Period 7 Questions Flashcards
“Let me insist again . . . upon the fact that our duty is twofold, and that we must raise others while we are benefiting ourselves. In bringing order to the Philippines, our soldiers added a new page to the honor-roll of American history, and they incalculably benefited the islanders themselves. . . . [T]he islands now enjoy a peace and liberty of which they have hitherto never even dreamed. But this peace and liberty under the law must be supplemented by material, by industrial development. Every encouragement should be given to their commercial development, to the introduction of American industries and products; not merely because this will be a good thing for our people, but infinitely more because it will be of incalculable benefit to the people of the Philippines.
“We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings. . . . We committed plenty of blunders . . . in our dealings with the Indians. But who does not admit at the present day that we were right in wresting from barbarism and adding to civilization the territory out of which we have made these beautiful [United] States? And now we are civilizing the Indian and putting him on a level to which he could never have attained under the old conditions.
“. . . [W]e have always in the end come out victorious because we have refused to be daunted by blunders and defeats. . . . We gird [ourselves] as a nation, with the stern purpose to play our part manfully in winning the ultimate triumph; . . . and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road of endeavor.”
Theodore Roosevelt, “National Duties,” address given at the Minnesota State Fair, September 1901
Question: The speech’s point of view can best be used to support which of the following historical arguments about the early 1900s?
a) Most Americans believed that the United States should continue an isolationist foreign policy.
b) Most Americans asserted that American Indians were unjustly harmed by federal policy toward them.
c) Some Americans advocated economic development of overseas countries in order to justify imperialism.
d) Some Americans appealed to racial theories in order to oppose efforts to acquire new territorial possessions.
c) Some Americans advocated economic development of overseas countries in order to justify imperialism.
“In 1789 the flag of the Republic waved over 4,000,000 souls in thirteen states, and their savage territory which stretched to the Mississippi, to Canada, to the Floridas. The timid minds of that day said that no new territory was needed; and, for the hour, they were right. But [Thomas] Jefferson, through whose intellect the centuries marched; Jefferson, who dreamed of Cuba as an American state; Jefferson, the first Imperialist of the Republic—Jefferson acquired that imperial territory which swept from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas to the British possessions, and the march of the flag began! . . . Jefferson, strict constructionist of constitutional power though he was, obeyed the Anglo-Saxon impulse within him. . . . And now obeying the same voice that Jefferson heard and obeyed, that [Andrew] Jackson heard and obeyed, that [James] Monroe heard and obeyed, that [William] Seward heard and obeyed, that [Ulysses] Grant heard and obeyed, that [Benjamin] Harrison heard and obeyed, our President today plants the flag over the islands of the seas, outposts of commerce, citadels of national security, and the march of the flag goes on!”
Albert J. Beveridge, candidate for United States Senate, “The March of the Flag” speech, 1898
Question: Beveridge’s ideas in the excerpt best support which of the following positions commonly expressed at the time?
a) Mexico and Canada have no right to question or check United States expansion.
b) The right of the United States to assert power over foreign lands is God given.
c) The United States foreign policy has always been isolationist and reluctant to intervene abroad.
d) A smaller federal government was necessary to face the foreign policy challenges of the twentieth century.
b) The right of the United States to assert power over foreign lands is God given.
