Tiffany Aardema
History 1500
March 7, 2013
Reaction Paper #3
Albert J. Beveridge, a politician, gave his famous campaign speech, “The March
of the Flag” at Tomlinson Hall in Indianapolis on September 16, 1898. A
Republican, he went on to serve Indiana in the U.S. Senate from 1899 to 1911,
proving that the strong emotional appeal of imperialism made for good politics.
(The March of the Flag, Paragraph 1)
After reading the three articles “The March of the Flag”, “Twenty Years at
Hull-House” and “Tweed Days in St. Louis ”, I had an interesting observation:
I found it very ironic that the American people during this time period would talk
of living the life of success and prosperity and yet there was suffering at large.
Because of Monopolists being involved in politics, the people were willing to
shut out the wisdom of their own experiences and go back on their American
ideals just to believe a man in a suit who spoke with no facts, strictly because of
the power he possessed through politics.
“Have we no mission to perform, no duty to discharge to our fellow-man? Has
God endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts and marked us as the people of His
peculiar favor, merely to rot in our own selfishness, as men and nations must,
who take cowardice for their companion and self for their deity—as China had,
as India has, as Egypt has….”(The March of the Flag, Paragraph 7)
“The opposition tells us that we ought not to govern a people without their
consent. I answer, The rule of liberty that all just government derives its authority
from the consent of the governed, applies only to those who are capable of selfgovernment. We govern the Indians without their consent, we govern our
territories without their consent, we govern our children without their consent.
How do they know that our government would be without their consent? Would
not the people of the Philippines prefer the just, humane, civilizing government of
this Republic to the savage, bloody rule of pillage and extortion from which we
have rescued them?(The March of the Flag, paragraph 9)
This paragraph shows me that the American people could be hypnotized
to believe fully in the ideals of Nationalism and Imperialism simply because
someone is eloquent of speech, and to forget about the corruption existing in
America at this time and the American ideal that it is wrong to dictate over the
life of someone else, even if act of justification creates peace in your mind.
Jane Addams spoke of some of the corruption existing in society at this time:
“It is easy for even the most conscientious citizen of Chicago to forget the foul
smells of the stockyards and the garbage dumps, when he is living so far from
them that he is only occasionally made conscious of their existence, but the
residents of a Settlement are perforce constantly surrounded by them. During our
first three years on Halsted Street , we had established a small incinerator at
Hull-House and we had many times reported the untoward conditions of the ward
to the city hall… Possibly our efforts slightly modified the worst conditions but
they still remained intolerable…” (Twenty Years at Hull-House, Paragraph 4)
Jane Addams was a social worker who “not only did modest good in poor
neighborhoods, but also gave meaning to the lives of those who served with
her”(Hull House, Paragraph 1) and she had very poor living conditions because
no one would pick up trash in her neighborhood. People were even becoming sick
because the trash was too much to bear (paragraph 4) and very few people were
willing to extend a helping hand her way.
And then we have Lincoln Steffens who “became famous for his searing
accounts of municipal corruption” (Tweed Days in St. Louis , paragraph 1)
“We have had before us many of those who have been, and most of those who are
now, members of the House of Delegates. We found a number of these utterly
illiterate and lacking in ordinary intelligence, unable to give a better reason for
favoring or opposing a measure than a desire to act with the majority. In some,
no trace of mentality or morality could be found; in others, a low order of
training appeared, united with base cunning, groveling instincts, and sordid
desires. Unqualified to respond to the ordinary requirements of life, they are
utterly incapable of comprehending the significance of an ordinance, and
incapacitated, both by nature and training, to be makers of laws. The choosing of
such men to be legislators makes a travesty of justice, sets a premium on
incompetency and deliberately poisons the very source of the law”(Tweed Days
in St. Louis, Paragraph 7)
Politics at this time was governed by the monopolies. It was not about what you
knew, but who you knew, and so it was no shock at all to learn that corruption
would break out. Monopolists are going to do whatever they can to benefit
themselves, not the greater good for all, as is the natural instinct.
Industrialization meant the birth of monopolies and monopolies meant the
destruction of the small businessman. In 1900, the richest 10% of Americans
owned 75% of the Nations wealth. It challenged the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian
ideals politics became governed by monopolies. (Class lecture, March 1, 2013)
Sources:
- (The March of the Flag, Paragraph 1)
- (The March of the Flag, Paragraph 9)
- (Twenty Years at Hull-House, Paragraph 4)
- (Twenty Years at Hull-House, Paragraph 1)
- (Twenty Years at Hull-House, Paragraph 4)
- (Tweed Days in St. Louis , Paragraph 1)
- (Tweed Days in St. Louis , Paragraph 7)
- (Class Lecture, March 1, 2013)