"Where I’m from, we believe all sorts of things that aren’t true. We call it history." —Wicked
This quote absolutely describes the Spanish-American war. When we study the Spanish-American war, we swim in murky waters and truth is a very rare, very valuable hidden treasure. At this time in history, there were many different groups who wanted to go to war for vastly different reasons. The imperialists wanted America to become a world power and believed that going to war with Spain would lead to further expansion for the country. Various groups of industrialists, traders, and investors hoped that gaining an alliance with Cuba would open doors for international trading and easy access to foreign goods such as sugar. On the other hand, there were many people who believed that the Spanish were acting downright inhumanely and unjustly and who felt that we should go to war because it was the moral thing to do. Obviously, these reasons were in direct conflict with each other. To add to this menagerie of desires, goals, and contradictions, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, two of the country’s most wealthy, powerful, and manipulative men, controlled, almost exclusively, the newspapers of the day. Like the Muckrakers of the magazines, they succeeded in boosting circulation by printing shocking and sensational stories that played with America’s hearts to win their agreement. Between them, they had more power of the people than all of congress put together.
When you take this basket of contradictions, it’s difficult to decide if we were justified in going to war with Spain. Surely, at the start of the ordeal, there was a large amount of people who truly wanted to help the Cubans. America understood their plight as one similar to their own only a little more than a hundred years earlier. And it wasn’t only those in power who saw this as an important moral cause. When America called for soldiers at the beginning of the war, over one million men volunteered to fight—men of the masses. When one million men volunteer their lives for their country, there is certainly more at stake than a bit of sugar. They have to be energized and excited into action by a cause, even if the cause they think they’re fighting for is half-way made up by a rich newspaper man. But how do we know? There was nobility in our decision to go to war with Spain. Like grains of sand, this nobility was mixed with selfishness, ignorance, and pride, but there was still nobility in it. After the war was over, McKinley announced his intent to make Cuba, as well as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, a part of the U.S. This was a significant departure from the original plan. America proceeded to occupy these territories for the next few years, controlling their governments, and even using tactics terribly similar to those of Spain when putting down rebellions. America crossed the line from liberators to oppressive rulers. Something that had started off as, at least in part, a noble and just cause, had turned into a very different sort of mission—one which was directly in conflict with America’s identity as a democratic nation of the people. We were justified in going to war with Spain, but what happened after Spain is a whole new ocean of murky waters.
This quote absolutely describes the Spanish-American war. When we study the Spanish-American war, we swim in murky waters and truth is a very rare, very valuable hidden treasure. At this time in history, there were many different groups who wanted to go to war for vastly different reasons. The imperialists wanted America to become a world power and believed that going to war with Spain would lead to further expansion for the country. Various groups of industrialists, traders, and investors hoped that gaining an alliance with Cuba would open doors for international trading and easy access to foreign goods such as sugar. On the other hand, there were many people who believed that the Spanish were acting downright inhumanely and unjustly and who felt that we should go to war because it was the moral thing to do. Obviously, these reasons were in direct conflict with each other. To add to this menagerie of desires, goals, and contradictions, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, two of the country’s most wealthy, powerful, and manipulative men, controlled, almost exclusively, the newspapers of the day. Like the Muckrakers of the magazines, they succeeded in boosting circulation by printing shocking and sensational stories that played with America’s hearts to win their agreement. Between them, they had more power of the people than all of congress put together.
When you take this basket of contradictions, it’s difficult to decide if we were justified in going to war with Spain. Surely, at the start of the ordeal, there was a large amount of people who truly wanted to help the Cubans. America understood their plight as one similar to their own only a little more than a hundred years earlier. And it wasn’t only those in power who saw this as an important moral cause. When America called for soldiers at the beginning of the war, over one million men volunteered to fight—men of the masses. When one million men volunteer their lives for their country, there is certainly more at stake than a bit of sugar. They have to be energized and excited into action by a cause, even if the cause they think they’re fighting for is half-way made up by a rich newspaper man. But how do we know? There was nobility in our decision to go to war with Spain. Like grains of sand, this nobility was mixed with selfishness, ignorance, and pride, but there was still nobility in it. After the war was over, McKinley announced his intent to make Cuba, as well as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, a part of the U.S. This was a significant departure from the original plan. America proceeded to occupy these territories for the next few years, controlling their governments, and even using tactics terribly similar to those of Spain when putting down rebellions. America crossed the line from liberators to oppressive rulers. Something that had started off as, at least in part, a noble and just cause, had turned into a very different sort of mission—one which was directly in conflict with America’s identity as a democratic nation of the people. We were justified in going to war with Spain, but what happened after Spain is a whole new ocean of murky waters.
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