Mark Twain became the leading opponent of the Philippine-American War. In its 1910 annual report, the Anti-Imperialist League said that Twain was “a brilliant satirist who used his satire to promote Anti-Imperialism in favor of Filipinos and was a passionate reformer.” This is still true today. Mark Twain wrote about war in his writings, but they are little known. His humorist reputation is what has made him famous. Even less has been written about his relationship with Anti-Imperialist League. (1)
After the Spanish-American War ended, the United States had only Manila and its environs. After winning their independence from Spain, the Filipinos ruled the rest of the Philippines. For the United States, to be a major player in Asia with an easy access to China and a vast commercial market, they had to first defeat a popular but badly armed Filipino army. The official war to achieve this feat lasted from 1899-1902, but regional rebellions and guerrilla warfare continued for the rest of the decade. The Philippine Insurrection was the longest war in American history. It lasted longer than the Spanish-American War and cost more Americans their lives.
Conquest of the Philippines marked a radical change in U.S. Foreign Policy. The United States had been able to exert influence in Central and South America for many years, but annexing the Philippines marked the first significant step the country took into Asia. The United States’ commercial expansion into Asia was aided by a rapid development of a commercial and military route connecting the east coast of the United States with its Asian possession. The United States officially annexed Hawaii in 1898, Puerto Rico in 1903 and Guam in the Philippines to facilitate international trade. They also acquired the Panama Canal Zone. A contemporary historian proclaimed, “Thus passes the old America,” and “behold, a New America appears with her back to the Pacific!”
Supporters of Imperialism hailed the imperialism as essential for expansion of economics and justified as “the White Man’s Burden” to extend civilisation to people considered incapable of ruling themselves. Senator Albert Beveridge managed to strike a balance between these two themes, demonstrating remarkable dexterity. . . . China has an unlimited market just outside the Philippines. We won’t retreat either. We won’t abandon our responsibility in the archipelago. We won’t abandon our opportunity in Orient. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient.
Others, however, saw the establishment of an empire in the United States as a danger to the nation’s democratic political traditions and anticolonial values. The Anti-Imperialist League was the organization that organized the opposition. This league was established in Boston in 1898, and quickly spread throughout the nation. Although its leaders were fervently in support of the Filipinos they described their concerns as secondary. They were first and foremost concerned with defending their democratic republic against the “un-American policy” of imperialism. They used documents such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address or the Declaration of Independence to argue that “governments without representation” was what imperialism represented. The country had already fought two battles to stop it.
Mark Twain, despite his statements being made later in the debate against the war and the imperialist movement, was a major contributor to this movement. Mark Twain’s most influential essay, “To the Person in Darkness,” appeared shortly after William McKinley won a reelection in what was widely considered a “referendum about imperialism.” It sparked a fierce controversy and revitalized the anti-imperialist movement. Springfield Republican, the nation’s most prominent anti-imperialist paper (Mass. ), published an article that was widely viewed as a “referendum on imperialism”. The essay sparked rabid controversy and regained some of the momentum lost after McKinley’s reelection. The Springfield Republican (Mass.) editorialized, “Mark Twain is now the most influential and feared critic of the sacrosanct White House person that this country has.”