Patriotic Noise

The patriotism of today,

Which yearly groweth louder;

Is not in speech or noble deed,

     But in toot-horns and powder.

And so the bigger noise one make,

     The more patriotic is he;

Not only that, we burn our cash,

     And keep old China busy.

But patriotism is but noise,

     (I almost hate to pen it);

For had we not had proof of late

     Right in our jingo Senate.

June 15, ‘97

The New Navy (had) enabled the United States to assume a larger role in international affairs. The debate over annexing the Hawaiian Islands served as a rehearsal for later disagreements over what that role should be, sparking controversy over whether the United States should seek to acquire overseas territory like the great colonial empires of Europe. Americans, mainly farmers and missionaries, had settled among native Hawaiian tribes in the early nineteenth century. By the 1880s descendants of these white settlers owned large sugar plantations and cattle farms and exerted considerable power. In 1887 they forced King Kalakaua to install a democratic government and adopt a liberal constitution. Since 1875 sugar planters in Hawaii had been protected by an arrangement that freed them from custom duties on sugar imports to the United States in exchange for a promise that no Hawaiian territory would be given or leased to a nation other than the United States. This reciprocal trade agreement was renewed in 1884, but Congress did not approve it until 1887, when Hawaii gave the United States the right to build a naval base at Pearl Harbor. Under the McKinley Tariff of 1890, however, Hawaiian sugar growers lost their trade advantage. All sugar imports to the United States were given duty-free status, and planters in the United States were paid a bounty of two cents a pound for their sugar. Hawaiian sugar planters lost some $12 million. Amid growing discontent with U.S. involvement in Hawaiian affairs, Queen Liliuokalani succeeded her brother on the throne in 1891, revoking the liberal constitution and assuming autocratic powers. In January 1893, with the help of U.S. Marines from the naval cruiser Boston, Americans in Hawaii led by Sanford B. Dole overthrew the Hawaiian government and asked to be annexed by the United States, in large part because they hoped to profit from the two-cents-per-pound bounty for domestic sugar.

The Annexation Battle. The landing of the marines had been authorized by John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, who favored the annexation of Hawaii by the United States. Without authorization from the U.S. State Department, Stevens recognized the new government and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. A treaty of annexation was drawn up, and just weeks before Republican Benjamin Harrison left office on 4 March 1893, it was sent to the Senate, where Democrats blocked its ratification. After Democrat Grover Cleveland began his second term as president, he withdrew the treaty from consideration by the Senate, and sent former congressman James H. Blount, a liberal Republican from Georgia, to investigate the situation in Hawaii, where he withdrew the marines. After Blount reported that Stevens had acted improperly and that, except for the sugar growers, most Hawaiians opposed annexation, Cleveland denounced the American rebels, and although he recognized Dole’s provisional government, he attempted to restore the queen to the throne with the provision that she pardon the rebels and reinstate the constitution of 1887. Despite the queen’s agreement to these conditions, Dole’s provisional government remained in power, arguing that it had been recognized by the United States, which did not have the right to interfere in Hawaiian internal affairs. Unwilling to use force to reinstate Queen Liliuokalani, an angry Cleveland refused to resubmit the annexation treaty to the Senate. On 4 July 1894 the provisional government proclaimed the Republic of Hawaii, which the United States formally recognized the following month. The new Hawaiian constitution had a provision welcoming annexation by the United States, which Cleveland blocked for the remainder of his tenure in office. For several years Hawaiian annexation remained a heavily partisan issue, with Republicans favoring it and Democrats opposing. Cleveland’s successor, Republican William McKinley, sent a new annexation treaty to the Senate in June 1897, but Democrats and anti-imperialist Republicans managed to delay ratification.

Political Divides. Politicians split over what to do with the new territories. “Jingoists” argued that as a great nation, the United States should have an empire like those of the major nations of western Europe, which were competing fiercely for control of raw materials, markets, and military outposts around the globe. Many Americans believed that the “Anglo-Saxon race” was destined by God and nature to govern “inferior” peoples such as Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, and Polynesians. Anti-imperialists, many of whom were old enough to remember the Civil War, argued that as a democracy, the United States should not possess a colonial empire. Sharing the jingoists’ unenlightened racial views, many anti-imperialists also pointed out that if the new possessions became U.S. territories, with the promise that they could eventually become states, the nation would be admitting as citizens millions of Spanish-speaking peoples, many of African-Latin and Asian ancestry.

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