APUSH Unit 5 Vocabulary
80. Commission Government
• Originated in Galveston, Texas as a response to the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
• Also known as the Galveston Plan or the Texas Idea.
• Voters elected a small commission, 5-7 members, on a plurality-at-large basis.
• Made a legislative body and were responsible for taxation, appropriations, ordinances,
and other functions.
• Individual commissioners were assigned for specific municipal affairs like political work,
finance, or public safety.
• One commissioner was assigned to be chairman or mayor but was mostly honorific,
procedural, or ceremonially designated and mostly the individual had as much power as
the other commissioners.
• This form of government blended the legislature and executive branches into the same
body.
• Des Moines was the first city to outside of Texas to adopt this other and other reforms,
became known as the Des Moines Plan.
81. Interstate Commerce Commission
• Was a regulatory agency created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
• Their purpose was to regulate railroads to make sure rates were fair, eliminate rate
discrimination, and to regulate other common carriers like interstate bus lines and
telephone companies.
• Agency was abolished in 1995 and its functions were transferred to the Surface
Transportation Board.
• The commission had the night to investigate violations of the Act and to order the
cessation of wrong doing.
• Was the first independent regulatory body as well as the first agency to regulate big
business.
• Was the result of wide spread anti-railroad agitation.
• Western farmers, those of the Granger Movement, were mostly behind the unrest.
82. Assassination of James Garfield
• Took place in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1881
• Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at 9:30 am less than 4 months into his term as
the 20th President.
• Died 11 months later on September 19, 1881.
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Vice President Charles A. Arthur succeeded Garfield as President.
Guiteau was unstable in mind and stalked Garfield to be rewarded for a speech he
created to support his campaign.
Garfield was shot at Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station by Guiteau
When arrested Guiteau said “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! I did it and want to be
arrested! Arthur is President now!”
Garfield died of blood poisoning and bronchial pneumonia.
Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882 in D.C.
Garfield’s death was instrumental to the passage of the Pendleton Act, 1883
83. The Pendleton Act, 1883
• Federal law created in 1883 that says government jobs should be awarded by merit
• Government employees were selected by competitive exams through this act rather
than ties to a politician or political affiliations.
• Made it illegal to fire or demote government employees for political reasons.
• Prohibits soliciting campaign donations on federal government property.
• There was a crucial shift in parties’ alliance on funding from business, since they could
no longer patronage hopefuls.
• Started during Chester A. Arthur’s presidency.
• Was a response to the massive public school of civil service reform that grew following
Garfield’s assassination.
• Act was sponsored by George H. Pendleton, Democratic Senator of Ohio and written by
Damon Bridgeman Eaton.
• Law would also prove to be a major political liability for Arthur.
• Offended Machine Politics within the Republican Party
• Law only applied to federal government jobs, not state or local jobs.
84. Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890
• Landmark Federal statute on United States competition law passed by congress in 1890.
• Prohibited certain business activities the federal government regulators deemed to be
anticompetitive.
• Required the federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and
organizations suspected of being in violation.
• First federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies.
• Still forms the basis for the most antitrust litigation by the US government.
• Politicians refused to refer to the law until Theodore Roosevelt’s Presidency.
• Named after its author, Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican, who was also
Rockefeller's colleague.
• The law attempted to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restricting trade or
supply.
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The purpose of this law was, according to Sherman, “To protect the consumers by
preventing arrangements designed, or which tend, to advance the cost of goods to the
consumer.”
85. The Populist Party Platform of 1892
• The Populist Party, also known as the "People’s Party”, was a short-lived political party in
the US established in 1891 during the Populist movement.
• Mostly among poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially North Carolina,
Alabama, and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the plains states (especially
Kansas and Nebraska)
• It represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to banks, railroads,
and elites.
• Sometimes coalitions were formed with labor unions
• In 1896 the Democrats promoted their presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan.
• The terms "populist" and "populism" are more commonly used for anti-elitist appeals
against the established interests and popular parties.
• Grew out of agrarian unrest in response to low agricultural prices in the South and the
trans-Mississippi West.
86. The Panic of 1893
• Was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893.
• Similar to the Panic of 1873, it was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and
shaky railroad financing, resulting in a series of bank failures.
• One of the first signs of trouble came on February 23, 1893, with the bankruptcy of the
Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.
• Upon becoming President, Cleveland dealt directly with the Treasury crisis, and
successfully convinced Congress to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which he felt
was mainly responsible for the economic crisis.
• Concern for the state of the economy worsened, people rushed to withdraw their money
from banks and caused bank runs.
• Because of the Panic, stock prices greatly declined.
• This occurred during "The Gilded Age," where the United States was having economic
growth and expansion.
• The severity was great in all industrial cities and mill towns.
• Farmers were in distress because of the falling prices for export crops such as wheat and
cotton.
• "Coxey's Army", the first populist "march on Washington", was a greatly publicized march
of unemployed laborers from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and several Western states to demand
relief by a job program being created.
87. Jacob Coxey’s Army
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Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the US, led by Ohio
businessman Jacob Coxey.
They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the 2nd year of a 4 year economic depression.
Was the first significant popular protest march on Washington.
The marches purpose was to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893
The march was also to lobby for the government to create jobs which would involve
building roads and other public works improvements, with workers paid in paper currency
which would expand the currency in circulation, consistent with populist ideology.
Many of these protesters were unemployed railroad workers who blamed railroad
companies, President Cleveland's monetary policies, and excessive freight rates for their
problems.
William Hogan and approximately 500 followers commandeered a Northern Pacific
Railway train for their trek to Washington, D.C.
They found support along the way, which enabled them to fight off the federal marshals
attempting to stop them.
Federal troops finally apprehended the Hogan and his followers near Forsyth, Montana.
While the protesters never made it to the capital, the military intervention they provoked
was a rehearsal for the federal force that would destroy the Pullman Strike later that year.
88. Eugene Debs and The Pullman Strike of 1804
• Was a nationwide conflict in the summer of 1894 between the new American Railway
Union (ARU) and railroads that occurred in the US.
• It shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan.
• The conflict began in the town of Pullman, Illinois, on May 11 when employees of the
Pullman Palace Car Company began a strike in response to recent reductions in wages.
• Most factory workers who built Pullman cars lived in the planned worker community of
Pullman, the industrialist George Pullman had designed it as a model community, but he
controlled it thoroughly.
• When his company laid off workers and lowered wages, he did not reduce rents, and the
workers called for a strike.
• They had not formed a union.
• The ARU, founded in 1893 by Eugene V. Debs, was an organization of unskilled railroad
workers.
• To win the strike, Debs decided to stop the movement of Pullman cars on railroads.
• The over-the-rail Pullman employees (such as conductors and porters) did not go on
strike.
• Debs and the ARU called a massive boycott that affected most lines west of Detroit.
• Riots and sabotage caused $80 million in damages; 30 people were killed.
• The federal government created a federal court injunction against the union, Debs, and
the top leaders, ordering them to stop interfering with trains that carried mail cars.
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When the strikers refused, President Grover Cleveland ordered in the Army to stop the
strikers from obstructing the trains.
Violence broke out in many cities, and the strike collapsed.
Defended by a team including Clarence Darrow, Debs was convicted of violating a court
order and sentenced to prison; the ARU dissolved.
89. In RE: Debs, 1895
• Was a United States Supreme Court decision concerning Eugene V. Debs and labor unions
because of the Pullman Strike.
• Debs, president of the American Railway Union, challenged the federal injunction ordering
the strikers back to work where they would face being fired.
• Debs refused to end the strike and was cited for contempt of court and appealed the
decision to the courts.
• Did the federal government have the right to issue the injunction, which dealt with both
interstate and intrastate commerce and shipping on rail cars.
• The court ruled in a unanimous decision in favor of the U.S. government.
• The court ruled that the government had a right to regulate interstate commerce and
ensure the operations of the Postal Service, along with a responsibility to ensure the
welfare of the public.
• The decision somewhat slowed the creation of labor unions, which had been making gains
in government in respect to legislation, Supreme Court decisions, etc.
• Debs would go on to lose another Supreme Court case in Debs v. United States
90. The Plight of the Coal Miner
• Illustrated the personal and social impact of the depression.
• Mining was a family occupation, father to son
• As the depression got worse tensions grew between the “old” miners and the “new”
miners.
• Lacking the skills of the “old” miners the “new” miners were blamed for accidents and
worked longer for less pay.
• The United Mine Workers called for a strike of bituminous coal miners and on April 21st
almost all Midwestern and Pennsylvanian miners quit working.
• The flow of crucial coal slacked, cities faced blackouts, and factories closed.
• Violence soon broke out.
• The Pullman Strike pulled away attention from the crisis in the coal fields.
91. Social Impact of The Great Depression of 1893-94
• Caused more women and children to enter the work force.
• The number of children working rose at an alarming rate.
• The League for the Protection of the Family was created which called for compulsory
education to get children out of factories and into classrooms.
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Literature, realism, and naturalism expanded.
92. Regional Literature: Samuel Clemens et. al.
• Known by his pen name Mark Twain was an American author and humorist.
• Wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the
latter is often called "the Great American Novel."
• Twain was born in Florida, Missouri and grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which was the
setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.
• Twain worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's
newspaper.
• He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join
Orion in Nevada.
• In 1865, his humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was
published.
• It was based on a story he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp California where he had
spent some time as a miner.
• His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was
a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
• Although he earned a lot of money from his writings and lectures, he invested in ventures
that lost a great deal of money, notably the Paige Compositor, which failed because of its
complexity and imprecision.
• He met abolitionists, socialists, principled atheists and activists for women's rights and
social equality, including Harriet Beecher Stowe (his next-door neighbor in Hartford,
Connecticut), Frederick Douglass, and the writer and utopian socialist William Dean
Howells, who became a long-time friend through his wife Olivia Langdon.
• Twain was born during a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out
with it," too. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return.
• He is known as the "greatest American humorist of his age," and William Faulkner called
Twain "the father of American literature."
93. “Free Coinage of Silver at a ratio of 16:1!”
• Free coinage meant that the US mints would coin all the silver offered to them.
• The silverites believed the amount of money in circulation determined the level of activity
in the economy.
• If money was short, that meant there was a limit on economic activity and ultimately a
depression.
• If the government coined silver as well as gold, that meant more money in circulation,
more business for everyone, and more prosperity.
• Farm prices would rise and laborers would go back to work.
• By going to a silver standard the United States could assert its independence in the world.
• As a symbol the silver stood for the common people instead of the well-to-do.
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William H. Harvey created the Coin’s Financial School which taught about the currency.
Was more than just a political or economic issue it was also social but only lasted a brief
amount of time.
94. William Jennings Bryan and the “Cross of Gold” Speech
• A speech that was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former United States
Representative from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July
9, 1896.
• In the address, Bryan supported free silver which he believed would bring the nation
prosperity.
• He despised the gold standard, concluding the speech with, "you shall not crucify
mankind upon a cross of gold".
• Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
• Americans had been bitterly divided over the nation's monetary standard for about 20
years.
• The Panic of 1893 intensified the debates, and when Democratic President Grover
Cleveland continued to support the gold standard against the will of much of his party,
activists became determined to take over the Democratic Party organization and
nominate a silver-supporting candidate in 1896.
• Bryan had been a dark horse candidate with little support in the convention
• He lost the general election to William McKinley and the United States formally adopted
the gold standard in 1900.
95. William McKinley and the Gold Standard
• During the election of 1896 William Jennings Bryan said that the silver standard was the
way to go, but McKinley responded that if the United States went off the gold standard,
the value of paper currency would be cut into half and inflation would soar.
• McKinley tried to instill the Silver Standard but was rejected by Great Britain and stuck
with his Gold Standard once and for all.
• With recent discoveries of new gold in the Yukon and Australia and the United States
returning to economic prosperity, McKinley wanted legislation to officially adopt the gold
standard for U.S. currency.
96. The Election of 1896 – Rise of the 3rd Party
• Was the 28th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896.
• It caused an intensely heated contest in which Republican candidate William McKinley
defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan.
• The 1896 campaign is said to be a realigning election that ended the old Third Party
System and began the Fourth Party System.
• McKinley forged a coalition in which businessmen, professionals, skilled factory workers,
and prosperous farmers were heavily represented.
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He was strongest in cities and in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast.
Bryan was the nominee of the Democrats, the Populist Party, and the Silver Republicans.
He was strongest in the South, rural Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states.
Bryan's moralistic rhetoric and crusading for inflation (based on his support for the silver
standard instead of the gold standard) alienated German American voters.
McKinley beat Bryan in this election.
APUSH Exam Review Vocabulary
Spanish American War
1. Cubin Crisis
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Cuban insurgents rebelled against Spanish rule.
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Sugar prices raised 40% and caused discontent with Spanish rule to rise.
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The insurgents used a scorched-earth policy to force the Spanish to leave.
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Cuban’s died by the thousands from unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and
disease.
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Grover Cleveland issued a proclamation of neutrality and tried to restrain public
opinion.
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President McKinley sided with the insurgents and disagreed with Spain’s “uncivilized
and inhumane” conduct.
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He made clear that the U.S. was not against Spain’s right to fight the rebellion but
instead it be done in a humane way.
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A change in government in Madrid made a temporary lull which caused an amnesty
for political prisoners and released Americans from Cuban jails.
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McKinley sent the battleship Maine to Havana to demonstrate strength and to protect
American citizens.
Depression of 1893 damaged Cuba’s economy and the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894
prostrated it.
Cuban insurgents traveled to New York City to raise money, buy weapons, and wage a
propaganda war to sway American public opinion.
Gen. Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau gave the rebels five days to lay down their arms and
came up with a “reconcentration” policy that would move the native population into
camps and destroy the rebel’s popular base.
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On February 15 the Maine exploded and was blamed on Spain.
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Congress gave $50 million to McKinley for emergency defense appropriations.
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April 19th, congress passed a joint resolution that declared Cuba independent and
authorized the president to use the army and navy to expel Spanish from it.
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The U.S. used the Teller Amendment to show they had no intention of annexing the
island.
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April 21st, Spain severed diplomatic relations and the next day McKinley proclaimed a
blockade of Cuba and called for volunteers.
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Declaration of war was passed and signed April 25th.
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The U.S. gained territory, and an even larger expansion of responsibilities.
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A Treaty of Paris was signed between the U.S. and Spain.
Spaniards were hanged in effigy in many communities.
Many wanted war but McKinley delayed hoping that Spain might yet agree to an
armistice and maybe Cuban Independence.
When Spain refused the important parts of McKinley’s terms a declaration of war was
written.
“Smoked Yankees”, African Americans, were in separate units in this war.
August 12th 1898, representatives from Spain and the U.S. met in the White House
office to sign the preliminary instrument of peace.
Spain gave Cuba their independence, ceded Puerto Rico and the Pacific Island of
Guam and allowed Americans to occupy Manila.
2. “Butcher Weyler”
• Don Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, Marquis of Tenerife, Duke of Rubí, Grandee of Spain,
was a Spanish general, and Governor General of the Philippines and Cuba.
• He was famous for his Reconcentration policy, which was the first of what we know
today as internment camps.
• From 1878 to 1883, Weyler served as captain-general of Canary Islands.
• In 1888, Weyler was made Governor General of the Philippines. Weyler granted the
petitions of 20 young women of Malolos, Bulacan, to receive education and to have a
night school.
• After Arsenio Martínez Campos had failed to pacify the Cuban rebellion, the Conservative
government of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo sent Weyler out to replace him.
• As a Spanish general, he was called "Butcher Weyler" because hundreds of thousands of
people died in his concentration camps.
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He was made governor of Cuba with full powers to get rid of the insurgency and restore
the island to political order and make its sugar more profitable.
He thought that to win Cuba back for Spain, he would have to separate the rebels from
the civilians by putting the civilians in a safe place, protected by loyal Spanish troops.
General Weyler had relocated hundreds of thousands of civilians into "reconcentration
camps."
By studying General William Tecumseh Sherman's campaign Weyler learned this tactic.
In the propaganda war waged in the United States, Cuban insurgents made much of
Weyler's inhumanity to Cuban’s and gained the sympathy of many broad groups of the
U.S. population.
He was nicknamed "the Butcher" Weyler by yellow journalists
Weyler's strategy backfired militarily due to the rebellion in the Philippines that required
the redeployment of some troops already in Cuba.
When Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was assassinated in June, Weyler lost
his main supporter in Spain.
He resigned his post in late 1897 and returned to Europe.
He was replaced in Cuba by the more conciliatory Ramón Blanco y Erenas.
3. Collective Responsibility
• Is a concept or doctrine, which individuals are held responsible for other people's actions
by tolerating, ignoring, or harboring them, without participating in these actions.
• Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, McKinley, Spain, U.S.
4. Yellow Journalism
• Yellow journalism, or the yellow press, is a type of journalism that presents little or no
legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more
newspapers.
• Techniques exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism or used.
• The term yellow journalism is used today as a way to decry any journalism that treats
news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.
• The term was created during the American Gilded Age with the circulation battles
between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York
Journal.
• Pulitzer and Hearst are often seen as the cause of the United States' entry into the
Spanish-American War due to sensationalist stories or exaggerations of the terrible
conditions in Cuba.
5. Joseph Pulitzer
• Was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the
New York World.
• Introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the
1880s.
• He crusaded against big business and corruption.
• The fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York
Journal caused both to use yellow journalism for wider appeal
• It opened the way to mass-circulation newspapers that depended on advertising revenue
and appealed to readers with multiple forms of news, entertainment and advertising.
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In 1895, William Randolph Hearst purchased the rival New York Journal from Pulitzer's
brother, Albert.
The two embarked on a circulation war.
This competition with Hearst, particularly the coverage before and during the SpanishAmerican War, linked Pulitzer's name with yellow journalism.
Pulitzer's health problems (blindness, depression, and acute noise sensitivity) caused a
rapid deterioration and he had to withdraw from the daily management of the
newspaper.
6. William Randolph Hearst
• Was an American newspaper publisher who built the nation’s largest newspaper chain
and whose methods profoundly influenced American journalism.
• Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco
Examiner from his father.
• Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and participated in a bitter
circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that led to the creation of yellow
journalism.
• Through his newspapers and magazines, he exercised enormous political influence, and
was sometimes blamed for pushing public opinion with his yellow journalism type of
reporting in the United States into a war with Spain.
• His use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to get support for U.S.
military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines was also criticized in Upton
Sinclair's book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism.
7. DeLome Letter
• Was written by Enrique Dupuy DeLome, the Spanish Minister with the Portfolio of Cuba.
• In the personal letter, which was stolen even though it was under diplomatic protection,
he referred to the President William McKinley as "weak and catering to the rabble and,
besides, a low politician who desires to leave a door open to himself and to stand well
with the jingos of his party."
• This caused major problems on top of yellow journalism and the U.S.S. Maine explosion
for the Spanish-American War.
• The letter was published in William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal.
• A week later, the USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor.
• Both helped create public sentiment in favor of the Cuban Junta and against the Spanish
and are seen as two of the principal triggers of the Spanish-American War.
8. William McKinley
• Was the 25th President, serving from March 4, 1897 until his assassination in September
1901.
• He led the nation to victory in the Spanish–American War, raised protective tariffs to
promote American industry, and maintained the nation on the gold standard in a
rejection of inflationary proposals.
• Though his administration was cut short because of his assassination, his presidency
marked the beginning of a period of the Republican Party being in charge that lasted for
more than a third of a century.
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He hoped to persuade Spain to give independence to rebellious Cuba without conflict,
but when negotiation failed, he led the nation in the Spanish–American War; the U.S.
victory was quick and decisive.
As part of the peace settlement Spain turned over to the U.S. its main overseas colonies
of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
Cuba was promised independence but at that time remained under the control of the
U.S. Army.
The U.S. and Spain began negotiations on the subject, but it became clear that Spain
would never concede Cuban independence, while the rebels (and their American
supporters) would never settle for anything less.
He agreed to send the battleship USS Maine there to protect American lives and
property.
February 15, the Maine exploded and sank with many men killed.
April 25th, Congress declared war with the addition of the Teller Amendment which
eliminated any intention of annexing Cuba.
The navy had its first victory when the Asiatic Squadron, led by Commodore George
Dewey, attacked the Spanish navy at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines,
destroying the enemy without the loss of a single American vessel.
The U.S. annexed the independent Republic of Hawaii and it became a U.S. territory.
9. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt
• President Theodore Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, during the William
McKinley administration.
• Served under Secretary John Davis Long.
• The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was established in 1861, to provide a
senior deputy to the Secretary.
• The Assistant Secretary was responsible for the Navy's civilian personnel, as well as for
administration of shore facilities (such as naval bases and shipyards).
• The Spanish–American War broke out while Roosevelt was, effectively, running the
Department of the Navy.
• Upon the Declaration of War launching the Spanish–American War, Roosevelt resigned
from the Navy Department.
• He promptly resigned and formed the Rough Riders, a volunteer cavalry regiment that
fought in Cuba.
• Urged by Roosevelt's close friend, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, President William
McKinley appointed Roosevelt to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
• Because Secretary of the Navy John D. Long wasn’t doing a good job, Roosevelt was given
control over the department.
• Roosevelt told the Navy worldwide to prepare for war, ordered ammunition and
supplies, brought in experts, and went to Congress asking for authority to recruit as many
sailors as he wanted, which moved the nation toward war.
• Roosevelt was a major player in preparing the Navy for the Spanish–American War and
was an enthusiastic supporter of testing the U.S. military in combat, at one point saying,
"I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".
10. Commodore Dewey
• Was an admiral of the United States Navy.
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He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American
War.
He was the only person in the history of the U.S. to have achieved the rank of Admiral of
the Navy, the most senior rank in the United States Navy.
April 27, 1898, he sailed out from China aboard the USS Olympia with orders to attack
the Spanish at Manila Bay.
He stopped at the mouth of the bay late the night of April 30, and the following morning
he gave the order to attack at first light, by saying the now famous words "You may fire
when you are ready, Gridley."
Within 6 hours, on May 1, he had sunk or captured the entire Spanish Pacific fleet and
silenced the shore batteries at Manila, with the loss of only one life on the American side.
Dewey aided General Wesley Merritt in taking formal possession of Manila on August 13,
1898.
Imperialism
11. Cuba
• Cuba came under the domination of U.S. imperialism as a result of the Spanish-American
War of 1898.
• Cuba achieved formal independence in 1898.
• In 1901, the U.S. Congress passed the Platt Amendment.
• This amendment, which was incorporated into the Cuban constitution until 1934, set
conditions for U.S. intervention in Cuba’s domestic affairs.
• The amendment also established a U.S. military colony in Cuba—the Guantánamo naval
base.
• By the 1950s, the U.S. controlled 80 percent of Cuban utilities, 90 percent of Cuban
mines, close to 100 percent of the country’s oil refineries, 90 percent of its cattle
ranches, and 40 percent of the sugar industry.
• Cuba also became an investor paradise for U.S. gambling syndicates, real estate
operators, hotel owners, and mobsters.
12. Platt Amendment
• Was an amendment to the military appropriations bill, constrained by the earlier Teller
Amendment that forbade annexation of Cuba.
• It dictated the conditions for the withdrawal of U.S. troops remaining in Cuba at the end
of the Spanish-American War and defined the terms of Cuban-U.S. relations, until it was
replaced by the 1934 Treaty of Relations.
• The Amendment, whose clauses were incorporated into the 1903 Treaty of Relations
verbatim, allowed unilateral U.S. involvement in Cuban affairs and mandated negotiation
for military bases on the island including Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
• The Platt Amendment was introduced to Congress by Senator Orville H. Platt on February
25, 1901
• It restricted Cuba in the conduct of foreign policy and commercial relations.
• The amendment also demanded that Cuba sell or lease lands to the United States
necessary for coaling or the development of naval stations.
13. Teller Amendment
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Was an amendment to a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress, enacted on April 20, 1898,
in reply to President William McKinley’s War Message.
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It placed a condition of the U.S. military in Cuba.
According to this clause, the U.S. could not annex Cuba but would only leave
"control of the island to its people."
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Senator Henry M. Teller, a republican from Colorado, brought up the amendment to
ensure that the United States would not establish permanent control over Cuba following
the cessation of hostilities with Spain.
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The Spanish-American war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
As a result, Spain lost control over the remains of its overseas empire consisting
of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippine islands, Guam and other islands.
After Spanish troops left the island the United States occupied Cuba, and as
promised in the Teller Amendment did not attempt to annex the island.
Replaced by the Platt Amendment.
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14. Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico became an American protectorate under the Treaty of Paris after the
Spanish-American War.
The Puerto Ricans greatest hopes were for increased rights and a better
economy.
The US improved many areas of Puerto Rican life, providing more education,
improving sanitation, and building roads.
On the negative side, there always were a certain number of Puerto Ricans who
disliked being under American rule desired independence from the US, such as
Luis Munoz Rivera and his Resistance movement.
Politically, Puerto Rico's government is democratic and the democratic
government ensures that all Puerto Ricans are free and equal.
America spread democracy to them.
15. Hawaii Annexation
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When McKinley won the presidential election in 1896, the annexation of Hawaii
to the U.S. was discussed again.
Taken from Queen Liliuokalani.
He met with three annexationists from Hawaii, Lorrin Thurston, Francis March
Hatch and William Ansel Kinney.
After negotiating Secretary of State, John Sherman, agreed to a treaty of
annexation with these representatives of the Republic of Hawaii.
It became the Territory of Hawaii.
Immigration from Puerto Ricans to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico's sugar
industry was devastated by two hurricanes.
This devastation caused a world-wide shortage of sugar and a huge demand for
this product from Hawaii.
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Hawaiian sugar plantation owners began to recruit the jobless, but experienced,
laborers in Puerto Rico.
Plantation owners and big capitalists, who kept control through financial
institutions, or "factors", known as the "Big Five", found territorial status
convenient, allowing them to continue importing cheap foreign labor.
This type of immigration was prohibited in various states.
16. Guam
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U.S. acquired after the Spanish-American War.
The U.S. paid $20 million to Spain for Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the
Philippines in 1898.
Ceded as part of the Treaty of Paris.
17. Philippines
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Acquired after the Spanish American War.
The U.S. wanted the resources.
Woodrow Wilson said that “they were unfit for self-government,”
The U.S. set up naval bases, American governors, and other necessary command
posts.
Much money was spent shipping soldiers there, and creating governments and
schools.
Introduced Democracy to them.
Treated terrible by U.S.
18. Emilio Aguinaldo
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Was a Filipino general, politician, and independence leader.
He had a major role in the Philippines' revolution against Spain, and the
Philippine–American War or War of Philippine Independence that resisted
American occupation.
Became the Philippines' first president.
In 1894, Aguinaldo joined the Katipunan or the K.K.K., a secret organization,
dedicated to getting rid of the Spanish and the independence of the Philippines
through armed force.
Participated in Guerilla Warfare to try to expel Spanish from their country.
After a Filipino was shot by an American sentry it marked the beginning of the
Philippine–American War and the Battle of Manila between American and
Filipino forces.
Superior American firepower drove Filipino troops away from the city, and
Aguinaldo's government had to move from one place to another as the military
situation developed.
Aguinaldo led resistance to the Americans, and then retreated to northern Luzon
with the Americans on his trail.
Aguinaldo was captured at his headquarters in Palanan, Isabela.
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Aguinaldo took an oath of allegiance to the United States, formally ending the
First Republic and recognizing the sovereignty of the United States over the
Philippines.
19. Insular Cases
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Several U.S. Supreme Court cases about the status of lands acquired by the U.S.
in the Spanish-American War.
The name "insular" came from the fact that these territories are islands and
were given by the War Department's Bureau of Insular Affairs.
The Supreme Court said that full constitutional rights did not all of a sudden
extend to all areas under American control.
The most important issue of the Insular Cases was the fact that inhabitants of
unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico, "even if they are U.S. citizens",
didn’t have any constitutional rights, such as to remain part of the U.S. if the U.S.
decided to engage in deannexation.
There was a debate on how to govern the new territories (Puerto Rico, Guam,
Philippines, Hawaii and Cuba) since nothing was said about it in the U.S.
Constitution.
The Supreme Court established the framework for applying the Constitution to
these islands.
The U.S. Supreme Court in a series of opinions known as the Insular Cases held
that the Constitution extended ex proprio vigore to the territories.
The Constitution applied fully only in incorporated territories like Alaska and
Hawaii, and it applied only partially in the new unincorporated territories of
Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
20. “White Man’s Burden”
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A poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling.
Was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the
subtitle The United States and the Philippine Islands.
Although this poem mixed exhortation to empire with warnings of the costs
involved, imperialists within the United States understood the phrase "white
man's burden" as a characterization for imperialism that justified the policy as a
noble enterprise.
Was originally written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, but exchanged for
"Recessional"
Kipling changed the text of "Burden" to mirror the subject of American
colonization of the Philippines, recently won from Spain in the Spanish-American
War.
At first it appears to be a rhetorical command to white men to colonize and rule
other nations for the benefit of those people (both the people and the duty may
be seen as representing the "burden" of the title).
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Because of its theme and title, it has become symbolic both of Eurocentric
racism and of Western aspirations to dominate the developing world.
21. Open Door Policy
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A concept in foreign affairs, which usually refers to the policy in 1899 allowing
multiple Imperial powers access to China, with none of them in control of that
country.
Originates with British commercial practice.
Through the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, and when the partition of China
by the European powers and Japan seemed imminent, the U.S. felt its
commercial interests in China were threatened.
U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France,
Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia), asking them to declare that they
would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not
interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in
China.
The open door policy stated that all European nations, and the United States,
could trade with China.
22. Secretary of State John Hay
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Was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary
and assistant to Abraham Lincoln.
His highest office was serving as United States Secretary of State under
Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
He established the Open Door policy in China.
Also known for his comment, written in a letter to President Theodore
Roosevelt, describing the Spanish–American War as a "splendid little war".
Helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1898, which ended the Spanish–
American War.