Conclusion#
Timeline#
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1823 | Monroe Doctrine |
| 1857 | Trade opens with Japan |
| 1867 | Alaska purchased from Russia |
| 1870 | Failure to annex Santo Domingo (Hispaniola) |
| 1875 | Sugar reciprocity treaty with Hawaii |
| 1877 | United States acquires naval base at Pearl Harbor |
| 1878 | United States acquires naval station in Samoa |
| 1882 | Chinese Exclusion Act |
| 1889 | First Pan-American Conference |
| 1890 | Alfred Mahan publishes Influence of Sea Power upon History |
| 1893 | Hawaiian coup by American sugar growers |
| 1895 | Cuban revolt against Spanish |
| 1895 | Venezuelan boundary dispute |
| 1896 | Weyler's reconcentration policy in Cuba |
| 1896 | McKinley-Bryan presidential campaign |
| 1897 | Theodore Roosevelt's speech at Naval War College |
| 1898 | |
| January | De Lôme letter |
| February | Sinking of the battleship Maine |
| April | Spanish-American War |
| May | Dewey takes Manila Bay |
| July | Annexation of Hawaiian Islands |
| August | Americans liberate Manila; war ends |
| December | Treaty of Paris; annexation of the Philippines |
| 1899 | Senate ratifies Treaty of Paris |
| 1899-1900 | Boxer Rebellion in China |
| 1900 | William McKinley reelected president |
| 1901 | Supreme Court insular cases |
| 1901 | McKinley assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt becomes president |
| 1902 | Filipino-American War ends |
| 1902 | U.S. military occupation of Cuba ends |
| 1902 | Platt Amendment |
| 1902 | Venezuela debt crisis |
| 1903 | Panamanian revolt and independence |
| 1903 | Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty |
| 1904 | Roosevelt Corollary |
| 1904-1905 | Russo-Japanese War ended by treaty signed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire |
| 1904-1906 | United States intervenes in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Cuba |
| 1905-1906 | Moroccan crisis |
| 1906 | Roosevelt receives Nobel Peace Prize |
| 1907 | Gentleman's agreement with Japan |
| 1908 | Root-Takahira Agreement |
| 1909 | U.S. Navy ("Great White Fleet") sails around the world |
| 1911 | United States intervenes in Nicaragua |
| 1914 | Opening of the Panama Canal |
| 1914 | World War I begins |
| 1916 | Partial home rule granted to the Philippines |
The Responsibilities of Power#
Since the earliest settlements at Massachusetts Bay, Americans had struggled with the dilemma of how to do good in a world that did wrong. The realities of power in the 1890s brought increasing international responsibilities. Roosevelt said in 1910 that because of"strength and geographical situation," the United States had itself become "more and more, the balance of power of the whole world." This ominous responsibility was also an opportunity to extend American economic, political, and moral influence around the globe.
As president in the first decade of the twentieth century, Roosevelt established aggressive American policies toward the rest of the world. The United States dominated and policed Central America and the Caribbean Sea to maintain order and protect its investments and other economic interests. In the Far East, Americans marched through Hay's Open Door with treaties, troops, navies, missionaries and dollars to protect the newly annexed Philippine Islands, to develop markets and investments, and to preserve the balance of power in Asia. In Europe, the United States sought to remain neutral and uninvolved in European affairs and at the same time to cement Anglo-American friendship and prevent "civilized" nations from going to war.
How well these policies worked would be seen later in the twentieth century. Whatever the particular judgment, the fundamental ambivalence of America's sense of itself as a model "city on a hill," an example to others, remained. As widening involvements around the world-the Filipino-American War, for example-painfully demonstrated, it was increasingly difficult for the United States to be both responsible and good, both powerful and loved. The American people thus learned to experience both the satisfactions and burdens, both the profits and costs, of the missionary role.