598 Chapter 22 From Isolation to Empire
said, could be kept “like a disembodied shade, in an
indeterminate state of ambiguous existence for an
indefinite period.”
While the most heated arguments raged over
Philippine policy, the most difficult colonial problems
concerned the relationship between the United States
and Cuba. Despite the desire of most Americans to
get out of Cuba, an independent government could
not easily be created.
The insurgent government was feeble, corrupt,
and oligarchic, the Cuban economy in a state of col-
lapse, and life was chaotic. The first Americans enter-
ing Havana found the streets littered with garbage
and the corpses of horses and dogs. All public services
were at a standstill; it seemed essential for the United
States, as McKinley said, to give “aid and direction”
until “tranquillity” could be restored.
When McKinley established a military govern-
ment for Cuba late in 1898, it was soon embroiled
with local leaders. Then an eager horde of American
promoters descended on Cuba in search of profitable
franchises and concessions. Congress put a stop to
this exploitation by forbidding all such grants as long
as the occupation continued.
The problems were indeed knotty, for no strong
local leader capable of uniting Cuba appeared. Even
Senator Teller, father of the Teller Amendment,
expressed concern lest “unstable and unsafe” elements
gain control of the country. European leaders
expected that the United States would eventually
annex Cuba; and many Americans, including General
Leonard Wood, who became military governor in
December 1899, considered this the best solution.
The desperate state of the people, the heavy economic
stake of Americans in the region, and its strategic
importance militated against withdrawal.
In the end the United States did withdraw, after
doing a great deal to modernize sugar production,
improve sanitary conditions, establish schools, and
restore orderly administration. In November 1900 a
Cuban constitutional convention met at Havana and
proceeded without substantial American interference
or direction to draft a frame of government. The chief
restrictions imposed by this document on Cuba’s
freedom concerned foreign relations; at the insistence
of the United States, it authorized American inter-
vention whenever necessary “for the preservation of
Cuban independence” and “the maintenance of a
government adequate for the protection of life, prop-
erty, and individual liberty.” Cuba had to promise to
make no treaty with a foreign power compromising
its independence and to grant naval bases on its soil
to the United States.
The Cubans, after some grumbling, accepted this
arrangement, known as the Platt Amendment. It had
the support of most American opponents of imperial-
ism. The amendment was a true compromise: It safe-
guarded American interests while granting to the
Cubans real self-government on internal matters. In
May 1902 the United States turned over the reins of
government to the new republic. The next year the
two countries signed a reciprocity treaty tightening
the economic bonds between them.
True friendship did not result. Although American
troops occupied Cuba only once more, in 1906, and
then at the specific request of Cuban authorities, the
United States repeatedly used the threat of interven-
tion to coerce the Cuban government. American eco-
nomic penetration proceeded rapidly and without
regard for the well-being of the Cuban peasants,
many of whom lived in a state of peonage on great
sugar plantations. Nor did the Americans’ good
intentions make up for their tendency to consider
themselves innately superior to the Cubans and to
overlook the fact that Cubans did not always wish to
adopt American customs and culture.The Platt Amendmentat
http://www.myhistorylab.comAmerica The United States in the Caribbean and Central
and Central America
If the purpose of the Spanish-American War had been
to bring peace and order to Cuba, the Platt
Amendment was a logical step. The same purpose
soon necessitated a further extension of the principle,
for once the United States accepted the role of pro-
tector and stabilizer in parts of the Caribbean and
Central America, it seemed desirable, for the same
economic, strategic, and humanitarian reasons, to
supervise the entire region.
The Caribbean and Central American countries
were economically underdeveloped, socially back-
ward, politically unstable, and desperately poor.
Everywhere a few families owned most of the land
and dominated social and political life. Most of the
people were uneducated peasants, many of whom
were little better off than slaves. Rival cliques of
wealthy families struggled for power, force being the
usual method of effecting a change in government.
Most of the meager income of the average Caribbean
state was swallowed up by the military or diverted
into the pockets of the current rulers.
Cynicism and fraud poisoned the relations of most
of these nations with the great powers. European mer-
chants and bankers systematically cheated their Latin
American customers, who in turn frequently refused
to honor their obligations. Foreign bankers floated
bond issues on outrageous terms, while revolutionaryReadtheDocument