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US Foreign Policy 1890s to 1920
I. Introduction
1. From domestic policy during the 1900's, now let's turn to foreign policy during this time.
2. Within the next several years, the Wilson administration leads the United States into the First
World War. But first must look at the development of US foreign policy to this point.
3. In the 1890s and continuing into the first two decades of the 20th c., the US acquired a new,
activist foreign policy
4. Ever since the early part of the 19th c., US foreign policy was shaped by:
a. Washington's injunction to avoid entangling alliances in his farewell address
b. Idea of Manifest Destiny: that it was the destiny of the US to populate a huge, vast
continent
5. After the Civil War, the US became something of an isolationist nation:
a. Secretaries of State in the postwar era usually had little or no knowledge of foreign
affairs
b. US Navy was obsolete and antiquated
c. Cleveland's first major speech as president promised to avoid entangling alliances and
to oppose the acquisition of new and distant territory
6. Several reasons for this isolationism of the 19th c.
a. US were busy industrializing, populating the continent, and preoccupied with domestic
political and economic problems.
b. US also blessed with "free" security:
- wide oceans
- weak neighbors
- potential enemies divided among themselves with rivalries
(Franco-Prussian War in 1870s, for example)
II. Activism
1. By the 1890s, however, things had changed: in some ways foreign policy actually reflected
many if not the same impulses that were motivating domestic reform
a. Geographic destiny or Manifest Destiny had been fulfilled
- all fertile land was occupied and the frontier was "closed"
- cities were being flooded with new immigrants
b. BUT American progress depended on the existence of a "frontier"-- remember US had
become what it was by continually expanding
2. THUS-Two new strands of US foreign policy emerged
3. The first was a new definition of Manifest Destiny: American civilization must seek its new
frontier beyond its borders.
a. Ideology based on US's supreme confidence in American values and institutions: the
idea of Americans as "God's chosen people." In evolutionary language: US were the
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"fittest," therefore US had the right to rule other nations.
b. Intellectuals contended that it was the law of nature for strong nations to dominate
weak ones.
c. Strong racist/nativist argument amongst popular writers such as John Fiske who in
1885, predicted that the English-speaking peoples would eventually control every
land that had not been "civilized" yet.
- He argued that: the experience of white Americans in subjugating the
native population of their own continent was "destined to go on" in other
parts of the world
4. The second was that the US needed to expand economically abroad
a. As US economy developed; overproduction of goods would soon saturate the
American market thus there was a need for overseas markets to increase exports
b. If US did not expand, its economy would stagnate
5. For some there was, a blending of these strands as can be seen in Indiana Senator Albert
Beveridge's quote of 1898:
"[God] has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He
has made us adept in government among savages and senile peoples. It is God's great purpose made
manifest in the instincts of our race, whose present phase is our personal profit, but whose far-off end is
the redemption of the world and the Christianization of mankind."
6. Thus, in the short run, the US would benefit from trade but in the long run, the world would
benefit as US brought Christianity and civilization to it.
III. 1890s
A. Introduction
1. Thus, in the 1890s, all the men who formulated the new American foreign policy
fundamentally agreed that:
a. US had to pursue a more active role in the world
b. American economic and political destiny was in doubt (i.e. overpopulation)
c. Rapid industrial development had created both problems and opportunities
2. What they disagreed about was how far the US should go toward acquiring a formal empire of
naval bases and colonies.
a. This practical question dominated debate over foreign policy at the turn of the 20th C.
B. Expansionism
1. Once American decided to expand, or decided it needed to expand, most historians claim that
the conflict became expansionism vs. colonialism; interventionism vs. isolationism.
2. Yet, the fact is that the United States had already begun colonizing--taking Cuba or the
Philippines did not begin this conflict
3. Colonialism involves the conquest and control of peoples who are so culturally different that
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they cannot be easily incorporated within the conquering culture SO must be ruled as subjects
outside the political process.
4. Expansionism, on the other hand, is the spreading into neighboring areas and taking political
control over the inhabitants.
a. usually they share many basic similarities with neighboring societies and the result is
the incorporation of the inhabitants into the body politic.
b. the US did this when it established sovereignty over the French Cajuns of Louisiana
after France ceded those lands to the US in 1803.
5. When the new American nation spread westward, they not only pushed aside the native
occupants, who were very different from them but enveloped them under US control without
giving them citizenship status.
a. while the US government continued to make treaties with Indian tribes, it began to
dictate that tribal laws should not be inconsistent with US laws.
b. in 1845, Chief Justice Roger Taney decided that American Indians were "held to be,
and treated as, subject" to the government's "dominion and control."
c. Eleven years later, the US Attorney General ruled that "Indians are domestic subjects
of this Government . . .who are not therefore citizens."
d. since treaties interfered with the idea of Indians as "subjects," in 1870, Congress
passed a resolution stating that no further treaties would be signed with Indians.
6. By 1885, Congress had extended federal jurisdiction over major crimes on reservations--taking
away the right of tribal governments to operate under traditional law.
a. remember the decision of the S Ct in US v. Kagama: that Indians "were not a State or
nation" but were only "local dependent communities."
7. Thus, the US government moved to solidify its control over its Indian "subjects" on the
justification that they needed protection. At the same time, the US was solidifying its own
colonial system
a. Just as the Europeans were building colonies in Asia and Africa, the US was doing the
same within its boundaries
b. Indians were subjects, not citizens. The Supreme Court declared that Indians born on
reservations were not granted citizenship by the Fourteenth Amendment. The only
way they could become citizens was by naturalization or by a provision within a treaty
or statute.
c. American Indians did not gain the rights of citizenship until 1924.
C. Effect on Foreign Policy
1. When the debates began over the US taking colonies outside the US, anti-expansionists used
the moral arguments: i.e. that the US had once been a colony of England and had thrown off
their yoke; or the legal arguments that the Constitution of the United States and the
Declaration of Independence forbade it
2. Expansionists/interventionists, however, used the precedent set by US treatment of American
Indians-- book only mentions this briefly but it deserves more investigation.
a. Former Senator Henry Dawes, author of the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 (broke up
reservations into separate parcels) wrote in 1899 that Indian policy should be used as
precedent in dealing with "other alien races whose future has been put in our keeping"
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by the Spanish war.
b. the most influential advisory group on Indian policy, the Lake Mohonk Conference of
Friends of the Indians, which included Dawes, for the most part supported
imperialism abroad.
- after 1898, almost half of their conference sessions dealt with overseas
territories.
- Their 1903 platform stated that the same principles they had applied to
Indians "should govern us in all our dealings with other dependent people."
3. Leading proponents of imperialism shared this idea that the experience gained in dealing with
American Indians should be applied to the alien subject peoples of the new overseas
territories.
a. John Hay, who becomes McKinley's secretary of state, spoke of the pioneer victory
over Indians as "the righteous victory of light over darkness, . . .the fight of
civilization against barbarism."
b. McKinley echoed this sentiment when he spoke of the Filipinos as being "unfit for
self-government" and that America had "to take them all and to educate the Filipinos,
and uplift and Christianize them.."
4. Imperialists believed that their actions abroad were similar to past US expansion over North
America.
5. When anti-imperialists argued that Filipinos would automatically be admitted to citizenship
should the US annex the Philippines, Henry Cabot Lodge replied that they would become
non-citizens, just as the Indians were, saying
". . .this Republic not only has held subjects from the beginning, in the presence of those
whom we euphemistically call the "wards of the nation,". . .[We] denied to the Indian
tribes even the right to choose their allegiance, or to become citizens."
a. A University of Chicago political scientist argued in 1899 that "uncivilized nations
under tribal relations [in the Philippines] would occupy the same status precisely as our
own Indians . . .. They are, in fact, 'Indians'--and the fourteenth amendment does not
make citizens of Indians."
6. Another argument used by the anti-imperialists was that the American form of government
was based on the doctrine of the "consent of the governed" in the Declaration of
Independence.
a. Roosevelt answered that argument himself. In 1900, he stated that on Indian
reservations, Indians are "governed" by army officers and civilian agents without
regard to their consent.
- According to Roosevelt, "We must proceed in the Philippines with the
same wise caution."
7. Thus, the "subject" status was conferred upon US insular peoples after the Spanish-American
War in 1898
a. although the Teller Amendment of 1898 assured Cuba that the US had no plans to
annex it, yet McKinley (and other expansionists) did not believe that Cubans were
ready to govern themselves and American troops remained there until 1902
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b. then, in 1902 American officials wrote the Platt Amendment and forced Cuba to
append it to their constitution.
c. the Platt Amendment made Cuba into a protectorate:
- by this amendment, Cuba could not make any treaties with other powers
that might impair its independence--all treaties had to be approved by the
US
- it could make no debts it could not pay
- it would lease naval bases to the US
- AND it gave the US the right to intervene in order to maintain an orderly
government.
- t remained a protectorate until 1934 and is occupied by US troops four
times between 1898 and 1922
8. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1898, then outlined the colonial empire of the US
a. included Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico
b. US also demanded that Spain cede the Philippines to them--ended up paying $20 M
for the Philippines
- Philippines fought the US from 1898 until 1902, when it also became a
protectorate of the US- didn't gain independence until 1946.
c. By 1898, the US had also annexed Hawaii
IV. TR as President
1. When TR became president became president in 1901, his principle goal, in terms of foreign
affairs was to expand American influence and presence through the development of navy and
merchant marine.
a. For Roosevelt national economic power with national military power
b. He also thought that military power would act as a deterrent to encroachment upon the
US.
2. For TR, only one thing remained and that was to acquire the Panama Canal (best illustration
of TR's view of the role of the US abroad)
3. As your book indicates, with a little shady dealing, such as organizing and financing a
revolution after the Colombian senate would not approve an agreement giving the US the canal
zone, Roosevelt was able to gain the zone.
4. The new American presence in (and possession of) Latin America resulted in the Roosevelt
Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904
"Chronic wrong-doing may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by
some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United
States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in
flagrant cases of such wrong doing or impotence, to the exercise of an international
police power."
5. In other words:
a. Where the Monroe Doctrine told Europe to stay out of the Western Hemisphere, the R
Corollary stated that the US had the right to move into Latin America if the nations
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could not take care of their own affairs to the satisfaction of the US
6. Thus, US were to be the policeman of the W Hemisphere.
a. Gave to itself the right to judge when nations in South American were running their
affairs badly
V. Woodrow Wilson and Moral Diplomacy
1. Wilson's assumption of the presidency brought leading anti-imperialists, such as Wm J. Bryan
(who become W's Secretary of State), to power
2. W did not intend to undo what the Republicans (McKinley, TR, and Taft) had done: that is
a. the acquisition of an empire (Philippines, Guam, etc.) and the Panama Canal
b. informal alliance with Great Britain-- mvmt away from the prohibition of "entangling
alliances"
c. AND increased involvement in the affairs of Latin American nations
3. What Wilson brought to foreign relations were a high moral tone and the intention of
exercising America's new power responsibly.
a. THAT IS: the late 1890s debate between imperialists and anti-imperialists was not
longer so much about the US obtaining an empire. Now it was over how US power
should be exercised.
4. Under Wilson, the US pursued a diplomacy that he believed would set new standards for
international behavior; one that would be respected around the world.
a. For Wilson, economic justifications were crass (ungentlemanly); ideology was more
important to him
b. Wilson distrusted "big power" politics, such as the European powers approach to
international politics-- idea that the Big Powers brokered the world
c. Wilson distrusted European imperialism which created huge empires-- did not
consider the US imperialistic because it did not actively seek expansion; not bent on
acquiring land
5. Wilson felt that international relations should be based on MORAL rather than
MATERIALISTIC considerations
a. Essentially WW had a religious world view: stressed the idea of a "family of
humanity" in an interdependent global community where each nation should be
concerned about the welfare of all others
b. Wilson fundamentally hated war and armaments. He believed that every nation should
be free from intervention by outside powers
6. WW was far removed in ideology from TR
a. TR believed in "big stick" diplomacy and big power politics; thought WW was
spineless, unmanly, and a naive idealist
7. The irony is that Wilson, the non-interventionist, actually intervened far more in world affairs
than TR ever did as president,AND,in fact, gets the US involved in the first World War
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VI. Wilson and World War I
A. Introduction
1. The root cause of World War I lay in the dual alliance system-- large armies dominated the
European continent and a web of alliances which entangled the nations maximized the risk that
a local conflict could produce a wider war.
a. In Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II desired a world empire to match those of Britain and
France. Germany had military treaties with Italy and Austria-Hungary-- ("Triple
Alliance") OR the Central Powers (Turkey joins Germany; Italy drops out)
b. Linked in another alliance, England, France, and Russia agreed to aid each other in
case of attack.-- Allied Powers (later includes, Italy, Greece, Portugal) (Triple Entente)
- general fear of German penetration of the Baltic Sea area (north of
Germany) and the Mediterranean Sea.
2. In May 1914, Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson's close friend and personal advisor, sailed to
Europe on a fact-finding mission. He reported the situation as extraordinary, one of extreme
nationalism, with "too many hatreds, too many jealousies."
a. In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was
murdered by a Balkan assassin in the service of Serbia
b. Germany believed that Russian was behind the assassination but this was not the case
3. Within weeks the Central Powers were at war with the Allied Powers
4. This is the first total war-- and in four years it would partially destroy the economies of
Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia
B. Problems of Neutrality
1. Once war was declared in 1914, American economic power and trade became a major prize in
the contest between the Allies and Germany. Both sides want to use American economic
resources to their own advantage.
2. WW tried to maintain American neutrality, appealing to Americans to remain "impartial in
thought as well as in action," and promised to keep the US out of war.
3. But, most Americans did not remain neutral
a. Many felt Germany had ruthlessly crushed Belgium, although it was a neutral nation
b. Many also feared new weapons used by Germany-- the German submarine and the
use of poison gas
c. On the other hand, the British angered the US with attempts to control American
policy-- British investment was extremely high in the US and they use this to try to
manipulate policy
d. Much of the large Irish-American community in the US rooted for the defeat
of the English because the English were engaged in a war with Ireland
4. AND Wilson was unable to control events, to help the US remain "neutral"
5. Wilson's greatest challenge and problem, however, was in protecting American trade and
commerce.
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a. Since the US was neutral, it could trade with both sides, and the belligerents were
supposed to respect this trade
b. On August 14, Britain blockaded Germany and said it would search Germany-bound
ships for contraband
c. Most of the goods Germany wanted to import and Americans wanted to export were
on the banned list(including cotton, for example, which could be used for uniforms
and parachutes)
d. Between 1915 and 1916, tensions increase between US and GB as GB begins to stop
and search American ships
6. Finally, Britain appeases the US by purchasing more American goods, esp. items US was
trading with Germany
a. 1914: US trade with GB was about $200M/year
- 1917: US trade with GB increased to $2B/year
b. While German trade dwindled to almost nothing-- from $345M to only $29M
7. THUS, in effect, if not by action, by lack of action, WW accepted the British blockade
a. and US relationship with Allied nations (both in terms of trade and loans) meant
that US had an investment in seeing Germany lose
8. Germany had to choose: let British-American trade flourish or block it and risk sinking
American ships
a. Germany tried to block trade by imposing a blockade on against British Isles with the
use of subs
- 1914-1915: had intermittent policy of sinking merchant ships BUT never dared
to use full power because they feared that this would bring the US into the war
9. Twice, in the Lusitania and the Sussex incidents, Germany retreated or backed down rather
than risk American anger and a decision of war; both times WW basically slaps Germany's
hands but goes no further (remember, he does not want war either)
10. BUT: by the winter of 1916-17, Germany was confident that it was on the verge of winning
and decided that they could do it by attacking all shipping to the Allies
a. In early February 1917, Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare against all
ships trading with Allies
11. Finally, in April 1917, the US severs diplomatic relations with Germany and declared
war on the Central Powers in order, according to Wilson, make the world "safe for
democracy"
VII. Wilson and the Peace
1. In January 1918, in his address to Congress, WW outlined steps that the US and Allies should
take to ensure a postwar world "made fit to live in."
a. W separated US from the aims of the Allies: US was only a disinterested party; its
aims were altruistic, ideological-- it made no claims against Germany and offered to be
the arbitrator or mediator
2. Wilson outlines his 14 points = which was a blueprint for peace
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3. The 14 points can be broken into 3 main categories:
Points 1-5: Broad economic and diplomatic goals
1. Complete freedom of the seas
2. Reduction in armaments
3 & 4. Free trade in world and impartial adjustments of colonial claims
5. Open diplomacy-end to secret agreements (extension of the New Freedom idea of
moral publicity)
Points 6-13: Political Terms of the World
1. Self-determination- the right of self-government; Europe would be divided into
nations by ethnicity
2. Arrangements for the restoration of Belgium
3. Creation of Poland
4. Point 14-Lynch pin of the whole concept --League of Nations
a. Creation of a general assembly of nations- an international organizationwhich would guarantee the peace; a "collective security" agreement
b. future peace depended upon collective work; again this goes back to WWs
ideal of an interdependent global community
5. However, in attempting to achieve his aims, Wilson was driven both by circumstance and his
own intensely moral nature to make several costly miscalculations
6. The first was his attitude toward GOP leaders
a. WW refused to include GOP leaders among his advisors at the peace conference
despite indications that some Republicans interested in Wilson's idea for a League
b. W made the Peace settlement a partisan issue --made it a Democratic Party issue
7. The second problem was in Paris when negotiating the Peace and the differences in what
Wilson wanted and what the Allies wanted
a. Allies had suffered during the war and wanted a punitive peace
- assign all war guilt to Germany
- strip Germany of its colonies
- exact enormous reparations
- provide all necessary safeguards against future aggression; such as
taking all lands with best iron mines and no army
b. Wilson had brought with him only the 14 points and his vision of a new concept of
power. He was sure that moral ideology would win out over "baser" claims
- negotiating the peace brought, however, caused Wilson much frustration
and a forced retreat from idealism
VIII. Results:
1. FRANCE: got province of Alsace-Lorraine
occupation of Rhineland
huge reparations to be paid by Germany
2. "Self-determination":
a. German colonies did not gain independence;
b. but Wilson did get a protectorate system for the colonies under the League's
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protection
c. Former Austro-Hungarian empire was dismembered, but some 200,000
German-speaking people transferred to Italy
- remember, part of W 14 pts was to divide nations along lines of ethnicity
3. Reparations:
a. France and GB wanted $200 billion, a figure which included civilian damages and
military pensions
b. Wilson saw these demands as excessively harsh and crippling to Germany BUT he
agreed to massive repayments in principle and allowed the fixing of the specific
amount to be postponed (eventually totaled $33 billion)
4. League of Nations
a. Throughout the period of defeat for his various other points, Wilson was sustained
by his hope for the League of Nations
b. The League would correct the mistakes of the peace settlement. Thus, the League
covenant was closely tied to the treaty itself.
5. Article 10 of the covenant-- which was the collective security provision (protect integrity
of member nations, if one attacked, others would come to its rescue) was the great symbolic
issue for Wilson
a. W saw Article 10 as representing the triumph of moral force in pursuit of world peace.
b. To Wilson, collective security was the only way to prevent another world war and he
refused to compromise on this one specific point
6. Ratification of the Treaty
a. Wilson brought the Treaty of Paris home for ratification which turned into a partisan
issue: Wilson vs. GOP
b. At first, the GOP divided between those isolationists who opposed nearly any
combined international involvement by the US
c. AND those who supported the League in principle but were concerned about the
extent of Wilson's commitment to collective security
- these Republicans wanted to modify the treaty to retain the US's
unilateralism-- freedom to decide whether or not to participant in aggressive
situations
d. Wilson refused to compromise at all on the treaty. Told Democrats to vote against the
treaty with GOP reservations
7. THUS: The United States never ratified the Versailles Peace Treaty and did not join the League
of Nations
8. Ironically, without signing the peace treaty, the US remained technically at war, and it was not
until July 1921, almost three years after the war ended that Congress passed a joint resolution
ending the war. (Allies signed it in 1919)
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