American Foreign Policy:1865-1919

Expansionism or Imperialism?

The Antis: Here, take a dose of this anti-fat and get slim again! Uncle Sam: No, Sonny!, I never did take any of that stuff, and I'm too old to begin!

Well, I hardly know which to take first!

THE NOBLE HERO (to the Heavy Villain): "Stand back, there, gold darn ye!-- If you force this thing to a fifth act, remember that's where I git in my work!"

• "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one“ - TR

After the Spanish-American War• A speech deploring U.S. imperialism was delivered on August 8, 1900,

at the Democratic National Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, by party presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan. Bryan, an outspoken critic of the Republican McKinley administration's imperialist policy in the Spanish-American War, made the 1900 election a referendum on American imperialism. In his acceptance speech, he outlined his constitutional and moral objections to McKinley's annexation of the Spanish colonies Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The extension of U.S. sovereignty over foreign territories, Bryan asserted, not only smacked of colonialism, but it was legally specious, contradicted America's heritage of democratic self-rule, and eroded the nation's moral authority at home and abroad. McKinley won reelection by a wide margin over Bryan.

"My, my, such possibilities"