History Essay

America tried to make countries such as Cuba and the Philippines more humane in the late 19th and early 20th century. When looking at the 3rd world countries, their wealth and power status can not compete against countries like the United States. America went to the Philippines and refused to leave because of rivalry and power that is an example of imperialistic nation. The United States went over to foreign countries to educate them using Christianity when there are many different religions. The United States has religious freedom so why try to Christianize other countries and take away their freedoms, this is just another act of imperialism. Racism in the early 20th century was popular in the United States against African Americans and the Filipinos were darker skinned and were not like Americans. The United States has taken over countries for the wrong reasons
and in humanely they are imperialistic.

President McKinley said that one night ideas came to him one being " That we could not turn them over to France or Germany, our commercial rivals in the orient-- that would be bad business and discreditable." He doesn't have faith in the Filipinos to fix themselves so instead of letting another country try to help them he wants to stay and not lose the power. The senator Albert Beveridge in 1900 spoke and said " The pacific is our ocean.......the Philippines give us a base at the door of all East." The United States doesn't seem to care about making the country humane it is looking for bargains and deals using the location of it. The strong outlast the weak when necessary but going into other countries to help gain East territory is wrong.

Educating a country that lacks it is a humane thing to do but when it comes to religion that's not education that's more forceful. President McKinley planned to " ..uplift and civilize and Christianize them..." America can help out other countries and not push Christianity on them. The United States has religious freedom and many different religious groups so trying to force other countries to one religion is a power act. To help educate them it took a war and deaths from the United States and the Filipinos. If the United states was there for humane purposes why would they fight.

The main issue between America and other countries in the 19th and 20th century was racism. Senator Albert Beveridge said " senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans ... but orientals." The Filipinos are darker skinned and foreign compared to European people or American people. A random volunteer stated " Our fighting blood was up and we all wanted to kill niggers.." and on average two people a day were getting killed by being lynched or burned just in the United States. When a country is killing its own people because they are
different they will have ambition to kill as many others as they can like the Filipinos. In 1901 a Philadelphia Ledger reported that " ...and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, an hour later ....... stood them on a bridge and shot them down." The United States killed many innocent people who were different from them that is not a humane thing to do.

The United States went into not only the Philippines but also into other 3rd world countries like Cuba. Many innocent people were killed because of their skin color and ethnicity in the early 1900's. Racism was popular to Americans and they proved that when they killed the Filipinos. America was power and resource hungry and having territory in the East helped them out with easy access to China. They also were able to get across the religion of Christianity by going into weak countries and forcing a common religion upon them. Due to all of these things America in the late 1800's and early 1900's can be described as imperialists.