Review Of William Jennings Bryan's Speech Paralyzing Influence Of Imperialism

In the late 1800’s Imperialism had begun because the Europeans were greedy for power. They would conquer other small weak nations for many reasons such as a source of raw material, gaining more territory, and gaining control of people and using them as cheap laborers. Spain once was a great nation governing over the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. During this time, the Philippines and Cuba were the only ones fighting for freedom and independence out of the four countries under the control of Spain. Later on, Rumors had spread to the US that the Spanish were being cruel to the Cubans and the Philippines. The US decided to send Ships to protect the sugar resources. The USS Maine had come to Cuba to protect the US citizens that were

A lot of these effects were based on the US economy and the high amount of money that the US had to spent to annex the Philippines. This was not a smart investment. In William Jennings Bryan 's speech “Paralyzing Influence of Imperialism”, he mentions that “We dare not educate them [Filipinos] lest they learn to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States and mock us for our inconsistency.” (Doc D). Bryan was running candidate for the president of the United States. Bryan was an anti-imperialist who believed that annexing the Philippines and educating them was very hypocritical because Great Britain had to broken away by only one colony, which was the United States. This reflected negatively on the US because it had shown other nations that the United States were violating its’ own principles. The United States say their the “land of the free”, but still tried to govern people overseas. The second evidence “PBS - Crucible of Empire” (The Crucible Film) demonstrates that the US had to pay $20 million (USD) to govern the Philippines through The Treaty of Paris. The cost for the US to keep fighting and still keep the Philippines under their control was $4 million (USD). The US had sent 100,000 soldiers to fight and over 3,000 people died during the war. The fact that the US spent millions of USD was outrageous because they were already in a state of economic depression due to the Stock Market Crash of 1902. The US was so greedy for power that even after the success of winning The Spanish American War of 1898 and gaining allies overseas. It still wasn’t enough, they still wanted more power and because of this, they decided to annex the Philippines. Annexing the Philippines lead the US to financially unstable and thousands of deaths, which is why the US should not have annexed the