VIII. United States: 1890s Populism
Learning Objective:
Understand the status of agriculture in America at the end of
the nineteenth century.
After the Civil war agriculture began to decline while the
cities and factories surged forward. Farmers knew they were
being left behind, and they suspected government indifference
and hostility to their interests. American farmers did not understand
that they were caught up in an international crisis that afflicted
agriculture in many parts of the world.
The crisis for farmers of export staple crops (e.g. wheat &
cotton) resulted from the communication and transportation revolution
that created a worldwide market for agricultural products. Ships
first steamed through the Suez Canal in 1869, the year locomotives
first steamed across the North American continent. In addition,
vast new tracts of land were brought under cultivation in South
America, Australia, and Canada, as well as the trans-Mississippi
West, and simultaneously a new technology of mechanized cultivation
increased productivity enormously. The invention of the mechanical
reaper in 1831 increased grain production six-fold.
Farmers were forced to compete in a world market without protection
against their competitors or control over world output. Thus,
prices of agricultural products declined as productivity mounted.
In 1867, U.S. farmers produced 211 million bushels of wheat
on 17 million acres of land and they received an average price
per bushel of $2.01. In 1868, U.S. farmers produced 246 bushels
of wheat on 19 million acres of land and they received and average
price per bushel of $1.46. In 1869, U.S. farmers produced 290
million bushels of wheat on 21 million acres of land and they
received an average price of $.91 per bushel. From 1870 to 1873
cotton had averaged about 15.1 cents a pound; from 1894 to 1898
it dropped to an average of 5.8 cents per pound. In 1889 corn
was selling for 10 cents a bushel in Kansas, and farmers were
burning it for fuel. Georgia farmers were getting 5 cents a
pound for cotton when it cost about 7 cents per pound to produce
it.
The gap between income and expenses forced many farmers to
mortgage their land or borrow money. Nearly a third of the U.S.
farms were mortgaged by the end of the 1890s. Fewer and fewer
farmers owned the land they worked. The number of tenant farms
increased from 25.8 percent of all the farms in 1880 to 35.3
percent by 1900. In the South the lien system was the rule.
Under this system merchants advanced supplies to the farmer
in return for a mortgage or "lien" on his future crop.
The farmer pledged an unplanted crop for a loan of unstipulated
amount at an undesignated rate of interest. Once a lien was
executed to a merchant, the farmer was bound to him until the
debt had been repaid. The lien system fostered the persistence
of the one-crop system; for the merchant would advance credit
only against such cash crops as cotton or tobacco. As the most
rural section of the nation, the South was especially hard hit
by the decline in agriculture. In 1860, the income of the average
free Southerner was about 72% of the national average, by 1900
it had declined to 51%.
Learning Objective:
Understand the Populist movement.
Since the farmers did not really understand the new world market
that they were competing in, they tended to blame others for
their problems. The railroads were singled out as the archenemy.
Most southern and western farmers could only get their crops
to market on the railroad. Thus, railroads charged what ever
the traffic would bear. It took one bushel of wheat or corn
to pay the freight on another bushel. Rates in the South and
West were frequently two or three times what they were between
Chicago and New York. Railroads favored large over small shippers.
Since the large shippers often had the choice of more than one
railroad line, they often forced the railroads to give them
rebates. In addition, the railroads often controlled the State
legislatures.
The national banks were also a target for agrarian abuse since
they were located and run for the convenience of city people,
not countryfolk. Farmers believed that they manipulated banknote
currency against agricultural interests and were indifferent
to the seasonal needs of farmers. In addition, many western
farmers had borrowed from banks to buy land when farm prices
had been high and they could not pay back their loans—thus
they tended to resent the banks when they foreclosed on their
mortgages.
The farmer bore the brunt of the tax burden. Stocks, bonds,
and business profits could easily be concealed from the view
of the tax collector, but not livestock and land. Railroads
and corporations could pass the taxes on to the consumer, but
the farmer could not pass on his taxes. The tariff also worked
against the farmer; as sellers in a free trade market and as
buyers in a protected market. Since in their mind, the entire
economic and political system was in array against them, farmers
came to the conclusion that it was all one vast conspiracy.
While agrarian theorists were wrong in attributing their plight
to a conspiracy, they were right in their contention that they
had a number of legitimate grievances against a system that
worked so consistently to their disadvantage.
Until the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, debate
over the money supply and banking regulations occupied an enormous
amount of the national government's attention. Farmers in particular
pressed for an expanded money supply in order to combat the
long-run deflationary trend during this period. The Sherman
Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the Treasury to purchase
4.5 million ounces of silver each month (not coincidentally
this amount was about what the silver mines in the U.S. produced)
at the market price and to pay for it with paper money redeemable
in either gold or silver. President Cleveland blamed this act
for the Panic of 1983 (he believed that it debased the currency
of the country) and it was repealed in 1893 — thereby ruining
Aspen economically until skiing saved the town in the late l950s.
During the Populist campaign of 1892 and the 1896 presidential
contest, the proposal to coin silver in unlimited amounts in
order to expand the money supply dominated political debate
on the national level. An influx of gold from Alaska and South
Africa halted the deflationary spiral and drove the issue of
an expanded currency out of politics.
In 1892 the disgruntled farmers formed the Populist party.
The party platform called for the following: 1) A "Subtreasury
System." This would permit farmers to store nonperishable
crops in government warehouses or elevators and receive Treasury
notes lending them up to 80 percent of the local market value
of the grain or cotton deposited. The government loan was secured
by the crops and repaid when they were sold, thus enabling the
farmer to hold his produce for the best price. 2) abolition
of national banks; 3) free coinage of silver with a corresponding
increase in the money supply; 4) a graduated federal income
tax — in 1892 the Supreme Court had declared the income tax
unconstitutional (19th amendment — 1919); 5) the reduction
of tariff rates; 6) the direct election of senators(17th amendment
— 1912); and, 7) "rigid" control of railroad and
telegraph companies — and if that did not work, "government
ownership" of both.
In 1892 the Populists nominated an exGreenback, General James
B. Weaver of Iowa, for President, and, to balance the Union
general with a Confederate one, chose General James G. Field
of Virginia as his running mate. Eastern conservatives were
frightened by the Populist tone and built up a distorted image
of the movement as an insurrection of hayseed anarchists or
hick communists. The Populists tried to bridge the cleavages
between parties, sections, races, and classes that kept apart
the forces of change that they wished to unite. First they sought
to revive the old agrarian alliance between South and West that
had been destroyed by the Civil War. Second, they tried to unite
farmers of the South who were divided by racial barriers, and
both whites and blacks worked hard at the effort. Finally, the
Populists sought to create an alliance between farmers and labor.
The Populists enjoyed some success with these alliances, but
sectional animosities were kept alive by the bloody-shirt issue,
old party loyalties were hard to break, racial antagonism was
inflamed by white-supremacy propaganda, and labor did not always
see eye to eye with the farmer. In 1892 the Populists received
a little more than a million popular votes and 22 electoral
votes for Weaver. They also elected 10 representatives, 5 senators,
3 governors, and about 1,500 members of state legislatures.
The Democrat Grover Cleveland won the election of 1892 with
5,555,426 popular votes and 277 electoral votes. The Republican
Benjamin Harrison received 5,182,690 popular votes and 145 electoral
votes.
In 1893 the worst depression the nation had experienced up
to that time struck. By the end of the year 500 banks and more
than 15,000 business firms had gone bankrupt. President Cleveland
believed that the only way that prosperity could be restored
was to put the country back on the gold standard by repealing
the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. Under this law the
Treasury had to purchase 4 1/2 million ounces of silver per
month. The law had been passed with the idea of expanding (inflating)
the national currency. Under relentless pressure by Cleveland,
Congress finally repealed the Sherman Act. It had absolutely
no impact upon the depression. The silver issue inflamed the
nation since each side believed that if either silver or gold
backed the nation's money the economic crisis would be solved.
By 1894 as many as 3 million workers, perhaps 20 percent of
the work force, was unemployed. In the off-year elections of
1894 the Populists increased their vote over 1892 by 42 percent.
The Democrats suffered severe defeats in this election. The
elections of 1894 brought about the largest congressional gains
and one of the most widespread political realignments in the
nation's history. This election marked the beginning of the
Republican ascendancy that lasted until 1930.
Early in 1895 prominent Democrats in the South and West set
to work systematically to use the silver issue as a means of
taking over control of their party and unseating Cleveland and
the eastern conservatives. For the Presidential campaign of
1896 the Democrats nominated 36 year old William Jennings Bryan
of Nebraska. Bryan supported free silver and many of the farm
programs of the Populists. The Republicans nominated William
McKinley, ex-congressman and governor of Ohio. The Republican
platform called for a high protective tariff and maintenance
of the gold standard.
The Populist party held its convention after the Democratic
convention and the silver-leaders of the Democratic party persuaded
the Populists to make Bryan their candidate as well. The proposal
deeply divided the Populists who neither wanted to split the
silver/agrarian forces nor give up their own party identity.
Western Populists were eager to nominate Bryan, but Southern
members wanted a separate Populist ticket and no compromise.
Since there was no Republican party in the South, any fusion
with the Democrats would be the same as joining with the enemy.
The Populists only agreed to accept Bryan when the Democrats
promised to make Tom Watson, a Georgia Populist, and a leader
of the party, their vice presidential nominee. The Democrats
went back on their word after the Populists nominated Bryan
and they kept Arthur Sewall of Maine as their vice presidential
candidate.
McKinley won the presidential election of 1896 with 7,102,246
popular votes, a plurality of 609,687 over Bryan, and an electoral
vote of 271 to 176. Bryan did not carry a single state north
of the Potomac or east of the Mississippi above its juncture
with the Ohio. He carried no industrialized, no urbanized state.
The election of 1896 destroyed the Populist party. Fusion with
the enemy party and abandonment of principle for the sake of
silver had demoralized the Populists to such an extent that
they never recovered. In the South, the race issue insured that
the Democratic party would remain the only political party until
the civil rights turmoil of the 1960s.
Learning Objective:
Understand race relations in America after Reconstruction.
After the Compromise of 1877, reconciliation between the North
and the South became the goal of national politicians. This
reconciliation came at the expense of blacks. When President
Hayes visited Atlanta in 1877, he told the freedmen that their
"rights and interests would be safer" if Southern
whites were "let alone" by the federal government.
"Let alone" became the watchword of government policy
in race relations as well as in industrial and business affairs.
Since the vast majority of blacks lived in the South (as late
as 1930, 80% of all blacks lived in Dixie), white Northerners
viewed race relations as a peculiarly "Southern problem."
With the official approval of the federal courts, the acquiescence
of many Northern liberals and Radicals, and the cooperation
of the Republican party, blacks were relegated to an inferior
grade of citizenship. There was little they could do in response.
Although blacks were often coerced, intimidated, or defrauded,
they nevertheless continued to vote in large numbers in many
parts of the South until around 1900. They also continued to
hold minor political offices. The "Conservatives"
that had "redeemed" the South from the hated Yankees
used the black vote to stay in power. Blacks turned to the Southern
Conservatives not out of love for their old masters, but out
of a real need for protection against their worse enemies. They
had nowhere else to turn.
This arrangement lasted until the Populist movement. In order
to defeat the Populists, who were appealing to blacks along
class lines, the Conservatives lifted the cry of white supremacy
as they had in their struggle to overthrow the carpetbaggers.
In the election of 1896, the Conservatives in the "black"
counties (so named because of the fertility of their soil and
the number of Negroes used to farm it) through fraud and intimidation
controlled enough black votes to defeat the Populists. This
action caused the Populists to turn against the blacks. They
believed that the black vote would always be controlled by the
Conservative Democrats and the only way for the poor-white man
to gain power was to disfranchise the blacks. This they proceeded
to do with a vengeance.
By 1900 all the Southern states had instituted some segregation
(Jim Crow). Eventually it would spread to all public services
and institutions. Little protest came from the North, where
blacks also suffered increasing discrimination. In 1896, in
the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court sanctioned
segregation by declaring "separate but equal" facilities
constitutional. This would be the law of the land until the
Brown case of 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In 1890, Mississippi disfranchised blacks by using a poll tax,
a literacy test, and residence requirements. Each state added
minor variations to the "Mississippi plan," but everywhere
the result was the same. By 1900 the work of Reconstruction
was undone. The constitutional amendments guaranteeing equality
before the law and the ballot box had been practically nullified,
and life itself was jeopardized by the spread of lynching. Between
1884 & 1900 at least 2,500 blacks were lynched in the South.
Learning Objective:
Understand why Booker T. Washington and his philosophy were accepted
by whites during the era of segregation.
Most blacks had not gained economic advancement through emancipation.
In 1900, 75 percent of the black farmers in the South were croppers
or tenants. Under segregation blacks were driven out of some
skilled trades they had traditionally monopolized and they were
excluded almost entirely from certain of the newer industries,
such as textiles. During this period of repression, black leadership
faced serious difficulties. The largely illiterate black population,
scattered throughout the rural South, was hard to reach and
even harder to organize. Leadership depended largely upon the
ability to mobilize relatively small black groups and often
upon the consent and support of the white community.
Black leaders proposed two sharply different responses to the
plight of blacks. Booker T. Washington represented the response
most whites preferred. Washington had been born a slave. He
obtained an education after the Civil War by working as a school
janitor. In 1881 he became the president of Tuskegee Institute,
Alabama. With the help of northern philanthropists he made Tuskegee
into a black institution that combined formal education, self-help,
and vocational training. Washington also had a large say in
the patronage of the Republican party in the South. By 1880
the Republican party was virtually non-existent in the South.
Yet, the Southern states still sent delegates to the Republican
national convention. And, government jobs were available. His
influence over these government jobs gave Washington considerable
influence in the Republican party. Given the nature of the times
though, he, and the party, had to be circumspect about his power.
When President Roosevelt had Washington to dinner at the White
House in 1901, the resulting uproar was intense.
The black population of the South developed social classes
and institutions which paralleled those of the whites in many
ways. At many points, however, respected blacks such as teachers
and business people were dependent upon the approval of whites.
To violate this approval was to endanger their positions among
whites. To seek it too eagerly was to threaten their respect
in the black community (students, preachers and undertakers
were not dependent upon white support. In the 1960s many of
them were the leaders of the civil rights movement — they had
the least to fear economically from white retaliation). Caught
in this dilemma, black leaders such as Washington walked a tight
line. They often managed to become the instrument of white racism.
The willingness of blacks to control each other contributed
to the stability and peace of southern society. There was no
open race war, but the cost of this peace was borne primarily
by blacks.
In 1895 Washington spoke at the Atlanta Cotton States and Industrial
Exposition. In this speech before a segregated audience, Washington
set forth a philosophy of race relations that came to be known
as the Atlanta Compromise, and was widely supported by whites
and middle-class blacks. He conciliated the white South by claiming
that blacks did not want social equality. Instead he emphasized
economic opportunities for blacks. To his own race he preached
patience, conservatism, and the primacy of material progress.
W.E.B. Du Bois, a mulatto who was born free in Massachusetts,
offered a different solution. Du Bois had a Ph.D. from Harvard
in history. In 1905 he called for an organization of people
who believed in "Negro freedom and growth." In 1909,
after several years of organizing, Du Bois and his followers
merged with an organization of white liberals to form the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Du
Bois became the Association's director of publicity and research
and the editor of its magazine, The Crisis.
Du Bois demanded that blacks be given the franchise, civic
equality, and the chance for an equal education. He especially
demanded that the "talented tenth" of blacks be given
equal treatment. His argument was that even if 90 percent of
blacks were illiterate and unable to participate equally in
American society, the upper 10 percent could function perfectly
well. In-other-words, Du Bois was demanding that blacks be given
the opportunity to prove themselves. Those that could meet the
challenge (the "talented tenth") should be rewarded.
Du Bois and Washington were bitter enemies and Washington did
everything in his power to discredit Du Bois. Du Bois eventually
became so disappointed with American racism that he became a
Communist and moved to Africa.
Learning Objective:
Understand why the United States went to war with Spain in 1898.
Cuba was a Spanish colony. The Cubans had revolted against
the Spanish from 1868-1878. The revolution revived again in
1895. In addition to all the former causes of unrest, a collapse
in raw sugar prices, precipitated by the high American tariff
of 1894 and the Panic of 1893, rekindled the desire for rebellion.
The conflict was bloody, with both sides resorting to brutalities.
President Cleveland, a Democrat, firmly resisted pressures
to involve the U.S. in the Cuban war, although he appreciated
the American economic stake in the island. American business
had invested $150 million in Cuba; the U.S. consumed at least
75 percent of Cuban sugar, and American manufactured goods had
a flourishing market on the island. Estimates indicated that
by the 1880s trade with Cuba was about 25 percent of America's
total world trade.
When William McKinley, a Republican, became President in 1896
he hoped to continue Cleveland's course of neutrality toward
the Cuban revolution. In 1897 he sent a message to Spain that
reminded that country of American interests in the restoration
of peace in Cuba for the following reasons: 1) the disruption
of trade and the destruction of property caused by the war;
2) the costs of enforcing neutrality; and, 3) the natural sympathy
of the American people for the Cubans who were fighting for
their independence. Internal Spanish politics and nationalism
caused the Spanish government to not seek a compromise with
the U.S.
On February 9, 1898 a letter written by the Spanish Minister
to the U.S., Dupuy de Lome, to his government was stolen and
published in the New York Journal. In the letter de Lome bitterly
castigated McKinley as a weak politician, and he also indicated
that recent Spanish moves to institute autonomy and other reforms
in Cuba had not been made in good faith. While this incident
was still the topic of the day, the battleship Maine exploded
and sank in Havana harbor, killing 266 American sailors. McKinley
had sent the Maine to Havana in an attempt to pressure Spain
into speedily ending the war. The causes for the explosion remain
unclear at the time, but most Americans blamed Spain. A 1976
inquiry into the incident found that "no technical evidence
in the records examined that an external explosion initiated
the destruction of the Maine. The available evidence is consistent
with an internal explosion alone . . . The most likely source
was heat from a fire in the coal bunker adjacent to the 6-inch
reserve magazine."
Diplomatic reports indicated that the Spanish government was
merely stalling for time, hoping to delay American intervention
while making every effort to crush the rebels by the fall of
1898. On March 27, 1898, the U.S. sent the Spanish government
an ultimatum. It demanded an immediate cease fire, and if a
peaceful settlement could not be arranged by October 1, the
President of the U.S. would act as the final arbiter between
Cuba and Spain. The note clearly implied mediation based on
Cuban independence since the rebels would accept no less. Spain
rejected U.S. mediation, and on April 11, 1898 McKinley sent
a war message to Congress. After bitter debate in which the
Teller amendment was passed that pledged non-annexation of the
island, war was declared on April 21.
America went to war over Cuba for numerous reasons: 1) the
Panic of 1893 had caused economic unrest. An overseas adventure
would take the American people's mind off the depression and
stimulate the economy. 2) The Cuban revolution gave the U.S.
an opportunity to acquire ports and markets in both the Caribbean
and the Pacific—the U.S. government understood that industrialization
was creating a world-wide market and that the country would
need both ports and raw materials to effectively compete against
other industrialized nations. 3) The 1895 defeat of China by
Japan opened up the China market. Ports in the Pacific would
help U.S. penetration of this market. 4) The official closing
of the frontier by the census bureau in 1890 caused Americans
to look outward for "new frontiers." 5) The U.S. wanted
to end an expensive and disruptive uprising 90 miles from its
coast, and it did not want a strong foreign power to get control
of Cuba if Spain lost it. 6) America wanted to protect its investments
in Cuba. 7) American's sympathized with the Cuban rebel cause
on humanitarian grounds and in the belief in the virtues of
independence and democracy.
The war was over in less than four months (August 12, 1898).
Disease took more American lives (5,200) than battle casualties
(460). In addition to taking Cuba, the Americans also captured
the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The
U.S. also demanded, and got, Wake and Guam Island. The Spanish
were paid $20 million in compensation.
In the Philippines the U.S. immediately found itself involved
in a nasty colonial war. A Filipino insurrection against Spain
had erupted in 1895, but it had been suppressed. The rebels,
led by Emilio Aguinaldo, realized that Filipinos had merely
obtained a new foreign master and they turned on the Americans
in 1899. The U.S. sent 70,000 troops to suppress the revolt.
It required two years of brutal fighting to subdue the insurrection.
The U.S. lost more men in this war than in the Spanish-American
War.
Even though the U.S. army left Cuba in 1902 the so-called Platt
Amendment kept Cuba under U.S. control. The amendment was incorporated
into the Cuban constitution. Under its provisions the U.S. could
intervene in Cuba to restore order and preserve Cuban independence
and it gave the U.S. a naval base at Guantanamo Bay in perpetuity.
Puerto Rico was made a U.S. colony.
Learning Objective:
Understand how the United States acquired Hawaii.
The U.S. had signed a treaty with Hawaii in 1875 and 1887 that
guaranteed that Pearl Harbor would remain an exclusive American
naval base. Hawaii's sugar economy was completely dependent
on the American market and it expanded rapidly. To supply cheap
labor Chinese and Japanese workers were brought in. In the words
of President Cleveland, Hawaii served as an "outpost of
American commerce and the stepping-stone to the growing trade
of the Pacific."
The McKinley Tariff of 1890 dealt Hawaiian prosperity a heavy
blow by removing the duties on foreign raw sugar imports and
by giving American domestic producers a bounty of two cents
a pound, thus eliminating the advantages previously enjoyed
by Hawaiian sugar. In 1893 the Hawaiian Queen attempted to establish
an absolute monarchy and the American planters on the island
used this as an excuse to stage a revolt. With the help of the
U.S. navy, they overthrew the queen, established a provisional
republic, and requested incorporation within the U.S.
President Cleveland opposed annexation because the American
sugar industry pressured him to not bring Hawaii in, because
the island was a hodgepodge of native Hawaiians, Chinese, Japanese
and other races with only 2,000 Americans, and because he thought
that Americans played an improper role in the revolution. President
McKinley reopened the issue of annexation in 1897, and ostensibly
as a war measure, Congress in July, 1898, annexed the islands.
Learning Objective:
Understand United States policy toward China prior to World War
I.
The acquisition of the Philippines logically led to the Open
Door Notes. After its defeat by Japan in 1895 China was quickly
divided up into spheres of influence by the Europeans, Russians,
and the Japanese. In 1899 Secretary of State John Hay issued
a proclamation aimed at protecting U.S. interests in China while
avoiding dangerous entanglements with any other power. The notes,
addressed to all the major powers, requested assurances that
within their spheres of influence in China no power would interfere
with treaty ports or vested interests or discriminate against
the commerce of others. Hay neither condemned spheres of influence
nor referred to territorial integrity and independence of China.
Even though the major powers either rejected the notes or ignored
them, on March 20, 1900 Hay announced that all the great powers
had agreed with the American position.
In 1900 a wave of anti-foreign violence known as the Boxer
Rebellion swept China (see the unit on China). An allied expeditionary
force of 20,000 troops, including 2,500 Americans, rescued the
foreigners in Peking. Hay and President McKinley were aware
that foreign powers might use the rebellion as an excuse to
increase their power in China at the expense of the U.S. A second
note stated that U.S. policy would be to preserve Chinese integrity
and safeguard commercial equality of opportunity in all parts
of China. The balance of power among the great powers enabled
U.S. policy to prevail.
Learning Objective:
Understand how and why the United States acquired the Panama Canal.
The Spanish American War gave a new urgency to the centuries-old
dream of a canal to bridge the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through
Central America. During the Spanish-American War the battleship
Oregon was caught on the west coast at the outbreak of hostilities.
It took the Oregon 68 days to steam around Magellan Strait;
a canal would enable the navy to move rapidly from one ocean
to the other as international crises might require. In addition,
a canal would greatly facilitate American commerce.
Two routes were considered for the canal: Nicaragua and Panama.
A French charter firm, the New Panama Canal Company, was in
the process of building a canal through Panama. Disease and
mismanagement caused the company to offer to sell its rights
to the Panama route to the U.S. for $40 million. In January,
1903 the Colombian chargé in Washington (Panama was a
province of Colombia) signed an agreement that would lease to
the U.S. for 100 years, and renewable at America's option, a
canal zone six miles wide across Panama, for which the U.S.
would pay $10 million and an annual rent after the first nine
years of $250,000. The Colombian Senate rejected the treaty
because of internal politics, the apparent diminution of Colombian
sovereignty, and resentment at receiving only one-fourth as
much money as the Panama Canal Co. Apparently Colombians hoped
to force the U.S. to raise the offer to $15 million, or to wait
until the charter of the French company expired and thereby
obtain some or all of its share.
President Roosevelt was anxious to get construction under way
and eager to garland his forthcoming race for the presidency.
He became outraged at the Colombian rejection. He wrote Secretary
of State Hay, "I do not think that the Bogota lot of jack
rabbits should be allowed permanently to bar one of the future
highways of civilization."
A revolt in Panama solved Roosevelt's dilemma. Encouraged by
American officials, rebels funded by the French Canal Co. revolted
in Panama City in November 1903. American warships prevented
Colombia from landing additional troops to suppress the revolt.
Three days later the U.S. recognized the new government, and
12 days later the government of Panama and the U.S. concluded
a canal treaty. America's actions left a heritage of ill will
in Colombia and later throughout Latin America. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla
Treaty granted the U.S. a ten-mile wide canal zone in perpetuity,
and other rights that made Panama essentially a protectorate,
for the same financial terms previously offered Colombia. In
1921, After Roosevelt's death, Colombia was paid $25 million
for her loss—by that time Latin American goodwill, possible
Yankee oil concessions in Colombia, and American honor, seemed
to make some kind of an apology necessary.
Learning Objective:
Understand U.S. Relations with Latin America prior to World War
I.
In 1904 the government of the Dominican Republic defaulted
on its foreign debt. Rumors that the great powers of Europe
planned to use armed intervention in behalf of their citizens
with claims against that country alarmed President Roosevelt.
The U.S. feared that temporary occupation might turn into attempts
at permanent control or annexation. This action would jeopardize
the security of the Panama Canal as well as the traditional
prohibition of the Monroe Doctrine. A protocol concluded with
the Dominican government in 1905 provided that the U.S. would
supervise the collection of Dominican customs and would use
55 percent of the revenues to pay foreign creditors. The rest
would be turned over to the Dominican government. Thus the "Roosevelt
Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine was born. Roosevelt had
inverted the prohibition of the Monroe Doctrine against European
intervention to justify U.S. intervention.
President Taft followed the basic course outlined by Roosevelt
in the Caribbean. He too believed that the security interests
of the U.S. required the promotion of more stable governments
in the Caribbean. Taft concluded that the safest way to guard
against European interference was to supplant European capital
with American. Moreover, he hoped that financial supervision
would promote order — "dollar diplomacy" was born.
In 1912, Taft landed 2,700 marines in Nicaragua to protect a
pro-American regime against rebels. A small force of the marines
remained until 1933. "Dollar diplomacy" on the whole
ended up as failure. The armed intervention in Nicaragua was
particularly regrettable. It represented the first use of U.S.
military power to suppress revolution and to maintain a friendly
government in power. The presence of U.S. marines in Nicaragua
probably discouraged revolution in other Central American countries,
at least for a few years, but it aroused fear and distrust of
the U.S. among the peoples of the region and fed Yankee-phobia
throughout Latin America.
President Wilson came to power in 1913 and he continued the
policy of Roosevelt and Taft. In July, 1915 a revolution broke
out in Haiti. The U.S. government feared that a foreign power
would get control of the country (and its strategic naval base
site at Mole St. Nicholas). Wilson sent in the U.S. marines.
They remained until 1934. The Americans maintained a facade
of native government, but the U.S. military actually ruled Haiti.
When an insurrection broke out in the Dominican Republic in
1916 American forces occupied that country. The occupation regime
suspended the Dominican Congress and administered the country
until 1924 through marine detachments and cooperative natives.
By 1917, the Caribbean had become an American-controlled lake.
In addition to the five protectorates of Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua,
the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, and the colony of Puerto Rico,
the State department in 1911 discouraged a Japanese company
from operating a concession in Mexico's Magdalene Bay (the so-called
Lodge Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine), and for $25 million
purchased the Danish West Indies (the Virgin Islands) from Denmark
in 1916, as a security measure.
Learning Objective:
Understand American involvement in Mexico under the Presidential
administration of Woodrow Wilson.
In 1876, Porfirio Diaz, a Mexican army general, seized power
in a coup. He would control Mexico until 1911. Diaz, with his
cronies, transformed his regime into an oligarchy. Diaz suppressed
political rights in the name of economic development and foreign
investment. He ruled using the principle of pan o palo (bread
or the stick) — the stick could range from unemployment, exile,
prison, murder or ley fuga (shot while trying to escape).
Under Diaz economic development was the great object, the key
to the solution of his own personal problems and those of Mexico.
Economic development required political stability; Diaz promoted
a policy of conciliation that consisted of offering a share
of the spoils to all influential opponents, no matter what their
political persuasion. As Diaz observed: "A dog with a bone
in his mouth neither kills nor steals." In effect, Diaz
invited all sections of the upper class and some members of
the middle class, including prominent intellectuals and journalists,
to join with him in ripping-off the country — only the poor
and humble were barred.
From the ranks of bandit chieftains and their followers Diaz
created the rurales. Aside from chasing unrepentant bandits,
the major function of the rurales was to suppress peasant unrest
and break labor strikes. Opponents who refused Diaz's bribes
were beaten up, murdered or arrested. By such means, Diaz virtually
eliminated all effective opposition to his reign. Under Diaz
the cost of government soared by 900 percent. In the army there
was an average of one officer to every ten soldiers, a general
for every 300 men.
The Catholic church became another pillar of Diaz's dictatorship.
In return for the church's support Diaz suspended all the previous
anticlerical laws that the liberal governments had passed. monasteries
and nunneries were restored, church schools reestablished, and
wealth again began to accumulate in the hands of the church.
Faithful to its bargain, the church turned a deaf ear to the
complaints of the masses and taught complete submission to the
authorities.
Under Diaz the concentration of landownership in a few hands
continued. In 1900, 77 percent of the Mexican population of
15 million still lived on the land. Landless peons and their
families made up 9.5 million of a rural population of 12 million.
By the end of Diaz's reign, 834 people owned 25% of Mexico's
land area. Those in power appointed their friends and relatives
to government jobs. These government jobs were among the few
middle-class jobs available. People would hold these jobs until
they died and this cut-off upward mobility for the next generation.
Foreigners controlled the mining, oil, and industrial wealth
of the country. This control gave rise to a popular saying:
"Mexico, mother of foreigners and stepmother of Mexicans."
Thanks to an influx of foreign capital, some quickening and
modernization of economic life did take place under Diaz. The
volume of foreign trade greatly increased (by 1911 Mexico was
the world's third largest oil producer), a modern banking system
arose, and the country acquired a relatively dense network of
railways. But these successes were achieved at a very high price:
a brutal dictatorship, the pauperization of the mass of the
population, the stagnation of food agriculture (foodstuff production
barely kept pace with the growth of population, and per capita
production of such basic staples as maize and beans declined
near the end of the 19th century), a concentration of land in
fewer hands, and the survival of many feudal or semifeudal vestiges
in Mexican economic and social life.
By 1910 Mexico was ripe for revolution. The Diaz regime had
grown old and weak. The middle-class resented the fact that
government jobs were closed to them. The working class resented
that the best industrial jobs went to foreigners and that foreigners
doing the same job (in mining, railroad, and oil for example)
were paid more. Peons and rural workers resented the concentration
of land in a few hands and they wanted land reform. Many Mexicans
resented the government's close ties with foreigners and they
wanted "a Mexico for the Mexicans."
Thus, when revolution broke out in 1910 under the leadership
of Francisco Madero, a wealthy landowner from northern Mexico,
the Diaz regime collapsed by June 1911. Diaz fled the country
and Madero took over. Madero, an idealist — "the people
of Mexico do not want bread, they want freedom" — could
not control the chaos in his country. In February 1913 he was
overthrown and murdered by general Victoriano Huerta.
The American ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, had given
Huerta the idea that the U.S. would approve of Madero's overthrow.
Wilson wanted a strong government to protect U.S. economic and
political interests. But, the murder of Madero caused both the
Mexican people and the U.S. and Great Britain to oppose Huerta.
Wilson was recalled to the U.S. and resigned in disgrace.
The United States, under president Woodrow Wilson (D), refused
to recognize the Huerta government. Wilson, and his advisors,
had little knowledge of Latin America in general, and Mexico
in particular. Wilson believed that U.S. foreign policy could
be used to "reform" other "backward" nations.
In Mexico, the opposition to Huerta organized itself into "The
Constitutionalists," under the leadership of Venustiano
Carranza and Pancho Villa. Huerta was a drunk and a vicious
leader (he had a Mexican Senator shot for making a speech against
him on the floor of the Mexican Senate). President Wilson gradually
came to believe that Huerta was unredeemable and that the U.S.
should never recognize his government. Wilson allowed arms shipments
to cross the U.S. border to the Constitutionalists and these
arms tipped the balance of power to the rebels.
Huerta began to import arms from Europe and Wilson sent the
U.S. navy to blockade the Mexican coast. Huerta clung to power
until an incident at Tampico offered Wilson the opportunity
for show of force. On April 9, 1914, during a military confrontation
between Huerta forces and the Constitutionalists around Tampico,
some sailors from an American warship, who had landed to buy
supplies, were arrested. Although the local governor quickly
released the men and apologized, the commander of the American
squadron demanded a formal apology and a 21-gun salute to the
U.S. flag. Huerta refused to comply with such humiliating demands.
He realized that if the U.S. fired on Tampico he could emerge
as a patriot and the Mexican people might unite behind him.
Wilson used the incident as an excuse to have American naval
forces seize the port of Veracruz on April 13 (Tampico had important
American oil producing facilities and control of Veracruz would
stop future European arms shipments to Huerta). The attack cost
27 American and 300-400 Mexican lives. The "affair of honor"
further weakened Huerta and he fell from power in July, 1914.
When Carranza came to power he faced a revolt within his own
movement led by General Pancho Villa. The U.S. was not sure
who to support. In October 1915, Carranza's army decisively
defeated Villa and the U.S. recognized the Carranza government
and cut off arms shipments to Villa. Villa turned to guerrilla
warfare. He attempted to bring U.S. troops into Mexico to show
the Mexican people that Carranza could not protect Mexican sovereignty
and to bring about the government's downfall. He killed a number
of Americans in northern Mexico and launched raids across the
international border. After Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico,
in March, 1916, killing 19 Americans, Wilson ordered an expedition
led by general Pershing to cross the border and to capture and
or kill Villa.
Villa retreated south pulling the U.S. forces deeper and deeper
into Mexico. The futile pursuit of Villa aroused Mexican tempers.
Finally Carranza had to act. In April, 1916 he demanded that
the American army leave his country. Wilson refused. Twice there
were serious skirmishes between American and Constitutionalist
soldiers. A Mexican-American joint commission finally ironed
out most of the difficulties between the two countries. Carranza
bought Villa off by giving him a large pension and a hacienda
(Villa was later murdered). The Wilson administration also realized
that it would soon be involved in the European War, and that
it needed to secure its southern border before that happened.
In January 1917 American troops withdrew from Mexico.
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Courtesy of George Burson, Aspen School District,
Aspen, Colorado.
