Argumentation: Imperialist vs.

Anti-Imperialist

Using the sources provided, compare and contrast the beliefs of Imperialist and Anti-Imperialist
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and explain why they held those beliefs. After
you complete this task, create your own argument of whether the United States should or should
not have participated in Imperialism abroad.

Imperialist Anti-Imperialist

Created by: Lindsey Stobaugh

 What is your stance on American Imperialism?

Write about your stance on American Imperialism. Create an argument about whether you think
American Imperialism was justified or not. Make sure the back up your argument with evidence
from the sources provided. Why does your position align more with American ideals than your
opponents position? Next, think about Americas role in world affairs today. Do you think we
intervene too much in foreign nations affairs or not? Explain your answer.

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Created by: Lindsey Stobaugh

The Ideas of Imperialists and Anti-Imperialists Through Primary Sources
1. Rudyard Kipling, The White Mans Burden, 1899.
Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.
Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden-- The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine, And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest "The end for others sought#
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden-- No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living And mark them with your
dead.
Take up the White Man's burden, And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
"Ah, slowly!# toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden-- Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.
Take up the White Man's burden! Have done with childish days--
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-
bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.
Kipling, R. (1899, February). The White Mans Burden. [Poem written as a response to
the American takeover of the Philipines]. Modern History Sourcebook Collection.
Retrieved from http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.asp.

2. Mark Twain on Imperialism

a. Twain, M. (1900, October 6). Mark Twain, The Greatest American Humorist,
Returning Home, Talks at Length to The World. [Interview in the New York
World]. Retrieved from http://www.historywiz.com/primarysources/marktwain-
imperialism.htm.

You ask me about what is called imperialism. Well, I have formed views about
that question. I am at the disadvantage of not knowing whether our people are for or
against spreading themselves over the face of the globe. I should be sorry if they are, for I
don't think that it is wise or a necessary development. As to China, I quite approve of our
Government's action in getting free of that complication. They are withdrawing, I
understand, having done what they wanted. That is quite right. We have no more business
in China than in any other country that is not ours. There is the case of the Philippines. I
have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that
mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it -- perhaps it was inevitable that we should
come to be fighting the natives of those islands -- but I cannot understand it, and have
never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I
thought we should act as their protector -- not try to get them under our heel. We were to
relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own,
and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government
according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of
the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy
mission for the United States. But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from
which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I
wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation.

b. Twain, M. (1900, October 15). Mark Twain Home, An Anti-Imperialist. [Interview in

the New York Herald]. Retrieved from
http://www.historywiz.com/primarysources/marktwain-imperialism.htm.

I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American

eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself
with the Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I
thought it would be a real good thing to do.
I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can
make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a
miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to
take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which
we had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of
Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the
 Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.
We have also pledged the power of this country to maintain and protect the
abominable system established in the Philippines by the Friars.
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and
let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-
imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

3. American Imperialism Today

If we look at the United States today, one can easily see the prime example of the modern
imperialist power, followed closely by its puppy Israel. The United States maintains the strongest
and most advanced military in the world. It has alliances with like-minded countries in NATO
and is forging similar ones in other parts of the world. Israel is also the strongest military power
in its region. The United States and Israel frequently demonstrate their willingness to use
military force to achieve their ends. The United States military budget is greater than that of the
next fifteen nations combined. It has over 400 military bases spread all over the world and is
capable of deploying those forces anywhere in the world within hours. It is willing to use, and
has used, its military, to subdue other nations to its desires. Similarly, Israel's military budget is
greater than the sum of the military budgets of all the countries that surround it. For Israel,
attacks on its neighbors using its superior military power are incessant. Its colonization and
complete subjugation of the Palestinians is legendary. For the US, the American-led wars in
Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Grenada, Cuba and Afghanistan come to mind. Both the United States and
Israel are now threatening to start another war with Iran for no other purpose than to extend their
hegemony over the entire Middle East. If this is not modern-day colonialism, I don't know what
it is.
It is clear that the American attitude towards the rest of the world is in need of major
examination. As it stands now, all other nations must implement the American view of world
affairs. Otherwise, the Americans will attack militarily or otherwise. The United States has
appointed itself the global leader and policeman. It assigned itself the prerogative of waging
"preventive war'. By its trigger-happy behavior, the United States signals to other recalcitrant
nations the fate awaiting them should they mess with Uncle Sam. The US and Israel have also
established for themselves, targeted assassinations as the centerpiece of their national-security
policies. They have given themselves the right to met punishment on those who dare disagree
with them. They have acquired for themselves the legitimacy to place their forces on other
people's lands without their consent. The Americans always have military bases close-by. They
also have long-range aircraft, aircraft carriers, space weapons, drones "etc. that can be
summoned in just minutes. Most of the offensive weapons that Israel uses is also US made.

Amer, S. (2012, November 26). America: The World's Remaining Imperialist Power. Retrieved
May 03, 2017, from https://www.opednews.com/articles/America-The-World-s-Remai-
by-Sam-Amer-121124-733.html
Rubric for What is your stance on Imperialism?

Source:
Stobaugh, L. (2016 November 6). Rubric for What is your stance on Imperialism? Retrieved
from http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?ts=1478483978