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11.4.2
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List the purpose and the effects of the Open Door policy.
Purpose: To reduce conflict among foreign powers in China.
ƒ Conflict grew over trading with China
ƒ China was carved up among the powers
ƒ To prevent further conflict, the US advocated an “Open Door” to all nations to be
able to trade with China. The Open Door would allow free trade in China. It would
reduce the need of foreign powers to take parts of China. It also would allow the US
into the Chinese market without the US having to carve up a part of China
Effects
ƒ Practically a failure. The US effort was largely ignored as most foreigners had
carved up parts of China to avoid competition to begin. Few wanted British or
American merchants in their areas as both nations provided tough competition.
ƒ The policy created some good will among the Chinese toward the Americans.
Americans also began to think of China as a friend of the US. This would later lead
to conflict with Japan over China.
Describe the Spanish-American War and U.S. expansion in the South Pacific.
Causes of the War. The Spanish-American War was fought over Cuba and the Spanish war
against the Cuban revolutionaries. The Americans were mostly angered by the
Reconcentrado policy and especially General “Butcher” Weyler’s role in the policy. The US
began to try to intimidate Spain into going easier on the Cubans by sending battleships to
Cuba to make a stop for provisions. While in Cuba, the USS Maine exploded. The US
blamed Spain. The US was ready for war when a telegram from the Spanish Ambassador
leaked to the press. This letter was insulting to President McKinley and the United States.
McKinley had little choice but to declare war on Spain.
Course of the War.
ƒ The Pacific: On Declaration of War, the US Pacific Fleet quickly headed for the
Spanish colony of the Philippines where Commodore Dewey’s US fleet destroyed
the Spanish fleet in a few hours. This gave the US control of the Philippines and the
nearby islands of Guam and Wake.
ƒ The USS Oregon and the Battle of Santiago Harbor: The US needed to invade
Cuba to accomplish US war aims. To do so, the US needed to defeat the Spanish
fleet in Santiago. Before having the battle, the US had to get its best battleships from
the West Coast to Cuba. This took a few months and the breathless reporting over
where the flagship USS Oregon was located gave drama to the war and made clear
that the US would need to have some sort of “shortcut” in either Panama or
Nicaragua in the future. Eventually, the Oregon arrived and the Americans made
short work of the Spanish fleet.
ƒ Taking Cuba. With the ocean clear around Cuba, the US moved its invasion fleet
from Florida to Cuba and landed troops. The key to winning the war was to conquer
the city of Santiago. The key to taking Santiago was nearby San Juan Hill. The hill
was heavily defended. However, Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders dismounted
and stormed up the hill in the famous, “Charge up San Juan Hill.” With the position
taken, the Spanish had lost Cuba and sued for peace with the US.
Peace Settlement. With such a crushing defeat, Spain was forever knocked out of the ranks
of the Great Powers. Spain knew her empire was at the mercy of the more aggressive powers
around the world and would soon be outdated. Therefore, Spain easily gave away much of
that Empire to the Americans—for a price. The US would purchase “extra” territory from
Spain. Spain would at least get something for the land they could not hold—otherwise the
Americans could simply seize the land. As a result, the US got the Philippines, Guam, Wake,
Cuba and Puerto Rico. The would not take Cuba as a territory (after all, the US fought the
war for Cuban independence) but made clear that Cuba’s foreign policy would be mostly run
by the US to make sure no European power would threaten Cuba again. The US made the
other places US territories that would (in a few decades) be allowed to choose independence,
statehood, or to remain a territory. As a result, the US now had an overseas empire—though a
guilty one at that since the Americans planned to let the people eventually decide their own
status.
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11.4.3
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Discuss America's role in the Panama Revolution and the building of the Panama Canal.
Background
ƒ Panama’s instability and hatred of Colombia cause US troops to go to Panama eight
times to put them back under control of Colombia.
ƒ France has tried and mostly failed to build a Panama Canal. They wanted out of the
deal, but needed a buyer.
ƒ Colombia wanted a foreign power to build a canal and to keep Panama under control.
ƒ Britain had a defense agreement with France to make sure the canal remained open
in crisis.
o Negotiations
ƒ Teddy Roosevelt remembered the story of the USS Oregon and wanted to get a canal
built and fully in US hands as soon as possible. First he buys the rights to build the
canal from France (they are convinced the canal is impossible). Then the US gets
Britain out of the deal by convincing the Brits we can build and protect a canal so
important to British commerce.
ƒ The tough part was negotiating with Colombia. The Colombian President/Dictator
was treacherous. He twice agreed to deals with Roosevelt and the told his own
Congress to vote “no” in order to get better terms. After the second vote, Roosevelt
hit the roof and declared, “Dealing with [the Colombian President] is like trying to
nail jelly to a wall!”
o Panamanian Revolution
ƒ Roosevelt than inquired as to how ready Panama was to have a revolution—but this
time not only would the US NOT step in and stop the revolution, but the American
actually would support the Panamanians.
ƒ In only a few days, the Panamanians had a successfully revolted against Colombia
and were recognized as an independent country by the US. Roosevelt offered the
same deal to Panama that Colombia had turned down. Panama’s new government
accepted and the US now had all the pieces in place to build a canal.
11.4.4 Explain Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy, William Taft's Dollar Diplomacy, and
Woodrow Wilson's Moral Diplomacy, drawing on relevant speeches.
o Big Stick
ƒ Teddy Roosevelt was faced with a series of foreign policy questions once he took
office. The first was how should the United States behave in a world where the US
suddenly had to deal with foreign powers? Isolationism would certainly mean the
US would have European powers in Latin America and the Caribbean. Perhaps the
French would return to Mexico only a few decades after France was forced to leave.
In addition, Isolation would mean that the Philippines and perhaps even Hawaii
would fall to German, Japanese, British, or another imperial power. On the other
hand, jumping into world affairs with abandon would also be rather risky for the
Americans. The US had little experience in Power Politics and a mistake could
invite a war with a global empire.
ƒ To try to navigate this minefield, Roosevelt created the “Big Stick” policy. This was
based on the West African saying that goes like this: “A man who speaks softly but
carries a big stick will go far.” The idea Teddy had was for the US to be assertive in
foreign policy only when it could back up its claims.
ƒ The Latin American debt problem quickly faced Roosevelt. Here there was a
problem of American states like Haiti, the Dominican Republic and others proving
unable, or unwilling, to pay money owed to European powers. The American states
would then appeal to the US to protect them from military retribution from the
Europeans. Moreover, of course, the US intended to enforce the Monroe Doctrine to
keep Europeans out of new areas in the Americas. Thus, as Roosevelt saw it, an
American state could take out loans from Europeans and then simply refuse to repay
it while knowing the US would prevent any punishment. Roosevelt hated the idea of
protecting crooks. However, letting a European power gain a foothold in the
Americas was too great a risk. In the previous twenty years, nearly all of Africa had
been gobbled up by European powers. China was nearly completely divided up
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among the Europeans and Japanese. The last place to gain colonies was in the
Americas. In addition, all that stood between Latin America and new colonization
was the United States.
ƒ To get out of this dilemma, Roosevelt created the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine. This said that the US would take care of any debt problems American
states had with non-Americans. This would keep out the Europeans while getting
the Europeans their money. To do this, the US would send its military to the
offending nation and temporarily take control of the international trade of the
country to collect taxes on imports to pay back the bad loans. Once the debt to the
Europeans was paid off, the US troops would leave.
ƒ While the US and the Europeans were happy, the reaction in Latin America was
mixed. Some were grateful that the US had kept them from foreign occupation,
others were angered that the US simply replaced European occupation with US
occupation. While those in the US were happy to not have a new European colony
in the Americas, they worried that “Big Stick” meant outright bullying since the US
could order around tiny countries but did the dirty work for the Europeans.
However, the US did leave the occupied areas eventually and thus stopped an
outright colonization.
ƒ Russo-Japanese War. Another classic example of Big Stick diplomacy was in the
1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese had made a surprise attack destroying
the Russian Pacific fleet and then later destroyed the rest of the Russian fleet while
rolling over Russian troops in Korea and Manchuria. However, Japan had no ability
to sustain this over time and might lose to Russia if the war dragged. Russia wanted
out of the war when Revolution broke out back home over the disasters of the early
war.
ƒ Into this situation stepped Roosevelt. The US did not want a China war that could
hurt US trade. The US was also worried about Japan gaining too much power that
could threaten the Philippines and the rest of China. Therefore, Roosevelt gathered
the two sided together in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (?) to hammer out a peace
deal. When the negotiations got tricky, Teddy simply said the US would take the side
of whichever side agreed first to Teddy’s recommended solution. Teddy’s threat did
the trick and a peace treaty was signed. Roosevelt later received the Nobel Peace
Prize for his efforts in ending the war. The Treaty of Portsmouth also showed how
effective the Big Stick could be.
Dollar Diplomacy
ƒ This was President Taft’s foreign policy. Taft did not like the bad reputation the US
had gained due to the Big Stick policy. It was costly in dollars, made the US look
bad at times, and got the US too involved in imperial games. To keep out the
Europeans Taft created his Dollar Diplomacy. This policy was based on the idea of
the US making loans to nations who owed money to Europeans to get the Europeans
out of the Americas with their soldiers. Here the plan would be for the American
state to pay the US back rather than Europeans. The US would also want its money,
but would not really threaten to colonize a nation just because it owed money.
ƒ The other aspect of Dollar Diplomacy was that US businessmen would also help to
make policy in nations. Taft and his advisors thought the businessmen could also
help to make better policy. On this count, he was badly mistaken. A businessman’s
first loyalty is to his company, not to the US. As a result, sometimes the US made
policy not for the best interests of the US, but for that of a particular company. The
actions of United Fruit Company in Central America gave the Americans a black eye
lasting to this day with their political machinations in the small, “banana republics.”
Moral Diplomacy—Woodrow Wilson
ƒ Woodrow Wilson was viewed as personally incorruptible. He was immune to bribes
and actually helped destroy political machines that had helped him gain power. He
appreciated their help, but he did not “owe” them anything. His duty was to be
honest and to behave morally. Throughout his life, Wilson was known for his
constant attempts at making decisions based on morality.
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He viewed Roosevelt’s Big Stick policy as bullying and brutish. The US had gained
some security but had lost much good will of our Latin American neighbors with
such a disrespectful policy. While Teddy enjoyed military shows of strength, Wilson
viewed them as too showy and as saber rattling. Wilson also viewed Dollar
Diplomacy as perhaps greedy, but mostly incompetent. Under Wilson, the US would
respect the interests and views of other nations, and use real diplomats whose loyalty
was first to the US and not to some company.
The problem with morality in foreign policy is that what you view as moral can be
viewed as either hypocritical or sanctimonious by others. It also assumes that you
can reason with bad men.
In Mexico, the US got itself tangled up in first the Mexican Revolution and then in
the civil war that followed for years afterward. Wilson constantly tried to do what
was moral. However, that meant taking sides in Mexican politics. That encouraged
civil war and led Mexicans like Pancho Villa to decide that since Wilson was not on
his side, that attacking Americans (Columbus, New Mexico Incident) was a fair plan.
Before it was over a small US army force was deep inside Mexico in a futile chase of
Villa.
With regard to World War One, Wilson decided the moral thing to do was to stay out
of the war and remain neutral. However, as the Germans waged submarine warfare
on the British they sometimes sank US ships. Under the rules of the time,
submarines were supposed to stop neutral ships and give people time to get off the
ship before it could be sunk. With the recent Titanic disaster fresh in people’s
minds, such an international law was viewed as enormously important. However,
German subs could hardly do such things, as they were too small and vulnerable to
attack to fully comply with the rules. As a result, they continued to sink many ships
without warning.
An enormous mistake was made in 1915 when a German submarine sank the White
Star liner the Lusitania. This ship was a passenger ship from the same company as
Titanic and a similar ship. However, while Titanic was an accident, the Lusitania
was a deliberate act of war. The outrage in the US was extreme. Nearly 2000 people
were dead along with nearly 200 Americans. To top it off, the Germans gave no
warning, did not stop to pick up survivors and did not notify British authorities of the
attack to send help. As the facts came out, the US nearly went to war. However,
Wilson got Germany to promise to avoid sinking any further passenger ships without
warning. That averted war. The last thing the Germans wanted was for the US to
join the British in a war that was equal.
However, in the spring of 1917, the German announced they would sink any ships
without warning who were near Britain. As the German Kaiser said, “If Wilson
wants his war, let him have it.” As four US ships were sunk without warning in only
a week, Wilson finally asked the US Congress to declare war on Germany. In April
of 1917, the US was at war with Germany.
The US tipped the scales of war in World War One. Having the richest nation on
earth with an inexhaustible supply of men on the other side will do that. Germany
asked for peace in November of 1918 on terms Wilson had proposed.
Wilson’s terms were based on his Fourteen Points. These were terms that made clear
the US was waging war not on Germans, but on the German government. In
addition, that the US wanted an end to empires, authoritarian government, and
politics-as-usual. For this, Wilson was greeted as a messiah when he visited Europe
for the Paris Peace Conference. The Germans loved his promises of “Peace without
Victory.” This meant that Wilson would stop the French, British and Italians from
humiliating and looting Germany of all its wealth
However, the final part of the Peace Conference that dealt with Germany that was
signed at the city of Versailles (thus its name, the Versailles Treaty) was anything
but fair. Germany had to pay money to France and Britain in such huge amounts that
the debt was not scheduled to be repaid until the 1980s! Germany had to give up its
entire empire, had to give territory to France, had to give all its battleships to Britian,
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11.4.5
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could have no air force, submarines, general staff, military draft and had to limit its
army to 100,000 men. Germany also had to admit (under duress) that it was soley
responsible for planning and starting the entire war. Finally, Germany had to give
1/3 of all its dairy cows to France. Wilson’s grand vision of “Peace Without
Victory” and for “Moral Diplomacy” had failed miserably.
ƒ Wilson is still perhaps the most important person in understanding US foreign policy
to this day. His goal of a Moral Diplomacy is one the US still tries to attain. Though
he was certainly viewed as a failure in the 1920s, his ideas remain today as guiding
principles for US foreign policy-makers.
Analyze the political, economic, and social ramifications of World War I on the home front.
Political ramifications of WWI
ƒ Poltically, WWI was bad for Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats. German
Catholics and Irish Americans were both longtime supporters of the Democratic
Party and important for Wilson’s political goals. However, a war against Germany
and alongside Britain alienated many in both groups. By the November 1918
elections, the Democrats were clobbered in the Congressional elections as Wilson’s
Democrats were thrown out of Congress in both houses. Wilson had campaigned
with thinly veiled attacks on Republicans suggesting that a vote for a Republican was
a vote for losing the war. This backfired terribly as it looked like a cheap shot at
Republicans for simply disagreeing with Wilson on how to handle the war and the
following peace. It also helped many Irish and German Americans to vote
Republican as many of them had also had their loyalty questioned and they wanted
to hit back at Wilson. Wilson however, refused to recognize these results and did not
bring a single Republican to the Peace Conference. Wilson thus made a bad
situation worse with his political opponents.
ƒ Civil Liberties. The US was very worried about internal enemies in World War One.
Over 500,000 German-Americans were still members of the German Army as
reservists. That’s quite a military force to reckon with if you are about to send your
army out of the country. Alongside that fear was that of Irish-Americans who had
long supported the Irish Republican Army’s guerilla (and often terrorist) war against
the British in Ireland. Finally was that of Mexican-Americans who may want to take
up Germany on the offer of giving Texas, New Mexico and Arizona back to Mexico
if the US lost the war. The Wilson Administration was greatly concerned with so
many people who may be hostile to US war aims. As a result, when the war started,
Wilson’s administration harassed and imprisoned those who showed opposition to
the war. However, German, Irish and Mexican Americans proved vastly loyal to the
US and served admirably in the war. However, German and Irish Americans did
lash out at Wilson in the November 1918 elections and helped Republicans defeat
Wilson’s Democrats at the polls. The group who really proved problematic were
those Leftist who were simply called Reds. Some Reds such as Eugene Debs were
imprisoned for simply telling people to evade the draft to stop the “capitalist war.”
The Supreme Court upheld his conviction on the ground that in a war situation, free
speech is no longer so expansive. Saying his speech posed a “clear and present
danger” if allowed to go on, the Court said the Debs had to remain in jail. After
World War One, Americans held on to their repression of Reds—especially after
Reds took over in Russia by extremely violent methods well beyond anything the
repressive Czars had ever done.
ƒ Economically. Economically, the US did not see a massive boom in its economy as
a rule. Most heavy weapons were made by France or Britain as it would take too
long for US industry to get up to speed in making weapons. However, ammunition
and small-weapons manufacturing boomed as did ports who had to ship the men and
material to Europe. Farmers did especially well as most of the men in Europe were
involved in the war and were not available to farm. In the winter of 1917-1918 there
was outright starvation in parts of Europe, especially in Germany (“The Starving
Time”). To meet this need, American farmers increased production dramatically and
enjoyed some of the best times in decades. Economically, the US wobbled in some
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sectors as millions of men were taken out of work and put into the military. The US
government faced gigantic budgetary problems and used the new Income Taxes to
pay the huge gap between spending and revenues. Initially viewed as temporary, we
still have income taxes to this day.
Socially. The US saw the beginnings of huge changes in the war. Wilson’s
promises of a future without war and to save Democracy were dashed in the meanspirited Versailles Treaty. The created great disillusionment among the young—
especially the men and later the women. Here they had had all sacrificed for one of
Wilson’s Crusades and all the death and destruction and loss of treasure had done
was gain huge money for the British and French Empires. The men had spent time
in France and had picked up French ideas—and not just normal French ideas, but
wartime ones with a dramatic lowering of moral standards. American men came
back with notions of “dating” women rather than courting them. The difference was
shocking to parents. Relations between the opposite sexes had been based on aiming
at marriage. Now, a date was supposed to be “fun” and may have nothing to do with
marriage. Many Americans worried that this “dating” was simply a way for men to
have women as sexual playmates rather than to find a wife. However, the young
hardly cared as much as they did before the war. The grownups were shown to be
liars and hypocrites about the war, so who cared if they liked “dating.” This
movement among the youth created the Lost Generation….