empire

American Empire

Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend in the year 1897: "In strict confidence . . . I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.".... ok? i like how he said it but at the same time it kinda makes him seem to confident in everything. so im not sure exactly how i feel about it. i mean it would make people feel better about him. but at the same time you have to think. wow is he maybe a little to over confident? -kiana hamilton 5/18/09 6:29 PM

There was heated argument in the United States about whether or not to take the Philippines. As one story has it, President McKinley told a group of ministers visiting the White House how he came to his decision:

Before you go I would like to say just a word about the Philippine business. . . . The truth is I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them. . . . I sought counsel from all sides -- Democrats as well as Republicans -- but got little help.
I thought first we would only take Manila; then Luzon, then other islands, perhaps, also.
I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way -- I don't know how it was, but it came:
1) That we could not give them back to Spain -- that would be cowardly and dishonorable.
2) That we could not turn them over to France or Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient -- that would be bad business and discreditable.
3) That we could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and
4) That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly.

WHAT???? ok whats up with that it was a gift from the gods. i didnt know that they could give aways islands. but hey maybe its a figure of speech and im just not getting it.-kiana hamilton 5/18/09 6:32 PM

The Filipinos did not get the same message from God. In February 1899, they rose in revolt against American rule, as they had rebelled several times against the Spanish. Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino leader, who had earlier been brought back from China by U.S. warships to lead soldiers against Spain, now became leader of the insurrectos fighting the United States. He proposed Filipino independence within a U.S. protectorate, but this was rejected.
It took the United States three years to crush the rebellion, using seventy thousand troops -- four times as many as were landed in Cuba -- and thousands of battle casualties, many times more than in Cuba. It was a harsh war. For the Filipinos the death rate was enormous from battle casualties and from disease.
The taste of empire was on the lips of politicians and business interests throughout the country now. Racism, paternalism, and talk of money mingled with talk of destiny and civilization. okay so i love the way he worded it like you could picture it. -kiana hamilton 5/28/09 8:24 AM In the Senate, Albert Beveridge spoke, January 9, 1900, for the dominant economic and political interests of the country:

Mr. President, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever. . . . And just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. . . . We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. . . .
The Pacific is our ocean. . . . Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural customer. . . . The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East. . . .
No land in America surpasses in fertility the plains and valleys of Luzon. Rice and coffee, sugar and cocoanuts, hemp and tobacco. . . . The wood of the Philippines can supply the furniture of the world for a century to come. At Cebu the best informed man on the island told me that 40 miles of Cebu's mountain chain are practically mountains of coal. . . .
I have a nugget of pure gold picked up in its present form on the banks of a Philippine creek. . . .
My own belief is that there are not 100 men among them who comprehend what Anglo-Saxon self-government even means, and there are over 5,000,000 people to be governed.
It has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. . . . Senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.

The fighting with the rebels began, McKinley said, when the insurgents attacked American forces. But later, American soldiers testified that the United States had fired the first shot. After the war, an army officer speaking in Boston's Faneuil Hall said his colonel had given him orders to provoke a conflict with the insurgents.
In February 1899, a banquet took place in Boston to celebrate the Senate's ratification of the peace treaty with Spain. President McKinley himself had been invited by the wealthy textile manufacturer W. B. Plunkett to speak. It was the biggest banquet in the nation's history: two thousand diners, four hundred waiters. McKinley said that "no imperial designs lurk in the American mind," and at the same banquet, to the same diners, his Postmaster General, Charles Emory Smith, said that "what we want is a market for our surplus."
William James, the Harvard philosopher, wrote a letter to the Boston Transcript about "the cold pot grease of McKinley's cant at the recent Boston banquet" and said the Philippine operation "reeked of the infernal adroitness of the great department store, which has reached perfect expertness in the art of killing silently, and with no public squalling or commotion, the neighboring small concerns."
James was part of a movement of prominent American businessmen, politicians, and intellectuals who formed the Anti-Imperialist League in 1898 and carried on a long campaign to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism. It was an odd group (Andrew Carnegie belonged), including antilabor aristocrats and scholars, united in a common moral outrage at what was being done to the Filipinos in the name of freedom. Whatever their differences on other matters, they would all agree with William James's angry statement: "God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles."
The Anti-Imperialist League published the letters of soldiers doing duty in the Philippines. A captain from Kansas wrote: "Caloocan was supposed to contain 17,000 inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native." A private from the same outfit said he had "with my own hand set fire to over fifty houses of Filipinos after the victory at Caloocan. Women and children were wounded by our fire."
A volunteer from the state of Washington wrote: "Our fighting blood was up, and we all wanted to kill 'niggers.' . . . This shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces."
It was a time of intense racism in the United States. In the years between 1889 and 1903, on the average, every week, two Negroes were lynched by mobs -- hanged, burned, mutilated. The Filipinos were brown-skinned, physically identifiable, strange-speaking and strange-looking to Americans. To the usual indiscriminate brutality of war was thus added the factor of racial hostility.
In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:

The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog. . . . Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to make them talk, and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.

Early in 1901 an American general returning to the United States from southern Luzon, said:

One-sixth of the natives of Luzon have either been killed or have died of the dengue fever in the last few years. The loss of life by killing alone has been very great, but I think not one man has been slain except where his death has served the legitimate purposes of war. It has been necessary to adopt what in other countries would probably be thought harsh measures.

Secretary of War Elihu Root responded to the charges of brutality: "The war in the Philippines has been conducted by the American army with scrupulous regard for the rules of civilized warfare. . . . with self-restraint and with humanity never surpassed."
In Manila, a Marine named Littletown Waller, a major, was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos, without trial, on the island of Samar. Other marine officers described his testimony:

The major said that General Smith instructed him to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness. Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied "Everything over ten."

In the province of Batangas, the secretary of the province estimated that of the population of 300,000, one-third had been killed by combat, famine, or disease. HOLY COWWWW. -kiana hamilton 5/28/09 8:28 AM
Mark Twain commented on the Philippine war:

We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag.
And so, by these Providences of God -- and the phrase is the government's, not mine -- we are a World Power.

American firepower was overwhelmingly superior to anything the Filipino rebels could put together. In the very first battle, Admiral Dewey steamed up the Pasig River and fired 500-pound shells into the Filipino trenches. Dead Filipinos were piled so high that the Americans used their bodies for breastworks. A British witness said: "This is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery." He was wrong; it was war.
For the rebels to hold out against such odds for years meant that they had the support of the population. General Arthur MacArthur, commander of the Filipino war, said: " . . . I believed that Aguinaldo's troops represented only a faction. I did not like to believe that the whole population of Luzon -- the native population, that is -- was opposed to us." But he said he was "reluctantly compelled" to believe this because the guerrilla tactics of the Filipino army "depended upon almost complete unity of action of the entire native population."

The Descision to Use Atomic Weapons

The Descision to Use Atomic Weaponsfrom
A People's War?Howard Zinn
Still, the vast bulk of the American population was mobilized, in the army, and in civilian life, to fight the war, and the atmosphere of war enveloped more and more Americans. Public opinion polls show large majorities of soldiers favoring the draft for the postwar period. Hatred against the enemy, against the Japanese particularly, became widespread. Racism was clearly at work. Time magazine, reporting the battle of Iwo Jima, said: "The ordinary unreasoning Jap is ignorant. Perhaps he is human. Nothing .. . indicates it." ....
The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives. okay so what would make anyone want to take that many lifes... cause thats like most of the population.. -kiana hamilton 4/3/09 11:57 AMAnd then, on August 6, 1945, came the lone American plane in the sky over Hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning. Twelve U.S. navy fliers in the Hiroshima city jail were killed in the bombing, a fact that the U.S. government has never officially acknowledged, according to historian Martin Sherwin (A World Destroyed). Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, with perhaps 50,000 killed.
The justification for these atrocities was that this would end the war quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. Such an invasion would cost a huge number of lives, the government said-a million, according to Secretary of State Byrnes; half a million, Truman claimed was the figure given him by General George Marshall. (When the papers of the Manhattan Project-the project to build the atom bomb- were released years later, they showed that Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so people could be removed and only military targets hit.) These estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justify bombings which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people. Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, shortly after the war:
The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26. Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
this part just totally amazed me the way that someone would word the exspecailly the words "wiped out" -kiana hamilton 4/3/09 12:00 PM Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative.
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
But could American leaders have known this in August 1945? The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered. On July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired his ambassador in Moscow: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace.. .." Martin Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical documents, concludes: "Having broken the Japanese code before the war, American Intelligence was able to-and did-relay this message to the President, but it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the war to a conclusion."
If only the Americans had not insisted on unconditional surrender- that is, if they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the Emperor, a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place-the Japanese would have agreed to stop the war. Why did the United States not take that small step to save both American and Japanese lives? Was it because too much money and effort had been invested in the atomic bomb not to drop it? General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, described Truman as a man on a toboggan, the momentum too great to stop it. Or was it, as British scientist P. M. S. Blackett suggested (Fear, War, and the Bomb), that the United States was anxious to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan?
The Russians had secretly agreed (they were officially not at war with Japan) they would come into the war ninety days after the end of the European war. That turned out to be May 8, and so, on August 8, the Russians were due to declare war on Japan, But by then the big bomb had been dropped, and the next day a second one would be dropped on Nagasaki; the Japanese would surrender to the United States, not the Russians, and the United States would be the occupier of postwar Japan. In other words, Blackett says, the dropping of the bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.. .." OH MY.. okay so hold on it was the first "major operation" hmm i didnt know this. -kiana hamilton 4/3/09 12:04 PMBlackett is supported by American historian Gar Alperovitz (Atomic Diplomacy), who notes a diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F. Byrnes as "most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in."
Truman had said, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." It was a preposterous statement. Those 100,000 killed in Hiroshima were almost all civilians. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population." 100,000 killed? woooaaahhh thats way to many people.. and the first bomb was dropped on hiroshima.. i may be totally wrong but i dont think thats right... -kiana hamilton 4/3/09 12:06 PM
The dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment? Martin Shenvin says that among the Nagasaki dead were probably American prisoners of war. He notes a message of July 31 from Headquarters, U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces, Guam, to the War Department:
Reports prisoner of war sources, not verified by photos, give location of Allied prisoner of war camp one mile north of center of city of Nagasaki. Does this influence the choice of this target for initial Centerboard operation? Request immediate reply.
The reply: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard remain unchanged." True, the war then ended quickly. Italy had been defeated a year earlier. Germany had recently surrendered, crushed primarily by the armies of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, aided by the Allied armies on the West. Now Japan surrendered.

book protfolio Quater 3

In the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee written by Dee Brown was a great way to look at our past and really think about what happened at this time period. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee shows the relations between Native Americans and white settlers from the late 400s to the mid 1800s. Which started out to be so peaceful, they soon become more tense as white emigration from Europe to the United States increases. The theme for this book, as cheesy as it sounds I really truly think, from a broad aspect would have to be never give up because pretty much everything starts at that cause If we gave up we wouldn’t have traveled to America and if the Indians didn’t help or give up on keeping there land who knows what north America could have been I mean yeah sure we take a lot of things for granted but you really got to think about what started this all and what helped us have the life we have know.


"" so tractable, so peaceful, are these people," Columbus wrote to the king and queen of spain, " that i swear to your majesties there is not in the world a better nation. they love their naighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accomanies with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy."" So I decided i would start with a quote from the book, I found this very interesting because well first the book goes so in dept with both sides of the story and what people were thinking about what was going on and this part really stuck out to me as a great theme part because they thought so highly of them but then at the same time they had there difference with them, but they did work most of them out.


" The indians considered neither fight a defeat, and although some soldiers may have thought of the Hayfield and Wagon Box fights as victories, the united states goverment did not. only a few weeks later, General Sherman himself was traveling westward with a new peace council. This time the military authorities were determined to end Red Cloud's war by any means short of surrender.” I also decided to start this part off with a quote, i guess i just like the person reading this to know where im coming from. i guess in this paragraph im supose to talk about theme in history, and i thought this was a great quote because in this book its all about history and how it all got started well this shows how dedicated to the land and fighting the other said to have the freedom to do what you and live free with there own religion and laws.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee shows the relations between Native Americans and white settlers from the late 400s to the mid 1800s. Which started out to be so peaceful, they soon become more tense as white emigration from Europe to the United States increases. This story shows the relationship with the natives and the white settlers, this book makes you get a hole new aspect on how things went back then and how thankful we should be that we had brave people and people that were willing to work through this to get were we are now.

Hard Times Now and Then

1. How does a person make money on an investment?
- by low sell high.

2. What makes 'cheap credit' mean?
- people that they target because they have trouble paying at the end of the month.

3. What is 'buying on margin' mean?
- the person dosent actually have the money to pay back. and the only way they can pay it off is if the stock goes up.
- black tuesday.

4. How is 'speculation' different from 'investment'?
- people would buy and sell stocks quickly to make a quick buck.
- because of all the buying and selling stock value increased (EX. G.E. stock $130 -> $396/share)

5. How does 'panic selling' start?
- this quick turnover didnt aid companys -> they nedd long term investments so they could pay bills (stock value was like an illusion)

6. How can high unemployment start a negative economic cycle?
- the more people get fired, the more people dont buy stuff
- unemployment goes up; productivity goes down; lower purchasing power; leads back to unemployment! <-- one big circle!

7. How did increases in technology contribute to overproduction in the 1920's?
- we came up with the stuff --> they made it
- back then they came up with stuff --> we made it.

8. What is meant by 'uneven distribution of wealth? Is it a bad thing?
- that some people have more money then others
- yes it is a bad thing because more moneys go to some people then others.

9. What is a tariff, and why don't they seem to work in the modern economy (post-WWI)?
- a tariff rasies the price
- its an impoartant tax

10. What is 'rugged individualism? Is it real?
- its an idea
- self made men and woman
- we make our own stuff.

11. What is a Hooverville, and why is it called that? - 10,000 to 20,000 people
- homeless people that group together
- people who dont have money and or jobs
- dumpster diving= hover meal

reagan questions

1. What are the problems America Faces?
We are facing sustained inflation
Fixed income
unemployment tax system
tax public spending
deficits economic
upheavals economy
Government

2. What are Reagan's solutions?

No groups singled out Interest group
Healthy vigorous growing economy
Revived economy

3. What policy decisions might reagan make according to this?

millitary
using strength

4. What does this reveal about Regan? (Consider the saying: "Wit has truth in it.")

it makes him seem like a funny guy, one who seems out going and not so up tight about things.
but at the same time it makes you think is he going to take things seriously.
he doesnt like democratic partys


5. What policy decisions might Reagan make according to this?

he makes it seems is that he wants people to be more peaceful and more strong.

6. Who is the audience for this speech?

religious people

7. What is the argument Reagan makes here?

that he wants people to belive in god and grow up good instead of growing up under control and under someones rules

8. What do you think Reagan's agenda is in this speech?

that he wants people to be free and not under control of one party or person.
and he wants people to realize in how good we really do have it.

9. What is the message here?

that with reagan as president people are more stronger and have more hope and pride in our country.

10. How does the ad use Carter?

its basicly saying the same things that carter said about what he wants for his people. he wants them to be happy and have respect and pride in there country.

11. What does the ad suggest about the character/morals of the country?

that were a growing country and that we have alot of pride and faith in what we do and its easier for us to live and make a life here.

12. What is the criticism of Communism being offered here?

basiclly what hes trying to say is that we as a country can chow said person that with freedom and that change is okay and its a good thing to advance and make things better in life and for other people.

13. Do you think this was an effective speech?

yes i think it was because hes just saying that its okay we will help you and we will show you that its okay to change and improve things in the west.

"Malaise" and the American Way of Life

yellow-->first i want to quote what was said in the speech, one line that he said was "But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy." which made me think about how hes right were all just sitting here listening to the goverment talking about all that there trying to do make everything better for us but really its not the goverments place to do all of this its all of ours. we need to work together in this to make it a better place and to help lower for example the gas prices went on a complete sky rocket, like i know alot of my friends had to ask there parents for extra money each week because gas was crazy and even with there jobs they weren't making enough to go back and forth to school which is a scarry thought. And to awnser the second part of that question i think that its most deffently still with us today and unfortunaly its something that we still have to deal with.

Red--> okay so i decided to start this one off with a quote from the text agian.. " In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. " okay so basiclly were hes coming from is say that the united states has and alwasy will be known for having that strong work ethic and strong families etc. but for some reason does it feel like were losing the reputation, because every day that goes by people are getting to caught up in how they look and what they have which is scary because our future and our youth is so caught up in this.. is this what our future is coming too?

Green--> with point one with jimmy carter was that he wanted to not use as much oil from other countrys and forigen places. which is the same as what president obama is trying to do. so they both are working from the same thing. also with point two it pretty much is doing the same ting like for example he doesnt want to use more oil then what has been use in the past which is a great thing for them to do and obama is agreeing to this in his points.

nixon research

What was the Watergate scandal and why was he reelected?

The Watergate scandal was when 5 people broke into the Watergate hotel. They were then indicted for breaking into democratic government head quarters. Then they were indicted with two others for conspiracy, burglary, and wire tapping. The seven men were ignored at first until Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein began investigating. The two others were part of Nixon's committee to get him reelected. The one who was Chief was a man who used the alias of "Deep Throat" who was Mark Felt. We did not find this out until about two years ago, after he died.Also another big thing to be involved was CReeP which is the Commitee to Re-Elect the President.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_Re-Elect_the_President
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal

Indicted- To accuse of a wrong-doing. Law- To make a formal accusation.Conspiracy- an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
Why after the Watergate scandal was Richard Nixon elected?

Many people say that Nixon got elected because he said he would end the Vietnam war, even though more soldiers died under his presidency. Nixon promised an end of the war, and that is the main reason he was elected for a second term. After the Watergate scandal was thouroughly investigated, Nixon was not Impeached in 1974, he resigned so they could not impeach him. :D