don’t forget the factories.
On those benighted shores
They have no cheerful iron mills,
Nor eke department stores.
They never work twelve hours a day,
And live in strange content
Altho they never have to pay
A single sou of rent.
Take up the White Man’s burden,
And teach the Philippines
What interest and taxes are
And what a mortgage means.
Give them electrocution chairs,
And prisons, too, galore,
And if they seem inclined to kick,
Then spill their heathen gore.149
The anti-imperialists saw big business as the source of the American republic’s flirtation with imperialism and saw it as the underlying force that sought to push the United States into using military force to conquer peoples and forcibly transform their local customs, economy, and culture into an American, Anglo-Saxon lifestyle.150 With modern weapons, the American government, backed by its military, exterminated indigenous populations’ way of life as it did to the American Indians during the settlement of the North American continent. The concerns about big business also bled into other areas, such as safety, wage regulations, establishment of unions, child labor laws, and environmental destruction. Immigration was also a contentious issue, since the introduction of new sources of labor created a more competitive working environment that drove up the prices for products, but also kept wages low. With the incorporation of the Philippines as an American territory and with Cuba closely tied to the United States based on the Cuban-American Treaty of Relations, questions arose about the possibility of introducing new peoples who could now possibly immigrate to the United States. Even worse, American business leaders might wish to outsource their industries and services to these countries in order to avoid having to negotiate with labor leaders and follow federal and state business regulations. Fear of immigrant radicalism made capitalists like Carnegie, Frick, and Hay weigh the value of immigrant labor against the supposed dangers of imported disorder as a result of the institutional voice of capitalism, the National Association of Manufacturers, who maintained a consistent proimmigration position. Less affluent Americans—the urban working class, the lower middle class, anti-Catholic Protestants, members of earlier waves of immigration—clung to the proposition that the new immigrants were a threat to their livelihood, their way of life, and even their safety.151 Therefore, nativist sentiments were also drawn into the imperialist and anti-imperialist camps, while the issue with the Philippine Islands was still a point of contention in the United States.
3
Growing Use of Amphibious Warfare from 1900 to 1918
The United States Enters a Brave New World
The Spanish-American War, which resulted in the United States taking control of several overseas possessions in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, confirmed the United States as a major world power in the international system. The transformation brought the United States into contact with certain parts of the globe, establishing vital ties to America’s geopolitical position in the world. The occupation of the Philippines and Guam extended American control into the Western Pacific, creating territorial acquisitions that allowed for the forward deployment and garrisoning of large ground and naval forces. The situation was the same in the occupation of Cuba and Puerto Rico. The annexation of Puerto Rico as a commonwealth territory and the Cuban-American Treaty of Relations established strategic locations for the American military to extend its influence over its Caribbean and South American neighbors and, more importantly, to safeguard the construction of a cross-ocean canal in Central America. Therefore, victory over Spain meant that territories seized by the United States through its amphibious capabilities were not necessarily liberated, but incorporated into the American republic in some convoluted form or other. Access to these former colonial possessions meant that U.S. geopolitical power now extended to far-flung parts of the world where it would expand American commercial enterprises abroad and allow for its military forces to be readily available to protect growing U.S. interests.1
While America’s geopolitical strategy during the nineteenth century was focused on building its political, economic, and military base in North America, the early twentieth century was a period in which the United States extended beyond its continental boundaries and took on a more assertive stance in its interests throughout the rest of the world. The United States’ concern in the Asia-Pacific Region was predicated on its commercial ties with China as well as free access to international shipping routes in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, the United States was also concerned with the future of the Philippines. Besides economic development and commercial ties with other European colonies and sovereign states in the region, the Philippines also had geostrategic importance because it was essential to security and stability in the region. While some Americans believed the United States should grant the liberated Philippines immediate independence, there were others who felt that the country would quickly be carved up between the British, Germans, and Japanese. Far from being able to govern themselves, the Filipinos were viewed as being too divided and weak to protect themselves. Therefore, American advocates for expansion used the pretext of state building to maintain a large garrison in the Philippines and impose an American colonial style government to administer the country for an indeterminate amount of time until the United States felt the Filipinos were ready for independence.2
Army and Marine garrisons served as part of this massive state-building project, but they also supported Alfred Mahan’s advocacy on the strategic importance of sea power. America’s possession of the Philippines, as well as its newly acquired Pacific territories, provided essential combat-service support in the refueling and resupply of the U.S. Navy. In addition, from an economic perspective, the Americans feared that if they did not take control of the Philippines, they would be locked out of the Asian market. The British already had a naval base at Hong Kong that gave them access to China; many strategists argued the United States needed its own base.3 The protected chain of islands that stretched from the North American continent to China and Japan allowed the quick deployment of powerful ground and naval forces if war threatened to upset the political and economic interests of the United States.
The United States’ concerns about the security of its overseas interests were justified based on the dynamics of the international system between 1900 and 1918. Nationalism and imperialism were still on the rise and remained the driving forces behind the major world powers’ actions throughout the globe. In both Asia and Africa, few sovereign states were left to their own devices, since most of them had become either protectorates or colonies of the European powers. Richard Langhorne’s study bases the collapse of the balance of power in the international system on the European powers expanding beyond the European mainland. The rush for colonies combined with the ease in which the European powers attacked and subjugated foreign countries led to the creation of imperial trading blocs that provided ready access to labor, markets, and resources to feed the rise of the Second Industrial Revolution. As a result, the old checks and balances established from the Congress of Vienna in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars were being circumvented through the expansion of national power through colonial conquest.4
Interestingly enough, the expansion of European territory, power, and influence was based on technology that would be used
