Founding the Anti-Imperialist League
The Anti-Imperialist Committee of Correspondence met in the afternoon of November 19, 1898, at the office of Edward Atkinson, No. 31 Milk Street. Boston, Massachusetts. No record has been found as to who were present at the meeting. It was, however, on this day that the Anti-Imperialist League, destined to play no small part in the discussion of American colonial policy in Philippine-American relations for at least two decades, had its birth.(1)
A committee of three previously appointed for the purpose, and composed of Albert S. Parsons, Gamaliel Bradford, and David Greene Haskins, submitted a draft constitution, which was adopted and became the fundamental law of the Anti-Imperialist League. The constitution is as unpretentious as was the birth of the League itself, but although a document of remarkable brevity, it served the league throughout its existence without substantial change. The instrument, like the Constitution of the United States, contains seven articles, as follows. (2)
CONSTITUTION
1. NAME. This organization shall be called THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST LEAGUE.
2. OBJECTS. The object is to oppose, by every legitimate means, the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, or of any colonies away from our shores, by the United States.
3. MEMBERSHIP. Any citizen of the United States, irrespective of party, may become a member, if in sympathy with the objects of the League.
4. OFFICERS. The officers shall consist of a President, Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and an Executive Committee of six, in addition to the President, Secretary and Treasurer, who shall be members ex-officio. These officers shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting and shall hold office for one year, or until their successors shall have been elected.
5. DUTIES OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. The Executive Committee shall have charge of the business of the League; shall see to the distribution of literature; shall promote public meetings; shall receive subscriptions and act generally for the promotion of the objects of the League. They shall have power to fill vacancies in any office of the League. Four shall constitute a quorum at meetings of the committee.
6. ANNUAL MEETING. The Annual Meeting of the League shall be held in Boston on the last Saturday of November.
7. AMENDMENTS. Amendments to this Constitution can be made by a two-thirds vote of those present and voting at any meeting of the League. (3)
Certain provisions of this constitution are of special significance because they portray fundamental characteristics of the League. It should be noted, first, that the constitution permitted any citizen to become a member of the Anti-Imperialist League irrespective of creed or party affiliation, as long as he was against the extension of the sovereignty of the United States over non-contiguous territory. This broad qualification for membership explains in part the uncertainty which exists in regard to how many there were who became members of the Anti-Imperialist League. It is especially significant that the constitution expressly stated that in order to join the organization one must be a citizen of the United States. This provision again emphasized the purpose of the organizers to found the League primarily for the good of the people of the United States rather than for that of the inhabitants of the Philippines. Finally, the active work of the League was entrusted by the constitution to an Executive Committee, four members of which constituted a quorum. Their action was final, revocable by no group but themselves. It is because of this provision and its application that the Anti-Imperialist League in after years was very generally identified with a few dominant personalities.
The first act of the Anti-Imperialist League as such was to broadcast a public address to the people of the United States carrying the following arguments:
First, a true republic derived its powers from the consent of the people, and when this consent was withheld, a republican form of government existed only in name.
Second, the anti-imperialists were in sympathy with the struggles for liberty fought by the people subjected to Spanish domination, and therefore protested against a mere change of masters in Puerto Rico and the Philippines Islands.
Third, the beaten foe, Spain, had no more right to transfer the Filipino people to the control of another country without the consent of that people than the free republic, America, had the right to force that people to accede to its rule.
Fourth, expansion of the United States through thinly populated regions in contiguous territory acquired by purchase with the intention of granting ultimate statehood, was different from acquiring by force from a beaten enemy a non-contiguous, already settled, distant territory, inhabited by an alien race which could never be assimilated into the American body politic.
Fifth, the war with Spain was a war for humanity, not for conquest.
Sixth, colonization of territory acquired from Spain would take away attention from the more pressing problems of home affairs.
It was for the purpose of presenting these views to the American people, the public was informed, that an Anti-Imperialist League was organized. A secretariat was to be established in Washington, and efforts were to be made to unite the anti-imperialists of the country in determined opposition to imperialism. The League proposed to emphasize the following aspects of the subject:
The moral iniquity of converting a war for humanity into a war of conquest; the physical degeneration, the corruption of the blood, and all the evils of militarism which will ensue if troops are to be kept in the Philippines or elsewhere longer than absolutely necessary to enable a government to be established which will protect life and property; the political evils and the necessity of preserving the Union upon the principles of its framers; the clear necessity of large increase of taxes for the support of armies and navies, with a great probability that voluntary enlistments will have to be supplanted by drafts.(4)
The address carried with it a petition to the President of the United States and to Congress that the Philippines "or other foreign territory," be not acquired against the will of the inhabitants. (5)
As has already been mentioned, no record exists as to who, besides Albert S. Parson, Erving Winslow, David Greene Haskins, and Edward Atkinson, were present at the meeting of Nov. 19, 1898, at which the Anti-Imperialist Committee of Correspondence was dissolved and the League was born. Of more importance, however, is information concerning the first officers of the organization. Whether they were present at that meeting or not, we know that they were among the real promoters of the Anti-Imperialist League. A brief survey of the character of the organizers is necessary for an understanding of the character of the League and the influence that it was able to exert.
Its first president was George Sewall Boutwell, who at that time was eighty years of age, and retired from active political life. In earlier life he had repeatedly been a member of the legislature of Massachusetts, and was governor of that state during 1851 and 1852. He had represented his state in Congress six years in the lower house and six years in the Senate. One of the Democratic leaders before the Civil War, he had acted in accordance with his convictions on slavery and helped to organize the Republican Party. President Lincoln appointed him the first Commissioner of the new Department of Internal Revenue. He also served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1869-1873. (6)
The first vice presidents of the League were forty-one in number and constitute a brilliant array of intellectual and influential Americans, leaders in educational, religious and public life. Among them was Grover Cleveland, Democratic President of the United States, 1884 to 1888, and 1892 to 1896. (7)
There was also Carl Schurz, a German by birth and exiled from his country because of his liberal beliefs, and his part in revolutionary movements. He came to the United States in 1852, and by 1857 was Governor of Wisconsin. He became United States minister to Spain in 1861, and was made a major general in the Civil War. After the war he exercised wide influence in America as an editor and politician. One of the organizers of the Liberal Party, he formerly had been a very influential Republican having been temporary chairman of the Republican convention of 1868. He was Secretary of the Interior from 1877 to 1881. (8)
Bourke Cockran and John G. Carlisle were gold-standard Democrats. Cockran sat in the House of Representatives from 1891 to 1895, and in 1896 he campaigned for President McKinley against William Jennings Bryan on the money issue. Carlisle had been Secretary of the Treasury, Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, a member of his state legislature and a member of Congress from 1877-1889. During the last six years of his term Carlisle was speaker of the House of Representatives. William Endicott was Secretary of War during the last years of the Cleveland Administration. There were also H. S. Pingree, Mayor of Detroit and later, governor of Michigan; Donelson Caffrey, soldier, farmer and state senator of Louisiana; and "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman (Benjamin Ryan Tillman), Democratic Senator from South Carolina so known because of a violent speech against President Cleveland in the Senate.
Among the Republican statesmen who joined the ranks of the anti-imperialists was John Sherman of Ohio, who for forty-three years served the country in the capacities of Congressman, 1855 to 1860, Senator 1861 to 1877, 1881-1897, Secretary of the Treasury 1877 to 1881 and Secretary of State 1897 to 1898. Carl Schurz, we have already mentioned. Others were Henry U. Johnson, member of Congress from Indiana, William Larrabee of Iowa, and Henry Patrick Ford, of Pittsburg. The first two served both in the legislatures of their states, and in Congress, and the latter was mayor of Pittsburg. Senator George F. Edmunds, another member, was famous as a Constitutional lawyer.
A distinguished group of journalists and publishers were identified with the League from the first. Among them was Emil Preetorius, able editor of the St. Louis Westliche Post, and a German by birth. Another was Samuel Bowles, editor and publisher of the Springfield Republican. What Mr. Bowles accomplished for the cause of the Filipinos cannot be overestimated. The Springfield Republican was the champion of the Philippine cause among the papers in the United States. This championship continued till the death of Samuel Bowles. Today, although the paper still continues its interest, it is not as ardent for the cause as it used to be.
The journalist most actively identified with the League, however, was Mr. Herbert Welsh of Philadelphia. The son of John Welsh, one time United States Minister at Madrid, Mr. Welsh inherited both wealth and position. Like most of the other leaders in the anti-imperialist movement, he was a "born reformer," and his newspaper, City and State existed chiefly to advocate such movements as Civil Service reform, justice for the American Indian, the eradication of political corruption in Pennsylvania, and Philippine Independence.
Best known among the anti-imperialist founders in the field of education were President David Starr Jordan of Leland Stanford University, and President Henry Wade Rogers, of Northwestern University. Charles Francis Adams of Boston was not only a scholar and statesman of standing, but also a great, though independent anti-imperialist thinker. He was of immense assistance to Mr. Herbert Welsh when the latter was given charge of the investigations in 1902 of cruelties by the army in the Philippines. His personal letters, many of which are among the manuscript records of the League, are not only a source material for a study of the Anti-Imperialist League, but of themselves of the greatest interest, -- scholarly, frank, humorous. To this list of professors, lecturers and writers may be added the names of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William G. Summer of Yale, Felix Adler of Cornell, William H. Fleming of New York, Edward von Holst of Chicago, Edwin Burritt Smith of Northwestern, Edward Atkinson, a writer on political economy, Boston, and James C. Carter, one of the leaders of the New York bar.
Representing other interests were Andrew Carnegie, Bishop Henry Potter of New York, Theodore L. Cuyler, Presbyterian minister of Brooklyn, and Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor. The remaining vice-presidents were George G. Mercer, Gamaliel Bradford, Austen G. Fox. John J. Valentine, and John L. Bullitt.
The actual activities of the League were entrusted to the hands of the President, George Sewall Boutwell, the Secretary, Erving Winslow, the treasurer, Francis A. Osborn, and the Executive Committee composed of the officers and Winslow Warren, Chairman, James J. Myers, David Greene Haskins, James P. Munro and Albert S. Parsons.
The founders of the Anti-Imperialist League were men of education and of political and social position in the country. By contemporary America, however, they were regarded at best, as a group of misguided idealists centering about a little coterie of aristocratic Bostonians long known as habitual advocates of unpopular causes, and often referred to as "cranks" and "professional reformers." Many of their most prominent leaders were elderly men who had long since abandoned party regularity and associated themselves with dissenting political groups. They were not in touch or in sympathy with the swelling sentiment of nationality which came to America with the turn of the century and were "at outs" with the party organizations of the day. This handful of intellectuals first sought to accomplish one of the most difficult of all political tasks: to convince a people at war that it was to their advantage as well as their moral duty to renounce the obvious spoils of victory. Later, when the Filipino people resorted to arms to obtain their independence from American sovereignty, they championed the Filipino cause and attacked the methods by which their country conducted war in the Philippines. Small wonder that they then were not only derided as "cranks," but attacked as traitors whose aid and comfort to th Filipinos prolonged the insurrection against the United States and cost the lives of many American soldiers in the Philippines.
At the beginning of their organized activities this group aimed at arousing public opinion, and brought pressure to bear upon the administration, to the end that in the Peace Treaty then being negotiated in Paris, the Filipinos and the people of Puerto Rico should be promised their freedom as the Cubans had been. With this in view, the League performed what it deemed its duty to America, and incidentally to those people whose future status and even national existence were at stake, and who then had no official representative to voice before the American Commissioners their desires and their aspirations. (9) Their later activities naturally grew out of the development of America's Philippine policy.
The Anti-Imperialist League did not provide for any definite method of increasing membership, nor did it have accurate records of its members. Under these circumstances, it is not easy to state with certainty the number of its members and supporters. The first annual report of the treasurer mentioned "over half a million" contributors, their contributions ranging from twenty-five cents to "several thousand dollars." Each contributor gave what sum he pleased, and many of the contributions were unsolicited. They poured in from all over the country.
Although in the main the efforts of the Anti-Imperialist League were incidentally to the interests of the Filipinos, from the very start the organization consistently refused to be officially connected with any Philippine organization or officials. It was purely an American organization in America. Personal friends it had among the Filipinos, Teodoro Sandiko first among them, and later the different Philippine Resident Commissioners in Washington. The Filipinos and the Anti-Imperialists had at least a common cause -- the separation of the Philippines from the United States. Each worked independently of the other, from different directions and for different reasons. It is perhaps due to this mutual independence that while the League was known in the Philippines in the early days, today it is little known among Filipinos. (10)
Following the example of Boston, a great number of leagues were formed throughout the country. These bore different names, but all professed to be opposed to the policy of imperialism. Notable among them were the leagues organized in New York, Philadelphia, Springfield, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Portland, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Washington. At first there was no means of co-ordinating these separate anti-imperialist organizations. In order to join them together, conferences of vice-presidents were held in Boston, and in New York, with the result that two general conferences were held in Chicago the following year, 1899.
It was the outcome of the latter meetings that gave rise to the American Anti-Imperialist League with headquarters at Chicago. The original League assumed the name of the New England Anti-Imperialist League and modified its constitution to make it a branch league contributing to the support of the American Anti-Imperialist League. The new constitution reads:
This organization shall be known as the New England Anti-Imperialist League. It shall be enrolled as a member of, and shall co-operate with, the American Anti-Imperialist League.
This League is organized to aid in holding the United States true to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. It seeks the preservation of the rights of the people, as guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Its members hold self-government to be fundamental and good government but incidental. It is its purpose to oppose by all proper means the extension of the sovereignty of the United States over subject peoples. It will withhold its support from any candidate or party that stands for the forcible subjugation of any people.
The officers of this League shall be a President, Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, and a Treasurer. Their duties and powers shall be those of like officers in similar organizations, subject to the control of the Executive Committee.
The work of the League shall be directed and controlled by an Executive Committee of not less than five members, in addition to the President, Secretary, and Treasurer, who shall be members ex-officios. Four members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. The Committee may from time to time appoint such standing and special committees as to it shall seem desirable, and may abolish any such committee or remove any member thereof at any time. No expenditure of the funds of the League shall be made or indebtedness incurred without its authority. It shall also have power to fill vacancies in its own membership and in any office of the League, to increase its own members and to add to the list of Vice-Presidents. The officers and Executive Committee shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting, and shall hold office for one year or until their successors have been elected.
The Executive Committee may contribute a fair proportion of the funds of the League to the support of the general work of the American Anti-Imperialist League.
Those who enroll their names, or cause them to be enrolled, with the Secretary, shall be deemed members of the League. Such membership shall not subject the holder thereof to any pecuniary liability; but it is hoped and expected that the members will voluntarily contribute to the support of the League to the extent of their several abilities. The members are expected to aid in the circulation of literature, in procuring signatures to petitions, and in the promotion of the work of the League.
The Annual Meeting of the League shall be held in Boston on the last Saturday of November, and the Executive Committee shall have power to call special meetings at any time by giving seven days' notice.
This Constitution may be amended at any meeting of the League, by the affirmative vote of a majority of those present.
However, all records show beyond doubt that the "Mother League" never really gave up its original leadership. At no time was it really supplanted by the "national" organization. This was due to the fact that the most ardent supporters of Anti-Imperialism were the little group of Boston men who dictated its policies and did most of its work. These gave not only their money, but also their time and their energy to the cause as no others did. After 1904 the League in Boston resumed its leadership in name and in fact. At its meeting on November 8, 1904, the League resumed its first name but unanimously adopted the following:
The Executive Committee may contribute a fair proportion of the funds of the League to the support of the general work of the American Anti-Imperialist League. (11)
Little was known of the American Anti-Imperialist League after this. The American public and the Filipino people were, therefore, right in identifying the League in Boston as the real champion of the Anti-Imperialist movement in the United States.
1. Record Book of Executive Committee Meetings of the Anti-Imperialist League, November 18, 1898-November 21, 1901.
2. Ibid., 3.
3. Ibid., 5.
4. Ibid., 7. Address to the People of the United States, Nov. 19, 1898.
5. Record Book of Executive Committee Meetings of the Anti-Imperialist League, 17.
6. Who's Who in America, 1900-1901.
7. Who's Who in America, 1900-1901.
8. Who's Who in America, 1900-1901.
9. The Philippines sent Felipe Agoncillo, a prominent Manila lawyer, to represent the country in Paris, at the Peace negotiations. Mr. Agoncillo was refused audience by the American Commissioners. He came to the United States, and was similarly treated by the President. Mr. Agoncillo was representing the Philippine Republic, a revolutionary government set up by Emilio Aguinaldo in June, 1898. The revolutionary government was tolerated by America's officials in the Philippines although not officially recognized, until the armed encounters between the two forces in Februray, 1899.
10. Just in front of the "Malacañang Palace," the official residence of the Governor General in Manila, is a small square called "La Liga Anti-Imperialista."
11. Sixth Annual Meeting of the Anti-Imperialist League. Report. November 26, 1904.
M. Patrick Cullinane, Liberty and Anti-Imperialism, July 4, 2007.