The Imperial Cruise

by James Bradley

  Less than a week after the de Lôme affair—at 9:40 p.m. on February 15, 1898—the USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor, killing more than two hundred American sailors. It was the most sensational American news event since President Garfield’s assassination in 1881. Not one shred of evidence ever existed to suggest that the Spanish had sunk the Maine.40 (Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee, the Maine’s skipper, suspected that the explosion had been caused by a fire in a coal bunker next to a reserve magazine, which was a frequent mishap aboard steam-driven warships.) Nevertheless, the February 18, 1898, edition of Hearst’s Journal ran the banner headline, “DESTRUCTION OF THE WAR SHIP MAINE WAS THE WORK OF AN ENEMY.” Directly below was a boldface quote about a top U.S. government official supporting Hearst’s sensational claim: “Assistant Secretary Roosevelt Convinced the Explosion of the War Ship Was Not an Accident.” Hearst sold more than a million copies of his paper that morning.

  General Emilio Aguinaldo, the George Washington of the Philippines. However, he wasn’t White, and according to Professor Burgess of Columbia and most American political and intellectual leaders, this disqualified him from leading a state, a job restricted to those with Teutonic blood. Aguinaldo’s biggest mistake was to believe that the United States would support independence for the non-White Filipinos. As president of the short-lived Philippines republic, Aguinaldo told his cabinet: “I have studied attentively the Constitution of the United States, and I find in it no authority for colonies, and I have no fear.” (Library of Congress)

  Before any U.S. government body investigated the facts, Congress rushed through a fifty-million-dollar defense appropriation bill to put the country on an aggressive war footing. McKinley confided to an aide, “I have been through one war; I have seen the dead piled up, and I do not want to see another.”41 But the Atlanta Constitution ridiculed McKinley as a “goody-goody man,” calling for a “declaration of American virility…. At this moment here is a great need of a man in the White House…. The people need a man—an American—at the helm.” The New York Journal sought “any signs, however faint, of manhood in the White House,” while a New York World editorial proclaimed, “There are manly and resolute ways of dealing with treachery and wrong. There are unmanly and irresolute ways.” As other papers piled on, Assistant Secretary Roosevelt remarked to a friend, “McKinley has no more backbone than a chocolate éclair.”42

  New York Journal, February 18, 1898. Front page. The USS Maine blew up in Havana harbor because of a ship malfunction. But the assistant secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, wanted a war and, with not a shred of evidence, helped Yellow Press publisher William Randolph Hearst create the idea in the American mind that it “was the work of an enemy.” Years later, President Franklin Roosevelt belatedly apologized to the government of Spain for American accusations.

  McKinley paced his Executive Mansion office by day and needed sleeping pills at night. He recalled to visitors the horrors he had witnessed in the Civil War and reiterated how he wanted to prevent any recurrence. With one friend he burst into tears as he voiced his fear of war. Nevertheless, on April 20, 1898, McKinley reluctantly signed the war resolution against Spain. A brilliant politician regarding domestic affairs, the president who had never paid much attention to the rest of the world now had to square the nation’s conscience with its opposition to European-style imperialism. Initiating what would become a recurring Yankee tradition, McKinley contended that the U.S. military could invade other countries when Americans decided that their people needed help. McKinley conjured up the fantasy that when a U.S. soldier pointed a gun at a foreign Other, he was there to help. The Teller amendment to McKinley’s war resolution declared these benevolent intentions:

  The people of the Island of Cuba are, of right ought to be, free and independent…. The United States does hereby demand, that the Government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and government in the Island of Cuba [and] the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the Island to its people.43

  When McKinley called for volunteers, he authorized three regiments composed of frontiersmen with special qualifications as marksmen and horsemen. The secretary of war, Russell Alger, offered Teddy a regiment. Roosevelt turned down command but said he would serve as lieutenant colonel if his friend Leonard Wood commanded. Thus the “Rough Riders” (a name Roosevelt cribbed from Buffalo Bill) were born.

  On June 14, 1898, American troops sailed from Tampa to free Cuba. Roosevelt’s thoughts were of how he would help “score the first great triumph of a mighty world movement.”44

  In contrast to the American Revolutionary War, Cuban freedom fighters would have beaten the Spanish without foreign aid. (Indeed, impartial observers noted that U.S. troops could not have landed if the Cubans had not fought the Spanish back.) But Teddy saw things differently:

  The Cuban soldiers were almost all blacks and mulattoes and were clothed in rags and armed with every kind of old rifle. They were utterly unable to make a serious fight, or to stand against even a very inferior number of Spanish troops, but we hoped they might be of some use as scouts and skirmishers. For various reasons this proved not to be the case, and so far as the Santiago Campaign was concerned, we should have been better off if there had not been a single Cuban with the army. They accomplished literally nothing, while they were a source of trouble and embarrassment, and consumed much provisions.45

  Teddy’s commander, Leonard Wood, wrote to the secretary of war that the Cuban Army was “made up very considerably of black people, only partially civilized, in whom the old spirit of savagery has been more or less aroused by years of warfare, during which time they have reverted more or less to the condition of men taking what they need and living by plunder.”46 English correspondent John Atkins remarked that “by far the most notable thing” about the Americans’ reaction to the color of the natives “was their sudden open disavowal of friendliness towards the Cubans.”47 Before the invasion, the American press had portrayed the Cuban fighters as predominantly White men, “as brave as any who wear the blue.”48 Those newspapers reflected the military’s disappointment that the Cubans were Black: the Cuban freedom fighters were now lazy, thieving, murderous bands.

  Roosevelt, who as an author had crafted a winning persona as a manly Ranchman, had arranged for friendly photographers and correspondents to accompany the Rough Riders to Cuba, where they reported Teddy’s courageous charge up Kettle Hill on the San Juan Ridge. Roosevelt’s men had been waiting in trenches for orders when they began suffering serious casualties. Teddy decided to wait no longer and led his men to charge the Spanish positions above. Joined by several other brigades, Roosevelt successfully drove the Spanish away. Later, Roosevelt’s men helped repel a counterattack on another hill. Awash in celebrity as a result of the press coverage, Roosevelt “became a walking advertisement for the imperialistic manhood he desired for the American race.”49

  The war in Cuba was brief, and on July 17, 1898, Spanish and American troops gathered in the city of Santiago for the surrender ceremony. In 1894, Teddy had penned an article entitled “National Life and Character” in which he wrote that Blacks were “a perfectly stupid race” and it would take “many thousand years” before the Black became even “as intellectual as the [ancient] Athenian.”50 Victorious American Aryans had no intention of handing a state to this inferior race. This was at a time when Professor Burgess’s political science students at Columbia University were learning from him that only those Whites with Teutonic heritage were capable to control the organs of a state. Instead, the Americans informed shocked Cuban freedom fighters that the old Spanish civil authorities—White men—would remain in charge. No Cubans were allowed to confer on the surrender or to sign it. Down came the Spanish flag and, to the cheers of American soldiers, up went the Stars and Strip
es.

  Theodore Roosevelt in his Rough Rider uniform. With almost twenty years of public-relations experience as a successful author, Roosevelt was a past master at using New York photo studios to create a lasting image. He cribbed the title “Rough Rider” from William Cody (“Buffalo Bill”) and had his uniform tailored by Brooks Brothers. (Library of Congress)

  As soon as the United States got control of Cuba, Congress passed the Platt Amendment, which canceled the benevolent intentions expressed in the original war resolution. Cuba was prohibited from making treaties with other countries and was forced to cede Guantánamo Bay to the United States for use as a naval base. After he became military governor of Cuba, Leonard Wood admitted to Roosevelt, “There is, of course, little or no independence left Cuba under the Platt Amendment.”51

  AMERICAN SUN-FOLLOWERS ALSO EYED naval links necessary for westward expansion across the Pacific. Filipino freedom fighters had been battling their Spanish colonial masters for years. But most Americans had never heard of the distant Philippines. Even fewer understood that it was experiencing its own revolution, just like Cuba. It was not until an 1898 article in the North American Review—“The Cuba of the Far East”—that there was a single public reference to the revolt in the Philippines.52

  Indeed, early in his presidency, McKinley was asked the location of the Philippine Islands. “Somewhere away around on the other side of the world,” he answered.53 And the president later admitted, “When we received the cable from Admiral Dewey [Commodore at the time] telling of the taking of the Philippines I looked up their location on the globe. I could not have told where those darned islands were within 2,000 miles.”54

  The Philippine Islands

  When asked the location of the Philippine Islands, President McKinley answered, “Somewhere away around on the other side of the world.”

  ON FEBRUARY 15, 1898, when the Maine exploded in Havana, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were suddenly in play. Just as the U.S. Army had planted forts that facilitated westering, the U.S. Navy could now obtain the links necessary to circle Whitman’s circle.

  With Assistant Secretary Roosevelt beating the tom-toms in Washington, Admiral George Dewey in Hong Kong made plans to seize Manila. While the United States could defeat Spanish naval power, that was not the same as controlling the Philippines. Conquering territory required land troops, and the U.S. Army was on the other side of the world. Aguinaldo’s soldiers had proven themselves against Spanish forces, and now Dewey imagined he could use them as a temporary rent-an-army.

  Dewey solicited Aguinaldo’s assistance several times. Within a month of the Maine explosion, he dispatched Commander Edward Wood to liaise with the Filipino leader. When he met with Wood, Aguinaldo naturally assumed that since he was dealing with an emissary of the top U.S. official in Asia, he was hearing the official American position on his revolution. Wood told him that the United States would support Filipino independence if the Filipino army teamed with the U.S. Navy against Spain. With his own Indians, the American Aryan had been quick to make treaties that Congress could later disregard. Now on the international stage, U.S. officials were more circumspect. When Aguinaldo asked whether the United States had designs of its own for the Philippines, Wood assured him, “The United States is a great and rich nation and needs no colonies.”55 When Aguinaldo suggested that he commit this in writing, Wood “replied that he would refer the matter to Admiral Dewey.”56

  In almost every meeting, Aguinaldo asked the U.S. officials for a signed agreement stating their intentions and obligations. According to Aguinaldo, the U.S. consul to Singapore, Spencer Pratt, assured him, “The Government of North America is a very honest, just, and powerful government. There is no necessity for entering into a formal written agreement because the word of the Admiral and of the United States Consul were in fact equivalent to the most solemn pledge, that their verbal promises and assurance would be fulfilled to the letter and were not to be classed with Spanish promises or Spanish ideas of a man’s word of honour.”57

  Many historians maintain it is impossible to ascertain precisely what the State Department and War Department representatives promised the Filipinos. They point to the lack of written agreements, the ambiguity of the verbal interchanges, the potential for misunderstandings between English-speaking Americans and their Spanish-speaking Filipino counterparts. But it is clear that the American emissaries gave Aguinaldo every encouragement. In hindsight, the Filipino leader should have heeded the warning of the Spanish governor-general of the Philippines, Basilio Augustín y Dávila:

  A squadron manned by foreigners, possessing neither instruction nor discipline, is preparing to come to this archipelago with the ruffianly intention of robbing us of all that means life, honor, and liberty. Pretending to be inspired by a courage of which they are incapable, the North American seamen undertake, as an enterprise capable of realization, the substitution of Protestantism for the Catholic religion… to treat you as tribes refractory to civilization, to take possession of your riches as if they were unacquainted with the rights of property.58

  The May 1 “Battle of Manila Bay” was actually not much of a fight. On May 1, Admiral Dewey’s modern, steel ships steamed into Manila Bay. Spain’s creaky, wooden ships were conveniently tied up in a row. It was a turkey shoot, American cannon pounding Spain’s wooden relics into kindling. The conflict was so one-sided that Dewey had his sailors break for a sit-down morning meal. After the breakfast dishes had been washed and dried, the U.S. Navy resumed its attack.

  Americans back home were elated by the stunning news. Newspaper front pages featured images of America’s new high-tech navy hero, Admiral Dewey, who was blond and blue-eyed, the very picture of an Aryan. “Americans saw the white-haired Navy Military man as the paragon of American racial superiority, civilization and manhood,”59 William Leeman writes in “America’s Admiral: George Dewey and American Culture in the Gilded Age.” Biographers “traced Dewey’s heritage through Saxon royal lines as far back as the early centuries A.D.”60 Some went so far as to assert that he was a descendant of Thor, the Saxon hero-god of war and thunder. A young English author wrote in the American Monthly Review of Reviews, “[Admiral Dewey was] the logical result of a system which produces the best naval officers in the world… the American officer combines valuable qualities of his own with the necessary traits which are found in the English and other northern races.”61 The author’s name was Winston Churchill.

  Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed, “No man since the Civil War, whether soldier or civilian, has added so much to the honorable renown of the nation or has deserved so well of it.”62 Recalled Dewey, “Towns, children, and articles of commerce were named after me. I was assured that nothing like the enthusiasm for a man and a deed had ever been known.”63 Dewey mania swept through America with Dewey days, Dewey songs, Dewey fireworks, Dewey parades, Dewey flags, Dewey portraits, Dewey mugs, Dewey hats, Dewey skirts, Dewey shorts, and baby boys named George in his honor. These babies chewed Dewey teething rings and shook rattles shaped like Dewey’s body. Older children played with Dewey action figures. A St. Louis department store’s newspaper ad offered “Dewey souvenir bargains in every department, in every aisle, on every counter.”64 Adults bought Dewey neckties, cuff links, canes, paperweights, letter openers, shaving mugs, napkins, commemorative plates and coins, miniature busts, candlesticks, replica navy hats, Dewey laxatives, and Dewey gum, called “Dewey’s Chewies.” Nationwide ads for the Pears’ Soap Company featured a drawing of Admiral Dewey scrubbing his White hands whiter. Below Dewey’s image, a White Christian missionary hands a bar of soap to a crouching “Pacific Negro”; the advertising copy reads: “The first step towards lightening The White Man’s Burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness. Pears’ Soap is a potent factor in brightening the dark corners of the earth as civilization advances, while amongst the cultured of all nations it holds the highest place—it is the ideal toilet soap.”65

  The Navy Department had
ordered Dewey to attack Spanish naval power in Manila before he was able to secure his rent-an-army. Many in the United States assumed that Dewey’s victory assured control of the Philippines, but the U.S. Navy held only Manila Bay; the American consulate operated from a bobbing ship. Spanish colonial forces held the walled city of Manila and its immediate environs. The Philippines Revolutionary Army had the rest of the country.

  Dewey dispatched the USS McCulloch to Hong Kong to pick up the man who he hoped would align the Filipino freedom fighters with the U.S. Navy. Under the cover of darkness on the evening of May 16, the U.S. consul-general, Rounseville Wildman, shepherded General Emilio Aguinaldo through Hong Kong harbor, where together they boarded the McCulloch for Aguinaldo’s return.

  Just after noon on May 19 in Manila Bay, U.S. Navy officers saluted General Aguinaldo as he transferred from the USS McCulloch to Dewey’s private launch for the trip to Dewey’s command ship. The Filipino freedom fighter soon found himself face-to-face with the most famous military man in the world.

  Aguinaldo grilled Dewey about the United States’ past verbal assurances. According to Aguinaldo, Dewey explained that the United States was a humanitarian country that had dispatched its navy to help the Filipinos win their independence. When asked for a written commitment to Filipino independence, Aguinaldo recalled that Dewey said that “the United States would unquestionably recognize the Independence of the people of the Philippines, guaranteed as it was by the word of honour of Americans, which, he said, is more positive, more irrevocable than any written agreement.”66 Dewey pointed out that the United States was a rich nation with enough territory and no history of taking colonies. Historian Stanley Karnow observes: “The Americans’ only preoccupation at that juncture was to defeat the Spanish. To achieve that goal, they sought the help of the Filipinos, indulging them with pledges that had no foundation in reality. Aguinaldo filtered Dewey’s remarks through the prism of his own dreams, [and he] construed American attention to mean that he was now a U.S. ally in the struggle against Spain.”67