DOLLAR DIPLOMACY
·    President Taft led this notion
·    Served as Teddy Roosevelt’s Secretary of War (Now known as “Defense”)
·    He wanted to substitute ‘dollars for bullets’
·    Therefore increasing USA foreign investment in other country’s economies
·    He said, “[it] appeals alike to idealistic humanitarian sentiments, to the dictates of sound policy and strategy, and to commercial aims”
·    In other words it appealed to the public & made money for investors

DID IT WORK?
·    It did increase the level of US financial involvement abroad – but not always for profit
·    Taft’s people persuaded bankers to invest in railroad projects in China / Russia / Japan
·    Russia & Japan united in effort to block the influence of America
·    Many investments were lost in China during the revolution of 1911
·    It created enemies in Latin America when local revolutionary movements opposed US influence
·    In the end Roosevelt & Taft produced anti-colonialism abroad & anti-imperialism at home


ANTI-IMPERIALISM IN THE USA
·    ‘Whether it be monarchy or republic, which buys or takes by conquest of another people, and dominates them without promise of granting them their independence or … guaranteeing future statehood, has adopted imperialist policy.”  Lucia Mead (1900) pacifist

·    Others wanted the Constitution to follow the flag…allowing the newest members of our influence to have the rights granted under the constitution

·    Were the labors in Cuba or Hawaii just contract laborers or slaves?

·    In rebuttal those in favor of expansion said, “We are planting in those islands…the best traditions, the best characteristics of Americanism.”

·    In the end, the anti-imperialists felt that Imperialist countries needed large armies to crush the dissent – thus could be used at home (as well as eating up lots of tax dollars)