The legal and constitutional aspects of imperialism are best followed in the Harvard Law Review, vols. XII, XIII; W.W. Willoughby, Constitutional Law of the United States (2 vols., 1910); C.F. Randolph, The Law and Policy of Annexation (1901); the "insular cases" are in United States Reports, vol. 182, pp. 1, 244.
The most complete account of affairs in China is P.H. Clements, The Boxer Rebellion (1915); J.B. Moore, Digest, vol. V (1906), is useful, as always; J.W. Foster, American Diplomacy in the Orient (1903), is clear and concise; W.R. Thayer, John Hay (2 vols., 1915), is disappointing.
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[1] The American commissioners were W.R. Day, Secretary of State; Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune; and Senators C.K. Davis, W.P. Frye and George Gray. Senator Hoar remonstrated with McKinley for placing senators on such commissions as this, on the ground that the independence of the Senate was thereby lessened when the question of ratifying the treaty came before that body. He declared that McKinley admitted that the practice was wrong. Cf. Autobiography, II, 46-51.
[2] Of the President's party, T.B. Reed, the powerful Speaker of the House, retired from public life for personal reasons and because of his dissent from the imperialist policy of his party. McCall, Reed, 237-8.
[3] Under the provisions of the Foraker Act only fifteen per cent. of the usual duties were to be paid on goods passing between the island and the United States, and since July 25, 1901, complete free trade has existed.
[4] The Philippine group is about 7,000 miles southwest of San Francisco; the chief island, Luzon, is almost exactly the size of Ohio, 40,000 sq. miles; the largest city, Manila, contained over 250,000 people at the time of the American occupation.
[5] It was on the occasion of despatching troops to avenge the death of Von Ketteler, the German minister, that the Emperor gave instructions to "give no quarter and to (act) so like Huns that for a thousand years to come no Chinese would dare to look a German in the face."