USA HISTORY

The famous American writer Mark Twain expressed his opinion about U.S. actions in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War with the following words:“I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate (place under control) the people of the Philippines. We have gone to conquer, not to redeem (save). ____ I am opposed to having the [American] eagle put its talons on any other land.” The New York Herald, October 15, 1900 This statement would be helpful in supporting the thesis that Mark Twain believed that

(A) ** U.S. imperialism was wrong.

(B) U.S. imperialism would bring stable government to the Philippines.

(C) U.S. imperialism was necessary for the United States to become a world power.

(D) U.S. imperialism civilized the people of the Philippines.

Concept note-1: -Mark Twain strongly believed that the U.S. could not be an empire and a republic at the same time. He condemned the racism against the Filipinos and argued that the Filipinos were perfectly able to govern themselves.

Concept note-2: -“And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” With his pen as his sword, Twain went on to write about the Moro Crater Massacre, which saw the deaths of almost 1, 000 Moro people, and on the hypocrisy of the war against the teachings of Christianity.

Concept note-3: -Among the critics of the U.S.-Filipino War was Mark Twain, a vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League, who denounced the war as an unjust attempt to “subjugate the people of the Philippines.” The U.S. finally granted independence to the Philippines in 1946.

Concept note-4: -"To the Person Sitting in Darkness” is an essay by American author Mark Twain published in the North American Review in February 1901. It is a satire exposing imperialism as revealed in the Boxer Uprising and its aftermath, the Boer War, and the Philippine–American War, expressing Twain’s anti-imperialist views.