Page 74 - NS-2 Textbook

THE RISE TO WORLD POWER STATUS 67

who enlisted in the Navy soon became very good sailors chase from Spain of the Carolines, the Marshalls, and the
proficient in the new technology. And since the Navy Marianas in the Pacific, all islands located between the
was doing so many interesting things during these years, U.S. mainland and the Philippines. The leadership
enlistment and reenlistment rates were high. By the time within the Navy prepared plans for possible war with
World War I broke out in 1914, U.S. naval personnel were Germany. In the process they assumed incorrectly that
among the world's best. such a war would be solely a naval war, fought between
11lDugh the American merchant marine could not capital ships of the two navies. This misconception heav-
compete very well in world markets due to wage compe- ily influenced the U.s. warship-building program in the
tition and corporate taxes, the lack of commercial business early years of the twentieth centtuy toward the construc-
in the United States had the advantage of keeping Ameri- tion of large battleships rather than cruisers and small
can shipyards interested in building quality warships. destroyers. The latter would be sorely needed for escort
11us produced a whole generation of shipyard construc- duties and antisubmarine warfare during World War I.
tors who were pretty much warship-building specialists. In the Pacific region, when the Sino-Japanese War of
They were backed by a now-thriving steel industry that 1894-95 showed the weakness of the Chinese govern-
had grown n-ughtily since the days, just twenty years ear- ment, several of the European powers began to move
liel; when nobody knew how to produce rolled steel plate. into the region, seeking to establish "spheres of influ-
These capabilities would stand the nation in good stead ence" in China backed up by naval squadrons. nus
through two world wars in the twentieth century. caused American merchants to fear that they would lose
access to Chinese markets, unless the United States
would establish a sphere of influence of its own in China.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The u.s. government, however, was opposed to such a
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Great Britain, course of imperialist action. A solution was found by Sec-
traditional enemy of the United States since colonial retary of State John Hay, who in 1899 drafted a paper
times, had begtm to display a new friendship toward the calling for assurances from each power that China would
United States. Britain alone of the major European pow- be open to the trade of all friendly nations, a policy that
ers supported American objectives during the Spanish came to be known as the /I open door policy. II
War of 1898. In 1903 the British agreed to a settlement of Hay's policy did not prove to be a final solution, how-
the Alaskan-Canadian boundary favorable to America. ever. To protect thell· interests, the major powers kept war-
They also conceded exclusive control of the proposed ships in the area, wluch caused the Chinese to become re-
canal across Panama to the United States. sentful. In 1900 this led a group of Chinese called Boxers to
The same could not be said of Germany, however. begin a campaign to rid thell· nation of foreigners by force.
There had been confrontations in Samoa since 1889. The This campaign came to be called the Boxer Rebellion. Rus-
Germans had challenged Commodore Dewey in Manila sia seized upon the opportunity presented by the Boxers to
Bay in 1898 for control of the Philippines and had bom- tighten her grip on Port ArthUl; to occupy Manchuria, and
barded the Venezuelan coast to force settlement of inter- to dominate Korea. nus in turn led to conflict with the
national debts in 1902. Then in 1904 Germany threatened Japanese, and ultimately it led to the Russo-Japanese War
to collect debts in the Dominican Republic by force. In re- of 1904-5. After the Battle of Tsushima, the Japanese gov-
sponse to this latter action, Roosevelt proclaimed what ernment requested that President Roosevelt end the war.
came to be called the Roosevelt Corollary (extension of a Though the resulting Treaty of Portsmouth did so in 1905,
previous doctrine) to the longstanding Monroe Doctrine there ,vas no provision in it for payment of "'lal' reparations
of 1823, which prohibited foreign interference in the to Japan, which angered the Japanese and soured relations
Americas. Roosevelt stated that the United States n-ught between them and the United States.
feel obligated to intervene in any situation involving In 1906 the Japanese were further agitated by a new
wrongdoing by or collapse of government in any Latin San Francisco School Board policy of segregating the
American nation to prevent foreign intervention. There school children of Japanese imn1igrant laborers who had
followed several such interventions by the United States come into the area following the wm· with Russia. The
in various revolution-torn CDtmtries in the Caribbean situation was soon blown up into a full-scale interna-
during the following years. tional incident, and some in Japan threatened to go to
Thus in a background of some hostility, Congress set war with the United States. The sihtation was resolved in
out on a building program to surpass that of Germany, so 1907 only when Roosevelt persuaded the board to re-
that the United States, and not Germany, would be the scind its policy.
one to have a navy second only to that of Great Britain. Later in 1907 Roosevelt wanted to impress the Japa-
Germany continued to arouse American anger by the ar- nese and the other major nations of the world with a
rogant utterances of her kaisel; by the brutal way in demonstration of the sea power behind American diplo-
which she developed her new colonies, and by her pur- macy. Roosevelt had some years earlier expressed Ius