Crucible of Empire- Interview of Brands

7/30/2019 Crucible of Empire- Interview of Brands

1/13

H.W. Brands InterviewBold = portions of the interview which were not filmed.

START TAPE 012BEGIN INTERVIEWINT: ... what was actually going on with the economic versus

what it tried the show people?DIRECTIONALBRANDS: Well, the Columbian Exposition of 18...DIRECTIONALBRANDS: 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 placein 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. Thiswas where the world was going and Americans liked to think of themselves as onthe cutting edge of the future. It was kind of ironic that the fair began in theautumn of 1893 shortly after the -- well, the panic of 1893 which led to the worstdepression in American history. And so through much of the exposition, whichlasted into the next year, Americans were confronted with this irony that, on theone hand, the exposition showed the great promise of the future and at the sametime the reality of the present was -- was quite different.

DIRECTIONALINT: 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 capitalfrom American capital markets. This triggered a financial panic which spread intothe -- the manufacturing realm, resulted in the lay-off of tens of thousands ofpeople. It provoked a considerable amount of labor violence, the worst railwaystrike in American history, which began at the Pullman Works in Illinois andspread across the entire American rail network. By 1895, hundreds of thousandsof people were out of work and the economy was more stagnant than it had everbeen in American history.

INT: Can you talk about Frederick Jackson Turner and his speechon 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 thesignificance of the frontier in American history. Turner pointed out that the 1890census had revealed that there was no longer a frontier in a demographic sense andhe thought this was quite significant because, as he saw it, the frontier was themost formative influence in American history. Now that there was no frontier, hewas unsure, and many people who read his paper and were persuaded by it, were

1


2/13


unsure what the future portended for the United States. There was a particularpoignancy and particular credibility that was lent to this interpretation by the onsetof the depression that began in 1893. So Turner could make the case that the firstand great era of American history had ended, and the depression seemed to makethe case that the new era was going to be much different and, quite conceivably,much worse.

INT: Why were so many intellectuals, Roosevelt, Henry CabotLodge, taken in by this theory?

DIRECTIONALBRANDS: 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 morehomesteading, there was more settlement of the West after 1890 than there hadbeen before, but the idea of the frontier meant a lot even to people who never wentout to the frontier themselves. And they could look at the development ofAmerican history, and they could see that democracy, as front as Turner put it,reformed itself every generation on the frontier. Now with no frontier, somethingelse had to provide that -- that formative influence and, even more importantly,something else had to distinguish the United States from the European powers. Ithad been the frontier. The frontier wasn't there anymore. What would it be at thispoint? Turner couldn't say, and nobody knew.

INT: Was there any expansionism sentiment associated with theColumbian Exposition?

BRANDS: Well, that part ...DIRECTIONALBRANDS: Expansionism per se wasn't built into the Columbian

Exposition, but the whole idea behind the exposition was that technology wouldsolve the problems of the world. The United States was one of the leaders oftechnology and presumably could export that technology and the power it gaveAmericans to other parts of the world. So even though expansion wasn't explicitin the exposition, it was certainly implicit in the mindset that had created theexposition.

DIRECTIONALINT: What was known in terms of the Philippines in the 1890s?DIRECTIONALBRANDS: During the 1890s, it's fair to say that the Philippines

were relatively unknown to most Americans. There were a few people who tookparticular care to consider what America's strategic role in the world might be,people like Alfred Thayer Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, who

2


3/13


were looking for -- looking for overseas naval bases, for coaling stations forAmerica's steam-powered fleet, who understood that the Philippines had harborsthat were worthwhile, ah, that the Philippines commanded the water routesbetween China and Southeast Asia. So to the few people, the Philippines meantsomething. To most Americans, they had probably heard about them, but theyknew very little in any kind of detail.

INT: Can you, um, just like in a sentence, contrast the revolution inthe Philippines? Can you characterize, you know, that it was against Spain andalso say what was known of this insurgency in the US versus what was knownabout 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 anationalist movement that was revolting against what was seen as a corruptSpanish empire, more power to 'em. But it was far away and compared to theimmediacy of the Cuban Revolution, of the insurgency in Cuba which Americansknew all about, the Philippines were really a blank spot in the American public'sperception.

DIRECTIONALINT: 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 wasthe last American President to have served in the Civil War, and he knew what warwas like. At one point he said, "I've been through one war. I've seen the bodiesstacked 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 achild during the Civil War, who had never experienced the Civil War, who hadheard about the Civil War only through stories of parents, uncles, cousins, and thelike, 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 oldergeneration, already had. In addition, McKinley was much more attune to the

needs and the concerns of American business than Roosevelt was. They were bothRepublicans, but -- but McKinley was connected through Mark Hanna, forexample, his manager, to the American, ahm, industrial sector. And Americanbusiness until the early part of 1898 had no desire to get into war. The countrywas finally pulling out of the depression and there was a -- a sense that "Let's justleave overseas adventures alone. Let's concentrate on restoring prosperity athome." Wars tend to disrupt things. They're good for certain sectors of the

3


4/13


economy, but they're -- they're very bad for other sectors of the economy. And atthat point, McKinley and American businessmen wanted to keep things calm andstable. And that's why their reluctance to war.

DIRECTIONALINT: 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. Therewere various divisions that were opening up, class divisions, racial divisions,urban-rural divisions, divisions between creditors, debtors, and so forth. Variouscommentators during the 1890s remarked on that, and there was a search forsolutions to this problem. How do we bring the country back together again?

What can unify the country? Various solutions were proposed. People likeEdward Bellamy proposed, ahm, socialism. Ahm, people like, ah, the Populistsadvocated free silver as a way of bringing the -- the debtor class back into themainstream. 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 thewar, by no means. But when the war came, Americans were able to rally behindMcKinley's call for volunteers. They were able to rally behind the Army, theNavy, ah, in a patriotic pursuit of this national purpose. And whatever the causesof the war, one of the consequences of the war was to pull the country together ina way it hadn't been for many years. In fact, you could argue that this sort ofcompletes the reunification of the country, that after the Civil War, Reconstructionhadn't quite done it and this allowed Americans from North and South both to fighton 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 thedivisiveness 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 wareffort. And so he took particular pains to appoint veterans of the Civil War to toppositions 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 improveRepublican chances in the South.

DIRECTIONALINT: 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 wereutterly unaware of the presence of Commodore Dewey in the Philippines or of the

4


5/13


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 minimallosses to his own -- to his own fleet. The result was a terrific victory for theUnited States and when the news got back to the US, Americans rejoiced as theyhadn't since -- well, since the Civil War. The advantage here was thateverybody could cheer, everybody North and South, for an American victoryin a way that they hadn't been able to during the Civil War. Kids were namedfor Dewey. They were victory marches ...

DIRECTIONAL, SLATEDIRECTIONALBRANDS: 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 thenwhen Dewey delivered this victory just weeks later, it erased all doubt that thishad been a good idea. Ahm, you know, tremendous victory is terrific for the partythat had advocated war. Dewey was the most famous man in America. Childrenwere 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 Philippinesfirst?

BRANDS: The short answer to -- the principle reason that theAmericans attacked the Philippines first was that's where the Spanish fleet was.Theodore Roosevelt and other people in the Navy Department before the outbreakof war understood that although the cause of war was the situation in Cuba, thewar would be against Spain. And anything Spain could bring to bear in that warwould be something that American forces should attack. Dewey had the Americanfleet in the Pacific. The Spanish fleet was located in the Philippines. Rooseveltsent the order to Dewey, "As soon as the war breaks out, head for the Philippinesand take on the Spanish fleet." And this was obviously not public knowledge, andso the fact that the American Pacific fleet was even in the Philippines and that ithad destroyed the Spanish fleet, ah, was brand news to Americans. And so it wasboth 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 tookAguinaldo back to the Philippines. Exactly what he was going to do withAguinaldo there, ahm, he probably didn't know. Now a dispute arose as to exactlywhat Dewey promised to Aguinaldo, if anything. Aguinaldo said that Deweypromised American support for the Philippine insurgency against the Spanish.

5


6/13


Dewey says that he did no such thing. There's no contemporary documentation tobe able to resolve this controversy, but one of the results was bad blood betweenthe United States and the Philippine insurgents from the very outset.

DIRECTIONALINT: 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 incontrol of the islands; it controlled the area around Manila, but in terms of militarycontrol of the whole place, that was out of the question. But a separate questionwas, 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 weighvarious considerations. On the one hand, he had no desire for the United States tobe an imperial power and to annex the Philippines would saddle the United Stateswith responsibility for governing the place. And McKinley was not an imperialistin any traditional sense of the word. On the other hand, he realized that Americanforces had expended a great deal of effort and some lives in gaining such controlof the Philippines as the United States exercised at the end of the fighting. TheAmerican flag had been run up over the walls of Manila and so he couldn't verylightly pull that down. He saw what a popular cause the war had been. To turnaround at the end of the war and simply hand over to somebody one of theprincipal 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 wereconvinced that the Philippines, if they were granted independence by the UnitedStates, 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 toexpand 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 versusPhilippineindependence. It was American control versus control by some other power. AndMcKinley came to the conclusion that it would be better for the United States andit would be better for the Filipinos if the United States controlled the Philippines,

rather than some other country.DIRECTIONALINT: Talk about how McKinley went down to the White

House ...DIRECTIONALBRANDS: 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

6


7/13


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 whathe should do about the Philippines. And after long sleepless nights, the answercame to him, and he realized that he couldn't give up the Philippines to anotherpower. That would be ignoble and bad business. He couldn't turn the Philippinesloose 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 Philippinesand, as he said, "to uplift and Christianize" the Filipinos and make them ready forindependence and -- and self-government.

DIRECTIONALINT: Characterize the Senate debate over the Treaty of Paris.

BRANDS: The US Senate has historically billed itself as the mostdeliberative body in the world, and often it doesn't live up to that reputation. Butin the debate over the ratification of the Treaty of Paris which would determine thefuture of the Philippines and the course of American foreign policy for the nextmany years, I think it did. In fact, ahm, despite the over-blown rhetoric on bothsides, there was a critical issue that was being debated. Should the United Statesbecome an imperial power? And there were those, like Theodore Roosevelt andHenry Cabot Lodge and Albert Beveridge, who contended that the United Statesshould become an imperial power. This was the age of empire. The United Stateswas the greatest and most civilized of the Western powers. If the United Statesdidn't become an empire, then foreign countries would be left at the mercy of lessworthy imperial powers. On the other hand, there were those who contended thatempires were something for other countries to have, but not for the United States.The basic difference between the United States and the European powers was areverence for democracy, a belief that people ought to be able to governthemselves. For the United States to overturn that tradition by annexing thePhilippines, would lead to the same sort of ill consequences that had befallen theRoman Republic when Rome became an empire, and they didn't want to see thathappen.

INT: What was the outcome of the debate?BRANDS: The expansionists, the annexationists, the pro-

ratificationists won. It was a close vote, and it largely turned on the instructions ofWilliam Jennings Bryan, who was the titular leader of the Democratic Party, toallow his supporters to vote for annexation in the hope that Bryan could make anissue of imperialism in the 1900 election.

INT: Describe the 1900 election in which McKinley won.BRANDS: Bryan had hoped to make the election of 1900 a

referendum on imperialism. It didn't work out that way. Almost never do foreign

7


8/13


policy questions decide American elections. It didn't in 1900. McKinley was re-elected on the prosperity that he had brought -- that his administration had broughtto the country after the horrible depression of the 1890s. However, despite thefact that the Republicans had won on -- principally on domestic issues, the factthat Bryan had raised the imperial question allowed the Republicans to claim theirvictory as a victory for imperialism, for the expansionist policy that people likeRoosevelt, Lodge, Mahan, Beveridge had espoused.

INT: Do you know how the Philippines, the Filipinos were sort ofhoping that Bryan would win, they were sort of continuing the campaign Whatdid it mean for the Filipinos that McKinley won?

BRANDS: The Filipinos naturally hoped that the anti-imperialist

party would win in the United States. They hoped that an anti-imperialistPresident would somehow change the results of the ratification debate in theSenate and grant independence to the Philippines. It didn't happen. They weredisappointed and they were forced to live with the consequences.

DIRECTIONALINT: Can you characterize the war in the Philippines?BRANDS: The war in the Philippines was very demoralizing for the

United States, both for American troops and for the American public at home.Americans had rightly criticized the Spanish for their treatment of the insurgencein Cuba, but Americans in the Philippines found themselves in an analogousposition. They were fighting a guerrilla war against an army that was not suited toAmerican conventional tactics. The United States forces were compelled to adoptanti-insurgent, anti-guerrilla strategies that were very much like those that hadbeen used, ah, and, again, had been rightly criticized by the Americans and thathad been used by the Spanish in Cuba. This led to reprisals. It led to variousatrocities. It was nearly impossible to pick out the insurgents from mere civilians.When doubts arose, Americans often put the burden of doubt on the shoulders ofthe Filipinos and used harsh, if not brutal, tactics against civilians and insurgentsalike. It was a long war. It lasted much longer than the war against the Spanish.It was a dirty war. It led to all sorts of recriminations. It led to extremely bitterfeelings, ah, on the part of the Filipinos against the United States, and it led to a

demoralization in the United States. (Phone Rings)DIRECTIONALBRANDS: The brutal nature of the war in the Philippines really

disillusioned Americans, both on the possibility of governing an empire in the waythat they had been led to believe they might, and on the whole notion of empire.It's striking that American enthusiasm for empire peaked in 1898 during the waragainst Spain. The enthusiasm quickly waned as the war against the Philippines

8


9/13


dragged on. Americans never after that displayed any enthusiasm for taking morecolonies. Later, when the United States would fine itself in a similar situationduring the 1960s fighting a war in Vietnam, historical memories of precursors inthe Philippines came to light again and, interestingly, Americans foundthemselves fighting in the same way, in the same part of the world, using thesame sort of tactics and became equally demoralized and the sort of reactionthat occurred after Vietnam mirrored the earlier reaction after the war in thePhilippines.

START TAPE 013DIRECTIONALBRANDS: When the war in the Philippines finally ended,

Americans did their best to forget it, to put the memories out of mind. And theysucceeded for a long time. When the United States went into Vietnam in the1960s, however, historical parallels were drawn to the earlier war. There were --they were strikingly similar. Americans were fighting a dirty war in Asia against aguerrilla force they often couldn't find and didn't understand. The war dragged onand on. It was very disillusioning, and the reaction against the war in Vietnamafter the United States belatedly pulled out mirrored the reaction against, ah, thePhilippine War 60 years before.

DIRECTIONALBRANDS: Americans annexed the Philippines with some

ambivalence, because American traditions were such that the United States oughtnot to be a colonial power, ought not to control other territories against the will ofthose other territories. But in the flush of enthusiasm for the Spanish war,Americans said, "Okay. We'll go ahead and do it." The Philippine war puncturedthat enthusiasm and by the end of the war, Americans simply had no stomach forany more colonies. Ahm, so Americans discovered that they really weren't cut outto be an imperial power. To the imperialists like Roosevelt, this was a greatdisappointment. He thought that the United States would be better off, the worldwould be better off if the United States were an imperial power. But evenRoosevelt himself was forced to conclude that the Americans were not an imperialpeople. He said that the -- the Philippines had become America's achilles heel.

He understood that America still controlled the Philippines but simply wouldn'ttake responsibility for governing it, for defending it. This became a source ofdisappointment for him. It became a source of tragedy for the Filipinos during theSecond World War, when the United States still nominally controlled the place,but hadn't taken sufficient measures to defend it against attack by the Japanese.

DIRECTIONAL, CUTINT: Talk about McKinley's fascination and transferring power

9


10/13


to Roosevelt. BRANDS: The assassination of William McKinley in September of1901 marked a critical turning point in the history of American foreign relations.McKinley was a reluctant imperialist, an imperialist, but reluctant. TheodoreRoosevelt, who became President upon McKinley's death, was an enthusiasticimperialist. McKinley had taken the United States onto the world stage withhesitation and with an unwillingness to exploit the opportunities that wereavailable. Roosevelt grabbed the opportunities with both hands and made the mostof them.

INT: Talk about how TR's generation really hadn't experiencedwar and what it meant for him.

BRANDS: Theodore Roosevelt before he became President, was anardent advocate of war, war for particular national purposes, but also the idea ofwar. War would temper the soul of the nation. War would exercise the -- thenational will and the muscles of the nation the way -- the moral fiber of the nationthe way physical exercise, ah, strengthens the physical fiber of a nation. SoRoosevelt was at the head of the party of the war in the era -- in the period leadingup to the Spanish War. To a considerable extent, I think this reflected the fact thatRoosevelt's generation had not fought a war. It -- the generation of its parents hadfought the Civil War and demonstrated its bravery and its valor then. Roosevelt'sgeneration still had to prove its worth. Now, interestingly, Roosevelt seemed tohave gotten most of that out of his system during the Spanish-American War, sothat after he became President, he dropped the rhetoric a-- about war being anennobling cause. He never sent American troops into battle. He hesitated beforesending American troops peacefully into reoccupy Cuba. He understood that theresponsibilities of power constrained him, prevented him from saying the sorts ofthings he had said while he was a mere Assistant Secretary of the Navy.Interestingly, after he left the White House, he -- and after the First World Warbegan, he became a war hawk once again. So with Roosevelt there's also anelement of belligerent talk as a way of getting attention. When he wasn't in theWhite House, he would get attention by speaking very bellicosely. When he wasin the White House, when he was President, the attention was on him anyway. He

didn't need to do that sort of thing.DIRECTIONALINT: Talk about the benefits of American colonization in both

Cuba and the Philippines as well as the detriments.BRANDS: As Roosevelt and the other imperialists had predicted,

American control of the Philippines and American de facto control of Cubabrought certain benefits to both of those countries. Americans brought education

10


11/13


of a sort that hadn't existed before. They built physical infrastructure. Theymodernized the administration of those countries. And so to that extent theImperialist Party fulfilled what it had said it was going to do, but, on the otherhand, to a degree that Roosevelt and the other imperialists didn't fully appreciate,the only way to learn self-government is to govern yourself. And as long as thePhilippines, as long as Cuba remained under the explicit or de facto control of theUnited States, the developments towards self-government were constantly short-circuited.

DIRECTIONALBRANDS: As to what historical perspectives can be learned from

the perspective of 1998 looking back on 1898, one hesitates to draw any explicit

parallels, but I suppose the simplest lesson is that things almost never turn out theway you think they're going to. The US went into the Philippines with high hopes.Within five years those hopes were dashed and the US was left for the -- for thenext half-century dealing with the consequences of an imperialist venture goneawry. What do you make of that for the future? I don't know. (Laughs)

DIRECTIONALBRANDS: Oh, July 4th became a big day in Philippine history.DIRECTIONALBRANDS: That's when independence was granted in 1946, but

INT: Talk about racism in the 1890s in general.BRANDS: During the 1890s, most Americans of European

background were unabashed racists. Ah, some of 'em were abashed, but for themost part they believed that the -- the white race, by which they meant northernEuropeans, and especially the Anglo-Saxon branch of that race, ahm, stood at theapex of civilization. They felt that Anglo-Saxons had a right, and in some cases aresponsibility, to spread civilization to those that they unashamedly called "thelesser races." People like Theodore Roosevelt, for example, fully believed in whatRudyard Kipling, a friend of Roosevelt's, described as "the white man's burden."And it was the responsibility of the most advanced races to bring civilization to themore backward races in exactly the same way that adults educate children.

Children are backward with respect to adults. Ah, races like Filipinos, forexample, Cubans, certainly black Africans, were retarded with respect to the whiteraces. And so it was an understood part of this imperialist ethic that the white racewas superior and that it was a responsibility to spread the advancement -- ah, toadvance civilization among "the lesser breeds", as they called them.

INT: Was McKinley a racist?BRANDS: He wasn't as open in stating those sorts of things as

11


12/13


Roosevelt and others were, but he subscribed essentially to it.DIRECTIONALINT: Talk about how policy-makers dealt with the fact of the

distance of the Philippines.BRANDS: Nowadays it's hard to imagine how far the Philippines --

how far away from the United States the Philippines seemed in 1898. MostAmericans, including President McKinley by his own admission, had to get out amap of the world, a globe, to figure out where the Philippines were. It was reallyat the back of beyond then, and this had sort of two effects. One is, it renderedMc-- it rendered Dewey's victory in the Philippines, more amazing and morenoteworthy, that American forces could win a great victory clear on the far side of

the world. And so to that extent it played into the hands of the imperialists. On theother side, however, it reminded Americans how far away this was and howunlikely it was that the United States would ever have any material interests in thePhilippines. Therefore, the United States ought to get out of there and leave thePhilippines to the Filipinos or whoever else might take over.

DIRECTIONALBRANDS: At the same time that the United States was feeling the

forces of division, and many people saw it falling apart, there were othercountervailing forces that tended to unify the country. For example, the railroadshad created a national market, a transportation network that made it possible, easyfor Americans to get from coast to coast in comfort and in a -- only a short spaceof time. Telephone, the telegraph, other advanced technologies were bringingAmericans closer together. In the manufacturing realm, the great trusts wereunifying the country in a way that many people found alarming. So there was anodd juxtaposition here of these divisive elements and at the same time of theseunifying elements. And it led to what at times was an almost schizophrenicmindset among the American people during the 1890s.

DIRECTIONALINT: Was McKinley a Union general?BRANDS: I'm pretty sure he was a general. I wouldn't swear to

it. Yeah, I think he was a brigadier general.

DIRECTIONALBRANDS: Actually there were a lot of people who were

promoted to general during the fighting. That wasn't a permanent rank.Ahm, but that's something I'd want to look up.

DIRECTIONALBRANDS: As a Union veteran of the Civil War, McKinley had seen

a real war and he understood what it meant for society. In fact, at one point he

12


13/13


said, "I've been through one war. I've seed -- I've seen the dead bodies piled upand I don't want to go through that again." McKinley knew what war meant in away that people like Theodore Roosevelt, who hadn't been through the war, who'dbeen too young for the Civil War, didn't understand. McKinley's generation hadwon it's spurs already. Roosevelt's generation still had to win its spurs.

DIRECTIONALINT: Any anecdotes, i.e., the Senate debate on the Treaty of

Paris, et cetera?BRANDS: The Senate debate over ratification of the Treaty of Paris

brought out the best and worst in both sides. Ahm, among those opposing theimperialist course of the United States were some who contended that the United

States shouldn't take control of other people. Ahm, there are others who said,"Yeah, we shouldn't take control of other people, because those other people aren'teven worthy to be part of an American political system." Some of the mostscurrilous kinds of remarks were circulated regarding the nature of the people inthe Philippines. Some -- one Senate commentator described people who hadstripped skins and blue streaks on their body. It was utterly ludicrous, but,nonetheless, it has an impact in the debate.

END INTERVIEW

13

Crucible of Empire- Interview of Brands

Documents

Transcript of Crucible of Empire- Interview of Brands