The Reasons for War in 1898 - Essay Example

The Reasons for War in 1898 The roots of the Spanish-American War of 1898 were planted decades earlier in a popular notion known as Manifest Destiny. Though there was not an official policy of expansionism, Americans were acculturated to the idea that it was their right, if not duty, to spread westward and outward. John L O'Sullivan wrote in 1839, "All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man , -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen"1. Yet, had our only mission been to spread Christianity, freedom, and democracy throughout a world ruled by oppressive monarchies, Americans would have soon lost interest. The flames of American Imperialism were stoked by many diverse interests. Economics, religion, and political vision conspired in the late 19th century to spark the Spanish American War of 1898. The vision of the United States as an Asian power originated in the post colonial period. The U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838 described three great island nations in the Pacific. These ports, Pago Pago, Manilla, and Pearl Harbor initiated the vision of America's quest for a presence in the Pacific. In 1878 the United States acquired a naval base in Pago Pago through an agreement with Great Britain and Germany, and by the end of 1898 the U.S. government controlled all the above mentioned harbors.2 Frederick Jackson Turner‘s analysis that liberty and individualism had depended on the existence of a moving frontier into contiguous land. Turner believed that an ever-expanding frontier was necessary for the growth of the nation. Stromberg contends that, "With the disappearance of the frontier in the 1890s, a substitute frontier had become necessary to preserve the American way of life"3. Foreign markets became the frontier that had been exhausted on the mainland. Using Turner's arguments, proponents advocated looking beyond our shores for new frontiers and expanding markets. The vehicle to make large scale saltwater imperialism possible began with the publication of Alfred Thayer Mahan's 1890 book "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783". Mahan proposed the theory that great nations rode upon great naval power. As Mahan laid out in his book, "The motive, if any there be, which will give the United States a navy, is probably now quickening in the Central American Isthmus. Let us hope it will not come to the birth too late"4. Mahan's book was greeted with great acceptance and resulted in an appropriations bill to build a strong naval fleet in the 1890s. The naval appropriations act of 1890 was a strong endorsement of Mahan's philosophy and changed our naval approach from defensive to offensive. According to Musicant, "The battleships were a giant stride, as Tracy and his allies frankly admitted, toward creating a fighting fleet to seize command offensively of the open sea and destroy the enemy in blue water"5. The new naval strategy would enable the coming decade to foment the beginnings of war and enable the interested factions to make a case for imperial expansion. By 1898, Cuba was central to our nation's attention and was the jumping off point to the war with Spain. Cuban rebels had been fighting for independence from Spain for 30 years. The main impetus for the rebellion was the unacceptable conditions in Cuba. In 1868, Cuban Nationalists fought a ten-year war that left the insurgents exhausted. Spain promised reforms, but most were never materialized and in 1895 the rebels staged a more concentrated effort for Cuban independence. The war from 1895-1898 would devastate Cuba, its economy, and its people. As Offner describes the devastation, "They sought to turn Cuba into an economic desert, thereby making the island unprofitable and convincing Spain to leave. Insurgents burned sugar cane fields and mills and destroyed railroads, telegraph lines, and other property"6. These atrocities would capture the attention of the American public and especially the imagination of America's yellow press. American journalists, primarily spearheaded by Hearst and Pulitzer, inflamed the American public with lurid tales of the atrocities taking place in Cuba. Primarily viewed as an effort to sell papers, the stories had the effect of mobilizing public opinion in favor of action against Spain in Cuba. Newspapers would go to new lows in attempts to sell papers. The rising sales of New York newspapers during this period prove that the drama made money, and the competition was too tight to throw the money away. Many papers fabricated stories or stole material from rival papers. Baker reports on the blind zeal that publishers pursued as he reports, An article appeared in the Journal in July 1898 describing the death of Colonel Reflipe W. Thenuz, whose name was an anagram of the phrase, "We pilfer the news." The next day, Pulitzer's paper carried the item, being bold enough to add specific dateline information to make the story appear authentic7. An inflamed public, trusting of the free press, was easily persuaded to put our new navy to use and in doing so invoke the charter of Manifest Destiny. In February of 1898, two press reports placed Spain and the United States on a collision course for war. A letter written by Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, Spanish minister to the United States was published by the San Francisco Examiner on February 9. The minister said President McKinley was "weak and catering to the rabble, and besides a low politician who desires to leave a door open to me and to stand well with the jingoes of his party". On February 15, the Examiner ran an editorial titled "Is the United States Preparing for War?", which was the same day the battleship Maine was destroyed while anchored in Havana killing 250 men. The sinking of the Maine, though there was never a determination as to the cause, was the catalyst that initiated military action. This was the excuse for war, but there were several other underlying issues. Economics was also a principle influence in going to war with Spain and expanding our imperial holdings. An overriding viewpoint was that America, by necessity, needed to look outside its own borders for customers of the goods brought on by the recent advances in industrialization. The depression of the 1890s had instilled an impetus to expand trade around the world and the Pacific Rim was the natural market. Hobson observed that, "American Imperialism was the natural product of the economic pressure of a sudden advance of capitalism which could not find occupation at home and needed foreign markets for goods and for investments"8. These economic issues were central to the war of 1898 as US production began to exceed the domestic demand. Although economics was driving American Imperialism, there was much controversy over the handling of the Cuban crises. By 1895, the Unites States had over $50 million dollars invested in Cuba, and the sugar trade was worth over twice that amount 9. By 1898, that figure had dropped by 70%. Some investors wished to appease the Spanish and bring an early end to the strife. Morton Keller provides some insight on the dilemma of the investors when he observes, Indeed, the one group decidedly reluctant to go to war was composed of big businessmen and financiers and their political spokesmen such as Senators Mark Hanna, Nelson W. Aldrich, and Orville H. Platt. American banks held Spanish securities; as long as the Cuban revolt went on, investors in Cuban sugar would suffer10. It falls to reason that leaders anxious for war such as Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge criticized the influence of financiers and the overly cautious McKinley as the major obstacles to war10. Still others wanted war to take possession of Cuba and establish a save haven of import and export. In the end, the investors and importers that wanted Cuba as a U.S. protectorate won out. Though there was considerable debate about the economic reasons for going to war, there was still the overriding premise of worldwide imperialism for economic reasons. Even among anti-imperialists there was concern for the need to address economic realities. Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts, a staunch anti-imperialist, saw the need for the political economy to share in the wealth of Asia2. Hoar's anti-imperialist attitude went to make an exception for Hawaii as he viewed it critical to our economic access to China2. While the United States had economic goals in mind, Spain was actively planning their own demise. The war in Cuba was simply a prelude to the conquest of Spain's dwindling colonial empire. Spain, after years of war in Cuba, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Army historian Hendricks asserts that, "The Spanish public, and a wide spectrum of Spanish political leaders from Republican to Carlist, supported the repression of the Cuban insurrection at its outbreak in 1895. However, that broad support soon began to erode"11. The heavy toll in monetary cost, human lives to disease, and total economic destruction caused by the rebel's scorched earth policies had softened the Spanish resolve for continued war. The Monarchy, unable to capitulate, was faced with the proposition of a quick and decisive loss to the United States in Cuba. In 1897, Spain issued a broad autonomy decree to Cuban rebels. This had the effect of being not enough for the rebels, and generated a feeling among the military that their leaders had sold them out. Spain's only recourse was to instigate and lose a war to the United States, thus saving face and holding up a commitment to the military. Spain itself was instrumental in the cause of the War of 1898. Religion and Social Darwinism also played a significant role in America's entry into the Spanish American War. Using the principles of the Social Darwinists, expansionists defended overseas imperialism as a natural progression of Darwin's survival of the fittest. According to Chimes, "[...] [I]mperialists affirmed the innate superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race, and thus justified a place of authority in non-Anglo-Saxon cultures"12. By reinventing the philosophy of Manifest Destiny, imperialists advocated that our mission did not stop at our borders and was not limited to the North American continent. Our duty to the global community was to bring civilization, Christianity, and democratic principles to those less fortunate around the globe. The War of 1898 had started decades earlier and was fostered by the Turner vision that America required a new frontier. America began looking to Asia as a place to exert authority and promote trade as early as 1838. Our national philosophy of Manifest Destiny, grown out of colonial English charters, moved us in that direction. Imperialism was an easy sell to Americans burdened by a sense to civilize the world, while the economic conditions of the 1890s formed a crucible for the fires of war to take hold. A yellow press intent on selling papers fueled the need for new markets. Mahan's book and its promotion of a mighty sea power had taken hold and built a naval force capable of controlling the Pacific. By 1898, the rebellion in Cuba had worn the Spanish treasury to the point of collapse. With the Spanish Empire on its last vestige of greatness, all these factors came to bear and resulted in the conquest of the previously held Spanish colonies. Works Cited 1. John L. O'Sullivan, 1839. The great nation of futurity. The United States Democratic Review 6: 426-430 http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=AGD1642-0006-46 (accessed October 6, 2006) 2. Thomas Schoonover,. 2003. Uncle Sam's war of 1898 and the origins of globalization. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky 3. Joseph R. Stromberg. 1998. The Spanish-American war: The leap into overseas empire. The Independent Institute. http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1344 (accessed October 6, 2006) 4. Alfred Thomas Mahan, 2004. The influence of sea power upon history, 1660-1783. http://www.gutenberg.net/1/3/5/2/13529 (accessed October 6, 2006) 5. Ivan Musicant. 1998. Empire by default: The Spanish-American war and the dawn of the American century. New York: Henry Holt and Company 6. John L.Offner. 2004. McKinley and the Spanish-American war. Presidential Studies Quarterly 34: 50-62 7. John Baker. 2001. Effects of the press on Spanish-American relations in 1898. http://www.humboldt.edu/~jcb10/spanwar.shtml (accessed October 6, 2006) 8. J.A. Hobson. 1955. "Imperialism". In Imperialism in 1898. ed. Theodore Green. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company 9. Library of Congress. The world of 1898: The Spanish-American war. http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/intro.html (accessed October 6, 2006) 10. Morton Keller. Spanish-American war. http://www.answers.com/topic/spanish-american-war (accessed October 6, 2006) 11. Charles Hendricks. 1998. The impact of the ‘Disaster’ of 1898 on the Spanish army. http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/spanam/WS-SpARmy.htm (accessed October 6, 2006) 12. Michael Chimes. 2006. American foreign policy in the late 19th century: Philosophical underpinnings. http://www.spanamwar.com/imperialism.htm (accessed October 6, 2006) Read More