"White Man’s Burden"

[pnorman]

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Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden,” subtitled “The United States and the Philippine Islands,” was published in McClure’s Magazine in February 1899.* It was written when the debate over ratification of the Treaty of Paris was still taking place, and while the anti-imperialist movement in the United States was loudly decrying the plan to annex the Philippines. Kipling urged the United States, with special reference to the Philippines, to join Britain in the pursuit of the racial responsibilities of empire:

Your new-caught sullen peoples,
—Half devil and half child.

Many in the United States, including President McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, welcomed Kipling’s rousing call for the United States to engage in “savage wars,” beginning in the Philippines. Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana declared: “God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration....He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples.” In the end more than 126,000 officers and men were sent to the Philippines to put down the Filipino resistance during a war that lasted officially from 1899 to 1902 but actually continued much longer, with sporadic resistance for most of a decade. U.S. troops logged 2,800 engagements with the Filipino resistance. At least a quarter of a million Filipinos, most of them civilians, were killed along with 4,200 U.S. soldiers (more than ten times the number of U.S. fatalities in the Spanish-American War).*

From the beginning it was clear that the Filipino forces were unable to match the United States in conventional warfare. They therefore quickly switched to guerrilla warfare. U.S. troops at war with the Filipinos boasted in a popular marching song that they would “civilize them with the Krag” (referring to the Norwegian-designed gun with which the U.S. forces were outfitted). Yet they found themselves facing interminable small attacks and ambushes by Filipinos, who often carried long knives known as bolos. These guerrilla attacks resulted in combat deaths of U.S. soldiers in small numbers on a regular basis. As in all prolonged guerrilla wars, the strength of the Filipino resistance was due to the fact that it had the support of the Filipino population in general. As General Arthur MacArthur (the father of Douglas MacArthur), who became military governor of the Philippines in 1900, confided to a reporter in 1899:

When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that Aguinaldo’s troops represented only a faction. I did not like to believe that the whole population of Luzon—the native population that is—was opposed to us and our offers of aid and good government. But after having come this far, after having occupied several towns and cities in succession... I have been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipino masses are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads.

Faced with a guerrilla struggle supported by the vast majority of the population, the U.S. military responded by resettling populations in concentration camps, burning down villages (Filipinos were sometimes forced to carry the petrol used in burning down their own homes), mass hangings and bayonetings of suspects, systematic raping of women and girls, and torture. The most infamous torture technique, used repeatedly in the war, was the so-called “water cure.” Vast quantities of water were forced down the throats of prisoners. Their stomachs were then stepped on so that the water shot out three feet in the air “like an artesian well.” Most victims died not long afterwards. General Frederick Funston did not hesitate to announce that he had personally strung up a group of thirty-five Filipino civilians suspected of supporting the Filipino revolutionaries. Major Edwin Glenn saw no reason to deny the charge that he had made a group of forty-seven Filipino prisoners kneel and “repent of their sins” before bayoneting and clubbing them to death. General Jacob Smith ordered his troops to “kill and burn,” to target “everything over ten,” and to turn the island of Samar into “a howling wilderness.” General William Shafter in California declared that it might be necessary to kill half the Filipino population in order to bring “perfect justice” to the other half. During the Philippine War the United States reversed the normal casualty statistics of war—usually many more are wounded than killed. According to official statistics (discussed in Congressional hearings on the war) U.S. troops killed fifteen times as many Filipinos as they wounded. This fit with frequent reports by U.S. soldiers that wounded and captured Filipino combatants were summarily executed on the spot.
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http://www.monthlyreview.org/1103editors.htm

Does all this sound familiar?

pnorman

[izzybeans]

1. Certainly does

except the language today is sanitized of its overt racism.

Here's something I just found concerning Albert Beveridge. from a speech (1898) entitled "March of the Flag" another all too familiar slogan. This guy represented Indiana at a time when the Klan was infiltrating its state government.

snip-

The Opposition tells us that we ought not to govern a people without their consent. I answer, The rule of liberty that all just government derives its authority from the consent of the governed, applies only to those who are capable of self-government. We govern the Indians without their consent, we govern our territories without their consent, we govern our children without their consent. How do they know that our government would be without their consent? Would not the people of the Philippines prefer the just, human, civilizing government of this Republic to the savage, bloody rule of pillage and extortion from which we have rescued them?

http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/nash5e_awl/medialib/timeline/docs/sources/theme_primarysources_Military_2_4.html

[IrateCitizen]

3. Beveridge was of a strange lot, a mixed bag...

Since I am currently studying the Gilded Age and Progressive Era in the US, I have come across him numerous times. While it is undeniable that he was a proponent of American exceptionalism and, by today's standards, a virulent racist -- he was also a Republican Senator who allied with the likes of Robert LaFollette in pushing for many progressive domestic reforms in the first decade of the 20th century.

Beveridge's ideas, as laid out in his "March of the Flag" speech that catapulted him to the US Senate, were not necessarily representative of the Ku Klux Klan. Rather, they were representative of the spirit of nationalism that overtook much of the population of the United States at the time at which it was emerging as a world (and therefore, colonial) power.

[izzybeans]

4. I didn't mean to equate the two

but to point out the terrain from which it was based. It just shouldn't be surprising to see the two forms of racism becoming predominant in the same period. (just a hunch without doing the homework). Some of our most progressive leaders held very troublesome views about what is now the genocide of native Americans and the colonization of the Philippines. To me it seem the imperialist mindset is united with the Klansman's in his ignorance of the "other" calling them "savages" equating them with children. I wish this was talked about more often. Disciplines like Anthroplogy have had to cleanse themselves of this history honestly by accounting for their role in the colonial projects of France (for instance). I think those in the political sphere sould engage in a similar rereading of history. I would like to learn more about Thomas Jefferson's view of the subject. I've only found scant quotations and they lend themselves to embarrassment for me anyway.

[pnorman]

5. That was a good find also.

I think I'll spend part of today, Googling that "Bandit-Supression Campaign". That Spanish-American War also included the Liberation of Cuba", and the infamous "Platt Amendment" came out of that.

I imagine most here on DU are familiar with the ant-imperialist sayings of Mark Twain, a prominent member of the Anti-Imperialist League. They were inspired by that campaign.

Here's one of the first 'hits' found, while Googling "Anti-Imperialist League": http://www.antiwar.com/stromberg/s032000.html

pnorman

[izzybeans]

7. I find it interesting that the "anti-imperialists" were classical

liberal capitalists (free markets and free trade). The "last Mohican's of bourgeois democracy" said Lenin. (from your link) It is these people affectionately called neo-cons in political circles and neo-liberals in economic circles that push for the expansion of empire today. (Free markets = freedom apparently). My how things have changed.

[pnorman]

12. I just Googled that Stromberg cat.

Here he is: http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=317

He's a "libertarian" of the Van Mises variety; a type I previously had regarded with no particular warmth. But he, and so many others are being featured in anti-war web sites like the above. Some are even featured in Counterpunch! Does that tell us something?

What Dubya has done for us has been to help make a vital separation --- between the unprincipled Neo-Cons. and those with firm principles. The latter includes much (not all!) of the "Left", but as we're discovering, a good portion of the Right. These aren't necessarily those who, like Kevin Phillips, who have "seen the light". They haven't really changed their spots, but they now see with perfect clarity, just WHERE the Party that was once the Part of Lincoln has gone.

Make them welcome. Principles should come first. We can squabble over ideological differences later.

pnorman

[MisterP]

14. the Van Mises Institute said that forbidding price gouging after the Fla.

hurricanes was akin to murder, I recall.

[pnorman]

17. That doesn't surprise me, although I hadn't heard it before.

It's a matter of being FANATICS on the subject of "free markets". There's no clear indication that they took any delight in the misfortunes of others, although it's easy to jump to that conclusion. That's the sort of crap that used to turn me off ---NOT as stalinoid collectivist, but as a Chomsky type "libertarian socialist". (Incidentally, "libertarian" USED to be another word for anarchist).

But look at that Antiwar.com page, and read all the contributors ---Paul Craig Roberts for example: http://antiwar.com/roberts/
Here's his bio: "Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions." Now read all those articles by him on that page.

Frankly, I feel more in common with these sort of people, than with some of the lock-step stalinists I've met. We have to save our scorn, and direct it where it'll do the most good.

pnorman
On edit: I see where the rcommend total is now three. Hit it again!! There's some worthwhile discussion on this thread.

[izzybeans]

2. and I'm recommending. This should be discussed more often.

[pnorman]

6. Don't ask me how I found out,

but the originator of a thread isn't allowed to recommend his own posting (heh Heh). Still, I think this could turn into a valuable disdcussion. Consider recommending it also.

Here's from the original posting:
"........In the end more than 126,000 officers and men were sent to the Philippines to put down the Filipino resistance during a war that lasted officially from 1899 to 1902 but actually continued much longer, with sporadic resistance for most of a decade. U.S. troops logged 2,800 engagements with the Filipino resistance. At least a quarter of a million Filipinos, most of them civilians, were killed along with 4,200 U.S. soldiers (more than ten times the number of U.S. fatalities in the Spanish-American War).*

Those numbers are eerily familiar, as well as the circumstances.

pnorman

[IrateCitizen]

8. Here's an excellent example of the brutality of the US-Filipino War

It's taken from a paper I recently wrote on the subject:

.... As an example of the brutality of this military campaign, a U.S. Marine Major named Littletown Waller was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos. In describing his testimony while on court-martial, other Marine officers said that Waller claimed he was following the orders of his superior, General Smith, who said, "... the more that were killed and burned the better it would be," and when asked to define the age limit for killing, General Smith replied, "Everything over ten." (Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 316.)

.... Senator Albert Beveridge, a Republican from Indiana, said that claims of cruelty on the part of the United States were badly misplaced, and in fact the U.S. had been benevolent toward the Filipinos, because "... we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals." (ibid., 314.)

[pnorman]

11. Googling "Littletown Waller", I came across this website:

http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=12444
There's quite a bit of good information in the discussion.

pnorman
On edit: I don't know why that URL got broken up, but just copy/paste it. (That 'space' at the break, seems to have taken care of itself when I did it).

[DinahMoeHum]

9. Our boys in uniform used to sing this song during that period:

(Tune: "Tramp Tramp Tramp The Boys Are Marching")

In the days of dopey dreams -- happy, peaceful Philippines,
When the bolomen were busy all night long.
When ladrones would steal and lie, and Americanos die,
Then you hear the soldiers sing this evening song:

CHORUS:
Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipinos!
Cross-eyed kakiac ladrones!
Underneath the starry flag, civilize 'em with a Krag,
And return us to our own beloved homes!

Social customs there were few, ladies all would smoke and chew,
And the men did things the padres said were wrong.
They did things that weren't nice, but the padres cut no ice,
So you heard the soldiers sing this evening song:

(CHORUS)

Underneath a nipa thatch, where the lazy chickens scratch,
only refuge after hiking all day long
When I lay me down and slept, slimy lizards o'er me crept,
Then you heard the soldiers sing this evening song:

(CHORUS)


I'm sure there were a lot more verses, but you get the drift.


:nuke:

[pnorman]

10. "Krag 'em and bag 'em."

Here's from an article in The American Rifleman (NRA magazine):
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The U.S. Army troops garrisoning the Philippines were well aware of the animosity felt by the nationalist Filipino insurgents. Krags were always kept fully loaded during guard duty and many bayonets were honed to a razoredge. Suspicious activity by unknown Filipinos lurking around army posts was often met by rifle fire. An oft repeated saying among American troops during this period was "... Krag 'em and bag 'em."
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http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3623/is_200407/ai_n9427392

The title of that article was: "Civilize 'Em with a Krag", but they didn't quote the ditty itself. The first time I had seen that phrase was over 50 yers ago. It was in the Trilogy "USA" by John Dos Passos, and the irony was suitably stressed. Reading that book as a youth, was my first realization that the "American History" I was getting at that time in high school, was little more than a joke. All I had to do was to go to the school library and find that out. I'm still finding and learning.

pnorman

[KlatooBNikto]

13. There is a modern day version of Kipling called Paul Johnson who is much

admired by the Neocons.He has, in essence, repeated Kipling verbatim, proposing that "we" ( meaning the British and the Americans) civilize the savages of the Middle East by recolonizing them for a hundred years bringing the fruits of Democracy and Freedom.

Looks like there must be a gene for imperialism, somewhere.

[bpilgrim]

15. this is certainly an old story

how they get away with the same tired old songs is beyond me :crazy:

peace

[KG]

16. another fine example of what a great benefit america has been to the world

:eyes: