Presidio presentation, January 21, 2009 1

Republic or Empire?

United States Anti-Imperialist League – opposition

GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT OR CONQUEST

[PP, Stop this bloody work] For at least three years from late 1898 to

1902, the United States’ incursion into the Philippines was both the centerpiece

of American foreign policy and the headlining subject of debate in the nation.

[PP, Fun for the boys]President McKinley championed the side of conquest.

[PP, Citizen or subject, which?] Anti-imperialists on the other hand

invoked the principle of “government by consent,” not conquest. Lady Liberty

became symbolic of a public opinion that simultaneously supported the Filipino

cause for independence and criticized corporate globalization: “Do I represent

the idea of popular government…or am I simply a trademark for goods of

American trust manufacturers?”.

THE AUNTIES ARE COMING

[PP]The Philippine-American War took center stage during the 1900 presidential

election. While the Republican incumbent, William McKinley, ran as the

candidate for overseas expansion and big business, his Democratic Party

opponent, the populist politician and orator, William Jennings Bryan, ran on an
Presidio presentation, January 21, 2009 2

anti-imperialist platform, opposing the war and advocating for Philippine

independence.

[PP, We have Filipinos at home]The anti-imperialist movement to oppose

Philippine annexation and later the Philippine American War began in in the state

of Massachusetts. On November 1898, the Anti-Imperialist League was founded

in Boston, and spread across the country with major branches in New York,

Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, and other cities. As my mentor, Daniel Boone

Schirmer said, “the Anti-Imperialist movement can best be understood as the last

powerful thrust of abolitionism, the radical democratic ideology that spurred the

North to victory over the slave-holders power” during the Civil War.

Among its members were George Boutwell, (President of the Anti-Imperialist

League, a friend and associate of Abraham Lincoln; Jane Addams (civil rights

activist and one of the founders of the settlement house movement), Reverend

William H. Scott (former slave, civil rights activist and a vice-president of the Anti-

Imperialist League); Mark Twain (America’s beloved writer and a vice-president

of the Anti-Imperialist League). The membership the anti-expansionist forces

included notorious racists such as Senator Benjamin Tillman. Their opposition to

Philippine annexation was motivated by a desire to exclude non-white immigrants

to the United States, thereby preserving white racial purity.

The anti-imperialist were vehemently attacked for their opposition to conquest of

the Philippines and support of the Filipino peoples desire for independence.
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Their advocacy to end the U.S. conquest of the Philippines was considered

unpatriotic and traitorous.

Schirmer [Calling in question the looming goal of world empire, they rejected the

subjugation of the Philippines by armed force. Throughout the war they declared

their own government to be wrong and the Filipino people to be in the right. They

took a principled stand against an unjust war of conquest.]

Schirmer [the determination of the Philippine people to affirm their national

identity that recalled the American people to their own anti-imperialist traditions…

Unsuccessfully resisting the treaty to annex the Philippines, led a widespread

opposition to the Philippine war of conquest and reached the peak of its influence

in the election of 1900, that were fought out, to a great extent, on the issue of

imperialism. Defeated in 1900, the anti-imperialist movement experienced a brief

revival in the struggle against the atrocities in the Philippines, only to subside

again, so that by 1904 it was reduced to its original starting point, the small

Boston group that began it all.]

[PP, Idol of the aunties] Sexist and racist attitudes of the time were reflected in

the ultra-conservative clamor against the anti-imperialists. The media depicted

the “aunties,” a term the anti-imperialists were derisively called, as old women

enamored with the “savage” Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo. Thus, to oppose

the war signaled a lack of manhood.

Presidio presentation, January 21, 2009 4

[PP, Uncle Jasper] The leading anti-imperialists like Massachusetts

Senator George Hoar and writer Mark Twain were among the most vilified. [PP,

Old Savage] Twain spoke passionately against the annexation of the Philippines

and was Vice-President of the Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death

in 1910. “We do not intend to free but to subjugate the people of the Philippines,”

he wrote. “I am opposed to have the eagle put its talons on any land.”

ORIGINS OF THE FORBIDDEN BOOK

PP,Anti-Marcos demo] All of us come from a history of political activism–

opposing the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, and joining in the struggles

for civil and immigrant rights. Our authoring “The Forbidden Book” is an

extension our activism. It was our hope that this work would add to the growing

body of written work helping break with the Philippines colonial past and to reveal

a hidden part of American and Philippine history.

[PP, Exhibit card] The book has its origins in an exhibit entitled, “Colored: Black

n’ White, Filipinos in American Popular Media, 1898-1907.” When an exhibit

called COLORED black & white was installed at Pusod in Berkeley, California, it

was the intention of the curators to do several things: [PP, Pusod exhibit

picture](1) to allow these 100-year old images to speak for themselves; (2) to

share a Filipino American interpretative response to these images; (3) to help

generate a mutual understanding of history of the power relations between

whites and non-whites in the US, and between the Philippines and the United
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States; and (4) to contribute to healing the psychic pain from the legacy of

colonial conquest not just of Filipinos, but all colonized subjects.

The exhibit contains many cartoons taken from the pages of [PP, Ready

for duty] Puck, [PP, Does it fit] Judge and [PP, Just returned from the

Philippines] Life magazines.

These three were among the most influential opinion makers of their day.

Puck and Judge employed color front cover and centerfold cartoons to opine on

the issues of the day.

Unlike Puck and Judge, Life did not use color in its cartoons. All three

magazines employed some of the best artists of the day to draw for them.

Puck and Judge were generally supportive of President McKinley and

backed the U.S. war of conquest in the Philippines. In fact, at the time, Judge

magazine was regarded as a propaganda vehicle for the Republican party.

Life magazine was one of the few published voices opposing U.S. imperial

designs on the Philippines. Its cartoonists drew cartoons extremely critical of the

war and many were supportive of the Filipino aims for independence and

freedom.

These images are from a collection of over 400 illustrations collected from

antique stores, libraries, and the internet. We recognized the risk in putting these

images on display, knowing they might elicit pain and reinforce the racial

chauvinism Filipinos often show towards darker skinned people, particularly

blacks.
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Through the exhibition of these images, however, we hope to demonstrate

that both the pain and the racial attitudes are by-products of a grand fiction that

was popularized by print media at the turn of the last century. From the

imperialist point of view, the fiction was necessary to rationalize a war before a

critical public, and justify conquest of the Philippines. We hope that by

uncovering the truth, we can begin the process of healing.