Imperial Expansion Quotes
The great wall of China was built just as much to keep the Chinese in as to keep the barbarians out.
The Chinese 1st Emperor had unified China by brutal war. His troops and government were more sophisticated than the others and they were particularly sophisticated about drafting soldiers, forcing the civilian population to manufacture weapons for the huge military and to levy and collect taxes. Many people in the conquered provinces fled from China. The Emperor responded to the outside ‘barbarians’ and the fleeing Chinese by connecting the many walls that existed on the Chinese border into one unified wall as much to keep his labor force in China as to keep others out.
In 1898 the President was faced with a great dilemma in the Philippines. Giving the islands back to Spain after the war was unthinkable. Germany and France were waiting to step in. Self government was viewed as impractical, given the state of affairs at the time. The President decided to take the islands.
In one of his reports, the term was used and appears to be the earliest use of the phrase that can be found. Dee was perhaps the original Agent 007—see {614640}.
He had concluded that Spain, who then ruled the Philippines, was incompetent, cruel and immoral in its rule, but that the Filipinos were not educated or sophisticated enough to rule themselves. However, he felt that he had to protect our commercial interests in the islands and the region, and was worried that commercial interests of other countries would take over and control the area. Another reason that this is a very important quotation is that it indicates the anti-Catholic bias in America at the time. Note that the President stated that one objective was to “Christianize” them. However, Spain had been in the islands for over 300 years and most Filipinos were already Roman Catholic. However, Roman Catholics were then a much smaller proportion of the American population and many Protestants didn’t think Catholicism was a legitimate Christian Religion. When the majority of Americans thought of Christianizing other people, they thought of Protestant missionaries much like England. At the time there was very little criticism of the President for the “error” of stating that Filipinos should be Christianized when they were so already Spanish Colonial Policy and Practice was generally terrible and particularly so in the Philippines, See {629450}.
Thailand had invaded Cambodia, and Vietnam intervened and repulsed the Thai. However, they tried to “civilize” the backward Cambodians, and these efforts at cultural and political reform were no appreciated. A full scale rebellion broke out. See {607693} and {43139}. The Vietnamese, the stronger, generous power who had provided so much, could not understand the anti-Vietnamese feeling.
At its largest, the Ottoman Turkish Empire included all of the Middle East, most of North Africa, much of Russia, and Europe right up to the walls of Vienna.
FDR had agreed to send destroyers to help Churchill but to placate Congress he wanted a formal agreement for Britain to lease bases to the United States. Roosevelt wanted the Prime Minister to work out a Lend Lease agreement with the Attorney General. Jackson’s reply was “But Republics do!”
That is exactly what happened to the nations of Eastern Europe.
