[David Traxel, "1898", pp. 87-92] "I would regard a war with Spain from two viewpoints: First, the advisability on the ground both of humanity and self-interest of interfering on behalf of the Cubans, and of taking one more step toward the complete freeing of America from European domination; second, the benefit done to our people by giving them something to think of which isn't material gain." --Theodore Roosevelt A FRENCH OFFICER visiting an American warship in the 1880s was reported to have exclaimed nostalgically at her guns, "Ah! Capitaine, les vieux canons!" This cultivation of the antique occurred because for the first two decades after the Civil War the United States had been indifferent to the world as its attention was absorbed by the tremendous changes affecting agriculture, finance, industry, and the country's very social structure itself. But as exports of wheat, corn, coal, and steel became more important to the economy, and European empires continued to grow and threaten these interesting foreign markets, the need for the country to be able to project overseas power became evident, at least to some. In 1889 the United States and Germany had nearly come to blows over competing territorial claims in the Samoan Islands, and when a naval officer, Lieutenant Carlin, was feted in San Francisco for the heroic handling of his ship during a cyclone in the same region. he used the occasion to point out his service's needs: "Gentlemen--it's very good of you to give me this dinner and to tell me all these pretty things, but what I want you to understand--that fact is--what we want and what we ought to get at once is a navy--more ships--lots of 'em." By 1891, the navy was receiving larger allocations and modern steel vessels were being built, but another crisis that year showed there was still far to go. During a period of political unrest and anti-American feeling in Chile, a mob attacked American sailors on shore leave in Valparaiso, killing two and seriously wounding seventeen others. At first President Harrison took a hard line, but had to reconsider when the American fleet turned out to be weaker than the Chilean, and panic spread when it was rumored that the Chileans might raid the West Coast. A compromise was struck--Chile paid an indemnity--and the crisis passed. But the humiliation lingered, and politicians in favor of expanding the navy used the affair to explain that the United States needed to spend more, and quickly modernize the fleet. Added impetus was given to the argument by a series of confrontations between Britain and the United States, the most serious over the boundary between Venezuela and the British colony of Guiana in 1895--96. When gold was discovered in the disputed region, Britain tried to bully the Venezuelans into backing down from their claims. The United States stepped in to protect a fellow-American republic under the Monroe Doctrine, and also to protect its own interests. More and more Americans felt threatened by the growing empires of Europe, and saw in Britain's actions an attempt to expand its territories in South America because the other powers were blocking British expansion in Africa and China. Richard Olney, secretary of state, informed the British that "today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition." Olney went on to explain that his country was not going to knuckle under to threats: "Why? . . . It is because, in addition to all other grounds, its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable as against any or all other powers." The Eagle was beginning to spread its wings and scream, though perhaps a bit prematurely. When the British did not seem to take the American position seriously, President Cleveland began rattling his saber, telling Congress, and the world, that the United States alone would determine the proper boundary line of Venezuela--Guiana and ensure that Britain respected it. For a while war looked possible, and fleets were beginning to rendezvous before cooler heads prevailed. The business community in the United States did not want a war, especially with the economy as fragile as it was; at the same time the British had their attention forcefully drawn to the ambitions of Imperial Germany when the Kaiser sent a telegram to President Paul Kruger that seemed to offer aid to the Boer South African Republic in any struggle against English aggression. Queen Victoria's government realized that the growing strength of America would make for a valuable ally There was also a new factor. Over the previous fifteen years the United States had started celebrating its Anglo-Saxon heritage. Writers trying to explain the surge of the industrial revolution and imperialism argued that these developments, along with democracy, had come from deep racial roots in the Anglo-Saxon peoples--who were naturally adventurous, inventive, and cooperative, and who so hated disorder that they were going to bring the whole array of barbaric or degenerate cultures in the world to a new level of civilization by taking on the burden of ruling them. That a great deal of the chaos, backwardness, and intolerance manifest in American and English history had to be ignored in order to reach these conclusions did not present an insurmountable challenge. Now, in the interest of a common Anglo-Saxon progress, a new understanding was being struck with the country's old colonial master. But this understanding would hold only as long as Britain paid proper respect to the younger nation, abandoning its arrogant attitude of superiority. MUCH IN INTERNATIONAL relations seemed new and unsettled during the 1890s because of the aggressive competition for colonial possessions. Helping to understand the forces at work was a tall, lean, bald-headed naval officer with a nose like a hawk's beak. Alfred Thayer Mahan was more an intellectual than an effective commander of ships and men, and that was a saving grace in a career that had given him more frustration than satisfaction. In The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, published in 1890, he presented a theory, based on his study of European wars from 1660 to 1783, that had all the strength and charm of its simplicity: a nation's military and commercial power directly related to control of the sea lanes. In the thick volume he explored the intricate relationships of trade, geography, war, and technology to effective power. It was one of those books, perfectly matched to the needs of its time, that changes the world. In Britain, greatest sea power of the nineteenth century, people thought the book brilliantly explained the strategic reasons why they were now the strongest economy of the nineteenth century: Her Majesty's Government gave Mahan a medal, while Oxford and Cambridge awarded him honorary degrees. The Germans, coming late to the imperial race, were eager to make up for lost time and had begun to challenge other European powers for colonies, while also eyeing the United States as a potential rival. They took the book's lessons seriously. Kaiser Wilhelm told an American friend, "It is on board all my ships and constantly quoted by my captains and officers," and admitted that he too was trying to "learn it by heart." Mahan sparked a lively domestic debate during the 1890s about the direction the United States should take. Should the Republic continue to heed George Washington's warning to avoid foreign entanglements, or did it need to expand to meet the challenges of the age? Mahan argued that as an industrializing economy of great efficiency, the nation would soon produce more than could be absorbed by the home market. Other modern nations were facing the same dilemma, and the competition for foreign markets would be won by those with the greatest sea power, that is, those with large modern fleets of armored, big-gunned battleships and cruisers that could rely on overseas coaling stations to project their might around the world. In 1897, Mahan studied the place of the country in this new and dangerous environment in The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future. "Whether they will or no," the naval officer contended, "Americans must now begin to look outward." One of the most fervent supporters of Mahan's point of view was Theodore Roosevelt, who reviewed The Influence of Sea Power enthusiastically for the Atlantic Monthly Roosevelt had written a definitive history, The Naval War of 1812, at the age of twenty-two, and this book, it turned out, had influenced Mahan's theorizing. The men became close friends and allies in the struggle to fund a new, powerful navy. So fervent had been Roosevelt's proselytizing that it had almost cost him the appointment as assistant secretary of the navy. "I hope he has no preconceived plans which he would wish to drive through the moment he got in," McKinley told Senator Henry Cabot Lodge when the senator came to argue his friend's qualifications for the post. To another Roosevelt supporter the president expressed reservations about his aggressive personality: "I want peace, and I am told that your friend Theodore--whom I know only slightly--is always getting into rows with everybody. I am afraid he is too pugnacious." McKinley had overcome his doubts, as well as the resistance of party bosses who feared that the young man was also too aggressive a reformer. John D. Long, who was appointed secretary of the navy, had his own reservations about the firebrand: "If he becomes Assistant Secretary of the Navy he will dominate the Department within six months!" But after meeting him, he had to agree, "Best man for the job." Long was a poetry-writing lawyer who had served three times as governor of Massachusetts before being elected to Congress. A gentle, generous, and charming man, he had retired from his law practice after an attack of "nervous prostration," or a breakdown, but felt well enough to handle the cabinet post when asked for help by his good friend McKinley. He knew nothing of naval matters, nor did he intend to learn; it was traditional in America then to think that anyone of accomplishment in this great democracy could handle just about any government post without specialized skills. Besides, there were plenty of naval officers on his staff to help with the details. "What is the need," he confided to his journal, "of my making a dropsical tub of any lobe of my brain when I have right at hand a man possessed with more knowledge than I could acquire?" Roosevelt and Long got on well together, the younger man making an effort to be loyal, subordinate, and agreeable while eagerly taking on the duties of his superior when Long, who hated the heat of Washington, felt the need to retire to the New England freshness of his farm at Hingham Bay, Massachusetts. As "hot-weather secretary," Roosevelt was able to put some of his own ideas and projects into operation during the summer months of 1897, in spite of meeting resistance on a number of points. The American navy had four battleships of the first class in 1898, and two of the second, and although there were five first-class battleships under construction, they were far from completion. Congress had set the price for their armor plate so low that no provider could be found, and work on three of the behemoths had stopped as a result. Still, the illusion persisted that since the ships had been authorized, the navy was continuing to grow in strength. The assistant secretary was disgusted with this fantasy and proposed that six more battleships be built, plus six more heavy cruisers and seventy-five of the new torpedo boats, whose speed and maneuverability, he thought, might make them the deadliest force of the future. Of one point he was certain--there was no luxurious plenitude of time to prepare for trouble. It took years of hard labor to build one of the new armored ships, and a war could be fought and lost before even those already in the yards were finished; there was also a severe shortage of ammunition and weapons, ranging from rifles to twelve-inch cannons. Roosevelt, of course, was not alone in believing that the country needed a strong navy to meet the challenges offered by Germany, England, Japan, Spain, and other countries, and that to be really effective such a navy required coaling stations abroad, which meant that the United States needed to expand beyond its current borders. The exclusive Washington Metropolitan Club provided a convenient place for people of like mind to meet and discuss Mahan's ideas, and the political strategy necessary to implement them. A particular friend was Leonard Wood, whom Roosevelt had met only after becoming assistant secretary of the navy, but with whom he formed an immediate close bond based on their shared ideas and a common love of physical challenges. Wood was like a hero out of a Richard Harding Davis short story in the way he combined, according to Roosevelt, "the qualities of entire manliness with entire uprightness and cleanliness of character." An army surgeon, he had taken part in the arduous campaigns that General Nelson Miles had conducted against the Apaches, where he had gained a reputation as one of the few white men who had the endurance and hardihood to match the Indians being pursued, and his qualities of leadership had resulted in his being put in command of fighting men, although he was only a surgeon. Courage under hostile fire had won him the Medal of Honor, which Roosevelt regarded as "the most coveted of distinctions." The two friends spent as much time as possible in the outdoors, in the warm weather taking long walks through the rough, undeveloped countryside surrounding the capital, on colder days kicking a football in a vacant lot, and during the rare periods of snow using skis or snow skates that had been sent to Roosevelt from Canada. The subject of their discussions was always the same topic--the possibility of war with Spain. "We both felt very strongly that such a war would be as righteous as it would be advantageous to the honor and the interests of the nation." They were both determined that if war came they were not going to stay in the safe environs of Washington, but head for the action. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
