Documenting United States History

312 ChapTEr 13 | a Gilded aGe | period Six 1865 –1898

In 1871, on the 5th of April, President Grant in a special message signifi-

cantly solicited some expression of the views of the Senate respecting the advis-

ability of annexation.

In an instruction of March 25, 1873, [Secretary of State] Mr. Fish considered

the necessity of annexing the islands in accordance with the wise foresight of those

“who see a future that must extend the jurisdiction and the limits of this nation, and

that will require the resting spot in midocean between the Pacific Coast and the

vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to commerce and Christian civiliza-

tion.” And he directed our minister “not to discourage the feeling which may exist

in favor of annexation to the United States,” but to seek and even invite information

touching the terms and conditions upon which that object might be effected.

Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, with Accompanying

Testimony, and Executive Documents Transmitted to Congress from January 1, 1893 to March

10, 1891, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894), 813–814.

p raCTICINg historical Thinking

Identify: What is the main purpose of this message?

Analyze: Describe the changing views toward the annexation of Hawaii as detailed

by Foster.

Evaluate: To what extent were these changing views toward annexation driven by

political or economic motivations?

Document 13.6 aNdREw CaRNEGiE, “The Gospel of wealth”

  1889

By the end of the nineteenth century, Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) had built the Car-

negie Steel Company into the largest steel manufacturer in the United States. His essay

“The Gospel of Wealth” (originally entitled “Wealth”) appeared in the North American

Review in 1889 at the height of his cultural influence.

There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes; but in this way we

have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the rec-

onciliation of the rich and the poor—a reign of harmony—another ideal, differ-

ing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution

of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded

upon the present most intense individualism, and the race is prepared to put

it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall have an

ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense,

the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this

TopIC I | the New economy 313

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