Origins of the Large Policy: Coveting Colonies 5871880s the country was exporting a steadily increasing
share of its agricultural and industrial output. Exports,
only $450 million in 1870, passed the billion-dollar
mark early in the 1890s. Imports increased at a rate
only slightly less spectacular.
The character of foreign trade was also changing:
Manufactures loomed ever more important among
exports until in 1898 the country shipped abroad
more manufactured goods than it imported. By this
time American steelmakers could compete with pro-
ducers anywhere in the world. In 1900 one American
firm received a large order for steel plates from a
Glasgow shipbuilder, and another won contracts for
structural steel to be used in constructing bridges for
the Uganda Railroad in British East Africa. When
American industrialists became conscious of their
ability to compete with Europeans in far-off markets,
they took more interest in world affairs, particularly
during periods of depression.
Shifting intellectual currents further altered the
attitudes of Americans. Darwin’s theories, applicable
by analogy to international relations, gave the con-
cept of manifest destiny a new plausibility. Darwinists
like the historian John Fiske argued that the American
democratic system of government was so clearly the
world’s “fittest” that it was destined to spread peace-
fully over “every land on the earth’s surface.” In Our
Country(1885) Josiah Strong found racist and reli-
gious justifications for American expansionism, again
based on the theory of evolution. The Anglo-Saxon
race, centered now in the United States, possessed
“an instinct or genius for colonization,” Strong
claimed. “God, with infinite wisdom and skill is train-
ing the Anglo-Saxon race for... the final competi-
tion of races.” “Can anyone doubt,” Strong asked,
“that the result of this... will be ‘the survival of the
fittest’?”^1
The completion of the conquest of the American
West encouraged Americans to consider expansion
beyond the seas. “For nearly 300 years the dominant
fact in American life has been expansion,” declared
Frederick Jackson Turner, propounder of the frontier
thesis. “That these energies of expansion will no
longer operate would be a rash prediction.” Turner
and writers who advanced other expansionist argu-
ments were much influenced by foreign thinking.
European liberals had tended to disapprove of colo-
nial ventures, but in the 1870s and 1880s many of
them were changing their minds. English liberals in
particular began to talk and write about the “superi-
ority” of English culture, to describe the virtues of
(^1) In later writings Strong insisted that by “fittest” he meant “social
efficiency,” not “mere strength.”
the “Anglo-Saxon race,” to stress a “duty” to spread
Christianity among the heathen, and to advance eco-
nomic arguments for overseas expansion.
European ideas were reinforced for Americans by
their observation of the imperialist activities of the
European powers in what would today be called
underdeveloped areas. “While the great powers of
Europe are steadily enlarging their colonial domina-
tion in Asia and Africa,” James G. Blaine said in 1884,
“it is the especial province of this country to improve
and expand its trade with the nations of America.”
While Blaine emphasized commerce, the excitement
and adventure of overseas enterprises appealed to
many people even more than the economic possibili-
ties or any sense of obligation to fulfill a supposed
national, religious, or racial destiny.
Finally, military and strategic arguments were
advanced to justify adopting a “large” policy. The pow-
erful Union army had been demobilized rapidly after
Appomattox; in the 1880s only about 25,000 men
were under arms, their chief occupation fighting
Indians in the West.
Half the navy, too, had been scrapped after the
war, and the remaining ships were obsolete. While
other nations were building steam-powered iron war-
ships, the United States still depended on wooden
sailing vessels. In 1867 a British naval publication
accurately described the American fleet as “hapless,
broken-down, tattered [and] forlorn.”
Although no foreign power menaced the coun-
try, the decrepit state of the navy vexed many of its
officers and led one of them, Captain Alfred Thayer
Mahan, to develop a startling theory about the
importance of sea power. He explained his theory in
two important books, The Influence of Sea Power
Upon History(1890) and The Influence of Sea Power
Upon the French Revolution and Empire (1892).
According to Mahan, history proved that a nation
with a powerful navy and the overseas bases necessary
to maintain it would be invulnerable in war and pros-
perous in time of peace. Applied to the current
American situation, this meant that in addition to
building a modern fleet, the United States should
obtain a string of coaling stations and bases in the
Caribbean, annex the Hawaiian Islands, and cut a
canal across Central America. A more extensive colo-
nial empire might follow, but these bases and the
canal they would protect were essential first steps to
ensure America’s future as a great power.
Writing at a time when the imperialist-minded
European nations showed signs of extending their
influence in South America and the Pacific islands,
Mahan attracted many influential disciples. One was
Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts,
a prominent member of the Naval Affairs Committee.