
we drew nearer till they turned into wooden cabins, and then dwindled and dwindled in our wake until they
melted into their surroundings, and we were once more alone upon the billiard-board. The train toiled over
this infinity like a snail; and being the one thing moving, it was wonderful what huge proportions it began
to assume in our regard. . . .

[That] evening we left Laramie [Wyoming]. . . . And yet when day came, it was to shine upon the same
broken and unsightly quarter of the world. Mile upon mile, and not a tree, a bird, or a river. Only down the
long, sterile cañons, the train shot hooting and awoke the resting echo. That train was the one piece of life in
all the deadly land; it was the one actor, the one spectacle fit to be observed in this paralysis of man and
nature. And when I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt
of savage tribes, and now will bear an emigrant for some £12 from the Atlantic to the Golden Gates; how at
each stage of the construction, roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and
then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places pig-
tailed Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, talking
together in a mixed dialect, mostly oaths, gambling, drinking, quarrelling and murdering like wolves; how
the plumed hereditary lord of all America heard, in this last fastness, the scream of the ‘bad medicine
waggon’ charioting his foes; and then when I go on to remember that all this epical turmoil was conducted
by gentlemen in frock coats, and with a view to nothing more extraordinary than a fortune and a
subsequent visit to Paris, it seems to me, I own, as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the
age in which we live, as if it brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of
social rank, and offered to some great writer the busiest, the most extended, and the most varied subject for
an enduring literary work. . . .

Source: Across the Plains, by Robert Louis Stevenson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897).

606 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

100° CANADA

WASH. ME.

PACIFIC COASTAL RANGE MONT. N.D. VT. N.H.
N.Y. MASS.
ORE. MINN. WISC.
S.D. R.I.
IDAHO ROCKY MICH.

WYO. PA. CONN.
N.J.
GREAT IOWA
SIERRA NEVADABASIN NEBR.
MOUNTAINS GREAT ILL. IND. OHIO DEL.
NEV. MD.
UTAH W.
VA. VA.
KANS.
COLO. PLAINS MO. KY.

N.C.

TENN.

CALIF. ARIZ. OKLA. ARK. S.C.
MISS. ALA. GA.
N.M.

TEXAS LA.

30 in. (76 cm) and over FLA.
20–30 in. (51–76 cm)
MEXICO 10–20 in. (25.5–51 cm)
Less than 10 in. (25 cm)
100°

Average Annual Precipitation In the Northern Hemisphere, storms usually circle the globe in a west-
to-east direction. Much of the life-nourishing water in these storms is dumped as rainfall on the western
slopes of the cloud-high Pacific coastal ranges and the Rocky Mountains. This weather pattern creates
deep, dry “rain shadows” in the Great Basin and in the plains area immediately east of the Rockies.

gold rush, was greeted in 1876 as “the Centennial opening, and some 50,000 “boomers” were poised
State.” In 1889–1890 a Republican Congress, eagerly expectantly on the boundary line. At high noon the
seeking more Republican electoral and congres- bugle shrilled, and a horde of “eighty-niners”
sional votes, admitted in a wholesale lot six new poured in on lathered horses or careening vehicles.
states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, That night a lonely spot on the prairie had mush-
Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming. The Mormon roomed into the tent city of Guthrie, with over
Church formally and belatedly banned polygamy in 10,000 people. By the end of the year, Oklahoma
1890, but not until 1896 was Utah deemed worthy of boasted 60,000 inhabitants, and Congress made it a
admission. Only Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Ari- territory. In 1907 it became the “Sooner State.”
zona remained to be lifted into statehood from con-
tiguous territory on the mainland of North America. The Fading Frontier

In a last gaudy fling, the federal government In 1890—a watershed date—the superintendent of
made available to settlers vast stretches of fertile the census announced that for the first time in
plains formerly occupied by the Indians in the dis- America’s experience, a frontier line was no longer
trict of Oklahoma (“the Beautiful Land”). Scores of discernible. All the unsettled areas were now broken
overeager and well-armed “sooners,” illegally jump- into by isolated bodies of settlement. The “closing”
ing the gun, had entered Oklahoma Territory. They of the frontier inspired one of the most influential
had to be evicted repeatedly by federal troops, who
on occasion would shoot the intruders’ horses. On
April 22, 1889, all was in readiness for the legal

The Vanishing Frontier 607

essays ever written about American history—Fred- how to farm; few of them could raise enough money
erick Jackson Turner’s “The Significance of the Fron- to transport themselves west and then pay for live-
tier in American History” in 1893. stock and expensive machinery.

As the nineteenth century neared its sunset, the But the safety-valve theory does have some
westward-tramping American people were dis- validity. Free acreage did lure to the West a host of
turbed to find that their fabled free land was going immigrant farmers who otherwise might have
or had gone. The secretary of war had prophesied in remained in the eastern cities to clog the job mar-
1827 that five hundred years would be needed to fill kets and to crowd the festering and already over-
the West. But as the nation finally recognized that its populated slums. And the very possibility of
land was not inexhaustible, seeds were planted to westward migration may have induced urban
preserve the vanishing resource. The government employers to maintain wage rates high enough to
set aside land for national parks—first Yellowstone discourage workers from leaving. But the real safety
in 1872, followed by Yosemite and Sequoia in 1890. valve by the late nineteenth century was in western
cities like Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco,
But the frontier was more than a place; it was where failed farmers, busted miners, and displaced
also a state of mind and a symbol of opportunity. Its easterners found ways to seek their fortunes.
passing ended a romantic phase of the nation’s Indeed, after about 1880 the area from the Rocky
internal development and created new economic Mountains to the Pacific Coast was the most urban-
and psychological problems. ized region in America, measured by the percentage
of people living in cities.
Traditionally footloose, Americans have been
notorious for their mobility. The nation’s farmers, U.S. history cannot be properly understood
unlike the peasants of Europe, have seldom re- unless it is viewed in light of the westward-moving
mained rooted to their soil. The land, sold for a experience. As Frederick Jackson Turner wrote,
profit as settlement closed in, was often the settler’s “American history has been in a large degree the his-
most profitable crop. tory of the colonization of the Great West.” The story
of settling and taming the trans-Mississippi West in
Much has been said about the frontier as a the late nineteenth century was but the last chapter
“safety valve.” The theory is that when hard times in the saga of colonizing various American “wests”
came, the unemployed who cluttered the city pave- since Columbus’s day—from the West Indies to the
ments merely moved west, took up farming, and Chesapeake shore, from the valleys of the Hudson
prospered. and Connecticut Rivers to the valleys of the Ten-
nessee and Ohio Rivers.
In truth, relatively few city dwellers, at least in
the populous eastern centers, migrated to the fron-
tier during depressions. Most of them did not know

Acres FRONTIER LINE ENDS Homesteads from the
11,000,000 Public Lands (acreage
10,000,000 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 legally transferred to
private ownership) (See
9,000,000 related map, p. 603.)
8,000,000
7,000,000 1940
6,000,000
5,000,000
4,000,000
3,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000

0
1870

608 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

And yet the trans-Mississippi West formed a dis- The Farm Becomes a Factory
tinct chapter in that saga and retains even to this
day much of its uniqueness. There the Native Amer- The situation of American farmers, once jacks-and-
ican peoples made their last and most desperate jills-of-all-trades, was rapidly changing. They had
struggle against colonization, and there most Native raised their own food, fashioned their own clothing,
Americans live today. There “Anglo” culture collided and bartered for other necessities with neighbors.
most directly with Hispanic culture—the historic Now high prices persuaded farmers to concentrate
rival of the Anglo-Americans for dominance in the on growing single “cash” crops, such as wheat or
New World—and the Southwest remains the most corn, and use their profits to buy foodstuffs at the
Hispanicized region in America. There America general store and manufactured goods in town or by
faced across the Pacific to Asia, and there most mail order. The Chicago firm of Aaron Montgomery
Asian-Americans dwell today. There the scale and Ward sent out its first catalogue—a single sheet—in
severity of the environment posed their largest chal- 1872.
lenges to human ambitions, and there the environ-
ment, with its aridity and still-magical emptiness, Large-scale farmers, especially in the immense
continues to mold social and political life, and the grain-producing areas of the Mississippi Valley,
American imagination, as in no other part of the were now both specialists as well as business-
nation. And in no other region has the federal gov- people. As cogs in the vast industrial machine,
ernment, with its vast landholdings, its subsidies to these farmers were intimately tied to banking, rail-
the railroads, and its massive irrigation projects, roading, and manufacturing. They had to buy
played so conspicuous a role in economic and expensive machinery in order to plant and to har-
social development. vest their crops. A powerful steam engine could
drag behind it simultaneously the plow, seeder, and
The westward-moving pioneers and the country harrow. The speed of harvesting wheat was dramat-
they confronted have assumed mythic proportions ically increased in the 1870s by the invention of the
in the American mind. They have been immortalized twine binder and then in the 1880s by the “com-
by such writers as Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Helen bine”—the combined reaper-thresher, which was
Hunt Jackson, and Francis Parkman, and by such drawn by twenty to forty horses and which both
painters as George Catlin, Frederic Remington, and reaped and bagged the grain. Widespread use of
Albert Bierstadt. For better or worse, those pioneers such costly equipment naturally called for first-
planted the seeds of civilization in the immense class management. But the farmers, often unskilled
western wilderness. The life we live, they dreamed of; as businesspeople, were inclined to blame the
the life they lived, we can only dream.

Settling the West 609

American Agriculture in 1900

banks and railroads or the volatility of the global grants and the railroads’ huge holdings, were from
marketplace rather than their own shortcomings, the outset more than three times larger than the
for their losses. national average. The reformer Henry George in
1871 described the Golden State as “not a country of
This amazing mechanization of agriculture in farms but a country of plantations and estates.”
the postwar years was almost as striking as the mech- With the advent of the railroad refrigerator car in the
anization of industry. In fact, agricultural moderniza- 1880s, California fruit and vegetable crops, raised
tion drove many marginal farmers off the land, thus on sprawling tracts by ill-paid migrant Mexican and
swelling the ranks of the new industrial work force. As Chinese farmlands, sold at a handsome profit in the
the rural population steadily decreased, those farm- rich urban markets of the East.
ers who remained achieved miracles of production,
making America the world’s breadbasket and butcher Deflation Dooms the Debtor
shop. The farm was attaining the status of a factory—
an outdoor grain factory. Bonanza wheat farms of the Once the farmers became chained to a one-crop
Minnesota–North Dakota area, for example, were economy—wheat or corn—they were in the same
enormous. By 1890 at least a half-dozen of them were leaky boat with the southern cotton growers. As long
larger than fifteen thousand acres, with communica- as prices stayed high, all went well. But when they
tion by telephone from one part to another. These skidded in the 1880s, bankruptcy fell like a blight on
bonanza farms foreshadowed the gigantic agribusi- the farm belts.
nesses of the next century.
The grain farmers were no longer the masters of
Agriculture was a big business from its earliest their own destinies. They were engaged in one of the
days in California’s phenomenally productive (and
phenomenally irrigated) Central Valley. California
farms, carved out of giant Spanish-Mexican land

610 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

most fiercely competitive of businesses, for the to the world that another sturdy American farmer
price of their product was determined in a world had become landless in a landed nation.
market by the world output. If the wheat fields of
Argentina, Russia, and other foreign countries flour- Ruinous rates of interest, running from 8 to 40
ished, the price of the farmers’ grain would fall and percent, were charged on mortgages, largely by
American sodbusters would face ruin, as they did in agents of eastern loan companies. The windburned
the 1880s and 1890s. sons and daughters of the sod, who felt that they
deserved praise for developing the country, cried
Low prices and a deflated currency were the out in despair against the loan sharks and the Wall
chief worries of the frustrated farmers—North, Street octopus.
South, and West. If a family had borrowed $1,000 in
1855, when wheat was worth about a dollar a Farm tenancy rather than farm ownership was
bushel, they expected to pay back the equivalent of spreading like stinkweed. The trend was especially
one thousand bushels, plus interest, when the mort- marked in the sharecropping South, where cotton
gage fell due. But if they let their debt run to 1890, prices also sank dismayingly. By 1880 one-fourth of
when wheat had fallen to about fifty cents a bushel, all American farms were operated by tenants. The
they would have to pay back the price of two thou- United States was ready to feed the world, but under
sand bushels for the $1,000 they had borrowed, plus the new industrial feudalism, the farmers were
interest. This unexpected burden struck them as about to sink into a status suggesting Old World
unjust, though their steely-eyed creditors often serfdom.
branded the complaining farmers as slippery and
dishonest rascals. Unhappy Farmers

The deflationary pinch on the debtor flowed Even Mother Nature ceased smiling, as her powerful
partly from the static money supply. There were forces conspired against agriculture. Mile-wide
simply not enough dollars to go around, and as a clouds of grasshoppers, leaving “nothing but the
result, prices were forced down. In 1870 the cur- mortgage,” periodically ravaged prairie farms. The
rency in circulation for each person was $19.42; in terrible cotton-boll weevil was also wreaking havoc
1890 it was only $22.67. Yet during these twenty in the South by the early 1890s.
years, business and industrial activity, increasing
manyfold, had intensified the scramble for available The good earth was going sour. Floods added to
currency. the waste of erosion, which had already washed the
topsoil off millions of once-lush southern acres.
The forgotten farmers were caught on a tread- Expensive fertilizers were urgently needed. A long
mill. Despite unremitting toil, they operated year succession of droughts seared the trans-Mississippi
after year at a loss and lived off their fat as best they West, beginning in the summer of 1887. Whole
could. In a vicious circle, their farm machinery towns were abandoned. “Going home to the wife’s
increased their output of grain, lowered the price, folks” and “In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted”
and drove them even deeper into debt. Mortgages were typical laments of many impoverished farm-
engulfed homesteads at an alarming rate; by 1890 ers, as they fled their weather-beaten shacks and
Nebraska alone reported more than 100,000 farms sun-baked sod houses. One irate “poet” snarled,
blanketed with mortgages. The repeated crash of
the sheriff-auctioneer’s hammer kept announcing Fifty miles to water,
A hundred miles to wood,
A contemporary farm protest song, “The To hell with this damned country,
Kansas Fool,” ran, I’m going home for good.

The bankers followed us out west; To add to their miseries, the soil-tillers were
And did in mortgages invest; gouged by their government—local, state, and
They looked ahead and shrewdly planned, national. Their land was overassessed, and they paid
And soon they’ll have our Kansas land. painful local taxes, whereas wealthy easterners
could conceal their stocks and bonds in safe-deposit
boxes. High protective tariffs in these years poured

Agrarian Unrest 611

profits into the pockets of manufacturers. Farmers, did organize successfully to restrict production until
on the other hand, had no choice but to sell forced to by the federal government nearly half a
their low-priced products in a fiercely competitive, century later, in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal days.
unprotected world market, while buying high-priced What they did manage to organize was a monumen-
manufactured goods in a protected home market. tal political uprising.

The farmers were also “farmed” by the corpora- The Farmers Take Their Stand
tions and processors. They were at the mercy of the
harvester trust, the barbed-wire trust, and the fertil- Agrarian unrest had flared forth earlier, in the
izer trust, all of which could control output and raise Greenback movement shortly after the Civil War.
prices to extortionate levels. Middlemen took a juicy Prices sagged in 1868, and a host of farmers unsuc-
“cut” from the selling price of the goods that the cessfully sought relief from low prices and high
farmers bought, while operators pushed storage rates indebtedness by demanding an inflation of the cur-
to the ceiling at grain warehouses and elevators. rency with paper money.

In addition, the railroad octopus had the grain The National Grange of the Patrons of Hus-
growers in its grip. Freight rates could be so high bandry—better known as the Grange—was organ-
that the farmers sometimes lost less if they burned ized in 1867. Its leading spirit was Oliver H. Kelley, a
their corn for fuel than if they shipped it. If they shrewd and energetic Minnesota farmer then work-
raised their voices in protest, the ruthless railroad ing as a clerk in Washington. Kelley’s first objective
operators might let their grain spoil in damp places was to enhance the lives of isolated farmers through
or refuse to provide them with cars when needed. social, educational, and fraternal activities. Farm
men and women, cursed with loneliness in widely
Farmers still made up nearly one-half the popu- separated farmhouses, found the Grange’s picnics,
lation in 1890, but they were hopelessly disorgan- concerts, and lectures a godsend. Kelley, a Mason,
ized. The manufacturers and the railroad barons even found farmers receptive to his mumbo-jumbo
knew how to combine to promote their interests, of passwords and secret rituals, as well as his four-
and so, increasingly, did industrial workers. But the ply hierarchy, ranging (for men) from Laborer to
farmers were by nature independent and individu- Husbandman and (for women) from Maid to
alistic—dead set against consolidation or regimen-
tation. No really effective Carnegie or Gompers
arose among them to preach the gospel of eco-
nomic integration and concentration. They never

612 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

Matron. The Grange spread like an old-time prairie public control of private business for the general
fire and by 1875 claimed 800,000 members, chiefly welfare. A number of the so-called Granger Laws,
in the Midwest and South. Buzzing with gossip, however, were badly drawn, and they were bitterly
these calicoed and calloused folk often met in red fought through the high courts by the well-paid
schoolhouses around potbellied stoves. lawyers of the “interests.” Following judicial
reverses, most severely at the hands of the Supreme
The Grangers gradually raised their goals from Court in the famous Wabash decision of 1886 (see
individual self-improvement to improvement of the p. 536), the Grangers’ influence faded. But their
farmers’ collective plight. In a determined effort to organization has lived on as a vocal champion of
escape the clutches of the trusts, they established farm interests, while brightening rural life with
cooperatively owned stores for consumers and social activities.
cooperatively owned grain elevators and ware-
houses for producers. Their most ambitious experi- Farmers’ grievances likewise found a vent in the
ment was an attempt to manufacture harvesting Greenback Labor party, which combined the infla-
machinery, but this venture, partly as a result of tionary appeal of the earlier Greenbackers with a
mismanagement, ended in financial disaster. program for improving the lot of labor. In 1878, the
high-water mark of the movement, the Greenback
Embattled Grangers also went into politics, Laborites polled over a million votes and elected
enjoying their most gratifying success in the grain- fourteen members of Congress. In the presidential
growing regions of the upper Mississippi Valley, election of 1880, the Greenbackers ran General
chiefly in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. James B. Weaver, an old Granger who was a favorite
There, through state legislation, they strove to regu- of the Civil War veterans and who possessed a
late railway rates and the storage fees charged by remarkable voice and bearing. He spoke to perhaps
railroads and by the operators of warehouses and a half-million citizens in a hundred or so speeches
grain elevators. Many of the state courts, notably in but polled only 3 percent of the total popular vote.
Illinois, were disposed to recognize the principle of

The Populist Protest 613

Prelude to Populism

A striking manifestation of rural discontent of Minnesota, three times elected to Congress. The
came through the Farmers’ Alliance, founded in queen of the Populist “calamity howlers” was Mary
Texas in the late 1870s (see p. 521). Farmers came Elizabeth (“Mary Yellin’”) Lease, a tall, athletic
together in the Alliance to socialize, but more woman known as the “Kansas Pythoness.” She
importantly to break the strangling grip of the rail- reportedly demanded that Kansans should raise
roads and manufacturers through cooperative buy- “less corn and more hell.” The big-city New York
ing and selling. Local chapters spread throughout Evening Post snarled, “We don’t want any more
the South and the Great Plains during the 1880s, states until we can civilize Kansas.” To many east-
until by 1890 members numbered more than a mil- erners, complaint, not corn, was rural America’s sta-
lion hard-bitten souls. ple crop.

Unfortunately, the Alliance weakened itself by Yet the Populists, despite their oddities, were
ignoring the plight of landless tenant farmers, share- not to be laughed away. They were leading a deadly
croppers, and farmworkers. Even more debilitating earnest and impassioned campaign to relieve the
was the Alliance’s exclusion of blacks, who counted farmers’ many miseries. Smiles faded from Republi-
for nearly half the agricultural population of the can and Democratic faces alike as countless thou-
South. In the 1880s a separate Colored Farmers’ sands of Populists began to sing “Good-bye, My
National Alliance emerged to attract black farmers, Party, Good-bye.” In 1892 the Populists had jolted
and by 1890 membership numbered more than the traditional parties by winning several congres-
250,000. The long history of racial division in the sional seats and polling more than 1 million votes
South, however, made it difficult for white and black for their presidential candidate, James B. Weaver.
farmers to work together in the same organization. Racial divisions continued to hobble the Populists
in the South, but in the West their ranks were
Out of the Farmers’ Alliances a new political swelling. Could the People’s party now reach
party emerged in the early 1890s—the People’s beyond its regional bases in agrarian America, join
party. Better known as the Populists, these frus-
trated farmers attacked Wall Street and the “money
trust.” They called for nationalizing the railroads,
telephones, and telegraph; instituting a graduated
income tax; and creating a new federal “subtrea-
sury”—a scheme to provide farmers with loans for
crops stored in government-owned warehouses,
where they could be held until market prices rose.
They also wanted the free and unlimited coinage of
silver—yet another of the debtors’ demands for
inflation that echoed continuously throughout the
Gilded Age.

Numerous fiery prophets leapt forward to trum-
pet the Populist cause. The free coinage of silver
struck many Populists as a cure-all, especially after
the circulation of an enormously popular pamphlet
titled Coin’s Financial School (1894). Written by
William Hope Harvey, it was illustrated by clever
woodcuts, one of which depicted the gold ogre
beheading the beautiful silver maiden. In fiction
parading as fact, the booklet showed how the “little
professor”—“Coin” Harvey—overwhelmed the bank-
ers and professors of economics with his brilliant
arguments on behalf of free silver. Another notori-
ous spellbinder was red-haired Ignatius Donnelly

614 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

hands with urban workers, and mount a successful We’re coming, Grover Cleveland,
attack on the northeastern citadels of power? 500,000 strong,

Coxey’s Army and the Pullman Strike We’re marching on to Washington
to right the nation’s wrong.
The panic of 1893 and the severe ensuing depres-
sion strengthened the Populists’ argument that The “Commonweal Army” of Coxeyites finally strag-
farmers and laborers alike were being victimized by gled into the nation’s capital, but the invasion took
an oppressive economic and political system. on the aspects of a comic opera when “General”
Ragged armies of the unemployed began marching Coxey and his “lieutenants” were arrested for walk-
to protest their plight. In the growing hordes of dis- ing on the grass.
placed industrial toilers, the Populists saw potential
political allies. Elsewhere, violent flare-ups accompanied labor
protests, notably in Chicago. Most dramatic was the
The most famous marcher was “General” Jacob crippling Pullman strike of 1894. Eugene V. Debs, a
S. Coxey, a wealthy Ohio quarry owner. He set out charismatic labor leader, had helped organize the
for Washington in 1894 with a few score of support- American Railway Union of about 150,000 mem-
ers and a swarm of newspaper reporters. His plat- bers. The Pullman Palace Car Company, which
form included a demand that the government maintained a model town near Chicago for its
relieve unemployment by an inflationary public employees, was hit hard by the depression and cut
works program, supported by some $500 million in wages by about one-third, while holding the line on
legal tender notes to be issued by the Treasury. rent for the company houses. The workers finally
Coxey himself rode in a carriage with his wife and struck—in some places overturning Pullman cars—
infant son, appropriately named Legal Tender and paralyzed railway traffic from Chicago to the
Coxey, while his tiny “army” tramped along behind, Pacific coast. The American Federation of Labor
singing, conspicuously declined to support the Pullman
strikers, thus enhancing the AF of L’s reputation for
“respectability” even while weakening labor’s cause
by driving a large wedge into the workers’ ranks.

Workers in Revolt 615

The turmoil in Chicago was serious but not yet contempt of court because he had defied a federal
completely out of hand. At least this was the judg- court injunction to cease striking. Ironically, the
ment of Governor John Peter Altgeld of Illinois, a lean labor agitator spent much of his enforced
friend of the downtrodden, who had pardoned the leisure reading radical literature, which led to his
Haymarket Square anarchists the year before (see later leadership of the socialist movement in
p. 551). But U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney, an America.
archconservative and an ex–railroad attorney, urged
the dispatch of federal troops. His legal grounds Embittered cries of “government by injunction”
were that the strikers were interfering with the tran- now burst from organized labor. This was the first
sit of the U.S. mail. President Cleveland supported time that such a legal weapon had been used con-
Olney with the ringing declaration, “If it takes the spicuously by Washington to break a strike, and it
entire army and navy to deliver a postal card in was all the more distasteful because defiant workers
Chicago, that card will be delivered.” who were held in contempt could be imprisoned
without a jury trial. Signs multiplied that employers
To the delight of conservatives, federal troops, were striving to smash labor unions by court action.
bayonets fixed, crushed the Pullman strike. Debs Nonlabor elements of the country, including the
was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for Populists and other debtors, were likewise incensed.
They saw in the brutal Pullman episode further
After the Pullman strike collapsed, Eugene proof of an unholy alliance between business and
Debs (1855–1926) said, the courts.
“No strike has ever been lost.”
Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan
In 1897 he declared,
“The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am The smoldering grievances of the long-suffering
for Socialism because I am for humanity.” farmers and the depression-plagued laborers gave
ominous significance to the election of 1896.
Conservatives of all stripes feared an impending

616 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

iron business and now coveted the role of president
maker. “I love McKinley,” he once said. As a whole-
hearted Hamiltonian, Hanna believed that a prime
function of government was to aid business. Hon-
est, earnest, tough, and direct, he became the per-
sonification of big industry in politics. He was often
caricatured in cartoons, quite unfairly, as a bloated
bully in a loud checkered suit with a dollar sign in
each square. He believed that in some measure
prosperity “trickled down” to the laborer, whose
dinner pail was full when business flourished. Crit-
ics assailed this idea as equivalent to feeding the
horses in order to feed the sparrows.

The hardheaded Hanna, although something of
a novice in politics, organized his preconvention
campaign for McKinley with consummate skill
and with a liberal outpouring of his own money.
The convention steamroller, well lubricated with
Hanna’s dollars, nominated McKinley on the first
ballot in St. Louis in June 1896. The Republican plat-
form cleverly straddled the money question but
leaned toward hard-money policies. It declared for

upheaval, while down-and-out husbandmen and
discontented workers cast about desperately for
political salvation. Increasingly, monetary policy—
whether to maintain the gold standard or inflate the
currency by monetizing silver—loomed as the issue
on which the election would turn.

The leading candidate for the Republican presi-
dential nomination in 1896 was former congress-
man William McKinley of Ohio, sponsor of the
ill-starred tariff bill of 1890 (see p. 521). He had
established a creditable Civil War record, having
risen to the rank of major; he hailed from the elec-
torally potent state of Ohio; and he could point to
long years of honorable service in Congress, where
he had made many friends with his kindly and con-
ciliatory manner.

As a presidential candidate, McKinley was
largely the creature of a fellow Ohioan, Marcus
Alonzo Hanna, who had made his fortune in the

The Free Silver Campaign 617

the gold standard, even though McKinley’s voting through the unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio
record in Congress had been embarrassingly of 16 ounces of silver to 1 of gold, though the market
friendly to silver. The platform also condemned ratio was about 32 to 1. This meant that the silver in
hard times and Democratic incapacity, while pour- a dollar would be worth about fifty cents.
ing praise on the protective tariff.
Democratic “Gold Bugs,” unable to swallow
Dissension riddled the Democratic camp. Bryan, bolted their party over the silver issue. A con-
Cleveland no longer led his party. The depression servative senator from New York, when asked if he
had driven the last nail into his political coffin. was a Democrat still, reportedly replied, “Yes, I am a
Dubbed “the Stuffed Prophet,” he was undeniably Democrat still—very still.” The Democratic minor-
the most unpopular man in the country. Labor- ity, including Cleveland, charged that the Populist-
debtor groups remembered too vividly his interven- silverites had stolen both the name and the clothes
tion in the Pullman strike, the backstairs Morgan of their party. They nominated a lost-cause ticket of
bond deal, and especially his stubborn hard-money their own, and many of them, including Cleveland,
policies. Ultraconservative in finance, Cleveland not too secretly hoped for a McKinley victory.
now looked more like a Republican than a Demo-
crat on the money issue. The Populists now faced a dilemma, because
the Democratic majority had appropriated their
Rudderless, the Democratic convention met in main plank—“16 to 1,” that “heaven-born ratio.”
Chicago in July 1896, with the silverites lusting for The bulk of the Populists, fearing a hard-money
victory. Shouting insults at the absent Cleveland, McKinley victory, endorsed both “fusion” with the
the delegates refused, by a suicidal vote of 564 to Democrats and Bryan for president, sacrificing their
357, to endorse their own administration. They had identity in the mix. Singing “The Jolly Silver Dollar of
the enthusiasm and the numbers; all they lacked the Dads,” they became in effect the “Demo-Pop”
was a leader. party, though a handful of the original Populists
refused to support Bryan and went down with their
A new Moses suddenly appeared in the person colors nailed to the mast.
of William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska. Then only
thirty-six years of age and known as “the Boy Orator Class Conflict: Plowholders
of the Platte,”* he stepped confidently onto the plat- Versus Bondholders
form before fifteen thousand people. His masterful
presence was set off by a peninsular jaw and raven- Mark Hanna smugly assumed that he could make
black hair. He radiated honesty, sincerity, and the tariff the focus of the campaign. But Bryan, a
energy. dynamo of energy, forced the free-trade issue into
the back seat when he took to the stump in behalf of
The convention-hall setting was made to order free silver. Sweeping through 27 states and traveling
for a magnificent oratorical effort. A hush fell over 18,000 miles, he made nearly 600 speeches—36 in
the delegates as Bryan stood before them. With an one day—and even invaded the East, “the enemy’s
organlike voice that rolled into the outer corners of country.” Vachel Lindsay caught the spirit of his ora-
the huge hall, he delivered a fervent plea for silver. torical orgy:
Rising to supreme heights of eloquence, he thun-
dered, “We will answer their demands for a gold Prairie avenger, mountain lion,
standard by saying to them: ‘You shall not press Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan,
down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns,
you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of Gigantic troubadour, speaking like a siege gun,
gold.’” Smashing Plymouth Rock with his boulders

The Cross of Gold speech was a sensation. from the West.*
Swept off its feet in a tumultuous scene, the Demo-
cratic convention nominated Bryan the next day on
the fifth ballot. The platform demanded inflation

*One contemporary sneered that Bryan, like the Platte River in *Reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon
his home state of Nebraska, was “six inches deep and six miles & Schuster, Inc., from Collected Poems by Vachel Lindsay.
wide at the mouth.” Copyright © 1920 by Macmillan Publishing Company; copy-
right renewed 1948 by Elizabeth C. Lindsay.

618 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

Free silver became almost as much a religious as a the voters of Cleveland’s “Democratic panic,”
financial issue. Hordes of fanatical free-silverites Republicans appealed to the “belly vote” with their
hailed Bryan as the messiah to lead them out of prize slogan, “McKinley and the Full Dinner Pail.”
the wilderness of debt. They sang “We’ll All Have The McKinleyites amassed the most formidable
Our Pockets Lined with Silver” and “No Crown of political campaign chest thus far in American his-
Thorns, No Cross of Gold.” tory. At all levels—national, state, and local—it
amounted to about $16 million, as contrasted with
Bryan created panic among eastern conserva- about $1 million for the poorer Democrats (roughly
tives with his threat of converting their holdings “16 to 1”). With some justification, the Bryanites
overnight into fifty-cent dollars. The “Gold Bugs” accused Hanna of “buying” the election and of
responded with their own free and unlimited coin- floating McKinley into the White House on a tidal
age of verbiage. They vented their alarm in abusive wave of mud and money.
epithets, ringing from “fanatic” and “madman” to
“traitor” and “murderer.” “In God We Trust, with Bryan’s cyclonic campaign began to lose steam
Bryan We Bust,” the Republicans sneered, while one as the weeks passed. Fear was probably Hanna’s
eastern clergyman cried, “That platform was made strongest ally, as it was Bryan’s worst enemy. Republi-
in Hell.” Widespread fear of Bryan and the “silver can businesspeople placed contracts with manufac-
lunacy” enabled “Dollar Mark” Hanna, now chair- turers, contingent on the election of McKinley. A few
man of the Republican National Committee, to factory owners, with thinly veiled intimidation, paid
shine as a money-raiser. He “shook down” the trusts off their workers and told them not to come to work
and plutocrats and piled up an enormous “slush on Wednesday morning if Bryan won. Reports also
fund” for a “campaign of education”—or of propa- circulated that employers were threatening to pay
ganda, depending on one’s point of view. Reminding their employees in fifty-cent pieces, instead of in dol-

The Election of 1896 619

In gold-standard Britain, there was much
relief over McKinley’s victory. The London
Standard commented,

“The hopelessly ignorant and savagely
covetous waifs and strays of American
civilization voted for Bryan, but the bulk of
the solid sense, business integrity, and social
stability sided with McKinley. The nation is to
be heartily congratulated.”

lars, if Bryan triumphed. Such were some of the “dirty their jobs and full dinner pails, threatened as they
tricks” of the “Stop Bryan, Save America” crusade. were by free silver, free trade, and fireless factories.
Living precariously on a fixed wage, the factory
Hanna’s campaign methods paid off. On elec- workers had no reason to favor inflation, which was
tion day McKinley triumphed decisively. The vote the heart of the Bryanites’ program.
was 271 to 176 in the Electoral College and 7,102,246
to 6,492,559 in the popular election. Driven by fear The Bryan-McKinley battle heralded the advent
and excitement, an unprecedented outpouring of of a new era in American politics. At first glance the
voters flocked to the polls. McKinley ran strongly in election seemed to be the age-old story of the
the populous East, where he carried every county of underprivileged many against the privileged few, of
New England, and in the upper Mississippi Valley. the indebted backcountry against the wealthier
Bryan’s states, concentrated in the debt-burdened seaboard, of the country against the city, of the
South and the trans-Mississippi West, boasted more agrarians against the industrialists, of Main Street
acreage than McKinley’s but less population. against Wall Street, of the nobodies against the
somebodies. Yet when Bryan made his evangelical
The free-silver election of 1896 was perhaps the appeal to all those supposed foes of the existing
most significant political turning point since Lin- social order, not enough of them banded together to
coln’s victories in 1860 and 1864. Despite Bryan’s form a political majority.
strength in the South and West, the results vividly
demonstrated his lack of appeal to the unmort- The outcome was instead a resounding victory
gaged farmer and especially to the eastern urban for big business, the big cities, middle-class values,
laborer. Many wage earners in the East voted for and financial conservatism. Bryan’s defeat marked
the last serious effort to win the White House with
mostly agrarian votes. The future of presidential
politics lay not on the farms, with their dwindling
population, but in the mushrooming cities, with
their growing hordes of freshly arriving immigrants.

The smashing Republican victory of 1896 also
heralded a Republican grip on the White House for
sixteen consecutive years—indeed, for all but eight
of the next thirty-six years. McKinley’s election thus
imparted a new character to the American political
system. The long reign of Republican political
dominance that it ushered in was accompanied by
diminishing voter participation in elections, the
weakening of party organizations, and the fading
away of issues like the money question and civil-

620 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

WASH. ME.
4
MONTANA VT. 6
3 4
N.D. N.H.
ORE. WYO. 3 MINN. 4 MASS.
4 3 9 N.Y. 15
IDAHO 36
3 S.D. WISC. MICH. R.I. 4
4 12
14 PA. CONN. 6
NEBR. IOWA 32 N.J. 10
8 13
NEV. UTAH ILL. IND. OHIO VA. DEL. 3
3 3 KANSAS MO. 24 15 23 W.VA. 12 MD. 8
10 17
CALIF. ARIZONA COLO. KY 12 6 Presidential Election of 1896
8 TERR. 4
(+1 Dem.) N.C. (with electoral vote by state)
(+ 1 Dem.) NEW MEXICO
TERR. OKLA. TENN. 12 11 This election tolled the death knell of
TERR. IND. ARK. the Gilded Age political party system,
8 ALA. S.C. with its razor-close elections, strong
TERR. MISS. 11 9 party loyalties, and high voter turnouts.
LA. For years after 1896, Republicans
TEXAS 8 9 GA.
15 13

FLA. predominated, and citizens showed a
4

McKinley—Republican declining interest in either joining
Bryan—Democratic
parties or voting.

Republican Stand-pattism Enthroned

service reform, which came to be replaced by con- An eminently “safe” McKinley took the inaugural
cern for industrial regulation and the welfare of oath in 1897. With his impeccable white vest, he
labor. Scholars have dubbed this new political era seemed never to perspire, even in oppressively
the period of the “fourth party system.”* muggy Washington. Though a man of considerable
ability, he was an ear-to-the-ground politician who
*The first party system, marked by doubts about the very legiti- seldom got far out of line with majority opinion. His
macy of parties, embraced the Federalist-Republican clashes cautious, conservative nature caused him to shy
of the 1790s and early 1800s. The second party system took away from the flaming banner of reform. Business
shape after 1828 with the emergence of mass-based politics in was given a free rein, and the trusts, which had
the Jacksonian era, and pitted Democrats against Whigs. The trusted him in 1896, were allowed to develop more
third party system, beginning in 1860, was characterized by mighty muscles without serious restraints.
the precarious equilibrium between Republicans and Demo-
crats, as well as the remarkably high electoral participation Almost as soon as McKinley took office, the tar-
rates that endured from the end of the Civil War to McKinley’s iff issue, which had played second fiddle to silver in
election. The fourth party system is described above. The fifth the “Battle of ’96,” quickly forced itself to the fore.
party system emerged with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in The current Wilson-Gorman law was not raising
the 1930s, initiating a long period of Democratic ascendancy. enough revenue to cover the annual Treasury
Each “system,” with the conspicuous exception of the fifth, deficits, and the Republican trusts thought that they
lasted about three and one-half decades—a cyclical regularity had purchased the right to additional tariff protec-
that has long intrigued political scientists and historians. tion by their lush contributions to Hanna’s war
Debate still rages about whether the country passed into a chest. In due course the Dingley Tariff Bill was
sixth party system with Richard Nixon’s election in 1968. jammed through the House in 1897, under the
pounding gavel of the rethroned “Czar” Reed. The

Chronology 621

proposed new rates were high, but not high enough With the return of prosperity, the money issue
to satisfy the paunchy lobbyists, who once again that had overshadowed politics since the Civil War
descended upon the Senate. Over 850 amendments gradually faded away. The Gold Standard Act of 1900,
were tacked onto the overburdened bill. The result- passed over last-ditch silverite opposition, provided
ing piece of patchwork finally established the aver- that the paper currency be redeemed freely in gold.
age rates at 46.5 percent, substantially higher than Nature and science gradually provided an inflation
the Democratic Wilson-Gorman Act of 1894 and in that the “Gold Bug” East had fought so frantically
some categories even higher than the McKinley Act to prevent. Electrifying discoveries of new gold
of 1890. (See the chart in the Appendix.) deposits in Canada’s fabled Klondike, as well as in
Alaska, South Africa, and Australia, brought huge
Prosperity, long lurking around the corner, quantities of gold onto world markets, as did the
began to return with a rush in 1897, the first year of perfecting of the cheap cyanide process for extract-
McKinley’s term. The depression of 1893 had run its ing gold from low-grade ore. Moderate inflation thus
course, and farm prices rose. Paint-thirsty midwest- took care of the currency needs of an explosively
ern barns blossomed in new colors, and the wheels expanding nation, as its circulatory system greatly
of industry resumed their hum. Republican politi- improved. The tide of “silver heresy” rapidly receded,
cians, like crowing roosters believing they caused and the “Popocratic” fish were left gasping high and
the sun to rise, claimed credit for attracting the sun- dry on a golden-sanded beach.
light of prosperity.

Chronology

c. 1700-1800 New Indian peoples move onto 1889- North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana,
Great Plains 1890 Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming

1858 Pike’s Peak gold rush admitted to the Union

1859 Nevada Comstock Lode discovered 1890 Census Bureau declares frontier line ended
Emergence of People’s party (Populists)
1862 Homestead Act Battle of Wounded Knee

1864 Sand Creek massacre 1892 Populist party candidate James B. Weaver polls
Nevada admitted to the Union more than 1 million votes in presidential
election
1867 National Grange organized
1893 Frederick Jackson Turner publishes “The
1876 Battle of Little Bighorn Significance of the Frontier in American
Colorado admitted to the Union History”

1877 Nez Percé Indian War 1894 “Coxey’s Army” marches on Washington
Pullman strike
1881 Helen Hunt Jackson publishes A Century of
Dishonor 1896 Utah admitted to the Union
McKinley defeats Bryan for presidency
1884 Federal government outlaws Indian Sun Dance
1897 Dingley Tariff Act
1885-
1890 Local chapters of Farmers’ Alliance formed 1900 Gold Standard Act

1887 Dawes Severalty Act 1907 Oklahoma admitted to the Union

1889 Oklahoma opened to settlement 1924 Indians granted U.S. citizenship

1934 Indian Reorganization Act

622 CHAPTER 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1896

VARYING VIEWPOINTS

Was the West Really “Won”?

For more than half a century, the Turner thesis not as the place where “civilization” triumphed over
dominated historical writing about the West. In “savagery,” but as the principal site of interaction
his famous essay of 1893, “The Significance of the between those cultures.
Frontier in American History,” historian Frederick
Jackson Turner argued that the frontier experience Several so-called New Western historians take
molded both region and nation. Not only the West, this argument still further. Scholars such as Patricia
Turner insisted, but the national character had been Nelson Limerick, Richard White, and Donald
uniquely shaped by the westward movement. Pio- Worster suggest that the cultural and ecological
neers had brought the raw West into the embrace of damage inflicted by advancing “civilization” must
civilization. And the struggle to overcome the haz- be reckoned with in any final accounting of what
ards of the western wilderness—including distance, the pioneers accomplished. These same scholars
deserts, drought, and Indians—had transformed insist that the West did not lose its regional identity
Europeans into tough, inventive, and self-reliant after the frontier line was no longer recognizable in
Americans. 1890. The West, they argue, is still a unique part of
the national mosaic, a region whose history, culture,
Turner’s thesis raised a question that Americans and identity remain every bit as distinctive as those
found especially intriguing in 1893. Just three years of New England or the Old South.
earlier, the superintendent of the census declared
that the frontier, defined as a zone with little or no But where Turner saw the frontier as the princi-
settled population, had closed forever. What new pal shaper of the region’s character, the New Western
forces, Turner now asked, would shape a distinctive historians emphasize the effects of ethnic and racial
American national character, now that the testing confrontation, topography, climate, and the roles of
ground of the frontier had been plowed and tamed? government and big business as the factors that have
made the modern West. The New Western historians
Turner’s hypothesis that the American character thus reject Turner’s emphasis on the triumphal civi-
was forged in the western wilderness is surely lizing of the wilderness. As they see the matter, Euro-
among the most provocative statements ever made pean and American settlers did not tame the West,
about the formative influences on the nation’s but rather conquered it, by suppressing the Native
development. But as the frontier era recedes ever American and Hispanic peoples who had preceded
further into the past, scholars are less persuaded them into the region. But those conquests were
that Turner’s thesis adequately explains the national less than complete, so the argument goes, and the
character. American society is still conspicuously West therefore remains, uniquely among American
different from European and other cultures, even regions, an unsettled arena of commingling and
though Turner’s frontier disappeared more than a competition among those groups. Moreover, in
century ago. these accounts the West’s distinctively challenging
climate and geography yielded to human habitation
Modern scholars charge that Turner based his not through the efforts of heroic individual pioneers,
thesis on several questionable assumptions. Histo- but only through massive corporate—and especially
rian David J. Weber, for example, suggests that the federal government—investments in transportation
line of the frontier did not define the quavering edge systems (like the transcontinental railroad) and irri-
of “civilization” but marked the boundary between gation projects (like the watering of California’s Cen-
diverse cultures, each with its own claims to legiti- tral Valley). Such developments still give western life
macy and, indeed, to legitimate possession of the its special character today.
land. The frontier should therefore be understood

For further reading, see page A19 of the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

27

The Path of Empire

ᇻᇾᇻ

1890–1899

We assert that no nation can long endure half republic and half
empire, and we warn the American people that imperialism abroad

will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home.

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PLATFORM, 1900

In the years immediately following the Civil War, Imperialist Stirrings
Americans remained astonishingly indifferent to
the outside world. Enmeshed in struggles over Many developments fed the nation’s ambition for
Reconstruction policies and absorbed in efforts to overseas expansion. Both farmers and factory own-
heal the wounds of war, build an industrial econ- ers began to look beyond American shores as agri-
omy, make their cities habitable, and settle the cultural and industrial production boomed. Many
sprawling West, most citizens took little interest in Americans believed that the United States had to
international affairs. But the sunset decades of the expand or explode. Their country was bursting with
nineteenth century witnessed a momentous shift a new sense of power generated by the robust
in U.S. foreign policy. America’s new diplomacy growth in population, wealth, and productive
reflected the far-reaching changes that were reshap- capacity—and it was trembling from the hammer
ing agriculture, industry, and the social structure. blows of labor violence and agrarian unrest. Over-
American statesmen also responded to the intensi- seas markets might provide a safety valve to relieve
fying scramble of several other nations for interna- those pressures.
tional advantage in the dawning “age of empire.” By
century’s end America itself would become an Other forces also whetted the popular appetite
imperial power, an astonishing departure from its for overseas involvement. The lurid “yellow press”
venerable anticolonial traditions. of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst

623

624 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

described foreign exploits as manly adventures, the upon History, 1660–1783, argued that control of the
kind of dashing derring-do that was the stuff of sea was the key to world dominance. Read by the
young boys’ dreams. Pious missionaries, inspired by English, Germans, and Japanese, as well as by his
books like the Reverend Josiah Strong’s Our Coun- fellow Americans, Mahan helped stimulate the
try: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, looked naval race among the great powers that gained
overseas for new souls to harvest. Strong trumpeted momentum around the turn of the century. Red-
the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization and sum- blooded Americans joined in the demands for a
moned Americans to spread their religion and their mightier navy and for an American-built isthmian
values to the “backward” peoples. He cast his seed canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
on fertile ground. At the same time, aggressive
Americans like Theodore Roosevelt and Congress- America’s new international interest manifested
man Henry Cabot Lodge were interpreting Darwin- itself in several ways. As secretary of state, first in the
ism to mean that the earth belonged to the strong Garfield administration and later in the Harrison
and the fit—that is, to Uncle Sam. This view was administration, James G. Blaine pushed his “Big Sis-
strengthened as latecomers to the colonial scramble ter” policy. It aimed to rally the Latin American
scooped up leavings from the banquet table of nations behind Uncle Sam’s leadership and to open
earlier diners. Africa, previously unexplored and Latin American markets to Yankee traders. Blaine’s
mysterious, was partitioned by the Europeans in the efforts bore modest fruit in 1889, when he presided
1880s in a pell-mell rush of colonial conquest. In the over the first Pan-American Conference, held in
1890s Japan, Germany, and Russia all extorted con- Washington, D.C. Although the frock-coated dele-
cessions from the anemic Chinese Empire. If Amer- gates did little more than sketch a vague plan for
ica was to survive in the competition of modern economic cooperation through reciprocal tariff
nation-states, perhaps it, too, would have to reduction, they succeeded in blazing the way for a
become an imperial power. long and increasingly important series of inter-
American assemblages.
The development of a new steel navy also
focused attention overseas. Captain Alfred Thayer A number of diplomatic crises or near-wars also
Mahan’s book of 1890, The Influence of Sea Power marked the path of American diplomacy in the late
1880s and early 1890s. The American and German

International Interest 625

In 1896 the Washington Post editorialized, The undiplomatic note to Britain by Secretary
of State Richard Olney (1835–1917) read,
“A new consciousness seems to have come “To-day the United States is practically
upon us—the consciousness of strength— sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law
and with it a new appetite, the yearning to upon the subjects to which it confines its
show our strength. . . . Ambition, interest, interposition. . . . Its infinite resources
land hunger, pride, the mere joy of fighting, combined with its isolated position render it
whatever it may be, we are animated by a master of the situation and practically
new sensation. We are face to face with a invulnerable as against any or all other
strange destiny. The taste of Empire is in the powers.”
mouth of the people even as the taste of
blood is in the jungle. It means an Imperial President Cleveland, a champion of righteous-
policy, the Republic, renascent, taking her ness and no lover of Britain, at length decided upon
place with the armed nations.” a strong protest. His no less pugnacious secretary of
state, Richard Olney, was authorized to present to
navies nearly came to blows in 1889 over the far- London a smashing note, which Cleveland later
away Samoan Islands in the South Pacific. The dubbed a “twenty-inch gun” blast. Olney declared in
lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans in 1891 effect that the British, by attempting to dominate
brought America and Italy to the brink of war; the Venezuela in this quarrel and acquire more territory,
crisis was defused when the United States agreed to were flouting the Monroe Doctrine. London should
pay compensation. In the ugliest affair, American therefore submit the dispute to arbitration. Not
demands on Chile after the deaths of two American content to stop there, Olney haughtily informed the
sailors in the port of Valparaiso in 1892 made hostil- world’s number one naval power that the United
ities between the two countries seem inevitable.
The threat of attack by Chile’s modern navy spread The Venezuela–British Guiana Boundary Dispute
alarm on the Pacific Coast, until American power
finally forced the Chileans to pay an indemnity. A Extreme British claim
simmering argument between the United States Extreme Venezuelan claim
and Canada over seal hunting near the Pribilof Final Line
Islands off the coast of Alaska was resolved by arbi-
tration in 1893. The willingness of Americans to risk
war over such distant and minor disputes demon-
strated the aggressive new national mood.

Monroe’s Doctrine and the VENEZUELA
Venezuelan Squall DISPUTED AREA
BRITISH GUIANA
America’s anti-British feeling, which periodically
came to a head, flared ominously in 1895–1896 over Essequibo R. SOUTH
Venezuela. For more than a half-century, the jungle AMERICA
boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela
had been in dispute. The Venezuelans, whose claims BRAZIL DUTCH
on the whole were extravagant, had repeatedly GUIANA
urged arbitration. But the prospect of a peaceful set-
tlement faded when gold was discovered in the con- BRAZIL
tested area.

626 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

States was now calling the tune in the Western Fortunately, sober second thoughts prevailed
Hemisphere. on both sides of the Atlantic. The British, though
vastly annoyed by their upstart cousins, had no real
British officials, unimpressed, took four months urge to fight. Canada was vulnerable to yet-to-be-
to prepare their reply. Preoccupied elsewhere, they raised American armies, and Britain’s rich merchant
were inclined to shrug off Olney’s lengthy salvo as marine was vulnerable to American commerce
just another twist of the lion’s tail designed to elicit raiders. The European atmosphere was menacing,
cheers from Irish-American voters. When London’s for Britain’s traditional policy of “splendid isolation”
answer finally came, it flatly denied the relevance of was bringing insecure isolation. Russia and France
the Monroe Doctrine, while no less emphatically were unfriendly, and Germany, under the saber-
spurning arbitration. In short, said John Bull, the rattling Kaiser Wilhelm II, was about to challenge
affair was none of Uncle Sam’s business. British naval supremacy.

President Cleveland—“mad clear through,” as The German kaiser, blunderingly and unwit-
he put it—sent a bristling special message to Con- tingly, increased chances of a peaceful solution to
gress. He urged an appropriation for a commission the Venezuelan crisis. An unauthorized British raid-
of experts, who would run the line where it ought to ing party of six hundred armed men was captured
go. Then, he implied, if the British would not accept by the Dutch-descended Boers in South Africa, and
this rightful boundary, the United States would fight Wilhelm forthwith cabled his congratulations to the
for it. victors. Overnight, British anger against America
was largely deflected to Germany, and London con-
The entire country, irrespective of political sented to arbitrate the Venezuelan dispute. The final
party, was swept off its feet in an outburst of hyster- decision, ironically, awarded the British the bulk of
ia. War seemed inevitable, even though Britain had what they had claimed from the beginning.
thirty-two warships of the battleship class to only
five flying Old Glory.

The Hawaiian Temptation 627

KAUAI The Pacific
The enlargements show
NIIHAU OAHU the Hawaiian Islands and
MOLOKAI the Samoas, both areas of
American imperialistic
MAUI activity in the late
nineteenth century.
OAHU LANAI Hilo
KAHOOLAWE Bay

Pearl Honolulu HAWAII

Harbor
Diamond Head

San Francisco UNITED STATES

TAIWAN Hawaiian Islands

PHILIPPINES

PACIFIC OCEAN

BORNEO NEW GUINEA 171°
INDONESIA SAMOA
Apia
Harbor

SAVAII TUTUILA MANUA IS.

UPOLU Pago Pago Sand I.
171° Harbor Rose I.
AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND

GERMAN SAMOA AMERICAN SAMOA

America had skated close to the thin ice of a ter- way station and provisioning point for Yankee ship-
rible war, but the results on the whole were favor- pers, sailors, and whalers. In 1820 came the first
able. The prestige of the Monroe Doctrine was New England missionaries, who preached the twin
immensely enhanced. Europe was irked by Cleve- blessings of Protestant Christianity and protective
land’s claim to domination in this hemisphere, but calico. They came to do good—and did well; their
he had made his claim stick. Many Latin American children did even better. In some respects Honolulu
republics were pleased by the determination of the took on the earmarks of a typical New England
United States to protect them, and when Cleveland town.
died in 1908, some of them lowered their flags to
half-mast. Americans gradually came to regard the Hawai-
ian Islands as a virtual extension of their own coast-
The chastened British, their eyes fully opened to line. The State Department, beginning in the 1840s,
the European peril, were now determined to culti- sternly warned other powers to keep their grasping
vate Yankee friendship. The British inaugurated an hands off. America’s grip was further tightened in
era of “patting the eagle’s head,” which replaced a 1875 by a commercial reciprocity agreement and in
century or so of America’s “twisting the lion’s tail.” 1887 by a treaty with the native government guaran-
Sometimes called the Great Rapprochement—or teeing priceless naval-base rights at spacious Pearl
reconciliation—between the United States and Harbor.
Britain, the new Anglo-American cordiality became
a cornerstone of both nations’ foreign policies as But trouble, both economic and political, was
the twentieth century opened. brewing in the insular paradise. Sugar cultivation,
which had become immensely profitable, went
Spurning the Hawaiian Pear somewhat sour in 1890 when the McKinley Tariff
raised barriers against the Hawaiian product. White
Enchanted Hawaii had early attracted the attention planters, mostly Americans, quickly concluded that
of Americans. In the morning years of the nine- the best way to overcome the tariff was to annex
teenth century, the breeze-brushed islands were a Hawaii to the United States. But that ambition was
blocked by the strong-willed Queen Liliuokalani,
who insisted that native Hawaiians should control
the islands. Desperate whites, though only a tiny

628 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

revealed the damning fact that a majority of the
Hawaiian natives did not favor annexation at all. But
the white revolutionists were firmly in the saddle,
and Cleveland could not unhorse them without
using armed force—a step American public opinion
would not have tolerated. Although Queen Lili-
uokalani could not be reinstated, the sugarcoated
move for annexation had to be abandoned tem-
porarily—until 1898.

The question of annexing Hawaii touched off
the first full-fledged imperialistic debate in Ameri-
can experience. Cleveland was savagely criticized
for trying to stem the new Manifest Destiny, and a
popular jingle ran,

. . . Liliuokalani,
Give us your little brown hannie.

But Cleveland’s motives, in a day of international
land-grabbing, were honorable both to himself and
to his country. The Hawaiian pear continued to
ripen for five more years.

Cubans Rise in Revolt

minority, organized a successful revolt early in 1893. Cuba’s masses, frightfully misgoverned, again rose
It was openly assisted by American troops, who against their Spanish oppressor in 1895. The roots of
landed under the unauthorized orders of the expan- their revolt were partly economic, with partial ori-
sionist American minister in Honolulu. “The Hawai- gins in the United States. Sugar production—the
ian pear is now fully ripe,” he wrote exultantly to his backbone of the island’s prosperity—was crippled
superiors in Washington, “and this is the golden when the American tariff of 1894 restored high
hour for the United States to pluck it.” duties on the toothsome product.

Hawaii, like Texas of earlier years, seemed ready Driven to desperation, the insurgents now
for annexation—at least in the eyes of the ruling adopted a scorched-earth policy. They reasoned
American whites. An appropriate treaty was rushed to that if they did enough damage, Spain might be will-
Washington. But before it could be railroaded through ing to move out. Or the United States might move in
the Senate, Republican president Harrison’s term and help the Cubans win their independence. In
expired and Democratic president Cleveland came in. pursuance of this destructive strategy, the insurrec-
“Old Grover,” who set great store by “national hon- tos torched canefields and sugar mills; they even
esty,” suspected that his powerful nation had gravely dynamited passenger trains.
wronged the deposed Queen Liliuokalani.
American sympathies, ever on the side of patri-
Cleveland abruptly withdrew the treaty from ots fighting for freedom, went out to the Cuban
the Senate early in 1893 and then sent a special underdogs. Aside from pure sentiment, the United
investigator to Hawaii. The subsequent probe States had an investment stake of about $50 million
in Cuba and an annual trade stake of about $100 mil-
lion. Moreover, Spanish misrule in Cuba menaced
the shipping routes of the West Indies and the Gulf of
Mexico, and less directly the future isthmian canal.

Fuel was added to the Cuban conflagration in
1896 with the coming of the Spanish general

Concern over Cuba 629

(“Butcher”) Weyler. He undertook to crush the rebel- The Mystery of the
lion by herding many civilians into barbed-wire Maine Explosion
reconcentration camps, where they could not give
assistance to the armed insurrectos. Lacking proper Atrocities in Cuba were made to order for the sensa-
sanitation, these enclosures turned into deadly pest- tional new “yellow journalism.” William R. Hearst
holes; the victims died like dogs. and Joseph Pulitzer, then engaged in a titanic duel
for circulation, attempted to outdo each other with
An outraged American public demanded screeching headlines and hair-raising “scoops.”
action. Congress in 1896 overwhelmingly passed a Lesser competitors zestfully followed suit.
resolution that called upon President Cleveland to
recognize the belligerency of the revolted Cubans. Where atrocity stories did not exist, they were
But as the government of the insurgents consisted invented. Hearst sent the gifted artist Frederic Rem-
of hardly more than a few fugitive leaders, Cleve- ington to Cuba to draw sketches, and when the lat-
land—an antijingoist and anti-imperialist—refused ter reported that conditions were not bad enough to
to budge. He defiantly vowed that if Congress warrant hostilities, Hearst is alleged to have replied,
declared war, the commander in chief would not “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
issue the necessary order to mobilize the army.

630 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

Among other outrages, Remington depicted Span- that the explosion had been internal and presum-
ish customs officials brutally disrobing and search- ably accidental; the American commission reported
ing an American woman. Most readers of Hearst’s that the blast had been caused by a submarine mine.
Journal, their indignation soaring, had no way of Washington, not unmindful of popular indignation,
knowing that such tasks were performed by female spurned Spanish proposals of arbitration.
attendants. “Butcher” Weyler was removed in 1897,
yet conditions steadily worsened. There was some Various theories have been advanced as to how
talk in Spain of granting the restive island a type of the Maine was blown up. The least convincing
self-government, but such a surrender was so bit- explanation of all is that the Spanish officials in
terly opposed by many Spaniards in Cuba that they Cuba were guilty, for they were under the American
engaged in furious riots. Early in 1898 Washington gun and Spain was far away. Not until 1976 did
sent the battleship Maine to Cuba, ostensibly for a Admiral H. G. Rickover, under U.S. Navy auspices,
“friendly visit” but actually to protect and evacuate give what appears to be the final answer. He pre-
Americans if a dangerous flare-up should again sented overwhelming evidence that the initial
occur. explosion had resulted from spontaneous combus-
tion in one of the coal bunkers adjacent to a powder
This already explosive situation suddenly grew magazine. Ironically, this is essentially what the
acute on February 9, 1898, when Hearst sensation- Spanish commission had deduced in 1898.
ally headlined a private letter written by the Spanish
minister in Washington, Dupuy de Lôme. The indis- But Americans in 1898, now war-mad, blindly
creet epistle, which had been stolen from the mails, accepted the least likely explanation. Lashed to fury
described President McKinley as an ear-to-the- by the yellow press, they leapt to the conclusion that
ground politician who lacked good faith. The result- the Spanish government had been guilty of intolera-
ing uproar was so violent that Dupuy de Lôme was ble treachery. The battle cry of the hour became,
forced to resign.
Remember the Maine!
A tragic climax came a few days later, on Febru- To hell with Spain!
ary 15, 1898, when the Maine mysteriously blew up
in Havana harbor, with a loss of 260 officers and Nothing would do but to hurl the “dirty” Spanish
men. Two investigations of the iron coffin were flag from the hemisphere.
undertaken, one by U.S. naval officers, and the other
by Spanish officials, whom the Americans would not McKinley Unleashes the Dogs of War
trust near the wreck. The Spanish commission stated
The national war fever burned higher, even though
Many Spaniards felt that accusations about American diplomats had already gained Madrid’s
their blowing up the Maine reflected on agreement to Washington’s two basic demands: an
Spanish honor. One Madrid newspaper end to the reconcentration camps and an armistice
spoke up: with Cuban rebels. The cautious McKinley did not
want hostilities. The hesitant chief executive was
“The American jingoes . . . imagine us capable condemned by jingoes as “Wobbly Willie” McKinley,
of the most foul villainies and cowardly ac- while fight-hungry Theodore Roosevelt reportedly
tions. Scoundrels by nature, the American snarled that the “white-livered” occupant of the
jingoes believe that all men are made like White House did not have “the backbone of a
themselves. What do they know about noble chocolate éclair.” The president, whose shaken
and generous feelings? . . . We should not in nerves required sleeping pills, was even being
any way heed the jingoes: they are not even hanged in effigy. Many critics did not realize that
worth our contempt, or the saliva with which backbone was needed to stay out of war, not to
we might honor them in spitting at their plunge into it.
faces.”
McKinley’s private desires clashed sharply with
opinions now popular with the public. He did not
want hostilities, for he had seen enough bloodshed
as a major in the Civil War. Mark Hanna and Wall

The Spanish-American War 631

Street did not want war, for business might be glorious empire than to break up the Grand Old
unsettled. But the public, prodded by the yellow Party—especially since war seemed inevitable.
press and the appeals of Cuban exiles in the United
States, clamored for a fight. The president, recogniz- On April 11, 1898, McKinley sent his war mes-
ing the inevitable, finally yielded and gave the peo- sage to Congress, urging armed intervention to free
ple what they wanted. the oppressed Cubans. The legislators responded
uproariously with what was essentially a declaration
But public pressures did not fully explain of war. In a burst of self-righteousness, they likewise
McKinley’s course. He had no faith in Spain’s adopted the hand-tying Teller Amendment. This
promises regarding Cuba; Madrid had spoken them proviso proclaimed to the world that when the
and broken them before. He was certain that a United States had overthrown Spanish misrule, it
showdown would have to come sooner or later. He would give the Cubans their freedom—a declara-
believed in the democratic principle that the people tion that caused imperialistic Europeans to smile
should rule, and he hesitated to deny Americans skeptically.
what they demanded—even if it was not good for
them. He also perceived that if he stood out against Dewey’s May Day Victory at Manila
war, the Democrats would make political capital out
of his stubbornness. Bryan might sweep into the The American people plunged into the war light-
presidency two years later under a banner inscribed heartedly, like schoolchildren off to a picnic. Bands
“Free Cuba and Free Silver.” Gold-standard McKin- blared incessantly “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old
ley was a staunch party man, and to him it seemed
better to break up the remnants of Spain’s once-

632 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

Town Tonight” and “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here,” The readiness of the navy owed much to two
thus leading foreigners to believe that those were men: the easygoing navy secretary John D. Long and
national anthems. his bellicose assistant secretary Theodore Roosevelt.
The secretary hardly dared leave his desk for fear
But such jubilation seemed premature to Euro- that his overzealous underling would stir up a hor-
pean observers. The regular army, which was com- net’s nest. On February 25, 1898, while Long was
manded by corpulent Civil War oldsters, was away for a weekend, Roosevelt had cabled Com-
unprepared for a war under tropical skies. It num- modore George Dewey, commanding the American
bered only 2,100 officers and 28,000 men, as com- Asiatic Squadron at Hong Kong, to descend upon
pared with some 200,000 Spanish troops in Cuba. Spain’s Philippines in the event of war. McKinley
The American navy, at least to transatlantic experts, subsequently confirmed these instructions, even
seemed slightly less powerful than Spain’s. Euro- though an attack in the distant Far East seemed like
pean powers, moreover, were generally friendly to a strange way to free nearby Cuba.
their Old World associate. The only conspicuous
exception was the ally-seeking British, who now Dewey carried out his orders magnificently on
were ardently wooing their American cousins. May 1, 1898. Sailing boldly with his six warships at
night into the fortified harbor of Manila, he trained
Yet in one important respect, Spain’s apparent his guns the next morning on the ten-ship Spanish
superiority was illusory. Its navy, though formidable fleet, one of whose craft was only a moored hulk
on paper, was in wretched condition. It labored under without functioning engines. The entire collection
the added handicap of having to operate thousands of of antiquated and overmatched vessels was quickly
miles from its home base. But the new American steel destroyed, with a loss of nearly four hundred
navy, now fifteen years old and ranking about fifth Spaniards killed and wounded, and without the loss
among the fleets of the world, was in fairly good trim, of a single life in Dewey’s fleet. An American consul
though the war was to lay bare serious defects. who was there wrote that all the American sailors
needed was cough drops for throats made raw by
Dewey’s Route in the Philippines, 1898 cheers of victory.

CHINA Hong Kong FORMOSA Unexpected Imperialistic Plums
Hainan (Br.) (TAIWAN)
(Japanese) Taciturn George Dewey became a national hero
Dewey overnight. He was promptly promoted to the rank of
PACIFIC admiral, as the price of flags rose sharply. An ama-
OCEAN teur poet blossomed forth with this:

FRENCH Luzon Oh, dewy was the morning
INDOCHINA PHILIPPINE Upon the first of May,
ISLANDS And Dewey was the Admiral,
Down in Manila Bay.
Manila And dewy were the Spaniards’ eyes,
Them orbs of black and blue;
South And dew we feel discouraged?
China I dew not think we dew!

Sea Yet Dewey was in a perilous position. He had
destroyed the enemy fleet, but he could not storm
BRITISH Sulu Mindanao the forts of Manila with his sailors. His nerves
NORTH Sea frayed, he was forced to wait in the steaming-hot
BORNEO bay while troop reinforcements were slowly assem-
Bataan Manila surrenders bled in America.
SARAWAK Aug. 13, 1898
(Br.)
Manila
NETHERLANDS Bay Manila
EAST INDIES
Corregidor
Dewey Spanish fleet
destroyed

May 1, 1898

Dewey in the Philippines 633

Foreign warships meanwhile had begun to the vengeance of Spain. But an appreciative Ameri-
gather in the harbor, ostensibly to safeguard their can public would not leave Dewey in the lurch. A
nationals in Manila. The Germans sent five vessels— joint resolution of annexation was rushed through
a naval force more powerful than Dewey’s—and Congress and approved by McKinley on July 7, 1898.
their haughty admiral defied the American blockade
regulations. After several disagreeable incidents, The residents of Hawaii were granted U.S. citi-
Dewey lost his temper and threatened the arrogant zenship with annexation and received full territorial
German with war “as soon as you like.” Happily, the status in 1900. These events in the idyllic islands,
storm blew over. The British commander, by con- though seemingly sudden, were but the culmina-
trast, was conspicuously successful in carrying out tion of nearly a century of Americanization by
London’s new policy of friendliness. A false tale sub- sailors, whalers, traders, and missionaries.
sequently circulated that the British dramatically
interposed their ships to prevent the Germans from The Confused Invasion
blowing the Americans out of the water. of Cuba

Long-awaited American troops, finally arriving Shortly after the outbreak of war, the Spanish gov-
in force, captured Manila on August 13, 1898. They ernment ordered a fleet of warships to Cuba. It was
collaborated with the Filipino insurgents, com- commanded by Admiral Cervera, who protested
manded by their well-educated, part-Chinese that his wretchedly prepared ships were flirting with
leader, Emilio Aguinaldo. Dewey, to his later regret, suicide. Four armored cruisers finally set forth (one
had brought this shrewd and magnetic revolution- without its main battery of guns). They were accom-
ary from exile in Asia, so that he might weaken panied by six torpedo boats, three of which had to
Spanish resistance. be abandoned en route.

These thrilling events in the Philippines had Panic seized the eastern seaboard of the United
meanwhile focused attention on Hawaii. An impres- States. American vacationers abandoned their sea-
sion spread that America needed the archipelago as shore cottages, while nervous investors moved their
a coaling and provisioning way station, in order to securities to inland depositories. Demands for pro-
send supplies and reinforcements to Dewey. The tection poured in on Washington from nervous
truth is that the United States could have used these citizens, and the Navy Department was forced to
island “Crossroads of the Pacific” without annexing dispatch some useless old Civil War ships to useless
them, so eager was the white-dominated Honolulu
government to compromise its neutrality and risk

634 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

places for morale purposes. Cervera finally found ried about on a door. The ill-prepared Americans
refuge in bottle-shaped Santiago harbor, Cuba, were unequipped for war in the tropics; they had
where he was blockaded by the much more power- been amply provided with heavy woolen underwear
ful American fleet. and uniforms designed for subzero operations
against the Indians.
Sound strategy seemed to dictate that an Ameri-
can army be sent in from the rear to drive out The “Rough Riders,” a part of the invading army,
Cervera. Leading the invading force was the grossly now charged onto the stage of history. This colorful
overweight General William R. Shafter, a leader so regiment of volunteers, short on discipline but long
blubbery and gout-stricken that he had to be car- on dash, consisted largely of western cowboys and
other hardy characters, with a sprinkling of ex–polo
With a mixture of modesty and immodesty, players and ex-convicts. Commanded by Colonel
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) Leonard Wood, the group was organized principally
wrote privately in 1903 of his “Rough Riders,” by the glory-hungry Theodore Roosevelt, who had
“In my regiment nine-tenths of the men were resigned from the Navy Department to serve as lieu-
better horsemen than I was, and probably tenant colonel. Although totally without military
two-thirds of them better shots than I was, experience, he used his strong political pull to
while on the average they were certainly secure his commission and to bypass physical stan-
hardier and more enduring. Yet after I had dards. He was so nearsighted that as a safeguard he
had them a very short while they all knew, took along a dozen pairs of spectacles, cached in
and I knew too, that nobody else could handy spots on his person or nearby.
command them as I could.”
About the middle of June, a bewildered Amer-
ican army of seventeen thousand men finally
embarked at congested Tampa, Florida, amid
scenes of indescribable confusion. The Rough
Riders, fearing that they would be robbed of glory,
rushed one of the transports and courageously held

Victory over Spain 635

their place for almost a week in the broiling tropical threw more metal than his four armored cruisers
sun. About half of them finally got to Cuba without combined. After a running chase, on July 3 the
most of their horses, and the bowlegged regiment
then came to be known as “Wood’s Weary Walkers.” UNITED STATES American forces
Spanish forces
Shafter’s landing near Santiago, Cuba, was Gulf of Tampa American victories
made without serious opposition. Defending Span- Mexico FLORIDA U.S. naval blockade
iards, even more disorganized than the Americans, Spanish possessions
were unable to muster at this spot more than two
thousand men. Brisk fighting broke out on July 1 at USS Maine sunk BAHAMAS
El Caney and San Juan Hill, up which Colonel Roo- Feb. 1898 (Br.)
sevelt and his horseless Rough Riders charged, with
strong support from two crack black regiments. Havana ATLANTIC
They suffered heavy casualties, but the colorful OCEAN
colonel, having the time of his life, shot a Spaniard CUBA
with his revolver, and rejoiced to see his victim dou- Santiago PUERTO
ble up like a jackrabbit. He later wrote a book on RICO
his exploits, which the famed satirist, “Mr. Dooley” HAITI DOMINICAN
remarked, ought to have been entitled Alone in REPUBLIC
Cubia [sic]. JAMAICA
(Br.)
Curtains for Spain in America
Caribbean Santiago El Caney
The American army, fast closing in on Santiago, Sea July 1, 1898
spelled doom for the Spanish fleet. Admiral Cervera,
again protesting against suicide, was flatly ordered Santiago Kettle Hill
to fight for the honor of the flag. The odds against Harbor July 1, 1898
him were heavy: the guns of the USS Oregon alone
San Juan Hill
July 1, 1898

Spanish fleet destroyed
July 3, 1898

The Cuban Campaign, 1898

636 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

foul-bottomed Spanish fleet was entirely destroyed, three senators, who would have a final vote on their
as the wooden decks caught fire and the blazing own handiwork. War-racked Cuba, as expected, was
infernos were beached. About five hundred freed from its Spanish overlords. The Americans had
Spaniards were killed, as compared with one death little difficulty in securing the remote Pacific island
for the Americans. “Don’t cheer, men,” admonished of Guam, which they had captured early in the con-
Captain Philip of the Texas. “The poor devils are flict from astonished Spaniards who, lacking a cable,
dying.” Shortly thereafter Santiago surrendered. had not known that a war was on. They also picked
up Puerto Rico, the last remnant of what had
Hasty preparations were now made for a descent been Spain’s vast New World empire. In the decades
upon Puerto Rico before the war should end. The to come, American investment in the island and
American army, commanded by the famed Indian- Puerto Rican immigration to the United States
fighter General Nelson A. Miles, met little resistance, would make this acquisition one of the weightier
as most of the population greeted the invaders as consequences of this somewhat carefree war
liberating heroes. “Mr. Dooley” was led to refer to (see “Makers of America: The Puerto Ricans,”
“Gin’ral Miles’ Gran’ Picnic an’ Moonlight Excur- pp. 640–641).
sion.” By this time Spain had satisfied its honor, and
on August 12, 1898, it signed an armistice. Knottiest of all was the problem of the Philip-
pines, a veritable apple of discord. These lush
If the Spaniards had held out a few months islands not only embraced an area larger than the
longer in Cuba, the American army might have British Isles but also contained a completely alien
melted away. The inroads of malaria, typhoid, population of some 7 million souls. McKinley was
dysentery, and yellow fever became so severe confronted with a devil’s dilemma. He did not feel
that hundreds were incapacitated—“an army of that America could honorably give the islands back
convalescents.” Others suffered from odorous to Spanish misrule, especially after it had fought a
canned meat known as “embalmed beef.” Fiery and
insubordinate Colonel Roosevelt, who had no regu-
lar military career to jeopardize, was a ringleader in
making “round-robin”* demands on Washington
that the army be moved before it perished. About
twenty-five thousand men, 80 percent of them ill,
were transferred to chilly Long Island, where their
light summer clothing finally arrived.

One of the war’s worst scandals was the high
death rate from sickness, especially typhoid fever.
This disease was rampant in the unsanitary training
camps in the United States. All told, nearly four
hundred men lost their lives to bullets; over five
thousand succumbed to bacteria and other causes.

McKinley Heeds Duty,
Destiny, and Dollars

Late in 1898 the Spanish and American negotiators
met in Paris, there to begin heated discussions.
McKinley had sent five commissioners, including

*A “round robin” is a document signed in circular form around
the edges so that no one person can be identified (and pun-
ished) as the first signer.

The Anti-Imperialist Movement 637

President William McKinley (1843–1901) Street had generally opposed the war, but awakened
later described his decision to annex the by the booming of Dewey’s guns, it was clamoring
Philippines: for profits in the Philippines. “If this be commercial-
“When next I realized that the Philippines had ism,” cried Mark Hanna, then “for God’s sake let us
dropped into our laps, I confess I did not have commercialism.”
know what to do with them. . . . I went down
on my knees and prayed Almighty God for A tormented McKinley, so he was later reported
light and guidance. . . . And one night late it as saying, finally went down on his knees seeking
came to me this way. . . . That there was divine guidance. An inner voice seemed to tell him
nothing left for us to do but to take them all, to take all the Philippines and Christianize and civi-
and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and lize them. This solution apparently coincided with
civilize and Christianize them and by God’s the demands of the American people as well as with
grace do the very best we could by them, as the McKinley-Hanna outlook. The mixture of things
our fellow men, for whom Christ also died. spiritual and material in McKinley’s reasoning was
And then I went to bed and went to sleep, later slyly summarized by a historian: “God directs
and slept soundly.” us—perhaps it will pay.” Profits thus joined hands
with piety.
war to free Cuba. And America would be turning its
back upon its responsibilities in a cowardly fashion, Fresh disputes broke out with the Spanish
he believed, if it simply pulled up anchor and sailed negotiators in Paris, once McKinley had reached
away. the thorny decision to keep the Philippines. Manila
had been captured the day after the armistice was
McKinley viewed other alternatives open to him signed, and the islands could not properly be listed
as trouble-fraught. The Filipinos, if left to govern among the spoils of war. The deadlock was broken
themselves, might fall into anarchy. One of the when the Americans at length agreed to pay Spain
major powers, possibly aggressive Germany, might $20 million for the Philippine Islands—one of the
then try to seize them, and the result might be a best bargains the Spaniards ever drove and their
world war into which the United States would be last great haul from the New World. House Speaker
sucked. Seemingly the least of the evils consistent “Czar” Reed sneered at America’s having acquired
with national honor and safety was to acquire all the millions of Malays, at three dollars a head, “in the
Philippines and then perhaps give the Filipinos bush.” He resigned in protest against America’s new
their freedom later. imperial adventure.

President McKinley, ever sensitive to public America’s Course (Curse?) of Empire
opinion, kept a carefully attuned ear to the ground.
The rumble that he heard seemed to call for the The signing of the pact of Paris touched off one of
entire group of islands. Zealous Protestant mission- the most impassioned debates in American history.
aries were eager for new converts from Spanish Except for glacial Alaska, coral-reefed Hawaii, and a
Catholicism,* and the invalid Mrs. McKinley, to handful of Pacific atolls acquired mostly for whaling
whom her husband was devoted, expressed deep stations, the Republic had hitherto acquired only
concern about the welfare of the Filipinos. Wall contiguous territory on the continent. All previous
acquisitions had been thinly peopled and capable
*The Philippines had been substantially Christianized by of ultimate statehood. But in the Philippines, the
Catholics before the founding of Jamestown in 1607. nation had on its hands a distant tropical area,
thickly populated by Asians of alien race, culture,
tongue, religion, and government institutions.

The Anti-Imperialist League sprang into being
to fight the McKinley administration’s expansionist
moves. The organization counted among its mem-
bers some of the most prominent people in the

638 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

United States, including the presidents of Stanford pel the United States into the political and military
and Harvard Universities, the philosopher William cauldron of the Far East.
James, and the novelist Mark Twain. The anti-
imperialist blanket even stretched over such Yet the expansionists or imperialists could sing
strange bedfellows as the labor leader Samuel a seductive song. They appealed to patriotism and
Gompers and steel titan Andrew Carnegie. “God- to the glory of annexation—“don’t let any dastard
damn the United States for its vile conduct in the dishonor the flag by hauling it down.” Stressing the
Philippine Isles!” burst out the usually mild- opportunities for exploiting the islands, they played
mannered Professor James. The Harvard philoso- up possible trade profits. Manila, in fact, might
pher could not believe that the United States could become another Hong Kong. The richer the natural
“puke up its ancient soul in five minutes without a resources of the islands appeared to be, the less
wink of squeamishness.” capable of self-government the Filipinos seemed to
be. Rudyard Kipling, the British poet laureate of
Anti-imperialists had still other arrows in their imperialism, urged America down the slippery path:
quiver. The Filipinos panted for freedom, and to
annex them would violate the “consent of the gov- Take up the White Man’s burden—
erned” philosophy in the Declaration of Inde- Ye dare not stoop to less—
pendence. Despotism abroad might well beget Nor call too loud on Freedom
despotism at home. Finally, annexation would pro- To cloak your weariness.

The Burdens of Empire 639

In short, the wealthy Americans must help to uplift ipinos and Puerto Ricans might be subject to Ameri-
(and exploit) the underprivileged, underfed, and can rule, but they did not enjoy all American rights.
underclad of the world.
Cuba, scorched and chaotic, presented another
In the Senate the Spanish treaty ran into such headache. An American military government, set up
heated opposition that it seemed doomed to defeat. under the administrative genius of General Leonard
But at this juncture the silverite Bryan unexpectedly Wood of Rough Rider fame, wrought miracles in
sallied forth as its champion. As a Democratic vol- government, finance, education, agriculture, and
unteer colonel whom the Republicans had kept out public health. Under his leadership a frontal attack
of Cuba, he apparently had no reason to help the was launched on yellow fever. Spectacular experi-
McKinley administration out of a hole. But free sil- ments were performed by Dr. Walter Reed and oth-
ver was dead as a political issue. Bryan’s foes ers upon American soldiers, who volunteered as
assumed that he was preparing to fasten the stigma human guinea pigs, and the stegomyia mosquito
of imperialism on the Republicans and then sweep was proved to be the lethal carrier. A cleanup of
into the presidency in 1900 under the flaming ban- breeding places for mosquitoes wiped out yellow
ner of anti-imperialism. fever in Havana, while removing the recurrent fear
of epidemics in cities of the South and Atlantic
Bryan could support the treaty on plausible seaboard.
grounds. He argued that the war would not officially
end until America had ratified the pact. It already had The United States, honoring its self-denying
the islands on its hands, and the sooner it accepted Teller Amendment of 1898, withdrew from Cuba in
the document, the sooner it could give the Filipinos 1902. Old World imperialists could scarcely believe
their independence. After Bryan had used his per- their eyes. But the Washington government could
sonal influence with certain Democratic senators, the not turn this rich and strategic island completely
treaty was approved on February 6, 1899, with only loose on the international sea; a grasping power like
one vote to spare. But the responsibility, as Bryan had Germany might secure dangerous lodgment near
foreseen, rested primarily with the Republicans. America’s soft underbelly. The Cubans were there-
fore forced to write into their own constitution of
Perplexities in Puerto Rico and Cuba 1901 the so-called Platt Amendment.

Many of Puerto Rico’s 1 million inhabitants lived in The hated restriction severely hobbled the
poverty. The island’s population grew faster than its Cubans. They reluctantly bound themselves not to
economy. By the Foraker Act of 1900, Congress impair their independence by treaty or by contract-
accorded the Puerto Ricans a limited degree of pop- ing a debt beyond their resources. They further
ular government and, in 1917, granted them U.S. agreed that the United States might intervene with
citizenship. Although the American regime worked troops to restore order and to provide mutual pro-
wonders in education, sanitation, transportation, tection. Finally, the Cubans promised to sell or lease
and other tangible improvements, many of the needed coaling or naval stations, ultimately two and
inhabitants still aspired to independence. Great then only one (Guantanamo), to their powerful
numbers of Puerto Ricans ultimately moved to New “benefactor.” The United States still occupies its
York City, where they added to the diversity of its twenty-eight-thousand-acre beachhead under an
immigrant culture. agreement that can be revoked only by the consent
of both parties.
A thorny legal problem was posed by the ques-
tions, Did the Constitution follow the flag? Did New Horizons in Two Hemispheres
American laws, including tariff laws and the Bill of
Rights, apply with full force to the newly acquired In essence, the Spanish-American War was a kind of
possessions? Beginning in 1901 with the Insular colossal coming-out party. Despite a common mis-
Cases, a badly divided Supreme Court decreed, in conception, the conflict did not cause the United
effect, that the flag did outrun the Constitution, and States to become a world power. Dewey’s thunder-
that the outdistanced document did not necessarily ing guns merely advertised the fact that the nation
extend with full force to the new windfalls. The Fil- was already a world power.

The Puerto Ricans ployed large numbers of people. With almost no
industry to provide wage labor, Puerto Rico’s unem-
A t dawn on July 26, 1898, the U.S. warship ployment rate soared.
Gloucester steamed into Puerto Rico’s Guánica
harbor, fired at the Spanish blockhouse, and landed Thus when Congress finally granted Puerto
some thirty-three hundred troops. Within days the Ricans U.S. citizenship in 1917, thereby eliminating
Americans had taken possession of the militarily immigration hurdles, many islanders hurried north
strategic Caribbean island a thousand miles south- to find jobs. Over the ensuing decades, Puerto
east of Florida. In so doing they set in motion Ricans went to work in Arizona cotton fields, New
changes on the island that ultimately brought a new Jersey soup factories, and Utah mines. The majority,
wave of immigrants to U.S. shores. however, clustered in New York City and found work
in the city’s cigar factories, shipyards, and garment
Puerto Rico had been a Spanish possession industry. Migration slowed somewhat after the
since Christopher Columbus claimed it for Castile 1920s as the Great Depression shrank the job mar-
in 1493. The Spaniards enslaved many of the island’s ket on the mainland and as World War II made travel
forty thousand Taino Indians and set them to work hazardous.
on farms and in mines. Many Tainos died of exhaus-
tion and disease, and in 1511 the Indians rebelled.
The Spaniards crushed the uprising, killed thou-
sands of Indians, and began importing African
slaves—thus establishing the basis for Puerto Rico’s
multiracial society.

The first Puerto Rican immigrants to the United
States arrived as political exiles in the nineteenth
century. From their haven in America, they agitated
for the island’s independence from Spain. In 1897
Spain finally granted the island local autonomy;
ironically, however, the Spanish-American War the
following year placed it in American hands. Puerto
Rican political émigrés in the United States returned
home, but they were soon replaced by poor
islanders looking for work.

Changing conditions in Puerto Rico after the
U.S. takeover had driven these new immigrants
north. Although slow to grant Puerto Ricans U.S. cit-
izenship, the Americans quickly improved health
and sanitation on the island, triggering a population
surge in the early twentieth century. At the same
time, growing monopoly control of Puerto Rico’s
sugar cane plantations undermined the island’s
subsistence economy, and a series of hurricanes
devastated the coffee plantations that had em-

640

When World War II ended in 1945, the sudden This transience worked to keep Puerto Ricans’
advent of cheap air travel sparked an immigration educational attainment and English proficiency far
explosion. As late as the 1930s, the tab for a boat trip below the national average. At the same time, the
to the mainland exceeded the average Puerto immigrants encountered a deep-seated racism in
Rican’s yearly earnings. But with an airplane surplus America unlike anything on their multiracial island.
after World War II, the six-hour flight from Puerto Throughout the postwar years, Puerto Ricans
Rico to New York cost under fifty dollars. The Puerto remained one of the poorest groups in the United
Rican population on the mainland quadrupled States, with a median family income below that of
between 1940 and 1950 and tripled again by 1960. In African-Americans and Mexican-Americans.
1970, 1.5 million Puerto Ricans lived in the United
States, one-third of the island’s total population. Still, Puerto Ricans have fared better economi-
cally in the United States than on the island, where,
U.S. citizenship and affordable air travel made it in 1970, 60 percent of all inhabitants lived below the
easy for Puerto Ricans to return home. Thus to a far poverty line. In recent years Puerto Ricans have
greater degree than most immigrant groups, Puerto attained more schooling, and many have attended
Ricans kept one foot in the United States and the college. Invigorated by the civil rights movement of
other on their native island. By some estimates, 2 the 1960s, Puerto Ricans also became more politi-
million people a year journeyed to and from the cally active, electing growing numbers of congress-
island during the postwar period. Puerto Rico’s men and state and city officials.
gubernatorial candidates sometimes campaigned
in New York for the thousands of voters who were
expected to return to the island in time for the
election.

641

642 CHAPTER 27 The Path of Empire, 1890–1899

Three years after the Spanish-American War
ended, a foreign diplomat in Washington
remarked,
“I have seen two Americas, the America
before the Spanish American War and the
America since.”

The war itself was short (113 days), spectacular, An exhilarating new spirit thrilled America,
low in casualties, and uninterruptedly successful— buoyed along by the newly popular military march-
despite the bungling. American prestige rose ing-band music of John Philip Sousa. National pride
sharply, and the European powers grudgingly was touched and cockiness was increased by what
accorded the Republic more respect. In Germany John Hay called a “splendid little war.”* Enthusiasm
Prince Bismarck reportedly growled that there was a over these triumphs made easier the rush down the
special Providence that looked after drunkards, thorny path of empire. America did not start the war
fools, and the United States of America. At times it with imperialistic motives, but after falling through
seemed as though not only Providence but the the cellar door of imperialism in a drunken fit of
Spaniards were fighting on the side of the Yankees. idealism, it wound up with imperialistic and colo-
So great, in fact, was America’s good fortune that nial fruits in its grasp. The much-criticized British
rejoicing citizens found in the victories further sup- imperialists were pleased, partly because of the
port—misleading support—for their indifference to newfound friendship, partly because misery loves
adequate preparedness. company. But America’s German rival was envious,
and Latin American neighbors were deeply suspi-
cious of Yankee greed.

By taking on the Philippine Islands, the United
States became a full-fledged Far Eastern power.
Hereafter these distant islands were to be a “heel of
Achilles”—a kind of indefensible hostage given to
Japan, as events proved in 1941. With singular short-
sightedness, the Americans assumed dangerous
commitments that they were later unwilling to
defend by proper naval and military outlays.

But the lessons of unpreparedness were not
altogether lost. Captain Mahan’s big-navyism
seemed vindicated, and pride in the exploits of the
navy energized popular support for more and better
battleships. A masterly organizer, Elihu Root, took
over the reins at the War Department. He estab-

*Anti-imperialist William James called it “our squalid war with
Spain.”

Chronology 643

lished a general staff and founded the War College in ers had flocked to the Stars and Stripes, and the
Washington. His genius later paid dividends when gray-bearded General Joseph (“Fighting Joe”)
the United States found itself involved in the world Wheeler—a Confederate cavalry hero of about a
war of 1914–1918. thousand Civil War skirmishes and battles—was
given a command in Cuba. He allegedly cried, in the
One of the happiest results of the conflict was heat of battle, “To hell with the Yankees! Dammit, I
the further closing of the “bloody chasm” between mean the Spaniards.”
North and South. Thousands of patriotic southern-

Chronology 1898 Maine explosion in Havana harbor
Spanish-American War
1820 New England missionaries arrive in Hawaii Teller Amendment
Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay
1889 Samoa crisis with Germany Hawaii annexed
Pan-American Conference
1899 Senate ratifies treaty acquiring the
1890 Mahan publishes The Influence of Sea Philippines
Power upon History
1900 Hawaii receives full territorial status
1891 New Orleans crisis with Italy Foraker Act for Puerto Rico

1892 Valparaiso crisis with Chile 1901 Supreme Court Insular Cases
Platt Amendment
1893 Pribilof Islands dispute with Canada
White planter revolt in Hawaii 1902 U.S. troops leave Cuba
Cleveland refuses Hawaii annexation
1917 Puerto Ricans granted U.S. citizenship
1895 Cubans revolt against Spain

1895-
1896 Venezuelan boundary crisis with Britain

For further reading, see page A19 of the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.

Previous Chapter Continue to Part V

PART FIVE

STRUGGLING FOR
JUSTICE AT HOME

AND ABROAD

ᇻᇾᇻ

1899–1945

The new century brought country do about poverty,
astonishing changes to disease, and the continu-
the United States. Victory ing plague of racial in-
in the Spanish-American equality? All these issues
War made it clear that the turned on a fundamental
United States was now a point: should government
world power. Industrial- remain narrowly limited in
ization ushered in giant its powers, or did the times
corporations, sprawling fac- require a more potent
tories, sweatshop labor, government that would
and the ubiquitous auto- actively shape society and
mobile. A huge wave of secure American interests
immigration was altering abroad?
the face of the nation, especially the cities, where a The progressive movement represented the first
majority of Americans lived by 1920. With bigger attempt to answer those questions. Reform-minded
cities came bigger fears—of crime, vice, poverty, and men and women from all walks of life and from both
disease. major parties shared in the progressive crusade for
greater government activism. Buoyed by this outlook,
Changes of such magnitude raised vexing ques- Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard
tions. What role should the United States play in the Taft, and Woodrow Wilson enlarged the capacity of
world? How could the enormous power of industry be government to fight graft, “bust” business trusts,
controlled? How would the millions of new immi- regulate corporations, and promote fair labor prac-
grants make their way in America? What should the

644

tices, child welfare, con- “Normalcy” itself soon
servation, and consumer proved short-lived, a casu-
protection. These progres- alty of the stock market
sive reformers, convinced crash of 1929 and the Great
that women would bring Depression that followed.
greater morality to politics, As Americans watched
bolstered the decades-long banks fail, and businesses
struggle for female suffrage. collapse, and millions of
Women finally secured the people lose their jobs,
vote in 1920 with the ratifi- they asked with renewed
cation of the Nineteenth urgency what role the gov-
Amendment. ernment should play in
rescuing the nation. Presi-
The progressive era dent Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
presidents also challenged answer was the “New Deal”
America’s tradition of isola- —an ambitious array of
tionism in foreign policy. relief programs, public
They felt the country had a works, and economic regu-
moral obligation to spread lations that failed to cure
democracy and an eco- the Depression but fur-
nomic opportunity to reap nished an impressive legacy
profits in foreign markets. of social reforms.
Roosevelt and Taft launched Most Americans came to accept an expanded
diplomatic initiatives in the Caribbean, Central federal governmental role at home under FDR’s
America, and East Asia. Wilson aspired to “make the leadership in the 1930s, but they still clung stub-
world safe for democracy” by rallying support for bornly to isolationism. The United States did little in
American intervention in the First World War. the 1930s to check the rising military aggression of
Japan and Germany. By the early 1940s, events
The progressive spirit waned, however, as the forced Americans to reconsider. Once Hitler’s Ger-
United States retreated during the 1920s into what many had seized control of most of Europe, Roo-
President Harding called “normalcy.” Isolationist sevelt, who had long opposed the isolationists,
sentiment revived with a vengeance. Blessed with a found ways to aid a beleaguered Britain. When
booming economy, Americans turned their gaze Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl
inward to baseball heroes, radio, jazz, movies, and Harbor in December 1941, isolationists at last fell
the first mass-produced American automobile, the silent. Roosevelt led a stunned but determined
Model T Ford. Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and nation into the Second World War, and victory in
Hoover backed off from the economic regulatory 1945 positioned the United States to assume a com-
zeal of their predecessors. manding position in the postwar world order.
The Great Depression and the Second World
“Normalcy” also had a brutal side. Thousands of War brought to a head a half-century of debate over
suspected radicals were jailed or deported in the the role of government and the place of the United
Red Scare of 1919 and 1920. Anti-immigrant pas- States in the world. In the name of a struggle for
sions flared until immigration quotas in 1924 justice, Roosevelt established a new era of govern-
squeezed the flow of newcomers to a trickle. Race ment activism at home and internationalism
riots scorched several northern cities in the summer abroad. The New Deal’s legacy set the terms of
of 1919, a sign of how embittered race relations had debate in American political life for the rest of the
become in the wake of the “Great Migration” of century.
southern blacks to wartime jobs in northern indus-
try. A reborn Ku Klux Klan staged a comeback, not
just in the South but in the North and West as well.

645

28

America on the
World Stage

ᇻᇾᇻ

1899–1909

I never take a step in foreign policy unless I am assured that I shall
be able eventually to carry out my will by force.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 1905

L iberty-loving Filipinos assumed that they, like “Little Brown Brothers” in the Philippines
the Cubans, would be granted their freedom
after the Spanish-American War. They were tragi- As the ill-equipped Filipino armies were defeated,
cally deceived. The Senate refused to pass such a they melted into the jungle to wage vicious guerrilla
resolution granting Filipino independence. Bitter- warfare. Many of the outgunned Filipinos used
ness toward the American troops mounted. It finally barbarous methods, and the infuriated American
erupted into open insurrection on February 4, 1899, troops responded in kind. A brutal soldier song
under Emilio Aguinaldo. betrayed inner feelings:

The war with the Filipinos, unlike the “splendid” Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos!
little set-to with Spain, was sordid and prolonged. It Cross-eyed kakiak ladrones [thieves]!
involved more savage fighting, more soldiers killed,
and far more scandal. Anti-imperialists redoubled Underneath the starry flag
their protests. In their view the United States, having Civilize ’em with a Krag [rifle],
plunged into war with Spain to free Cuba, was now And return us to our own beloved homes.
fighting ten thousand miles away to rivet shackles on
a people who asked for nothing but liberty—in the Atrocity tales shocked and rocked the United
American tradition. States, for such methods did not reflect America’s

646

The Filipino Insurrection 647

United States Possessions to 1917

better self. Uncle Sam’s soldiers resorted to such appointed the Philippine Commission to make
extremes as the painful “water cure”—that is, forc- appropriate recommendations. In its second year,
ing water down victims’ throats until they yielded this body was headed by future president William H.
information or died. Reconcentration camps were Taft, an able and amiable lawyer-judge from Ohio
even established that strongly suggested those of who weighed about 350 pounds. Forming a strong
“Butcher” Weyler in Cuba. America, having begun attachment to the Filipinos, he called them his “little
the Spanish war with noble ideals, now dirtied its brown brothers” and danced light-footedly with
hands. One New York newspaper published a reply their tiny women. But among the American soldiers,
to Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem: sweatily combing the jungles, a different view of the
insurgent prevailed:
We’ve taken up the white man’s burden
Of ebony and brown; He may be a brother of Big Bill Taft,
But he ain’t no brother of mine.
Now will you kindly tell us, Rudyard,
How we may put it down? McKinley’s “benevolent assimilation” of the
Philippines proceeded with painful slowness. Mil-
The backbone of the Filipino insurrection was lions of American dollars were poured into the
finally broken in 1901, when American soldiers clev- islands to improve roads, sanitation, and public
erly infiltrated a guerrilla camp and captured health. Important economic ties, including trade
Aguinaldo. But sporadic fighting dragged on for in sugar, developed between the two peoples.
many dreary months. American teachers—“pioneers of the blackboard”—
set up an unusually good school system and helped
The problem of a government for the conquered
islanders worried President McKinley, who, in 1899,

648 CHAPTER 28 America on the World Stage, 1899–1909

they began to tear away valuable leaseholds and
economic spheres of influence from the Manchu
government.

A growing group of Americans viewed the vivi-
section of China with alarm. Churches worried
about their missionary strongholds; manufacturers
and exporters feared that Chinese markets would be
monopolized by Europeans. An alarmed American
public, openly prodded by the press and slyly
nudged by certain free-trade Britons, demanded
that Washington do something. Secretary of State
John Hay, a quiet but witty poet-novelist-diplomat
with a flair for capturing the popular imagination,
finally decided upon a dramatic move.

In the summer of 1899, Hay dispatched to all
the great powers a communication soon known as
the Open Door note. He urged them to announce
that in their leaseholds or spheres of influence they
would respect certain Chinese rights and the ideal
of fair competition.

The phrase Open Door quickly caught the public
fancy and gained wide acceptance. Hay’s proposal
caused much squirming in the leading capitals of the
world. It was like asking all those who did not have
thieving designs to stand up and be counted. Italy
alone accepted the Open Door unconditionally; it
was the only major power that had no leasehold or

make English a second language. But all this vast The commercial interests of Britain and
expenditure, which profited America little, was ill America were imperiled by the power grabs
received. The Filipinos, who hated compulsory in China, and a close concert between the
Americanization, preferred liberty. Like caged two powers would have helped both. Yet as
hawks, they beat against their gilded bars until they Secretary of State John Hay (1838–1905)
finally got their freedom, on the Fourth of July, 1946. wrote privately in June 1900,
In the meantime, thousands of Filipinos emigrated
to the United States (see “Makers of America: The “Every Senator I see says, ‘For God’s sake,
Filipinos,” pp. 650–651). don’t let it appear we have any understanding
with England.’ How can I make bricks without
Hinging the Open Door in China straw? That we should be compelled to
refuse the assistance of the greatest power in
Exciting events had meanwhile been brewing in far- the world [Britain], in carrying out our own
away and enfeebled China. Following its defeat by policy, because all Irishmen are Democrats
Japan in 1894–1895, the imperialistic European and some [American] Germans are fools—is
powers, notably Russia and Germany, moved in. enough to drive a man mad.”
Like vultures descending upon a wounded whale,

The Open Door in China 649

sphere of influence in China. Britain, Germany, The victorious allied invaders acted angrily and
France, and Japan all accepted, but subject to the vindictively. They assessed prostrate China an
condition that the others acquiesce unconditionally. excessive indemnity of $333 million, of which Amer-
Russia, with covetous designs on China’s Manchuria, ica’s share was to be $24.5 million. When Washing-
politely declined. But John Hay artfully interpreted ton discovered that this sum was much more than
the Russian refusal as an acceptance and proclaimed enough to pay damages and expenses, it remitted
that the Open Door was in effect. Under such dubi- about $18 million. The Beijing government, appreci-
ous midwifery was the infant born, and no one ating this gesture of goodwill, set aside the money
should have been surprised when the child proved to educate a selected group of Chinese students in
to be sickly and relatively short-lived. the United States. These bright young scholars later
played a significant role in the westernization of
Open Door or not, patriotic Chinese did not Asia.
care to be used as a doormat by the Europeans. In
1900 a superpatriotic group known as the “Boxers” Secretary Hay now let fly another paper broad-
broke loose with the cry, “Kill Foreign Devils.” Over side, for he feared that the triumphant powers
two hundred missionaries and other ill-fated whites might use the Boxer outrages as a pretext for carving
were murdered, and a number of foreign diplomats up China outright. His new circular note to the pow-
were besieged in the capital, Beijing (Peking). ers in 1900 announced that henceforth the Open
Door would embrace the territorial integrity of
A multinational rescue force of some eighteen China, in addition to its commercial integrity.
thousand soldiers, including twenty-five hundred
Americans, arrived in the nick of time and quelled Defenseless China was spared partition during
the rebellion. Such participation in a joint military these troubled years. But its salvation was probably
operation, especially in Asia, was plainly contrary to due not to Hay’s fine phrases, but to the strength of
the nation’s time-honored principles of nonentan- the competing powers. None of them could trust the
glement and noninvolvement. others not to seek their own advantage.