Imperialism in America
It has been proven time and again throughout history that in order to survive, a nation must expand its borders and become more powerful. This is shown by the European countries' power at the beginning of the 20th century. They were the strongest countries in the world, and between them they controlled almost the entire globe. Soon after, America also became imperialistic. Three reasons America became imperialistic was to acquire naval bases and refueling stations for their ships, to control new markets in which to sell American products, and to get more raw materials and resources to help feed the growing American industries. The first reason Americans turned imperialistic was to control naval bases at sea in order to strengthen their military power outside of their boundaries. In 1885, America's navy was described as a "fleet of washtubs", and their army wasn't much better. It was obvious that if America wanted to protect its interests in foreign countries, it would need a stronger military force. The first step was to be able to defend itself should any foreign countries encroach on its territory. Naval bases were the key to this. So, after the Civil War, America looked to the Pacific islands of Midway, Samoa, and Gu
The Core Democratic Values are held in very high regard in America. They are what our whole system of government and policies are based upon. Therefore, it is important that all actions America takes are backed up and supported by the Core Democratic Values. While many people at the time argued that imperialism violated more Core Democratic Values than it supported, there are nevertheless several that back up imperialism in all respects. The first is diversity. When America first turned imperialistic, there was an immediate increase of foreign goods and people. It just follows common sense that when a country acquires more land, those lands' peoples and products will become available to that country. Imperialism brought new diverse ideas and people into the U.S. Another Core Democratic Value imperialism supports is patriotism. Patriotism means that you put your country first above everything else. Since imperialism greatly strengthened America's economy and military powers, it was a source of great patriotism to many. The last reason for America's imperialistic attitude was to gain control of new markets in which to sell American goods. The booming successes of American industries, such as Standard Oil Company and Andrew Carnegie's business encouraged more people to go into business. Many of these new entrepreneurs looked west, to exotic places such as China, Hawaii, and the Philippines, for opportunity. Since China didn't have any industries of its own, they had to buy their finished products from industrialized countries. Europeans were already profiting greatly from this, and America wanted its share of the profits, too. At first they couldn't get into China because many European countries and Japan had already established their own spheres of influence there, so Americans then turned to the next closest thing - the Philippines. One reason many American favored annexing the Philippines was because they lay close to China. If they couldn't have markets in China, they could have markets in the Phili
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Approximate Word count = 1372
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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