USA as an Imperialist Power (3009 Words)

Read this article to learn about the imperialist power, protest movements, black people’s struggle for equality; between 1890’s to FWW in the USA!

For about a hundred years after the thirteen English colonies on the east coast of North America had won their independence from England and emerged as the United States of America, that country territorially expanded at the cost of the neighbouring areas to attain its present territorial proportion.

The westward expansion of the United States took place at the cost of the American Indian tribes which inhabited those areas.

The American Indians resisted these encroachments, but by 1890 their resistance finally ended in a massacre at a place called Wounded Knee in South Dakota.

USA also purchased vast territories of Louisiana and Alaska from France and Russia, respectively, and seized Texas and California from Mexico after a war. Between 1861 and 1865, there was a civil war when the southern states of USA, which were primarily agricultural with plantations worked by slave labour, seceded from the union. As a result of the defeat of the southern states in the civil war the union was preserved and slavery was abolished.

Within three decades after the end of the civil war, USA had become the foremost industrial power in the world. By the end of the nineteenth century, she was producing about one-third of the total production of iron and steel in the world. In almost every branch of industry, she outstripped every other country in the world.

There was over 300,000 km of railroads in the country, which exceeded the combined railroads in the whole of Europe. She produced and consumed more oil and natural gas than the rest of the world put together. For a long time, the amazing growth of the US economy went unnoticed. One reason for this was that the US herself provided a huge market for her products. The US population had risen from about four million in 1790 to about 92 million in 1910.

About twenty- five million Europeans had migrated to the US during the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century. In USA there had also been a general lack of interest in European and world affairs.

USA as an Imperialist Power:

By the 1890s, USA had emerged as a new imperialist power. In 1889, a US senator said, “Today, we are raising more than we can consume. Today, we are making more than we can use. Therefore, we must find new markets for our produce, new occupation for our capital, new work for our labour”.

Another senator had warned that the US must not fall out of the line of March. Like many Europeans at that time, the Americans also had begun talking about the duty of the civilised nations to uplift the less fortunate ones and the domination by strong nations of the weak ones being in accordance with the laws of nature.

The US expansion in the Pacific had started even earlier. By 1881, the Hawaiian Islands were referred to as being a part of the American System, though they were formerly annexed only in 1898. In the 1880s, a war-like situation had developed as a result of the US, German and British rivalries over the Samoan Islands.

For some time, the three countries established a tripartite control there but in 1899, Germany and the US divided the Islands among themselves, with Britain being compensated elsewhere. In 1893, USA declared her hegemony over the American continent.

During a territorial dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana (present Guyana), she forced Britain to agree to refer the dispute to arbitration and declared, “Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition”.

In 1898, the US went to war with Spain over Cuba which, along with Puerto Rico, was then the only Spanish colony in the Americas. It was claimed to have been “a splendid little war”—except for those who had fought in it.

The US also attacked the Philippines, a Spanish colony in the Pacific. Spain was defeated and ceded Puerto Rico and the island of Guam in the Pacific to the US. The Filipinos were considered unfit to rule themselves and the US president, claiming that he had received divine guidance, decided to annex the Philippines. Cuba was forbidden to make treaties with any other country and the US claimed the right to intervene in Cuba in order to preserve her independence, and the life and property of its inhabitants.

Though nominally independent, she became a US appendage. When, in the 1890s, the European powers made preparations for the partition of China, the US felt that she would be left out. She, therefore, declared what is known as the ‘Open Door policy’, which meant that in China no imperialist country should be discriminated in terms of the areas that they claimed to be their spheres of influence.

When the Boxer Rebellion broke out, the US troops joined the troops of other imperialist countries in suppressing it and occupying Beijing. By the early years of the twentieth century, the US had become fully aware of her being a world power. There was also a streak of racism in the US attitude towards other peoples. According to the US president, Theodore Roosevelt, the “civilized” nations were predominantly White and the “uncivilized ones” predominantly non-White.

He himself summarised his foreign policy in these words: “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. He was concerned about the Russian designs in China and, therefore, was quite happy when the Japanese attacked the Russian fleet in 1904.

Later, he mediated to end the Russo-Japanese War and persuaded Russia to recognise Japan’s territorial gains which included the control of Korea and southern Manchuria, and a part of the Sakhalin Island which had earlier belonged to Russia.

He also entered into a secret agreement with Japan which gave the US the right to trade freely in that region. The US appeasement of Japan’s colonial ambitions was to prove costly to the US later as Japan became the main rival to the US in the Pacific.

Latin America had begun to be seen as USA’s special sphere of interest, which was open to intervention only by the US. In 1904, Roosevelt declared that the United States had the right not only to oppose European intervention in the American continent but to intervene in the internal affairs of her neighbours to maintain order.

This is known as a new ‘corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine. For over thirty years, the US kept to herself the control of the custom revenues of the Dominican Republic. In 1906, US troops landed in Cuba to preserve order and remained there for three years.

The completion of the Panama Canal is considered the “most celebrated accomplishment” of Roosevelt. A French company had completed about 40 per cent construction of the Panama Canal in Colombia. The US bought from the French company its holdings but the Colombian government refused to agree to the terms which the US had offered to her for securing the rights to construct the canal in the Colombian territory. Roosevelt called the Colombians “bandits” and “blackmailers”. Soon after, a “revolution” was organised in Panama with money being supplied by an American industrialist.

The US troops landed in Panama to preserve order (actually to prevent Colombia from suppressing the ‘revolution’) and, after three days, Panama was recognised as an independent nation. The new government of Panama signed an agreement with the US on the Panama Canal on terms that were much more favourable to the US than those which the US had earlier offered to the Colombian government and which the latter had rejected.

The canal was opened in 1914. In. the meantime, in 1906, Roosevelt had been given the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Russo-Japanese War. The US policy of intervention in the internal affairs of the Latin American countries continued during the presidencies of William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. Taft’s policy of promoting American investments in the Latin American countries and elsewhere and establishing a de facto control through these investments did not preclude the use of gunboats and armed intervention.

The US policy towards Mexico during the presidency of Wilson earned the US the lasting hostility of Mexico. In 1910, a corrupt dictator of Mexico had been deposed by a popular leader called Francisco Madero. In 1913, he was deposed, with US approval, by another dictator, and murdered. This dictator was deposed after some time but the US unsuccessfully continued to intervene in the affairs of Mexico.

Protest Movements:

The industrial expansion, which had made USA a leading industrial power and was soon to make her a world power, was accompanied by corruption, intense exploitation and complete disregard for the interests of the people.

The owner of one of the largest railroad companies is credited with the most ruthless but frank remark: “The public be damned”. By adopting ruthless methods, a few individuals controlling a few corporations had concentrated enormous economic power in their hands. Often this concentration took place through bribery and in crass violation of the existing laws.

The holder of a huge industrial empire, when told that what he was doing was against the law, declared: “What do I care about the law? Hain’t I got the power.” The need to control the increasing concentration of economic power in a few hands became a major issue in the politics of USA from the 1890s. It led to a movement called ‘Progressivism’.

What has been said earlier about the conditions of the common people, particularly the industrial workers, in Europe was also true for USA. The working and living condition of the workers was miserable and unemployment was a common feature of their life in spite of the enormous economic growth.

Workers were never very far from the prospect of poverty, losing their jobs or facing a cut in their wages. Child labour was rampant and children working at night in the textile mills were kept awake by throwing cold water on their faces. Female children in some industries worked sixteen hours a day.

About 20 per cent of the workers employed in the manufacturing industries were women, who were paid much lower wages than men. Little attention was paid to prevent industrial accidents, which were a common occurrence.

The workers of USA began to organise themselves and there was a wave of strikes from the 1880s. Most of these were ruthlessly suppressed by the state police who use to terrorise the workers. The industrialists also used guards hired for the purpose of breaking strikes and terrorising workers. One agency which provided the services of its guards for this purpose was the Pinkerton Detective Agency and it continued to provide these services for many decades. Killing of trade union leaders was not uncommon.

A national workers’ organisation which emerged in this period was the American Federation of Labour (AFL). On its call, strikes and demonstrations were held on 1 May 1886 all over the country to press the demand for an eight-hour working day.

In Haymarket Square in Chicago, on that day, the police fired at demonstrators who were protesting against police atrocities on the striking workers of the city. Four workers were killed. Someone had earlier thrown a bomb at the police, which had killed seven policemen. Eight persons were arrested on the charge of inciting the person who had thrown the bomb and in what is considered to be one of the most “injudicious trials” in American history.

Seven of the accused were sentenced to death. The Second International’s decision to give a call to workers to observe May Day was connected with the incidents that had earlier taken place at Haymarket Square in Chicago on 1 May 1886.

Many Americans raised their voice against the gross inequalities in society, the exploitation of child labour and of women workers, the growing concentration of wealth in a few hands, and corrupt industrialists, bankers, politicians and officials. A powerful literature of protest was produced by writers and journalists.

There also developed a strong opposition to the imperialist policies being followed by the US government. Some of the earliest socialist groups outside Europe were formed in the US. In 1901, the Socialist Party of America was formed. Its most prominent leader was Eugene V Debs, who polled about one million votes in the 1912 election for the presidency. Another important labour organisation was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

When the First World War broke out, the US, in the words of President Wilson, decided to remain “impartial in thought as well as deed”. In April 1917, USA decided to enter the “war to end wars” and to “make the world safe for democracy”.

As has been mentioned earlier, the coming of the First World War brought about a permanent schism in the world socialist movement with some of the socialist parties of different Europe countries supporting the imperialist policies of their respective governments.

The American Socialist Party and the IWW, however, stuck to their opposition to the war. The US government had made laws according to which any public expression of opposition to the war was sedition and sabotage. Many Americans were prosecuted for their opposition to the war. Eugene Debs was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.

Black People’s Struggle for Equality:

There were other tensions and conflicts within the US some of which have persisted till our own times. Vast sections of the American population suffered from various other disadvantages besides the ones created by the concentration of wealth in a few hands. Industrial progress did not mean increased prosperity of the people.

In the course of a little over a hundred years, the American Indian tribes, which inhabited North America, were deprived of their lands and their way of life was totally disrupted. By 1890, the process of their total subordination was nearly complete and they had to accept what the Whites left to them.

One of the major issues in the history of USA since the nineteenth century has been the struggle of the Black or Afro-American people for freedom and equality. For about eighty years after USA emerged as an independent nation with a republican form of government, slavery continued in that country.

In 1860, in a total population of about 31 million, there were four million slaves owned by about 225,000 people. This was mainly prevalent in the southern states of USA.

In 1865, after the civil war, slavery was abolished. For about ten years after the civil war, efforts were made to enforce the rights of the Black people—the former slaves in the former slave-owning southern states. In 1868, ‘citizenship’ rights were given to all persons “born or naturalized” in the United States and these rights could not be abridged.

In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed, which made it a law that the right of the citizens to vote “shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude”.

Earlier, even in the northern states, which did not have slavery, most Black people were denied their basic citizenship rights on one ground or the other. After the Fifteenth Amendment the Black people not only got their right to vote but such a right was enforcing even in the southern states.

This period which lasted till the 1870s is known as the Reconstruction Period. In many respects, this was the first time that the US had a truly democratic system. It came to an end when power was handed back to the former slave-owners in the southern states.

Troops of the Federal government were withdrawn from the southern states, and a period of denial of political and legal rights to the Black people and the practice of racial discrimination and oppression against them started.

By the early years of the twentieth century, the Black people were stripped of their legal and political rights, and segregation between Whites and Blacks was rigidly enforced. Blacks and Whites could not travel in the same train compartments, they could not go to the same parks and beaches, they could not eat in the same restaurants, and they could not go to the same schools, theatres and even hospitals.

Segregation was combined with violence, and it is estimated that about 200 Blacks were lynched by White mobs every year during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Racism also became an instrument for perpetuating socio-economic inequalities.

The Black people were the most economically depressed section of the American society. But most of the Whites were also poor and were ruthlessly exploited. By arousing racial feelings, common people, Black and White alike, were prevented from forming a united front against economic exploitation.

The Black people suffered from discriminatory practices throughout the country; in the southern states, of course, the discrimination was much worse and much more brutal than in the northern states. By the early years of the twentieth century, a powerful movement of protest against racial discrimination began to emerge.

The most significant figure in this movement was WE.B. Du Bois. He remained a key figure for about half a century. In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of coloured People (NAACP) was formed. Many Whites who were opposed to racism also supported the struggle of the Black people. However, it took over half a century before significant progress began to be made in ending racial discrimination and the inhuman system of racial segregation.

It has been mentioned earlier that even in those European countries that had a democratic system of government, women were denied the right to vote. The same situation existed in the US. The movement for woman suffrage had started in the mid-nineteenth century and it became an important issue in the early twentieth century. However, it was only in 1920 that American women were granted the right to vote by the US Constitution.