Essay 5---HIS 375

Jack was born in 1864, just one year before the end of the American civil war. He was a white man form Long Island, New York. Motivated by the thriving post-civil war mass railway construction and the foundation of the Cornell University College of Engineering in 1870, he made his resolution to devote himself to the booming railway construction industry. In 1883, he received anticipated admission from Cornell University, so he chose the new Electronic Engineering major as his concentration. He studied diligently, as expected; he finally graduated and became an engineer of The Union Pacific Railroad. Several years after his graduation, in 1890, as a devout Protestant, he married with Sherry, who was also a pious Protestant woman from Connecticut. When it comes to political stance, because of the natural northern identity and the Republican Party’s financial backing for railway construction industry, he was a staunch Republican Party supporter and expansionist. In 1898, Jack became a chief engineer.

In 1898-1899, he was a strong supporter for war against Spanish and limited annexation, but he didn’t buy the full annexation blueprint of Philippines. There were three reasons why he supported the Spanish-American war and the following territory annexation: the agitation of New York’s yellow news, future railway construction perspectives and the Protestant religious belief.

Actually, long before 1898, Jack did not favor the Spanish’s act in Cuba. The root of this sentiment of dislike came from the new sensationalism creed due to the fierce circulation competition between two media magnates: William R. Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. As a New Yorker, he read newspapers a lot. Frequently, Jack found that the newspapers, especially the New York Journal founded by Hearst, were replete with the reports of malignant and vicious behaviors that the Spanish troops conducted in Cuba. For example, as a Protestant, he was shocked by a painting which showed that some American women were violently searched by the Spanish male troops. And the New York Journal always depicted Cuba as an innocent young girl when depicting Spain as an atrocious monster. These grotesque caricatures and sensational stories chagrined Jack a lot.

In reality, many of these eye-catching stories and caricatures were fraud and exaggerated. In 1890s, a lot of journalists and media tycoons such as Hearst and Pulitzer found that media sensationalism and yellow news were well-behaved strategies to expand newspaper circulation. Serious social conflicts and racial discontent in 1890s popped up the perfect hotbed of populist environment. Soaring criminal rate in northern American cities (especially in New York) accompanied by influx of aliens and Negros gave nascent modern penny newspaper industry endless catchy sources. Catering to this populist environment, reporters always made up fraud stories and exaggerated the real situations in order to add newspaper circulation and crush competitors. For media industry magnates such as Pulitzer and Hearst, the Spanish-American War was a critical opportunity to expand their business. Almost all the newspapers during 1890s were continuously fermenting antagonism between American public and the Spanish troops in Cuba.

The result of this kind of agitation was prevailing anti-Spanish resentment of American people all across the United States. Jack, like many other New Yorkers who could not discern the validity of ubiquitous sensational news, shared the common resentment sentiment toward Spanish and frenetically became a warmonger.

The second reason why Jack supported the war and following annexation was related to his own railway construction business and his civilization egotism. If victory finally belonged to America, Jack thought, and then larger American market would come along. Jack was a buyer of the popular Glut Theory in 1890s.”The theory held that owing to technological advances, productivity in the industrial countries was increasing far faster than their populations could ever be expected to increase. Thus production had permanently outrun the demands of the home market, and economic health could be restored only by selling the surplus goods in the non-industrial areas of the world”. (Healy, 17) The following annexation after Spanish-American War, he thought, could give America an advantageous access to the Chinese and Japanese market. Jack had been eager to participate in China’s mass railway construction plan. When he was studying at Cornell University, he already knew Wilson’s ambitious railway building plan at China. But he finally understood the infeasibility of Wilson’s plan due to China’s vague and backward political system. It turned out that he was right, “It was a simple matter to form the new company about the existing, and genuinely Chinese, Kaiping Railway Company, Bypassing Wilson’s organization”. (Healy, 77) As a superior race with developed political system and mature modern civilization, Jack believed that it was American’s obligation to build railway in China, so that Chinese people could become more civilized and trustworthy.

As one member of post-civil war generation, Jack did not go through the bloody civil war. So he did not possess first-hand experience on the horrible war’s bloodiness and relentlessness. In Jack’s era, the economy of the United States was burgeoning due to the unification of domestic market and mass infrastructure construction all across the American territory. Jack contended that war was important for economic prosperity. In his mind, success of The American Revolutionary War ceased the economic barricades and provided an important integrated domestic market. Success of The American Civil war was a prerequisite for northern prosperity and industrial booming. In short, Jack believed that war was a kind of momentum for economy development. As a New Yorker, he was also alarming for the growing seriousness of city social conflicts and the circulation of extreme political ideologies. “The best class of American youth was therefore tending to become idle dawdlers and socialites”. (Healy, 107)He also disliked the pervasive bourgeois materialism in 1890s. He was aware that the United States was facing a series of abnormal social metamorphosis, and he thought war was a good remedy for these social problems. “How to protect traditional values and in a period of metamorphosis, how to offset class struggles with a unifying nationalism, how to reintegrate the upper class into the main currents of public life, how to combat sordid and pervasive materialism.” (Healy, 109) These questions always baffled Jack now and then, but now he regarded the war as a panacea.

Another important reason why Jack supported the war against Spanish and the following annexations was his Protestant belief. He and his wife Sherry had a strong feeling that Christianity was a seal of western civilization and progressiveness. He thought this civilization and progressiveness should be universal. As a pious Protestant, he disfavored Roman Catholic, just like many other religious Americans did. Through the newspapers Jack knew the overwhelming domination of Roman Catholic in Cuba and Philippines, and he thought this kind of domination was unacceptable. ”conquest was even more moral, of course, if its object was to conquer souls of God, and to much of the Protestant religious press in America, it appeared that the Spanish War would ultimately serve just that purpose”. (Healy, 134)

In conclusion, Jack was a typical American in 1890s, and his opinion was identical to the mainstream social tone in 1890s. He regarded war as a way of civilization and modernization. The seizure of overseas territories, although a little incongruous with American belief and tradition, was a milestone of American civilization and progressiveness. Jack was sanguine that his railway business would benefit from the annexations as well due to the expanded global market. He also held the opinion that the success of the Spanish War was an important political accomplishment for the Republicans, which could strengthen the party power and crush the democrats.