BAILEY’S 6 D’s
McDougall’s Traditions
Progressive Imperialism
Wilsonianism
Containment
Global Meliorism
AP US HISTORY: FOREIGN POLICY EPISODES
Destiny
Dollars
Defense
Democracy
Deity
Darwinism
There has never been some “GRAND PLAN” of American foreign policy. Essentially the (I added “M”)
nation tends to move from one episode to the next. Nevertheless, FP historians like
McDougall certainly detect patterns in American behavior. In the current phase of our
study we are trying to grasp what McDougall calls PROGRESSIVE IMPERIALISM. The debate over
the Cuban Insurrection of the middle 1890s is our starting point. Beyond that, however, let’s see if
we can see teach each other about various episodes from this period (groups of 3 on this one).
Each of you will explore the story and then teach the others.
** Before going further, read the explanation of PROGRESSIVE IMPERIALISM on the next page.
HISTORIAN #1: EXPLORE THE PANAMA SITUATION (690 and following). Use these questions and
terms to focus your attention: Why did the US want to build a canal? What was the problem with
Columbia? What was the Panama Revolution? Was the US complicit in that Revolution? Any
evidence? What did Roosevelt mean by “big stick” diplomacy?
HISTORIAN #2: EXPLORE THE VENEZUELAN EPISODE (692 and following). Use these questions and
terms to focus your attention: Who was Cipriano Castro? What were the European interests in
Venezuela? What is meant by the term “arbitration?” How does the Monroe Doctrine play into this
story (you may need to go back and review that)? What in the world is the Roosevelt Corollary to
the Monroe Doctrine?
HISTORIAN #3: EXPLORE THE FAR EAST (688/693). Use these questions and terms to focus your
attention: What was the Sino-Japanese War of 1895? What was the “Open Door Policy” of John
Hay? What was the Boxer Rebellion? What was the Russo-Japanese War? What was Roosevelt’s
role in that war? What was the “Gentlemen’s Agreement of 07-08?” What was Roosevelt’s point
with the “Great White Fleet?”
SYNTHESIS QUESTIONS
 Which of Bailey’s 6 D’s seem to come into play in each of the three episodes? If it is a
mixture of motives driving US actions, which D seems to be the dominant one?
 How does the personality of Roosevelt come into play in each situation?
 Do you see evidence today of actions that the US took in the early part of the Century in
any of these areas? (modern connections?)
 Review the descriptors we used for McDougall’s “Progressive Imperialism” – do you see
these in these stories?
Page
numbers
are from
14th
Edition
of Bailey
If you
have the
12th
Edition,
go to
Chapter
28.
Progressive Imperialism, as McDougall uses the term, refers to the US becoming involved with
GLOBAL EXPANSION which meant taking control of various regions of the globe with ostensibly
PURE MOTIVES – for the betterment of the people who lived there.
WALTER MCDOUGALL
EXCERPT FROM “BACK TO BEDROCK: THE EIGHT TRADITIONS OF AMERICAN
STATECRAFT.” March/April 1997. Foreign Affairs.
“So what happened in 1898, when the United States suddenly embraced a
Progressive Imperialism apparently at odds with all it had stood for? Most
historians assume that the great aberration in need of explaining was not the
Spanish-American War, born of the bloody Cuban war for independence, but the
acquisition of colonies that followed. They cite the growth of U.S. population,
exports, and industry, the depression of the 1890s, and the ‘closing of the frontier’
to argue that big business, the navy, and their political spokesmen were eager to
junk isolationism and emulate European imperialism in the pursuit of foreign
markets.
This story is not so much wrong as beside the point. First, 1898 could not end an
isolationism that never existed. Second, it did not inaugurate overseas expansion;
the United States had pursued that course ever since President Tyler draped the
Monroe Doctrine over Hawaii in 1841, Secretary of State William H. Seward bought
Alaska in 1867, and Grover Cleveland risked war over Samoa in the 1880s. What is
more, the keepers of the nation's conscience in the Protestant churches and the
Progressive movement saw nothing troubling about the little empire won in 1898
and yearned to do good to Spain's benighted subjects in the Philippines and
Puerto Rico. Finally, Progressive Imperialism did not contradict Expansionism, the
American System, or Unilateralism but did excellent duty by them.
The shocking novelty of 1898 is that Americans finally gave in to the crusader's
temptation, and the explanation for that must be sought not only in strategy and
economics but in culture. Thanks to the cresting floods of the social gospel, the
Progressive movement, social Darwinism, and consciousness of the "white man's
burden," the old millenarian undercurrent that had sprung from the second Great
Awakening conquered the mainstream of American religious and intellectual life.”
The standard historical
explanation for what was
going on here.
McDougall seems to be
challenging the
“standard” explanations
that are offered for WHY
the US “suddenly”
became IMPERIALISTIC.
He is suggesting that this
imperialism by the US was
actually CONSISTENT with our
history – not an aberration!
McDougall’s position is that
the explanation for US
expansion during this period is
found primarily in our
CULTURE! Think about that.
Why is this challenging for us
to accept?