Download
1 / 42
420 likes | 661 Views
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire. Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire. Political Overview from 1870 to the 1900 1873: Panic of 1873 triggers an economic depression that lasts until 1879
E N D
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • Political Overview from 1870 to the 1900 • 1873: Panic of 1873 triggers an economic depression that lasts until 1879 • 1876: Contested presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York • 1880: Republican James Garfield of Ohio elected • 1881: Garfield assassinated and Chester Arthur of New York becomes president. • 1884: Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland of New York elected president • 1888: Republican Benjamin Harrison of Indiana is elected president • 1890: Sherman Anti-Trust and Sherman Silver Purchase Act enacted • 1892: Cleveland elected to presidency again; People’s Party is founded • 1893: Panic of 1893 triggers a depression even worse than the one in the 1870s • 1896: Republican William McKinley of Ohio elected president against Democrat William Jennings Bryant • 1898: War with Spain and annexation of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • The Party System • Stability: After the end of Reconstruction, the two-party system was highly stable and relatively evenly matched: sixteen Republican states and fourteen Democratic states, with swing states like New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois often determining elections. • Stalemate: From 1876 to 1896, the margin between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates was 1.5% of the popular vote. Republicans tended to control the presidency and Senate (excepting Cleveland’s two terms); Democrats mostly controlled the House. • High Turnout: From 1860 to 1900, presidential elections averaged 78 percent turnout of all eligible voters.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • The Party System • Disenfranchisement: Almost all blacks came to be disenfranchised during this period, women in most states could not vote, and some poor whites in the South. (The territorial government of Wyoming was the first to grant the vote to women in 1869 and the first state to do so when it was admitted to the Union in 1890.) • Regional and Cultural Basis of Party Identification: Regional, ethnic, and racial identification had much to do with the era’s extreme party loyalty: Southern whites voted for the Democratic Party as the party of white supremacy while blacks voted for the party of Lincoln. Middle-class Protestants of the North tended to vote Republican, while Catholic immigrants tended to vote Democratic.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire 1888 cartoon satirizing the “pension pig” • The Politics of Equilibrium • The National Government • Limited Role of Federal Government: It delivered • mail, maintained a relatively small military, • conducted foreign policy, and collected tariffs and • taxes. It stepped back from many of its Civil War • expansions (like rescinded the temporary income • tax). The federal government was very limited • compared to the centralized national bureaucratic • governments developing in Europe. • Civil War Pension System: From the end of the Civil War to the early 20th century, the federal government paid out pensions to the majority of males in the North, both black and white. But this pension system—the first federal “entitlement” program—died out with the Civil War generation.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • Presidents and Patronage • Limited Presidential Power: While symbolically important, presidents wielded little power beyond the ability to award patronage (federal jobs) to supporters, with some 100,000 to fill. Some positions, like collector of customs in a major port, could be very lucrative. • President Hayes Ineffective: Hayes announced he would only run for one term, which lessened his power, and he was unable to accomplish his major goal of establishing a civil service system.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • Presidents and Patronage • Stalwarts and Half-Breeds: Two factions arose within the Republican Party to control patronage; it was largely driven by a grudge between two Republican leaders. • Stalwarts: Led by New Yorker Roscoe Conkling, this group rhetorically favored old-school machine patronage politics. • Half-Breeds: Led by James G. Blaine of Maine, and rhetorically favored reform, but sought to control patronage. like their opponents. • Garfield Elected: Veteran Ohio Congressman and Half-Breed was elected by a compromise ticket: a Stalwart, Chester A. Arthur of New York, a Stalwart, was elected Vice President. Won by a decisive Electoral College vote, though narrow popular margin.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire January 1881 cartoon from Puck magazine showing President Hayes leaving the “Civil Service Reform” baby on President-Elect Garfield’s doorstep.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • Presidents and Patronage • Garfield Assassinated: Garfield supported civil service reform in his early tenure, but only four months into his term, he was shot twice while standing in a Washington railroad station. He lingered for three months, but then died. • Charles Guiteau: The assassin was deranged office-seeker who had delusions of grandeur, believing an incoherent speech he wrote was key in Garfield’s election (although he was a Grant partisan), and thus deserved a plum appointment. • Pendleton Act: Despite being a Stalwart, Chester Arthur broke with Conkling when he became president and advocated civil service reform. In 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which required that a small number of federal positions be hired through exams rather than patronage.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire Political cartoon deriding Garfield’s deluded assassin, Charles Guiteau Contemporary depiction of Guiteau’s shooting of Garfield
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire Grover Cleveland • The Politics of Equilibrium • Grover Cleveland in 1884 • “Mugwumps”: Republicans nominate James Blaine in 1884, whose seamy reputation horrifies Republican liberals known as “Mugwumps,” who say they will bolt for an honest Democrat. • Cleveland Elected: Democrats nominate the honest reform governor of New York, Grover Cleveland, to siphon off the “Mugwumps.” In a public meeting with Blaine, a Protestant clergyman referred to the Democrats as the party of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion,” leading to a major Catholic turnout for the Democrats in New York.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • Cleveland, Harrison, and the Tariff • Cleveland’s Attempts to Lower the Tariff: The Democratic House passed a bill, lowering the tariff, but the Republican Senate passed its own bill raising the tariff, creating a state of deadlock in Congress. • Election of 1888: The tariff issue predominated in the 1888 election, and while Cleveland won the popular vote, an obscure Republican senator from Indiana, Benjamin Harrison, won the Electoral College vote.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • New Public Issues • Interstate Commerce Act: This 1887 law created the first federal body to regulate any kind of private commerce, specifically railroads. It created a five-man commission to curb exploitative practices of railroads, but it was ineffective with haphazard enforcement. • Anti-Trust Sentiment Rising: Although Harrison sought to do as little as possible, certain issues forced his hand. Fifteen western and southern states adopted laws prohibiting business combinations that eliminated competition, so big conglomerates instead incorporated in states like Delaware and New Jersey, which had laws favorable to them. Antitrust legislation had to come from the federal level to work. • Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890: Congress at last passed an anti-trust law in 1890, but for the next decade, few cases were pursued (ironically, it was mostly used against labor unions).
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Politics of Equilibrium • New Public Issues • McKinley Tariff: Congress passed the highest tariff ever in October 1890, raising it from 38 percent to 49.5 percent on certain imported goods (it lowered the rate on other items, with the highest rates charged on items made by American producers). Senator William McKinley of Ohio became known as “the Napoleon of Protection.” • Anger against the High Tariff: Popular sentiment turned against Republicans since the high tariff was seen as a measure to enrich wealthy producers and hurt consumers, and led to Democrats winning both houses in 1890 and Cleveland getting elected for a second term in 1892. Cleveland was a free trade advocate who wanted a lower tariff.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Agrarian Revolt • Agricultural Hardships: American Farmers faced many hardships in the post-Civil War period, including: • Agricultural prices becoming too low because of overproduction due to technological innovations and the opening of the Great Plains • The high cost of manufactured goods because of lack of foreign competition due to high tariffs • The contraction of currency due to Republican “hard money” policies (farmers were generally debtors) • High railroad rates for rural areas (since there was less competition) • Renting Lands: Hard times led many farmers to have their land foreclosed, and then turn to tenant farming, share-cropping, or the crop-lien system.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Agrarian Revolt • The Grangers: National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry: This organization was founded in 1867 to teach its members new scientific agricultural methods, but became a potent political organization during the depression of the 1870s, pushing state legislatures to pass strict railroad and warehouse regulations. The Grange was not a durable force beyond the 1870s since the courts undermined its laws and its leadership was disorganized. • The Farmers’ Alliances • First started forming in the South as early as 1875; by 1880 the Southern Alliance had four million members, and a Northwest Alliance began to grow in the Midwest to replace the Grange, and the two merged in 1889. • Social Goals of the Farmers’ Alliances: Sought to eliminate cycle of farmer debt by creating cooperative stores, banks, and processing plants. • Alliance’s Political Growth: In the 1890 elections, Alliance-supported candidates won at least partial control of legislatures in twelve states, six governorships, three U.S. senators, and roughly fifty U.S. representatives.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Agrarian Revolt • People’s Party Established • Delegates meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, declare the formation of a third party, the People’s Party, in July 1892, and nominate James B. Weaver of Iowa for president, who gets one million votes in the November election. • The Populist Constituency • Populism’s Limited Appeal: Biggest constituency was small farmers who lacked economic security. Attempts to unite with the Knights of Labor failed since there were few shared interests. Bringing the Colored Alliances into the fold alienated white southerners. • Populist Ideas • The Populists’ Reform Program: Sought to create a network of government-owned warehouses that could also make loans against deposited crops for low interest; abolition of national banks; a graduated federal income tax, and government ownership of railroads, telephones, and telegraphs.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Crisis of the 1890s • The Panic of 1893 • Chain Reaction: The most severe depression in the nation’s history up to that point was sparked by the failure of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, followed by the National Cordage Company a few months later. • America’s Interconnected Economy: When railroads—the nation’s economic circulatory system—suffered, so did everything else. In six months, 8,000 businesses, 156 railroads, and 400 banks failed. The economy would not recover until 1901. • “Coxey’s Army”: Ohio businessman and Populist Jacob S. Coxey led an army of unemployed men to Washington in 1894 to demand that the government start a massive public works project to get people working again.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire Coxey’s Army on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Crisis of the 1890s • The Silver Question • Depression and Monetary Policy: President Cleveland believed that the instability of the monetary system was a root cause of the depression. In the 19th century, people believed that paper currency needed to be backed by “hard currency”: precious metals, known as “specie.” • “Bimetallism”: The U.S. had recognized gold and silver as the basis for the dollar for most of its existence. The “mint ratio” was 16:1—sixteen ounces of silver equaled one ounce of gold—but the commercial value of silver was much higher than this. Sellers of silver could get much higher prices elsewhere, so federal mints stopped minting silver coins. • “Crime of ’73”: In 1873, Congress passed a law ending silver coins, confirming the existing situation. But later in the 1870s, silver fell below the value of the 16:1 ratio, so many complained that Congress had sealed off a way to expand the money supply. In response, Congress passed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, requiring the government to buy silver for gold, but not mint it. This diminished the gold reserves, so President Cleveland asked for its repeal.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Crisis of the 1890s • “A Cross of Gold” • Democratic Failure: The Republicans felt assured of victory in the 1896 election due to the Democrats’ failure to address the depression. • McKinley Nominated: Ohio Republican Party boss, Marcus A. Hanna, engineered the nomination of the Ohio governor, William McKinley. At the Republican Convention, a platform of a high tariff and opposition to free coinage of silver led 34 delegates from the mountain and plains states walked out and joined the Democrats. • “Cross of Gold” Speech: On July 9, 1896, at the Democratic Convention, defenders of the gold standard held sway until a 36-year-old Congressman from Nebraska, William Jennings Bryan, took the stage and gave one of the most famous speeches in American political history, what came to be known as the “Cross of Gold” speech. It caused such a frenzy that it pushed the party to a pro-silver position and led to Bryan’s nomination for president the following day.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire Excerpts from the “Cross of Gold” Speech “You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country….” “If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” William Jennings Bryan in 1896
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Crisis of the 1890s • The Conservative Victory • “Fusion”: Populists had expected both parties to remain conservative, leaving plenty of room for their candidates, but Democrats had stolen their thunder. Many Populists argued “fusing” with the Democrats would destroy their party, but saw no other alternative. • Birth of Modern Campaigning: It had been seen as undignified for presidential candidates to go out and make stump speeches, but Bryan traveled 18,000 miles and addressed 5 million people in many “whistle stops” and other events, setting a new precedent. • McKinley Victory: McKinley beat Bryan by 271 electoral votes to 176, and received 51.1 % of the popular vote to Bryan’s 47.7. • End of the People’s Party: The Populists’ merger with the Democrats was a disaster, and led to that party’s quick disintegration.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire Election of 1896
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Crisis of the 1890s • McKinley and Recovery • Return to Stability: The McKinley administration oversaw a return to political stability in part because the opposition had played out, its shrewd policies, and the bettering of economic conditions. • Tariff: The McKinley administration pushed for and got passed the Dingley Tariff of 1897, the highest ever: it doubled taxes on woolens, linens, silks, China, and sugar, averaging 52 percent on all imported goods in its first year. • Gold Standard Act of 1900: This legislation confirmed the nation’s commitment to the gold standard. • Economic Improvement: This began in 1898, when crop failures drove up agricultural prices, and businesses began to expand. New gold processing techniques also increased the supply, thus allowing the currency expansion needed for economic growth.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire Captain Alfred T. Mahan • Stirrings of Imperialism • The New Manifest Destiny • Sources of Imperialism: The experience of subjugating Indian peoples and exerting control over them had created an imperialist model. • Depression: The 1890s economic troubles encouraged businesses to look for new markets around the globe. • Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914): This U.S. navy officer wrote an influential book in 1890, The Influence of Sea Power in History (1890), that argued that the great nations of history were great sea powers. He feared the U.S. did not have enough naval power to pursue the new global role that he envisioned for it.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • Stirrings of Imperialism • Hemispheric Hegemony • Pan-American Congress: Secretary of State James G. Blaine created this organization in 1889 to promote U.S. interests in Latin America. • Venezuelan Dispute: The Cleveland administration sided with Venezuela in a border dispute with British Guiana, threatening war. • Hawaii and Samoa • Hawaii Coveted: By the 1880s, the U.S. Navy wanted Pearl Harbor for a base. Hawaii had long been an important way station for U.S. ships involved in whaling and the China trade, and in 1887, a treaty was negotiated that allowed for the naval base. In addition, American sugar growers—who had started to settle in the 1840s—had been able to ship their product to the U.S. duty-free because of an 1875 agreement.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • Stirrings of Imperialism • Hawaii and Samoa • Queen Liliuokalani (1838-1817): Native Hawaiians, upset with having land taken away by American planters and their population ravaged by disease, put a strong nationalist queen on the throne in 1891. • Sugar Duties Restored: In 1890, U.S. Congress repealed the customs exemption on Hawaiian sugar as a part of the McKinley Tariff, devastating the islands’ economy. • Hawaii Annexed: In 1893, American sugar planters revolted and asked for U.S. protection. Congress approved a treaty of annexation in 1898. • Acquisition of Samoa: In 1878 the Hayes administration negotiated a treaty for a naval station in the Samoan harbor of Pago Pago, 3,000 miles closer to Asia than Hawaii. In 1899, the island chain was divided between the U.S. and Germany.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • War with Spain • Controversy over Cuba • Cuban Revolt: The “Ten Years’ War” broke out in 1868, when sugar planters tried to rebel against Spanish rule but failed. In 1895, Cubans revolted again, and garnered much sympathy in the U.S., especially as word got out about the atrocities of Spanish general, Valeriano Weyler, who committed atrocities, used torture, and set up concentration camps (rebels also committed atrocities). • Yellow Journalism: A circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal created a demand for sensational stories about Spanish atrocities. • Dupuy de Lôme Letter: A Cuban agent intercepted a letter of the Spanish minister in Washington that described President McKinley as weak-willed, which was unacceptable to Americans (even though they themselves said the same thing.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • War with Spain • Controversy over Cuba • The Maine: February 15, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine, a battleship commissioned in 1889, mysteriously exploded and sunk in Havana harbor, killing over 260 people. A naval inquiry commission reported an underwater mine was responsible for the explosion, although later evidence shows points to an accidental engine-room explosion. • War Declared: McKinley hoped to avoid war through and negotiated with Spain to stop fighting, eliminate the concentration camps, and negotiated with the rebels. The Spanish refused to talk with the rebels, so Congress declared war on April 25 at McKinley’s request. U.S.S. Maine in 1898
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • War with Spain • “A Splendid Little War” (Sec. of State John Hay coined this) • Short Duration: Lasted only from April to August 1898, in part because Cuban rebels had weakened Spanish resistance. • Supply and Mobilization Problems: U.S. forces had a shortage of modern rifles and clothing appropriate for the tropics. The small standing army of 28,000 was used to fighting Indians, not armies, and inexperienced National Guardsmen were used in big numbers. • Racial Tensions in the Military: As black soldiers traveled through the south toward Tampa where they would leave to fight, several conflicts broke out as they resisted segregation. One nightlong race riot in Tampa left 30 wounded. Many of the Cuban fighters were black—including one general—which led American black soldiers to feel the injustice of discrimination even more acutely.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • War with Spain • Seizing the Philippines • Eye on the Philippines: Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt was a big supporter of Mahan’s theories and the U.S. pursuit of imperialist goals. He strengthened the Navy’s Pacific Squadron and ordered its commander, Commodore George Dewey, to seize the Philippines in the event of war with Spain. • Dewey Victorious: Dewey sailed his squadron into Manila harbor on May 1 and destroyed the aging Spanish fleet there. When the army arrived several months later, the Spanish surrender Manila. Commodore Dewey
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • War with Spain • The Battle for Cuba • Cuba: U.S. forces were slow to react until a Spanish fleet sailed into Santiago harbor at the end of May. A force of 17,000 U.S. soldiers left Tampa in June and landed in Cuba. • Battle of San Juan Hill: On July 1, U.S. forces pushed to take the city. Teddy Roosevelt, who had resigned as assistant secretary of the navy to take part in the fighting, commanded his “Rough Riders” cavalry unit up Kettle Hill in a reckless charge into Spanish guns that succeeded. Buffalo Soldiers bore the worst brunt of the fighting. • Santiago Blockade: The U.S. Navy blockaded the Spanish fleet in the Santiago Bay, but destroyed it when it tried to break out on July 3. Spanish ground forces surrendered the city on July 16. • Puerto Rico Occupied: On July 25, U.S. troops invaded Puerto Rico, and encountered some resistance, which ended with the signing of a peace protocol on August 12.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire The Spanish-American War in Cuba, 1898 Teddy Roosevelt and the “Rough Riders” on San Juan Hill
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • War with Spain • Puerto Rico and the United States • Colonial History: Puerto Rico had been a part of the Spanish Empire since 1508, and its society was largely a Spanish elite with African slaves growing sugar and coffee. Slavery had been abolished in 1873. • Foraker Act of 1900: This law did away with U.S. military rule of the government and created a colonial government. • Sugar Industry: As in Hawaii, Americans began to move in and create big sugar plantations, pushing Puerto Ricans off their land and forcing them into wage labor positions. • Jones Act of 1917: With pressure from a vocal independence movement, Congress passed a law that made Puerto Rico a U.S. territory and made all of its inhabitants U.S. citizens.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Debate over the Philippines • The Philippines Question: Annexation generated much more anxiety and debate than in the case of Puerto Rico, since it was a densely populated territory thousands of miles away, seeming more like the naked imperialist aggression of European powers. McKinley saw no other alternative since he viewed Filipinos as “unfit” for self-rule. • Anti-Imperialist Sentiment: Many major figures in the U.S. opposed annexation, including Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Gompers, etc. • Anti-Imperialist League: This group of upper-class Bostonians campaigned vigorously against the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Many were Grover Cleveland-style Democrats who believed in small government and free trade.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Debate over the Philippines • Supporters of Annexation: Imperialists like Roosevelt favored annexation, while some business interests saw it as an opportunity to expand overseas markets. Others used the example of dependent Indian nations as an appropriate model. • Election of 1900: Pro-annexation forces got a boost from a strange supporter—William Jennings Bryan, a fervent anti-imperialist—who wanted to make annexation the central issue of the 1900 presidential election. Yet this strategy misfired, because McKinley won by a bigger margin than in 1896, benefitting from returning prosperity and the colorful personality of his vice presidential candidate, the hero of San Juan Hill, Teddy Roosevelt.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Republic as Empire • Governing the Colonies • Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico: These three possessions became territories without much problem: Hawaii in 1900, Alaska in 1912, and Puerto Rico in 1917. • Platt Amendment: Cuba was more difficult. When Cuba prepared a constitution without reference to the U.S., Congress passed this amendment in 1901, which barred Cuba from making treaties with other countries, gave the U.S. the right to intervene in Cuban affairs, and required permanent naval stations (like Guantanamo Bay). • Economic Imperialism: U.S. investors dominated plantations, railroads, and factories. When uprisings happened, U.S. troops intervened (1906-1909, 1912, and 1917-1922).
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Republic as Empire • The Philippine War • Filipino Desire for Independence: Filipinos had • rebelled against the Spanish well before the U.S. arrived, and initially fought with the Americans to get rid of the Spaniards. • Emilio Aguinaldo (1869-1964): This able rebel leader began the fight against the Americans when he realized they were not leaving, and viewed himself as the leader of the legitimate government. He conducted a four-year guerilla war that killed 4,300 American deaths and probably caused at least 50,000 Filipino deaths. • The Philippines Brutally Subjugated: General Arthur MacArthur used brutal tactics like torture and summary execution to put down the uprising. Aguinaldo was captured in 1901, and who signed a document to tell his followers to stop fighting. Intermittent violence continued until 1906. • Gradual Shift to Self-Rule: Filipinos were finally granted independence on July 4, 1946, after World War II and Japanese occupation.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire American soldiers applying the “water cure” torture—a variation of what we know call “water-boarding”—on a Filipino prisoner in May 1901
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Republic as Empire • The Open Door • Interest in Asia: The acquisition of the Philippines drove increased American interest in Asia, especially in the fate of a greatly weakened China, which was being carved up by England, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan around the turn of the century. • Hay’s “Open Door Notes”: Secretary of State John Hay issued notes to imperial powers in China asking them to allow other powers to trade with China, and that the U.S. wanted no special privileges there. • Boxer Rebellion: A secret martial-arts society known in the west as the “Boxers” lay siege to the European diplomatic corps in 1900, leading to all of the imperial powers (including the U.S.) to send an expeditionary force to rescue the diplomats. Hay was able to negotiate a peace that preserved nominal Chinese territorial integrity and U.S. access to Chinese markets.
Chapter Nineteen: From Crisis to Empire • The Republic as Empire • A Modern Military System • Creation of the Modern Military: The war with Spain had revealed American military deficiencies despite the victory. • Elihu Root (1845-1937): McKinley appointed this very capable corporate attorney as Secretary of War after the war, and he greatly reformed the military, making the standing army a force of 100,000 rather than just 25,000, and required federal training standards for the National Guard. He also created an Army Staff College and a Joint Chiefs of Staff, resulting in a better trained and more efficient command structure.
