BOOK REVIEW

_God's Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898-1902_. Susan K. Harris.
Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp 288. Hardcover. $35.00 ISBN
978978-0-19-974010-9.

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Kevin Mac Donnell.


To borrow from the snarky syntax of modern political debate, Mark Twain was
_for_ American Imperialism before he was _against_ it. Twain's evolving
views during the emergence of American Imperialism in the 1890s reflected
the evolving views of Americans in general. The roots of American
imperialism, beginning in the early seventeenth century, generated a set of
core concepts from which an American identity was constructed. The
fundamental concepts were American exceptionalism, racial and religious
superiority, and a fervent sense that it was America's destiny and duty to
lead the world. These unquestioned articles of faith provided the
underpinning of the arguments both for and against the annexation of the
Philippines, and the racial, religious, and economic issues that were raised
by those debates at the turn of the nineteenth century are all still with us
today. In _God's Arbiters_, Susan Harris explains the historical events that
led up to that war, does a masterful job of explaining how America's
self-image had evolved in such a way that it framed the debate on both
sides, uses Mark Twain's writings on the subject as a barometer along the
way, and finally relates the events of the 1890s to events in the
twenty-first century, although by the end of the book the parallels are
obvious.

In history books the Spanish-American War overshadows the Philippine War.
Everyone remembers the sinking of the battleship _Maine_ and Teddy Roosevelt
leading the charge up San Juan Hill, but Emilio Aguinaldo, Admiral Dewey,
and the Treaty of Paris arouse at best only flickers of recognition. To
understand why the annexation of the Philippines sparked such fierce debate,
we must understand how America's national identity was shaped, and Harris,
without actually using the acronym WASP, traces how a white Anglo-Saxon
Protestant national identity was firmly in place by the 1890s, and how Twain
himself engaged most of those values in his writings. That national identity
can be traced all the way back to John Winthrop's famous speech in 1630, _A
Model of Christian Charity_, in which he painted a vision of America as a
"city on the hill" -- an example for others to follow. With time, the
temptation to spread this bounty (rather than sit proudly in your own city
on your own hill minding your own business) evolved into a moral imperative.
Americans came to think of themselves as nothing less than God's arbiters,
who must fulfill their mission to share their freedoms (dominate inferior
races incapable of self-government), spread the economic bounty (exploit the
natives), and spread the Good Word (at gunpoint when necessary).

Twain embodied this national identity as a result of his upbringing. As
Harris says:

"Mark Twain's own contradictions reflect the contradictions that
characterized white Americans generally. . . . Growing up among Protestants
who took white supremacy for granted, regarded Catholics as dangerous
aliens, and taught children that America's civil liberties were invented
during the Protestant Reformation . . . [and] came to his anti-imperialism
only after judging that America was betraying its own principles by forcibly
annexing the Philippines. But he did not relinquish his belief that the
country, by virtue of its own history and institutions, should serve as a
moral model for the rest of the world" (p. 7).

As events unfolded in the 1890s it looked as though the United States would
be liberating the Philippines from centuries of Spanish colonial rule, and
Twain and most Americans were supportive. As Twain said, "I thought that the
rescue of those islands from the government under which they had suffered
for three hundred years was a good business for us to be in" (p. 5). As
events unfolded further, the United States' intentions came into question,
and opinion divided, and Twain then explained, "We have gone there to
conquer, not to redeem. . . . And, so, I am an anti-imperialist" (p. 4).

The United States had economic interests in the Philippines and Cuba in the
early nineteenth century. The Philippines were a gateway to Asian and
Chinese trade, and Cuba had been important to the sugar and slave trades.
The United States had tried to buy Cuba from Spain in 1848 and again in
1854, but Spain refused. By the late 1880s Cubans were discontent and wanted
liberation from Spain, but not annexation by the United States. In the
Philippines, Nationalism was also on the rise, and after peaceful attempts
to gain autonomy failed, armed insurrection began in 1896, and in 1897
Filipinos declared themselves a Republic with Emilio Aguinaldo as their
President. In February 1898, when the battleship _Maine_ was mysteriously
blown up and sank in Havana, the United States made plans to invade Cuba.
The Cubans were seen as colonists rebelling against Spain the way American
colonists had revolted against English tyranny. Shortly after the invasion
of Cuba, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt ordered
then-Commodore George Dewey to attack the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay. Dewey
sank the entire fleet and Filipinos assumed they would now be
independent--the only reason they had agreed to American aid. A month later
the United States annexed Hawaii, and by December 1898, the Treaty of Paris
forced Spain to give up Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The
treaty was hotly debated before it was ratified in February 1899. The Teller
amendment blocked the annexation of Cuba, but under the treaty Spain ceded
the Philippines to the United States for twenty million dollars, and when
the Filipinos realized they'd had simply traded one colonial master for
another, a guerilla war began. In this war, the enemy fighters were dubbed
"insurgents," approximately 200,000 Filipino civilians were killed, 4,500
American soldiers were killed, 26,000 Filipino "insurgents" were killed, and
American soldiers were condemned for torturing prisoners using the "water
cure" (water-boarding). Beginning with those ratification debates and
continuing for several years as the Philippine American War dragged on, the
American "mission" in the Philippines was argued in Congress, in pulpits,
and in print. It was Twain who described this war as a quagmire (p. 204).

It is these passionate discussions that raged from 1898 to 1902 (and after)
that are the core of Harris's study. During these debates some revealing
reversals took place. William Jennings Bryan and Mark Twain became
anti-imperialists, but President William McKinley, at first opposed to
annexation, came to support it on religious grounds, arguing that it was
America's Christian duty to educate and uplift Catholic Filipinos (p. 15).
His language is explicitly religious, but it would seem that another equally
compelling reason would be protecting this Pacific gateway to Asian and
Chinese trade and keeping it out of the hands of Europeans (pp. 17-18).
Harris traces this duty to educate and uplift racially and religiously
inferior cultures back to the Anglo-Saxon myth that the Puritans invented
individualism, consumerism, freedom, and democracy, and that only Americans
are capable of demonstrating these values in everyday life; this explains
why such cultures must be governed rather than be allowed to govern
themselves (p. 19). She then invokes Twain's "To the Person Sitting in
Darkness" for the first of many times to expose the hypocrisy of this
persistent WASP mythology (p. 22).

Harris also draws on the writings of two Senators whose speeches and
writings best represent the two opposing sides in this debate, Senator
Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana and Senator Benjamin Tillman of South
Carolina. Beveridge argued for annexation because the United States had a
religious duty, a divine mandate, to expand its influence because Americans
were "God's arbiters." (p. 25). Tillman agreed with the notion of a divine
mandate, but opposed annexation because annexing the non-white Filipinos
would dilute the national bloodstream. Neither man questions American
whiteness, Protestant values, Anglo-Saxon roots, or Puritan mythologies. The
Senators are not alone; even Twain, when denouncing General Funston in his
satiric "A Defence of General Funston" (1902), invokes Anglo-Saxon
patriotism and religion when he declares that Funston's treachery in
capturing General Aguinaldo was an insult to the example set by George
Washington and spoiled our heretofore unsullied record of having the "only
clean hands in Christendom" (p. 34). The year before he publicly denounced
General Funston, Twain had expressed his profound disillusionment with
America's betrayal of her WASP principles in his highly allegorical "The
Stupendous Procession," which he did not publish during his lifetime
(p.41-4).

Harris reminds us that America's national identity was in flux when it came
to non-whites. The question of citizenship and voting for Filipinos excited
sharp words and brought the subject of race to the fore, usually focusing on
whether a Filipino could move from a "savage into a patriot" (p. 64), the
same way Mexicans and Hawaiians had done so (pp. 63-4). The United States
established schools in the Philippines, sending over 1,000 American teachers
who quickly found out that American textbooks were useless, so textbooks
were then rewritten for Filipino students using American historical figures
to teach American values (instead of Filipino history) on the theory that
only a homogenous population like America could ever be capable of
self-government (pp. 89-99). In 1906 came a moment rivaling the death and
destruction devised by Hank Morgan in _A Connecticut Yankee_ when American
troops attacked and killed more than 600 Muslim villagers in the Moro Crater
Massacre because their General thought those villagers were too fanatical to
be uplifted or redeemed.

Harris cites numerous American textbooks that helped shape the American
identity beginning with Noah Webster. Textbooks like the famous blue-back
speller and _McGuffey's Reader_ used numerous Bible quotes to illustrate
lessons. Harris cites two late nineteenth century writers (Frederick Dobell
and Edward Mansfield) who recognized the problem with heavy-handed religious
instruction in public schools (p. 108), but points to none other than the
writings of ex-slave Frederick Douglass as an example of how successful this
educational system had been in shaping American identities (p. 111).

Harris also cites four popular novels that reflect these same themes that
reached broad audiences, some of them stirring race into the mix. The first,
Charles Sheldon's _In His Steps_ (1896) poses the question "What would Jesus
do?" and then answers it in various situations. This book has sold over
30,000,000 copies in one hundred years and has never gone out of print (pp.
111-12). The other three novels deal with the Philippines. In one,
resistance to American values is seen as proof of Filipino inferiority (p.
113). In another, an American male befriends a Filipino female and takes
home bits of Filipino language to America, certain evidence of racial
corruption (pp. 117-18). The last novel, Ernest Crosby's _Captain Jinks,
Hero_ (1902), is a satirical anti-imperialistic novel that may have
influenced some of Twain's writings. It was illustrated by Dan Beard, who
had illustrated some of Twain's work, and Crosby served a term as president
of the Anti-Imperialist League, where Twain served for several years as
vice-president. Crosby was a friend of Twain and they shared an important
mutual friend, William Dean Howells. Crosby attacks Chinese missionaries and
Christian ideology, and his heavy-handed satire has an almost cartoon
quality at times (pp. 120-24). His book has not sold 30,000,000 copies and
has not stayed in print for one hundred years.

If Americans used a common set of WASP values to argue both sides of the
debate over annexation of the Philippines, they likewise read Rudyard
Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden," both for and against annexation
(p. 131). Kipling published his poem just two days before the Senate debate
on annexation, and urged the United States to annex the Philippines. Twain
maintained a firm silence on Kipling's poem, but others quoted Kipling
directly or borrowed his language or imagery to support annexation.

The rest of Europe and Latin America did not share a common race, culture,
or history with the United States and reactions in those countries don't
spring from any common roots and shared prejudices, and Twain's own
observations sometimes correspond closely to these other views. Harris
examines the writings of three Latin American authors who understood the
flawed American identity: Jose Marti, Ruben Dario, and Jose Enrique Rodo.
Two of these men had spent time in the United States and their writings
display clear-eyed views of American religious hypocrisy, cultural
arrogance, racism, and materialism (pp. 154-76). Harris also examines the
works of three Filipino writers, one of whose works inspired some of Twain's
own writing. Jose Rizal's book, _An Eagle Flight_ (1886; 1900 in English
translation) [Harris mistakenly cites it as _An Eagle's Flight_] was read by
Twain, who borrowed the title of one of Rizal's poems in that book as the
title for his own poem, "My Last Thought," the rueful dramatic monologue of
a dying President whose annexations betrayed and dishonored his country (pp.
154-58). Left unpublished, it did not appear in print until the 1960s. The
other Filipino writers Harris treats at length include President of the
Philippine Republic Emilio Aguinaldo who wrote one book condemning American
actions, but lived long enough to change his mind on some issues when he
wrote his second book in the 1950s (pp. 186-87). The other writer,
Apolinario Mabini, served as Prime Minister under Aguinaldo, wrote the
Filipino Constitution, and penned many writings whose criticisms of American
policies and actions parallel Twain's writings (pp. 188-92).

In her Epilogue, the past becomes present and the present becomes past as
Harris turns an honest critical eye to several writings from recent memory:
President George Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech, President Barack
Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
letter to President Bush of May 8, 2006. Harris concludes, "The sense of
national mission that animated Twain and his contemporaries endures:
Americans cannot relinquish the conviction that they are God's arbiters,
appointed to mediate the destinies of mankind" (p. 204). This last chapter
and Harris's last words may make for hard reading for some readers. While it
is easy to see the failings of generations past, it's quite another thing to
admit our own failings, even as they resonate annoyingly with the ghostly
echoes of American imperialists of bygone days.

One aspect of Harris's study that deserves further exploration is a
comparison of Twain's anti-imperialist writings that were published during
his lifetime and those that he suppressed. While Harris makes clear the
original publication date of each of Twain's works that she cites, she does
not explore Twain's decisions to keep some of his opinions out of public
view while rushing others into print. Since Twain was well aware that
publication of his views on racial, social, or political matters could
effect the sales of his literary output, would a close study of his two
groups of political writings--published and unpublished--yield some
interesting results?

Harris provides an ample bibliography of excellent relevant sources and
readings on American culture and history. Harris's hope is that her book
"will help us understand some of the conversations that we are having in the
twenty-first century, especially as those conversations rest on assumptions
about religion, race, and what it takes to be an "American." Her hopes echo
those of the late Jim Zwick, whose two books on Mark Twain's
anti-imperialist writings, _Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire_ (1992) and
_Confronting Imperialism_ (2007), are gratefully acknowledged and frequently
cited by Harris. Twain scholars should read both of Zwick's books as
preambles for Harris's definitive book.