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Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt became
the 26th president
of the United States
after the death by assassination
of William McKinley,
on Sept. 14, 1901;
he was elected to the office
in his own right in 1904,
serving until 1909.

As president and political leader,
Roosevelt was
an articulate spokesman
for the aspirations and values
of progressivism,
the reform movement
that flourished
in the United States
from 1900 to World War I.

He dominated that era
in the nation's history.

Early Life and Career

Roosevelt was born into an old,
prosperous Dutch family
in New York City on Oct. 27, 1858.

His father,
a glass importer,
wielded enormous influence
over the boy,
instilling in him a determination
to strengthen his frail,
asthmatic body;
to follow a stern
Christian moral code;
and to enjoy
the life of the mind.

Young Roosevelt was educated
at Harvard,
where he graduated in 1880,
still unsure
of his life's work.

In that year he married
Alice H. Lee,
a woman from Massachusetts.

Her death (1884),
only hours after
his mother had died,
left him bereaved,
but in just less
than three years he married
Edith Kermit Carow.

During the 1880s,
Roosevelt divided his life
between politics and writing.

He served three one-year terms
in the New York Assembly (1882-84),
where he became known
as an independent Republican.

He supported civil service reform,
legislation to benefit
working people,
and bills designed to improve
the government of New York City.

He proved himself a party regular,
however,
with his support,
in 1884,
of James G. Blaine against
Democrat Grover Cleveland
for the presidency.

After living as a rancher
in the Dakota Territory
for two years,
he returned (1886) and ran
for mayor of New York City,
finishing last
in a three-way race.

His literary and historical writing,
which began early in the decade,
gained momentum
late in the 1880s
when he wrote,
among other works,
biographies
of Thomas Hart Benton (1886)
and Gouverneur Morris (1888)
and published the first
two volumes of his well-researched
Winning of the West (1889).

This work was completed in 1896
with an additional two volumes.

Roosevelt's political career
blossomed in the next 10 years.

Named a civil-service commissioner
in 1889 by President Benjamin Harrison,
he battled successfully
to increase the number of positions
that were based on merit
and to improve the commission's
administrative procedures.

He resigned this office in 1895
to become president
of New York City's Board
of Police Commissioners
in the reform administration
of William L. Strong.

After 2 years he was back
in Washington,
this time as assistant secretary
of the navy
under President William McKinley.

A nationalist and an expansionist,
Roosevelt used his office
in whatever way he could
to prepare the nation
for war with Spain.

Once the SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
came (1898),
he helped organize
the ROUGH RIDERS,
saw considerable action in Cuba,
and returned
to the United States a colonel
with fond remembrances
of his regiment's bravery.

Roosevelt's sudden fame
and his reputation
as an independent moved
Thomas Collier PLATT,
boss of New York's Republican party,
to nominate him
for governor in 1898.

He won in a close election
that fall.

Roosevelt's governorship (1899-1900)
prepared him well
for high office in Washington.

He steered a middle course
between subservience
to the political machine
and independent reformism.

He championed civil service,
backed a measure
to tax corporation franchises,
and approved several bills
supportive of labor
and social reform.

In general,
he had developed the concept
of a positive,
active state government
by the time "Boss" Platt decided
to "kick him upstairs."

Working with others,
Platt engineered Roosevelt's nomination
as President McKinley's
vice-presidential running mate in 1900.

In November the Republican ticket
was easily elected.

Presidency

McKinley's assassination
in September 1901 catapulted
Roosevelt to the presidency,
much to the dismay
of Republican conservatives.

He assured his party
that he would continue
McKinley's policies,
and until 1904
he moved cautiously
while working to gain control
of the national
Republican organization.
----------------


Even so,
these years witnessed
certain new directions
in Washington as Roosevelt
sought to accommodate
the developing reform movement.

Disturbed,
as were others,
by the growing power
of the large corporations,
Roosevelt ordered (1902)
the Justice Department
to bring suit under
the SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT (1890)
against the Northern Securities Company,
a railroad monopoly in the northwest.

This suit launched a "trust-busting"
crusade against big business
that would carry over
into Roosevelt's
second administration.

In 1903 he persuaded Congress
to establish
the Bureau of Corporations,
an investigative agency
of interstate corporations,
lodged in the newly created
Department of Commerce and Labor.

He also supported
the Elkins Bill (1903),
which prohibited the use
of the rebate by railroads.

Roosevelt departed
from past practice
in another way.

When,
in 1902,
the anthracite coal miners struck,
he became the first president
to intervene
in a labor-management dispute,
threatening to seize the mines
in order to persuade
the recalcitrant owners
to accept mediation.

An arbitration commission
subsequently awarded the miners
a favorable settlement.

Finally,
Roosevelt advanced
the cause of conservation.

An enthusiastic supporter
of the Newlands Bill (1902)
on reclamation and irrigation,
Roosevelt also backed
Chief Forester Gifford PINCHOT
in expanding
the nation's forest reserve,
setting aside waterpower sites
and millions of acres
of coal lands,
and encouraging conservation
on the state level.
------------


His record together
with his firm control
of the Republican party
won Roosevelt
the presidential nomination,
then the 1904 election
against Democrat Alton B. Parker.

His second administration
reflected the quickened pace
of the progressive movement,
and he assumed
an increasingly radical posture.

In 1906,
Congress enacted moderate
reformist legislation:
the Hepburn Act,
which strengthened the authority
of the Interstate Commerce Commission
over railroads;
the Meat Inspection
and the Pure Food and Drug bills,
which,
respectively,
provided for federal inspection
of packing plants and prohibited
the interstate transportation
of adulterated drugs
or mislabeled foods;
and an employer's liability law
(subsequently declared
unconstitutional).
-------------


During his remaining
White House years,
Roosevelt combined assaults
on the "malefactors of wealth"
with the presentation
of reform proposals
to Congress,
including federal supervision
of all interstate business.

Many of his detractors charged
that his radical policies
had precipitated
the Banker's Panic of 1907.

As right-wing criticism mounted,
Roosevelt's relations
with Congress soured,
and many of his initiatives
were frustrated during
his last year in office.
-------------


Roosevelt's conduct
of foreign relations
was even bolder
and more vigorous
than his domestic program.

After Colombia's rejection (1903)
of a treaty giving
the United States rights
to a canal across
the isthmus of Panama,
he supported a Panamanian revolt
and then negotiated
a similar treaty
with the new nation.

He subsequently supervised
the construction
of the Panama Canal
and in 1904 promulgated
the Roosevelt Corollary
to the MONROE DOCTRINE,
justifying U.S. intervention
in the affairs
of Latin American nations
if their weakness or wrongdoing
warranted such action.

In 1905 he mediated
the Russo-Japanese War,
for which he won
the Nobel Peace Prize,
and in general he worked
to maintain the balance of power
in Asia and the Pacific.

In the Atlantic he also played
a role in smoothing over
a 1905 crisis among
the European powers
on the Moroccan question.

A staunch imperialist,
Roosevelt used his office
to streamline the army
and enlarge the navy
in order to protect
U.S. acquisitions abroad.

Overall he labored effectively
to prepare the United States
for a larger role
in world affairs.
--------------


Postpresidential Years

By the time Roosevelt
stepped down
from the presidency in 1909,
the Republican party
was badly divided
between the conservatives
and the progressives.

In the next two years,
under his chosen successor,
William Howard TAFT,
the rift widened,
essentially because
of Taft's inept leadership.

When Roosevelt returned
from an African safari
and a grand tour of Europe
in June 1910,
he intervened
in Republican party affairs
hoping to conciliate
the warring factions.
----------------


His efforts unsuccessful,
he went into retirement
at his Oyster Bay, N.Y.,
home but was drawn
into politics once again
after a series
of disputes with Taft.

Roosevelt,
now the leader
of the Republican's
progressive wing,
challenged his former friend
for the party's
presidential nomination in 1912
but was crushed
by the Taft "steamroller"
in Chicago and subsequently
established
the National PROGRESSIVE PARTY
(popularly known
as the BULL MOOSE PARTY).

His campaign theme,
the New Nationalism,
represented the most ambitious
and comprehensive
reform program of the day,
excepting socialism.

His platform called
for increases
in economic regulation
and new social reforms.

The ensuing campaign centered
on Roosevelt
and the Democratic candidate,
Woodrow WILSON,
whose New Freedom was developed
as an alternative
to Bull Moose formulas.

Roosevelt divided
the Republican vote with Taft,
and Wilson was elected.
-----------------


In the years after 1912,
Roosevelt gradually returned
to his former Republicanism.

He became a critic of Wilson's
foreign policy and moved
ever closer to advocating war
with Germany.

Still a prolific writer,
he wrote his acclaimed
autobiography (1913)
during this period.

He aspired to the Republican
presidential nomination
in 1916 but was disappointed
when the party turned
to Charles Evans Hughes
for its standard-bearer.

Roosevelt fell ill in 1918
and died at Sagamore Hill,
his Oyster Bay home,
on Jan. 6, 1919.
----------------


The significance
of Roosevelt's leadership
lay in his use of high office
to curb private greed and power
in a day when Americans
were disturbed by the abuses
of big business,
the waste of the nation's
natural resources,
and the threatened loss
of traditional values.

He elevated the presidency
to a level it had not reached
since the time of Abraham Lincoln.

Some have labeled Roosevelt
a rank opportunist
for his shifting of position
on key issues,
but as a democratic politician
he prided himself
in responding to the changing
needs of the citizenry.

A master publicist
for the reform movement
in the early 20th century,
he commanded widespread
popular support as much
because of his remarkable
personality as anything else:

he was colorful,
witty,
robust,
outspoken,
and humane.
-----------


Robert F. Wesser

Bibliography:

Beale, Howard K., Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (1984);
Blum, John M., The Republican Roosevelt, 2d ed. (1954; repr. 1977);
Burton, David H., Theodore Roosevelt (1973);
Chessman, G. Wallace, Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Power (1969);
Collin, Richard H., Theodore Roosevelt: Culture, Diplomacy, and Expansion (1985) and Theodore Roosevelt's Caribbean (1990);
Cutright, Paul R., Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist (1985);
Esthus, Raymond A., Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries (1982);
Gould, Lewis, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1991);
Harbaugh, William H., The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt, new rev. ed. (1975);
McCullough, David, Mornings on Horseback (1981);
Miller, Nathan, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life (1993);
Morris, Edmund, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979);
Mowry, George E., The Era of Theodore Roosevelt (1958);
Norton, Aloysius A., Theodore Roosevelt (1980); Pringle, Henry F., Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, rev. ed. (1956);
Schullery, Paul, Theodore Roosevelt: Wilderness Writings (1986).
-----------------


Rough Riders

The Rough Riders
were a regiment
of U.S. cavalry volunteers
who fought
in the Spanish-American War.

Theodore ROOSEVELT,
their chief organizer,
served as lieutenant colonel
under commander Leonard WOOD.

Because of transportation problems
their horses had to be
abandoned in Florida;
thus the Rough Riders fought
mostly on foot
when they reached Cuba.
----------------


Bibliography: Roosevelt, Theodore, The Rough Riders (1899; repr. 1990).

Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War (1898)
marked the emergence
of the United States
as a great power
and the advent
of American overseas imperialism.
-------------


During the 19th century,
American exponents
of MANIFEST DESTINY likened Cuba,
a Spanish colony,
to a ripening fruit destined
ultimately to fall
into outstretched American hands.

The expansionists' hunger
intensified after 1895,
when Cuban nationalists began
a bloody insurrection against
the Spanish colonial government.

Spain's ruthless
Gen. Valeriano Weyler herded
Cuban farmers
into squalid concentration camps.

Many men,
women,
and children died,
and Weyler was dubbed "butcher"
by William Randolph Hearst's
sensationalist New York Journal.

This and other "yellow" journals
(see YELLOW JOURNALISM)
fanned American public opinion
and editorialized
for humanitarian intervention
and the annexation of Cuba
by the United States.

On Feb. 9, 1898,
Hearst published a purloined
private letter in which
the Spanish minister
to the United States
sharply criticized
President William MCKINLEY;
on February 15,
the American battleship MAINE
exploded in Havana harbor.

McKinley had resisted
the surging pressure
for intervention as long
as resistance
was politically expedient,
but the drift toward war
soon became inexorable
despite accelerated
Spanish attempts
to withdraw from Cuba
without losing face.

On April 11,
McKinley in effect requested
a declaration of war,
which Congress passed
on April 25.
-----------------


The Fighting

Combat lasted only 10 weeks,
but it proved one-sided
and decisive.

In the Pacific,
Commodore George DEWEY steamed
swiftly from Hong Kong
aboard his flagship Olympia,
one of the modern steel cruisers
of the "new navy" fashioned
in the 1880s and '90s.

Dewey's squadron slipped
into Manila harbor and on May 1
destroyed the obsolete
Spanish fleet lying at anchor.

Reinforced by the army in June,
Dewey besieged
the Spanish garrison in Manila,
capturing the city
on August 13.

In July--
to support these combined operations--
the U.S. Navy had seized
Spanish Guam
and previously unclaimed
Wake Island,
and Congress by joint resolution
had annexed Hawaii.
-----------------


In the Caribbean,
Spanish ships
under Adm. Pasqual Cervera
sailed safely into the harbor
of Santiago de Cuba.

By the end of May,
however,
they were blockaded there
by U.S. naval forces.

U.S. troops under
Gen. William R. SHAFTER
landed in Cuba in late June
and pressed toward Santiago.

These ground forces included
the regular army as well as
special volunteer regiments,
the most famous of which
were the ROUGH RIDERS,
led by Theodore ROOSEVELT
and Leonard WOOD.

The Americans were victorious
at the battles of El Caney
and San Juan Hill on July 1.

Determined to maintain
Spain's honor,
Cervera made a dash
for the open sea on July 3,
although the imbalance
between his outdated
Spanish vessels
and the modern American ships
off Cuba was almost
as great as the disparity
between the fleets
in the Philippines.

The guns of the new
battleships and cruisers
commanded by Rear Admiral
William T. SAMPSON
and Commodore
Winfield Scott SCHLEY
sank most of the Spanish ships
in less than 4 hours.

Spain suffered 474 casualties
to only two
for the United States.

On July 17,
Santiago and Cuba's 24,000
Spanish troops surrendered.

Madrid sued for peace
9 days later.
-----------------


The Treaty of Paris

During the peace negotiations
the United States
did not seek annexation of Cuba
because the Teller Amendment
to the declaration of war
forbade American acquisition
of the island.

However,
McKinley demanded Spanish
cession of Puerto Rico,
Guam,
and the Philippine Islands.

In the Treaty of Paris,
concluded on December 10,
a humiliated Spain yielded
to American imperialism.
----------------


The imperialistic grab
was not universally popular
in the United States,
and the Senate fight
over the treaty was intense.

Among those opposed
to annexation
of the Philippines
were Mark Twain,
Andrew Carnegie,
several senior
Republican senators,
and many Democrats.

They argued that acquisition
of noncontiguous areas
populated by peoples
allegedly unsuited
for assimilation
into American society
was contrary
to the principles
of American democracy.

The imperialists stressed
the role of the United States
as an agent of civilization
and the importance
of possessing a threshold
to the trade with China,
on which the Americans
and British were attempting
to impose the so-called
Open Door Policy.

The imperialists
carried the day,
in large measure because
William Jennings BRYAN,
an avowed antiimperialist
and the probable
Democratic candidate
for president in 1900,
urged Democratic senators
to vote
for the Treaty of Paris
in order to terminate
the state of war.

By the narrow margin
of 57 to 27 (only two votes
more than the number
needed for ratification)
the Senate approved the pact
on Feb. 6, 1899.

Bryan,
who intended to relinquish
the Philippines
if elected president,
lost the election of 1900
to McKinley,
and the United States
retained the islands.
-------------------


The "splendid little war"
established the United States
as a major power
in the Far East
and the dominant power
in the Caribbean.

Although Filipino nationalists
fought a bitter four-year struggle
for immediate independence,
the United States clung
to the archipelago
because it seemed a portal
to the China market.

Puerto Rico became
an American colony
and the site
of an American naval base,
and nominally independent Cuba
ceded territory
for naval stations
to the United States
under the terms
of a constitution--
with the so-called
PLATT AMENDMENT appended to it--
imposed by the American Congress
and Secretary of War Elihu ROOT.

These two islands
were strategically significant
to the defense
of the Panama Canal,
which was begun in 1904.
----------------


Kenneth J. Hagan

Bibliography:
Chadwick, French E., The Relations of the United States and Spain: The Spanish-American War, 2 vols. (1911; repr. 1968);
Foner, Philip S., The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895-1902, 2 vols. (1972);
Freidel, Frank, The Splendid Little War (1958);
Gould, Lewis L., The Spanish-American War and President McKinley (1982);
Offner, John L., An Unwanted War (1992);
O'Toole, G. J., The Spanish War (1986);
Pratt, Julius W., Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (1936; repr. 1959);
Trask, David E., The War with Spain in Eighteen and Ninety-Eight (1981).
-------------------

Pershing, John J.

{pur'-shing}

John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing,
b. Laclede, Mo., Sept. 13, 1860,
d. July 15, 1948,
commanded
the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF)
in World War I.

He graduated from
the U.S. Military Academy in 1886
and then served in the cavalry
in the West.

He received a law degree
from the University of Nebraska
and joined (1896) the staff
at army headquarters in Washington,
D.C.

He returned
to West Point in 1897
as a member of the tactical staff.

-------------------

During the Spanish-American War,
Pershing distinguished himself
at Kettle and San Juan hills,
later serving as head
of the War Department's new Division
of Customs and Insular Affairs.

He went (1899)
to the Philippines,
where he led a series
of important expeditions among the hostile Moros.

In 1905 he became military attache in Tokyo and then went
to Manchuria as an observer of the Russo-Japanese War.

-------------------
In 1906,
President Theodore Roosevelt elevated Pershing in rank from captain
to brigadier general.

Pershing took command of Fort McKinley
near Manila and then became (1909) governor
of Moro province in the southern Philippines,
thoroughly defeating the Moros by 1913.

Given command of the 8th Brigade in 1914,
he led (1916-17) the difficult punitive expedition against Pancho VILLA in Mexico.

Experience and seniority brought him command of the AEF in 1917.

-------------------
Pershing's tasks in France during World War I were more managerial than warlike;
he had
to organize,
train,
and supply an inexperienced force that eventually numbered more than 2 million.

Constantly rebuffing British and French efforts
to siphon his men off in
to their depleted ranks,
Pershing found himself waging two wars--against the Germans and against the Allies.

AEF successes in the war were largely credited
to Pershing,
and he emerged from the war as its most celebrated American hero.

Congress created
for him a new rank,
general of the armies.

His memoirs,
My Experiences in the World War (2 vols.,
1931),
won him the 1932 Pulitzer Prize
for history.

-------------------
Frank E. Vandiver
Bibliography:

Braddy, Haldeen, Pershing's Mission in Mexico (1966; repr. 1979);

Goldhurst, Richard, Pipe Clay and Drill: John J. Pershing--The Classic American Soldier (1976);
Palmer, Frederick, John J. Pershing, General of the Armies, A Biography (1948; repr. 1979);
Smyth, D., Pershing (1986);
Vandiver, Frank E., Black Jack: Life and Times of John J. Pershing, 2 vols.

---------------
Santiago de Cuba
{sahn-tee-ah'-goh day koo'-bah}
Santiago de Cuba,
the second-largest seaport of Cuba (after Havana),
lies on the southern coast of the island on an almost landlocked bay.

The population is 405,354 (1990 est.).

Manufactures include textiles and petroleum products,
and mines in the surrounding mountains yield copper,
manganese,
and iron.

The Universidad de Oriente (1947) is located there.

A fortress atop the 60-m-high (200-ft) bluff,
El Morro,
guards the harbor entrance.

Founded in 1514,
Santiago de Cuba was,
until 1551,
the capital of Cuba and served as a base
for expeditions in
to Mexico in the 1520s.

In 1898 during the Spanish-American War,
the Battle of San Juan Hill took place there,
and the Spanish fleet was destroyed in the city's harbor.

Fidel Castro's revolutionary cause took its name (the 26th of July Movement) from the unsuccessful attack on the city's army barracks in 1953.

-----------------
Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War (1898) marked the emergence of the United States as a great power and the advent of American overseas imperialism.


During the 19th century,
American exponents of MANIFEST DESTINY likened Cuba,
a Spanish colony,

to a ripening fruit destined ultimately
to fall in
to outstretched American hands.

The expansionists' hunger intensified after 1895,
when Cuban nationalists began a bloody insurrection against the Spanish colonial government.

Spain's ruthless Gen.

Valeriano Weyler herded Cuban farmers in
to squalid concentration camps.

Many men,
women,
and children died,
and Weyler was dubbed "butcher" by William Randolph Hearst's sensationalist New York Journal.

This and other "yellow" journals (see YELLOW JOURNALISM) fanned American public opinion and editorialized
for humanitarian intervention and the annexation of Cuba by the United States.

On Feb.

9,
1898,
Hearst published a purloined private letter in which the Spanish minister
to the United States sharply criticized President William MCKINLEY;
on February 15,
the American battleship MAINE exploded in Havana harbor.

McKinley had resisted the surging pressure
for intervention as long as resistance was politically expedient,
but the drift toward war soon became inexorable despite accelerated Spanish attempts
to withdraw from Cuba without losing face.

On April 11,
McKinley in effect requested a declaration of war,
which Congress passed on April 25.


The Fighting
Combat lasted only 10 weeks,
but it proved one-sided and decisive.

In the Pacific,
Commodore George DEWEY steamed swiftly from Hong Kong aboard his flagship Olympia,
one of the modern steel cruisers of the "new navy" fashioned in the 1880s and '90s.

Dewey's squadron slipped in
to Manila harbor and on May 1 destroyed the obsolete Spanish fleet lying at anchor.

Reinforced by the army in June,
Dewey besieged the Spanish garrison in Manila,
capturing the city on August 13.

In July--
to support these combined operations--the U.S.

Navy had seized Spanish Guam and previously unclaimed Wake Island,
and Congress by joint resolution had annexed Hawaii.


In the Caribbean,
Spanish ships under Adm.

Pasqual Cervera sailed safely in
to the harbor of Santiago de Cuba.

By the end of May,
however,
they were blockaded there by U.S.

naval forces.

U.S.

troops under Gen.

William R.

SHAFTER landed in Cuba in late June and pressed toward Santiago.

These ground forces included the regular army as well as special volunteer regiments,
the most famous of which were the ROUGH RIDERS,
led by Theodore ROOSEVELT and Leonard WOOD.

The Americans were victorious at the battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill on July 1.

Determined
to maintain Spain's honor,
Cervera made a dash
for the open sea on July 3,
although the imbalance between his outdated Spanish vessels and the modern American ships off Cuba was almost as great as the disparity between the fleets in the Philippines.

The guns of the new battleships and cruisers commanded by Rear Admiral William T.

SAMPSON and Commodore Winfield Scott SCHLEY sank most of the Spanish ships in less than 4 hours.

Spain suffered 474 casualties
to only two
for the United States.

On July 17,
Santiago and Cuba's 24,000 Spanish troops surrendered.

Madrid sued
for peace 9 days later.


The Treaty of Paris
During the peace negotiations the United States did not seek annexation of Cuba because the Teller Amendment
to the declaration of war forbade American acquisition of the island.

However,
McKinley demanded Spanish cession of Puer
to Rico,
Guam,
and the Philippine Islands.

In the Treaty of Paris,
concluded on December 10,
a humiliated Spain yielded
to American imperialism.


The imperialistic grab was not universally popular in the United States,
and the Senate fight over the treaty was intense.

Among those opposed
to annexation of the Philippines were Mark Twain,
Andrew Carnegie,
several senior Republican senators,
and many Democrats.

They argued that acquisition of noncontiguous areas populated by peoples allegedly unsuited
for assimilation in
to American society was contrary
to the principles of American democracy.

The imperialists stressed the role of the United States as an agent of civilization and the importance of possessing a threshold
to the trade
with China,
on which the Americans and British were attempting
to impose the so-called Open Door Policy.

The imperialists carried the day,
in large measure because William Jennings BRYAN,
an avowed antiimperialist and the probable Democratic candidate
for president in 1900,
urged Democratic senators
to vote
for the Treaty of Paris in order
to terminate the state of war.

By the narrow margin of 57
to 27 (only two votes more than the number needed
for ratification) the Senate approved the pact on Feb.

6,
1899.

Bryan,
who intended
to relinquish the Philippines if elected president,
lost the election of 1900
to McKinley,
and the United States retained the islands.


The "splendid little war" established the United States as a major power in the Far East and the dominant power in the Caribbean.

Although Filipino nationalists fought a bitter four-year struggle
for immediate independence,
the United States clung
to the archipelago because it seemed a portal
to the China market.

Puer
to Rico became an American colony and the site of an American naval base,
and nominally independent Cuba ceded territory
for naval stations
to the United States under the terms of a constitution--
with the so-called PLATT AMENDMENT appended
to it--imposed by the American Congress and Secretary of War Elihu ROOT.

These two islands were strategically significant
to the defense of the Panama Canal,
which was begun in 1904.


Kenneth J.

Hagan
Bibliography:

Chadwick, French E., The Relations of the United States and Spain: The Spanish-American War, 2 vols. (1911; repr. 1968);
Foner, Philip S., The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895-1902, 2 vols. (1972);
Freidel, Frank, The Splendid Little War (1958);
Gould, Lewis L., The Spanish-American War and President McKinley (1982);
Offner, John L., An Unwanted War (1992);
O'Toole, G. J., The Spanish War (1986);
Pratt, Julius W., Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (1936; repr. 1959);
Trask, David E., The War with Spain