Pros And Cons Of American Imperialism

There are two general views associated with the idea of American imperialism, pro-imperialism and anti-imperialism. The question being asked is, is imperialism beneficial or harmful to the countries surrounding the United States? The majority of the United States is pro-imperialism, and most other countries are on the anti-imperialism side. How do the these groups justify their beliefs?

There are three main reasons the United States used to justify their imperialism. Evangelism is one reason that the United States justified imperialism. This is supported by the hymn “We’ve a story to tell to the nations” which states that the story of Christianity is “of truth and mercy… of peace and light.” and that it is completely pure and right. Military strength is another reason that the Americans believed imperialism was beneficial. Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote The Influence of Sea Power Upon History which stated that control of the seas, large naval forces, would mean world dominance. The last main reason is the economy, which was failing during the

war. As an attempt to restore their economy, the U.S. proposed the Open Door Policy. This policy was to establish free trade in China with the understanding that China’s administration should be acknowledged and respected.
Pro-imperialists also used Social Darwinism to justify their actions.

Social Darwinism is the belief in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon (white European) race over all others. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu supports this belief in his literary work On the Desirability of Imperialism by stating that there are “four different categories in terms of types of civilization.” Throughout this work he says “a great part of the world is inhabited by barbarian tribes or savages...so little of the arts..they do not know how to exploit their land and its natural riches.” This basically states that there are people in other civilizations that are not intelligent enough to use resources provided to them. He also says “A second part… and stable societies… to govern themselves...the Chinese and Japanese..” Which implies that although these people are superior over the last two categories, they are not equipped enough to properly govern

themselves.
Anti-imperialists justify their beliefs as well. They believe we should never have intervened in the lives of other countries. This is supported by Mark Twain’s work Returning Home which states “We have no more business in...any other country that is not ours.” However, some say there were times we should intervene, but only in order to aid the country, not control it. This is significant in the situation in Hawaii when the United States wished to annex Hawaii. Queen Liliuokalani did not want to be owned by the Americans. Another support would be the Foraker Act of 1900 which gave the Puerto Ricans a semi-popular government. This is significant because the United States believed highly in the spread of democracy, so they should be encouraging it among these other countries.
Although imperialism was a very controversial subject, there were actual results that benefited not only the United States but other countries. Countries that had been directly targeted, for the most part, stood their ground and achieved some form of success in limiting the power of the U.S. Furthermore, even if the U.S. did not go about imperialism as it should have, in the end it was not entirely destructive to the cultures and governments of other countries.