The ‘20s: Culture, Consumption, and Crash 165which side would win. In the 1920s, without the fanfare of the Mexican
intervention, the U.S. funded and armed a group in Honduras that took over
the government and was friendly toward American corporate interests; and it
sent in troops to ferociously attack anti-government, and thus anti-U.S. and
anti-Capitalist, rebels in Honduras. Rather than practice isolationism, the U.S.
was deeply involved throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, either with
money doctors, military troops, or mercenaries. Ruling class power, already
evident at home, was just as easy to find in the southern part of the Americas,
and the conditions for U.S. control, and brutality, for the rest of the century
were already in place.
Perhaps surprisingly, the U.S. role in Asia, which was the area that prompt-
ed Hay’s Open Door Notes, was fairly minimal compared to most parts of the
world, mainly because the continent, except for Japan, was in turmoil and not
yet developed with industry or banking to any meaningful level. Still, the
American dreams of getting into Asia, especially the “China Market,” remained
strong. China’s population, 400 million in 1900, rose to 472 million by 1920,
and exceeded 500 million in the early 1930s—if American manufacturers and
bankers could get into that market, the potential for growth and profits was
virtually unlimited. But getting into China would not be easy. In 1900, young
nationalists tired of Europe taking over ports and resources, began the anti-
foreigner “Boxer Rebellion.” They killed hundreds of Christian missionaries
and attacked the embassies and consulates of foreign countries. The Europeans
finally resorted to force, sending in over 15,000 troops to subdue the Boxers,
and President McKinley, without consulting congress, deployed 2500 U.S.
troops to help put down the revolt. In the aftermath, the western nations
forced China to pay $300 million to cover the damages done by the Boxers.
The Chinese nationalists, though defeated, exposed that China was weak and
in decay, so the U.S. and Europeans began to “modernize” it, hoping to exploit
the huge markets there. President Taft proposed funding a bank in the
Chinese region of Manchuria, a northern province with minerals and other
valuable resources, and later suggested that American bankers get together to
provide a huge loan to China so it could “neutralize,” or internationalize, its
own railways so they could be used by all countries to trade, as envisioned by
the open door idea. Neither plan worked because the unrest begun by the
Boxers continued and led to the Revolution of 1911, when the old dynasty
was finally overthrown and a new, pro-western and pro-capitalist, government