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H.W. Brands Interview
Bold = portions of the interview which were not filmed.
START TAPE 012
BEGIN INTERVIEW
INT: ... what was actually going on with the economic versus what it tried the show people?
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BRANDS: Well, the Columbian Exposition of 18...
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BRANDS: The Columbian Exposition of 1893 was one of the first world's fairs. And it was an opportunity for American and foreign industrialists, ah, manufacturers, technologists of all kinds to showcase their wares. It took place in Chicago at an artificially created city, the Great White City. And it was in one respect, ahm, a vision of the future. This was where America was going. This was where the world was going and Americans liked to think of themselves as on the cutting edge of the future. It was kind of ironic that the fair began in the autumn of 1893 shortly after the -- well, the panic of 1893 which led to the worst depression in American history. And so through much of the exposition, which lasted into the next year, Americans were confronted with this irony that, on the one hand, the exposition showed the great promise of the future and at the same time the reality of the present was -- was quite different.
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INT: Describe the depression.
BRANDS: Well, the depression of the 1890s followed the so called "panic of 1893" which, in turn, was the result of the withdrawal of foreign capital from American capital markets. This triggered a financial panic which spread into the -- the manufacturing realm, resulted in the lay-off of tens of thousands of people. It provoked a considerable amount of labor violence, the worst railway strike in American history, which began at the Pullman Works in Illinois and spread across the entire American rail network. By 1895, hundreds of thousands of people were out of work and the economy was more stagnant than it had ever been in American history.
INT: Can you talk about Frederick Jackson Turner and his speech on the exposition and what it meant to the depression?
BRANDS: At the Columbian Exposition, Frederick Jackson Turner, who at the time was a relatively unknown historian, delivered a paper on the significance of the frontier in American history. Turner pointed out that the 1890 census had revealed that there was no longer a frontier in a demographic sense and he thought this was quite significant because, as he saw it, the frontier was the most formative influence in American history. Now that there was no frontier, he was unsure, and many people who read his paper and were persuaded by it, were unsure what the future portended for the United States. There was a particular poignancy and particular credibility that was lent to this interpretation by the onset of the depression that began in 1893. So Turner could make the case that the first and great era of American history had ended, and the depression seemed to make the case that the new era was going to be much different and, quite conceivably, much worse.
INT: Why were so many intellectuals, Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, taken in by this theory?
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BRANDS: One of the striking things about Turner's thesis was that it appealed more readily to intellectuals and to members of the elite, who probably never would have gone out to the frontier. Curiously, there was more homesteading, there was more settlement of the West after 1890 than there had been before, but the idea of the frontier meant a lot even to people who never went out to the frontier themselves. And they could look at the development of American history, and they could see that democracy, as front — as Turner put it, reformed itself every generation on the frontier. Now with no frontier, something else had to provide that -- that formative influence and, even more importantly, something else had to distinguish the United States from the European powers. It had been the frontier. The frontier wasn't there anymore. What would it be at this point? Turner couldn't say, and nobody knew.
INT: Was there any expansionism sentiment associated with the Columbian Exposition?
BRANDS: Well, that part ...
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BRANDS: Expansionism per se wasn't built into the Columbian Exposition, but the whole idea behind the exposition was that technology would solve the problems of the world. The United States was one of the leaders of technology and presumably could export that technology and the power it gave Americans to other parts of the world. So even though expansion wasn't explicit in the exposition, it was certainly implicit in the mindset that had created the exposition.
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INT: What was known in terms of the Philippines in the 1890s?
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BRANDS: During the 1890s, it's fair to say that the Philippines were relatively unknown to most Americans. There were a few people who took particular care to consider what America's strategic role in the world might be, people like Alfred Thayer Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, who were looking for -- looking for overseas naval bases, for coaling stations for America's steam-powered fleet, who understood that the Philippines had harbors that were worthwhile, ah, that the Philippines commanded the water routes between China and Southeast Asia. So to the few people, the Philippines meant something. To most Americans, they had probably heard about them, but they knew very little in any kind of detail.
INT: Can you, um, just like in a sentence, contrast the revolution in the Philippines? Can you characterize, you know, that it was against Spain and also say what was known of this insurgency in the US versus what was known about it in Cuba?
BRANDS: To the extent that Americans knew that there was an insurgency in the Philippines, there was a vague sympathy and support. Americans have been, at least rhetorically, supportive of anti-colonialist, anti-imperial movements from the time of the American Revolution. So if there was a nationalist movement that was revolting against what was seen as a corrupt Spanish empire, more power to 'em. But it was far away and compared to the immediacy of the Cuban Revolution, of the insurgency in Cuba which Americans knew all about, the Philippines were really a blank spot in the American public's perception.
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INT: Contrast McKinley's and Roosevelt's ideas about war.
BRANDS: William McKinley was most reluctant to take the United States into war in 1897 or 1898. Part of this reflected his own experience. He was the last American President to have served in the Civil War, and he knew what war was like. At one point he said, "I've been through one war. I've seen the bodies stacked like cord wood, and I don't want to go through that sort of thing again." So he understood in a way that people like Theodore Roosevelt, who'd been a child during the Civil War, who had never experienced the Civil War, who had heard about the Civil War only through stories of parents, uncles, cousins, and the like, and who probably to some extent had a notion that their generation, Roosevelt's generation, had to win its spurs the way McKinley's, the older generation, already had. In addition, McKinley was much more attune to the needs and the concerns of American business than Roosevelt was. They were both Republicans, but -- but McKinley was connected through Mark Hanna, for example, his manager, to the American, ahm, industrial sector. And American business until the early part of 1898 had no desire to get into war. The country was finally pulling out of the depression and there was a -- a sense that "Let's just leave overseas adventures alone. Let's concentrate on restoring prosperity at home." Wars tend to disrupt things. They're good for certain sectors of the economy, but they're -- they're very bad for other sectors of the economy. And at that point, McKinley and American businessmen wanted to keep things calm and stable. And that's why their reluctance to war.
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INT: Speak about unification of the country at the time.
BRANDS: One of the most obvious characteristics of American society during the 1890s was a feeling that the country was splitting apart. There were various divisions that were opening up, class divisions, racial divisions, urban-rural divisions, divisions between creditors, debtors, and so forth. Various commentators during the 1890s remarked on that, and there was a search for solutions to this problem. How do we bring the country back together again? What can unify the country? Various solutions were proposed. People like Edward Bellamy proposed, ahm, socialism. Ahm, people like, ah, the Populists advocated free silver as a way of bringing the -- the debtor class back into the mainstream. Nothing worked until the Spanish-American War came along. Now, this is not to say that this desire for unity, this desire for reunification caused the war, by no means. But when the war came, Americans were able to rally behind McKinley's call for volunteers. They were able to rally behind the Army, the Navy, ah, in a patriotic pursuit of this national purpose. And whatever the causes of the war, one of the consequences of the war was to pull the country together in a way it hadn't been for many years. In fact, you could argue that this sort of completes the reunification of the country, that after the Civil War, Reconstruction hadn't quite done it and this allowed Americans from North and South both to fight on the same side, as they hadn't for over a generation. John Hay called it a "splendid little war" and in the sense of reunifying the country, it was.
INT: What about McKinley's appeal to certain confederate …Wheeler, for example?
BRANDS: As a Union general, McKinley was fully war of the divisiveness of the Civil War. He also was aware, as President during the 1890s, of the need to include the South, of the need to include ex-Confederates in the war effort. And so he took particular pains to appoint veterans of the Civil War to top positions during the Spanish-American War. And it was his way of broadening the base of support for the war effort. It didn't hurt that it would improve Republican chances in the South.
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INT: Describe the battle and the response to the victory.
BRANDS: The war opened with the Battle of Manila Bay at the beginning of May, 1898. To the astonishment of most Americans, who were utterly unaware of the presence of Commodore Dewey in the Philippines or of the intentions of the Navy Department, ahm, to begin operations in the Philippines, Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in about six hours with minimal losses to his own -- to his own fleet. The result was a terrific victory for the United States and when the news got back to the US, Americans rejoiced as they hadn't since -- well, since the Civil War. The advantage here was that everybody could cheer, everybody North and South, for an American victory in a way that they hadn't been able to during the Civil War. Kids were named for Dewey. They were victory marches ...
DIRECTIONAL, SLATE
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BRANDS: Prior to the declaration of war in April, 1898, Americans had been divided on the wisdom of going to war. But war was declared and then when Dewey delivered this victory just weeks later, it erased all doubt that this had been a good idea. Ahm, you know, tremendous victory is terrific for the party that had advocated war. Dewey was the most famous man in America. Children were named for him. He began to have thoughts of running for President. Ahm, he was fated up and down the -- the East Coast and all over the country.
INT: Now why the Phil – Why, why did we attack the Philippines first?
BRANDS: The short answer to -- the principle reason that the Americans attacked the Philippines first was that's where the Spanish fleet was. Theodore Roosevelt and other people in the Navy Department before the outbreak of war understood that although the cause of war was the situation in Cuba, the war would be against Spain. And anything Spain could bring to bear in that war would be something that American forces should attack. Dewey had the American fleet in the Pacific. The Spanish fleet was located in the Philippines. Roosevelt sent the order to Dewey, "As soon as the war breaks out, head for the Philippines and take on the Spanish fleet." And this was obviously not public knowledge, and so the fact that the American Pacific fleet was even in the Philippines and that it had destroyed the Spanish fleet, ah, was brand news to Americans. And so it was both with amazement and gratification that they learned of Dewey's great victory.
INT: Can you describe the meeting aboard the Olympia between Dewey and Aguinaldo?
BRANDS: When Dewey was heading for the Philippines from Hong Kong, he gave a ride to Aguinaldo, who had left the country and took Aguinaldo back to the Philippines. Exactly what he was going to do with Aguinaldo there, ahm, he probably didn't know. Now a dispute arose as to exactly what Dewey promised to Aguinaldo, if anything. Aguinaldo said that Dewey promised American support for the Philippine insurgency against the Spanish. Dewey says that he did no such thing. There's no contemporary documentation to be able to resolve this controversy, but one of the results was bad blood between the United States and the Philippine insurgents from the very outset.
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INT: Talk about McKinley's decision to keep the Philippines.
BRANDS: As the end of the fighting approached, McKinley had to figure out what to do with the Philippines. The United States was not really in control of the islands; it controlled the area around Manila, but in terms of military control of the whole place, that was out of the question. But a separate question was, what should the United States attempt to gain from Spain at a peace treaty? Would this include, for example, American annexation of the Philippines? McKinley hesitated for a long time before he made the decision. He had to weigh various considerations. On the one hand, he had no desire for the United States to be an imperial power and to annex the Philippines would saddle the United States with responsibility for governing the place. And McKinley was not an imperialist in any traditional sense of the word. On the other hand, he realized that American forces had expended a great deal of effort and some lives in gaining such control of the Philippines as the United States exercised at the end of the fighting. The American flag had been run up over the walls of Manila and so he couldn't very lightly pull that down. He saw what a popular cause the war had been. To turn around at the end of the war and simply hand over to somebody one of the principal fruits of the war seemed to be bad politics. It might also be bad business, as he argued, because McKinley and many others of his generation were convinced that the Philippines, if they were granted independence by the United States, would not be allowed to maintain that independence. Some other country, Germany, for example, which was aggressively pursuing colonies in that area, Japan, which had taken control of Korea and looked to, ah -- looked willing to expand its influence elsewhere in the region, might take control of the Philippines. So, as McKinley saw it, it wasn't a question of American control versusPhilippine independence. It was American control versus control by some other power. And McKinley came to the conclusion that it would be better for the United States and it would be better for the Filipinos if the United States controlled the Philippines, rather than some other country.
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INT: Talk about how McKinley went down to the White House ...
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BRANDS: There's a story about how McKinley finally came to his decision regarding the disposition of the Philippines. As he told this story to a group of visiting ministers, so you have to perhaps discount it on that regard. Ahm, he spent a great deal of time in prayer and he prayed for guidance as to what he should do about the Philippines. And after long sleepless nights, the answer came to him, and he realized that he couldn't give up the Philippines to another power. That would be ignoble and bad business. He couldn't turn the Philippines loose because they -- they wouldn't -- they weren't prepared to govern themselves. So the only solution was for the United States to take control of the Philippines and, as he said, "to uplift and Christianize" the Filipinos and make them ready for independence and -- and self-government.