This defiant attitude on the part of President Cleveland, while it aroused a wave of enthusiasm among those sections of the population moved by bold talk about the unimpeachable integrity of the United States and its daring defense of right everywhere, called forth no little criticism in high places. Contrary to expectation, it was not met by bluster on the part of Great Britain, but it was rather deplored there as threatening a breach between the two countries over an insignificant matter. Moreover, when the commission created by Congress set to work on the boundary dispute, the British government courteously replied favorably to a request for assistance in the search for evidence. Finally, Great Britain yielded and agreed to the earlier proposition on the part of the United States that the issue be submitted to arbitration; and this happy outcome of the matter contributed not a little to Mr. Cleveland's reputation as "a sterling representative of the true American spirit." This was not diminished by the later discovery that Great Britain was wholly right in her claims in South America.
The Venezuelan controversy was an echo of the time-honored Monroe Doctrine and was without any deeper economic significance. There were not wanting, however, signs that the United States was prepared economically to accept that type of imperialism that had long been dominant in British politics and had sprung into prominence in Germany, France, and Italy during the generation following the Franco-Prussian War. This newer imperialism does not rest primarily upon a desire for more territory, but rather upon the necessity for markets in which to sell manufactured goods and for opportunities to invest surplus accumulations of capital. It begins in a search for trade, advances to intervention on behalf of the interests involved, thence to protectorates, and finally to annexation. By the inexorable necessity of the present economic system, markets and safe investment opportunities must be found for surplus products and accumulated capital. All the older countries being overstocked and also forced into this new form of international rivalry, the drift is inevitably in the direction of the economically backward countries: Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. Economic necessity thus overrides American isolation and drives the United States into world politics.
Although the United States had not neglected the protection of its interests from the days when it thrashed the Barbary pirates, sent Caleb Cushing to demand an open door in China, and dispatched Commodore Perry to batter down Japanese exclusiveness, the relative importance of its world operations was slight until manufacturing and commerce gained their ascendancy over agriculture.
The pressure of the newer interests on American foreign policy had already been felt when the demand for the war with Spain came. In 1889, the United States joined with Great Britain and Germany in a protectorate over the Samoan Islands, thus departing, according to Secretary Gresham, from our "traditional and well-established policy of avoiding entangling alliances with foreign powers in relation to objects remote from this hemisphere."[44] Preparations had been made under Harrison's administration for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, after a revolution, largely fomented by American interests there, had overthrown the established government; but this movement was blocked for the time being by President Cleveland, who learned through a special commissioner, sent to investigate the affair, that the upheaval had been due principally to American disgust for the weak and vacillating government of the Queen. It was not until the middle of the Spanish War that Congress, recognizing the importance of the Hawaiian Islands in view of the probable developments resulting from Admiral Dewey's victory in the Philippines, annexed them to the United States by joint resolution on July 6, 1898.[45]
The Spanish War
It required, however, the Spanish War and the acquisition of the insular dependencies to bring imperialism directly into politics as an overshadowing issue and to secure the frank acknowledgment of the new emphasis on world policy which economic interests demanded. It is true that Cuba had long been an object of solicitude on the part of the United States. Before the Civil War, the slave power was anxious to secure its annexation as a state to help offset the growing predominance of the North; and during the ten years' insurrection from 1868 to 1878, when a cruel guerilla warfare made all life and property in Cuba unsafe, intervention was again suggested. But it was not until the renewal of the insurrection in 1895 that American economic interests in Cuba were strong enough to induce interference. Slavery was gone, but capital, still more dominant, had taken its place.
In 1895, Americans had more than fifty million dollars invested in Cuban business, and our commerce with the Island had risen to one hundred millions annually. The effect of the Cuban revolt against Spain was not only to diminish trade, but also to destroy American property. The contest between the rebels and Spanish troops was characterized by extreme cruelty and a total disregard for life and property. Gomez, the leader of the revolt, resorted to the policy made famous by Sherman on his march to the sea. He laid waste the land to starve the Spaniards and compel American interference if possible. By a proclamation of November 6, 1895, he ordered that plantation buildings and railway connections should be destroyed and sugar factories closed everywhere; what he left undone was finished by the Spanish general, Weyler, who concentrated the inhabitants of the rural districts in the centers occupied by the troops. Under such a policy, business was simply paralyzed; and within less than two years Americans had filed against Spain claims amounting to sixteen million dollars for property destroyed in the revolution.
The atrocities connected with the insurrection attracted the sympathy of the American people at once. Sermons were preached against Spanish barbarism; orators demanded that the Cuban people be "succored in their heroic struggle for the rights of men and of citizens"; Mr. Hearst's newspapers appealed daily to the people to compel governmental action at once, and denounced the tedious methods of negotiation, in view of an inevitable war. Cuban juntas formed in American cities raised money and supplied arms for the insurrectionists. All the enormous American property interests at stake in the Island, with their widespread and influential ramifications in the United States, demanded action. The war fever, always quick to be kindled, rose all over the country.
Even amid the exciting campaign of 1896, the Democrats found time to express sympathy with the Cubans, and the Republicans significantly remarked that inasmuch as Spain was "unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens," the good offices of the United States should be tendered with a view to pacification and independence. Perhaps, not unaware of the impending crisis, the Republicans also favored a continued enlargement of the navy to help maintain the "rightful influence" of the United States among the nations of the earth.