THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1897-1960
1897-1902
Spanish-American War; US occupies Philippines and much of the Caribbean
- The Spanish-American War begins; the Philippines and Cuba are annexed by the US, and American hegemony is established in the Caribbean.
Spanish-American War and Philippine occupation
The war, and its subsequent annexation of countries, marks the turnaround of American foreign policy from isolationism to direct interventionism and imperialism. Before the war, American interventionism had been "limited" to the destruction of Native American nations such as the Cherokee, the Sioux, the Nez Perce, the Apache, and so many others. (It also marks the first time after the Civil War that Northern and Southern troops and politicians cooperate on anything of importance.) Upon winning office in 1897, Republican president William McKinley reverses his campaign pledge of staying out of other nations' affairs and almost immediately responds to what he calls "the cries of outraged humanity" from Cuba, at the time living under Spanish rule. (McKinley and his political aide Mark Hanna overtly court white Southern Democrats, the first Republicans to do so after the Civil War.) McKinley knows that the American people will not accept an overt invasion of Cuba, so he begins covertly destabilizing the Cuban regime, funneling monies to largely nonexistent Cuban revolutionary groups, ordering his State Department to make increasingly aggressive demands of the Spaniards, thwarting Spanish attempts to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal from Cuba, and prodding the New York newspapers to print wildly exaggerated stories of horrible repression. - On February 15, 1898, an explosion sinks the USS Maine in the Havana harbor, an explosion which remains unexplained to this day but is presented by the media as blatant proof of Spanish resistance; William Randolph Hearst's newspaper, the New York Journal, even draws up sketches of Spanish divers planting a mine to the hull of the Maine and prints these on the front page, though no proof has ever been secured of Spanish involvement in the explosion. Wild stories with sensational headlines -- Spanish Cannibalism, Inhuman Torture, Amazon Warriors Fight For Rebels -- flood the newsstands. Newspapers send hundreds of reporters, artists, and photographers south to recount Spanish atrocities. The correspondents, including such notables as author Stephen Crane and artist Frederick Remington, find little to report on when they arrived. "There is no war," Remington writes Hearst. "Request to be recalled." Hearst sends a cable in reply: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." For weeks after the Maine disaster, the Journal devotes more than eight pages a day to the story. Other papers follow Hearst's lead. Hundreds of editorials demand that the Maine and American honor be avenged. Soon a rallying cry can be heard everywhere -- in the papers, on the streets, and in the halls of Congress: "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain." Congress quickly appropriates $50 million for the upcoming conflict; "big-navy" supporters, including Assistant Secretary to the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, take the lion's share of the money for the Navy.
- In April 1898, McKinley demands that the Spanish negotiate a peace with Cuban rebels. Spain agrees; nevertheless, two days later, Congress authorizes military force to be used in Cuba at McKinley's behest, essentially declaring war without actually doing so. A bemused and angry Spain responds with an official declaration of war in late April. Although the US Army had suffered extensive downsizing after the Civil War and is in poor shape to mount a large offensive, the US Navy, particularly Commodore George Dewey's Pacific Fleet, is ready to go. On May 1, Dewey begins the US offensive by attacking the Spanish naval base in the Philippines. The US fleet devastates the outgunned and outmanned Spaniards, and the US uses the naval victory to assert control over the Philippines. (Guam would soon follow.) Meanwhile, the US Army is doing a slow job of preparing for its invasion of Cuba. Roosevelt joins his unit in Tampa, an amalgamation of Western cowboys and wealthy Eastern polo players called the "Rocky Mountain Riders," and waits impatiently for preparations to be completed. Finally, in May, the troops land in Cuba. Roosevelt's regiment's experience is typical of many American troops' experiences in Cuba; while they encounter almost no resistance from Spanish or loyalist Cubans, they find themselves marooned in steamy jungles, low on food and supplies, and struck down by dysentary and other diseases. After eight days of slogging through jungles, Roosevelt's unit, commanded by General Shafter, approaches the city of Santiago, where the Spanish army awaits them. On July 1, Roosevelt takes it upon himself to lead a ragged cavalry charge on the Spanish entrenchements; he is followed by most of his regiment and the 9th Cavalry, an African-American unit. The Spaniards flee; Roosevelt's regiment win Kettle Hill without losing a man. Roosevelt later leads his men up San Juan Hill, but another African-American unit, the 10th Cavalry, had already taken the hill. The next day, after repelling a Spanish counterattack, Shafter demands the Spanish surrender. Instead, the badly outmanned Spanish navy attempts to blockade the harbor in the hopes of severing American supply lines. It is a futile effort; the US naval forces, easily four times larger than the Spanish fleet, sinks the fleet in what one sailor calls "a big turkey shoot." Later that month, American forces defeat the small Spanish garrison on Puerto Rico and occupy the island. The Spanish are forced to surrender and eventually withdraw from the Caribbean, leaving it to American control (the Spanish and Americans negotiated the withdrawals and subsequent US takeovers; no representatives from any of the former Spanish colonies were given any voice in the decisions). Roosevelt is given the Medal of Honor for his participation in what he calls "a splendid little war,"
- Interestingly enough, the US refuses to take over control of Cuba, unwilling to assume that nation's $400 million debt. Instead, it annexes the Philippines, to the horror and dismay of Filipinos who had assumed that the US, after helping them throw off the yoke of Spanish control, would assist them in regaining their independence. Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Filipino independence movement, feels betrayed. Aguinaldo admired the United States and had helped the Americans fight the Spanish. Now the Americans and the Spanish residents of the islands were fighting him. Aguinaldo leads his bitter troops into the jungles, and for three years they fight a brutal war against the military government. In the end the overwhelming power of the American forces defeats them. The Americans confine many Filipinos in concentration camps like the ones the Spanish had used in Cuba. William Howard Taft is appointed head of the Philippine Commission, charged with replacing the military government with a civilian legislature.
- Despite the plan to prepare the Philippines for independence, however, Americans continue to rule the islands until after World War II. The war in the Philippines claims four times as many American lives as the war with Spain did. Few Americans, however, rejoice at the victory. There are no heroes. No parades greet the returning troops. For many, this war seemed to contradict some basic American values. "I have been criticized a good deal about the Philippines," McKinley later says, "but I don't deserve it. The truth is...they came to us as a gift from the gods." "Congratulations," Andrew Carnegie will write to a leading expansionist. "You seem to have about finished your work of civilizing the Filipinos. It is thought that about eight thousand of them have been completely civilized and sent to heaven. I hope you like it." Nevertheless, McKinley achieves his objectives. Feigning reluctance but actually champing at the bit for war, he sent the US military into a war against Spanish, Cuban, and Filipino troops and resistance fights in a series of wars that were never declared, against countries that presented no threat whatsoever to the United States. (One US soldier comments, "The country won't be pacified until the n*ggers are killed off like the Indians." Mark Twain later wrote that the Filipino occupation has "debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world.") The wars do, however, ensure McKinley's re-election in 1900, with Roosevelt as his vice president.
- McKinley dies in September 1901 under the bullets of a dour anarchist named Leon Czolgosz; Roosevelt takes the presidency and wins re-election in 1904. Having no interest in establishing an overt empire in the Caribbean, he withdraws US troops from Cuba in 1902 and spends an increasing amount of time jockeying between fighting the interests of huge, and hugely corrupt, American businessmen and winning their support for his other policy initiatives, including his environmental reforms. In many ways, Roosevelt is the precursor to the "maverick Republicans" of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, lately embodied in Arizona's Barry Goldwater and John McCain. (Lewis Lapham, Small Planet, Sarah Vowell)
- The Salt Lake Tribune writes of the Philippine occupation,
Philippine occupation
"The struggle must continue til the misguided creatures there shall have their eyes bathed in enough blood to cause their vision to be cleared, and to understand that not only is resistance useless, but that those whom they are now holding as enemies have no purpose toward them expect to consecrate to liberty and to open for them a way to happiness." That same year, a New York Tribune editorial reads, "Whether we like it or not, we most go on slaughtering the natives in English fashion, and taking what muddy glory lies in wholesale killing til they have learned to respect our arms. The more difficult task of getting them to respect our intentions will follow." (Wikipedia) - After the conquest and annexation of the Philippines, McKinley tells a group of Methodist ministers,
Philippine occupation
"I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight, and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one might. And one night late it came to me this way -- I don't know how it was, but it came...that we could not leave [the Filipinos] to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was...that there was nothing left for me to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died." McKinley is apparently unaware that the vast majority of Filipinos have been Christian since the late 1500s. Author Sarah Vowell, comparing McKinley to George W. Bush, notes that "these God-made-me presidential war rationales apparently never go out of fashion." (Sarah Vowell) - August 29: The First Zionist Congress is held in Basle, Switzerland.
First Zionist Congress
Over 200 Jewish representatives from 24 states and territories attend. The delegation agrees to seek the formation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)
