Theresa R.Jach
History 6393 – Empire, War, and Revolution
Dr. Buzzanco
February 10, 2000
Walter LaFeber’s The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913, Volume II of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations[1], is an expanded look at the thesis he developed in The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion.[2] In his Cambridge History volume, LaFeber writes that United States foreign policy was merely an extension of domestic economic interests. The Second Industrial Revolution and corporations run by the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller spurred the quest for foreign markets. (P.21-23) The economic depression of this period resulted in a glut of industrial products. The American government had a vested interest in finding new markets for these products in order to relieve domestics pressures brought on by the depression. This is a much stronger statement then in his earlier book that covers roughly the same period, in which he argues economic forces seem to be one of the main factors in American diplomacy during those years. He stressed that all groups, whether opposed to or in favor of territorial expansion, agreed on the need for new markets. They argued about the best way to achieve that goal, and a strong navy with strategic bases was the prevailing solution.
In his more recent work, LaFeber factors racism, sexism, and class bias into the domestic affects of expansion, while still focusing on economics as the key role. Strikes at home resulted from business efforts to be competitive in foreign markets. (p. 31) Blacks, Asians, and women in particular, and the working class in general, all suffered from the government supported ‘New Corporate Capitalism.’ LaFeber writes that industrialization led to the centralization of the country. Corporate capitalism and the post-Civil War strong Federal government transformed separate, often isolated communities into an industrialized ‘Nation State.’ The railroads and the commercial trade they made possible, linked the country together.
The Railroad Strike of 1877 grew from unfair treatment of workers. The quest to get more work for less money, in order to increase profit and competitiveness, pushed workers to the breaking point. The nationwide strike that resulted only convinced the elite that democracy had become a threat to order. (p. 31) A hundred workers were killed in the strike, signaling the willingness of the government to tolerate violence to restore industrial order. More worker unrest at Haymarket (1886) and the Homestead Strike (1892) threatened corporate profits. President Cleveland’s use of Federal troops to break the strike at Pullman in 1894 showed the government’s support for the New Corporate Capitalism. American business would make a profit with help from the government, regardless of the impact on workers.
This pattern of unfair treatment rooted in the profit motive and nourished by racism and class bias, easily translated into American foreign policy. The same racist attitudes that led to the Indian removal in America’s westward expansion applied to expansion in Latin America and Asia. Social Darwinism also factored into the economic expansion of the United States. Americans were not only destined to cover the North American continent, they were destined to exert their influence around the world.
Contrary to the commonly held view that America interfered in foreign issues to preserve the status quo and keep order, LaFeber argues these expansionist policies were pursued with only profit in mind. These profits had to come, regardless of the disorder and the occasional revolution they stirred up. (p. 233) Once the chaos got to a point that it interfered with trade and profit, the United States needed to restore order. The United States supported chaos or order, based on what was best for American business. For example, President McKinley needed to stop the Filipino Revolution, because it threatened American business interests trying to gain a foothold in Asia. Panama was another story. Roosevelt supported revolution there as a way to get the American controlled Panama Canal built. The Canal was vital to American business interests.
According to LaFeber, the United States deliberately set out to wreak havoc in Central America between 1906 and 1912. (p. 218) He says that the United States encouraged a series of revolutions in El Salvador, Honduras, and especially in Nicaragua. Jose Zelaya, Nicaragua’s leader, directly threatened American business by trying to build a Nicaraguan Canal. The United States quickly entered the fray by supporting revolutionary groups in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala that would oppose Zelaya. While Zelaya was a dictator, it does not seem likely that the United States would have gotten involved if not for the threat to American business interests. “When revolts produced power for U.S. citizens and interests, such uprisings were much to be preferred over stability…” (p. 220)
One result of this mess was a stronger president. (p. 134, 154,177,) Staring with McKinley, power began to centralize in the President, by the “grace of empire.”(p. 154) An example of these sweeping powers, the likes of which had not been seen since the Civil War, was McKinley’s dispatch of five thousand troops to fight the Boxers in China in 1898. McKinley sent these troops without obtaining a declaration of war or even consulting Congress. (p. 177) English critics saw the U.S. president as an elected monarch. In order to deal with the foreign crisis our economic policies created, the president needed to be powerful. The power of the president fed off of the increasing disorder American policy created.
While LaFeber emphasizes the role of key elected officials in shaping foreign policy, ‘Captains of Industry’ really drive the story. Demands of industry pushed U.S. foreign policy toward market expansion. Individual diplomats and their success or failure in negotiations is ignored in favor of a mostly economic interpretation. Another factor LaFeber ignores is the importance of religion. If Rockefeller and Carnegie, et. al. were so key to domestic and foreign expansion, what about the religious baggage they brought with them? Calvinist beliefs led many ‘Robber Barons’ to feel they were destined to succeed, kind of an individual ‘Manifest Destiny.’ These men were successful, so they must be morally superior to people and nations that were not as successful. These views made it easier to break strikes, since the workers were obviously not morally capable of success. It is not a huge leap to feel justified in expanding into an area with people that had “neither institutions nor morals in common with us.” (p. 67)
Overall, LaFeber sees a common thread between U.S. domestic and foreign policies. Economic interests shaped both. Chaos and upheaval resulted both at home and abroad. Depression and strikes marred the landscape in the U.S. and revolutions resulted abroad. One /should question the overall impact of American policy on events in the world. Placing too much importance on American power ignores factors that have nothing to do with the United States. Some things happened in spite of American desires. As LaFeber says, American economic needs led the United States to inflict its attitudes on the parts of the world that could be profitable to U.S. business. The factors that made an area profitable varied. The local government either supported the United States, or was weak enough to be replaced. Racism had to be a factor in deciding which areas would be the easiest to exploit. The American public easily accepted expansion into land populated by ‘inferior’ people.
LaFeber made a convincing argument for economic motivation for expansion in New Empire. In The American Search for Opportunity, he refines and develops that thesis to include race, class, and even a little gender. American foreign policy is too complex to be attributed to a single factor. Motivations of the political leaders and industrialists are varied. The reasons so many Americans blindly accepted these policies needs to be further explored. It is one thing to say they were simply excluded from the process by a powerful political machine, but cultural bias should also be examined.
[1] Walter LaFeber, The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913, Volume II of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Cambridge University Press, NY: 1993.
[2] LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, NY: 1963. (My copy of the book was missing the title page with the publisher info.)