Propaganda

          It is impossible to determine the exact amount of propaganda work which the anti-imperialists accomplished. In the first place, no accurate statement can be made of the total membership of the Anti-Imperialist League. From scattered correspondence and general reports, we are sure that the membership of the organizations was drawn from all the states in the union, and even from Alaska. (1)  The complete records of the various leagues are not however available: First, their work was so scattered that it is now virtually impossible to locate all their records, if indeed, they still exist. In the second place, an even greater difficulty is presented by the fact that individuals, on their own initiative, as well as in collaboration with local organizations, spent unrecorded money, (2) upon propaganda of many kinds. Only the records of the “Mother League” is intact. Fortunately, these are the most important of all; for the Anti-Imperialist League at Boston was the league which accomplished the most and lasted the longest. It was this organization which to Americans, Filipinos and everybody else meant “The Anti-Imperialist League.” It represented the American anti-imperialist movement which grew out of the Spanish-American-War.
          The Anti-Imperialist League was the first organization in the twentieth century in the United States to use modem methods of disseminating its ideas on a truly national scale. Its propaganda was comparable to that carried on during the Great War, except that it was confined to the subject of American colonization overseas, rather than to the interest and welfare of the whole civilized world. The League lavishly used every means it could muster to convince people of the righteousness of its cause. Only the radio and the motion picture were absent from its publicity arsenal. It was most active still within the era of the “Stereopttican lecture.”
          The purpose of the Anti-Imperialist League was to create a public opinion definitely opposed to imperialism. It was not a political party, and therefore could not appeal to the people on the basis of party loyalty. It had to reach their minds and their hearts. It appealed to their patriotism and their moral sense, and to their reverence for the established principles of American liberty. It sought to secure a following powerful enough to induce the Democratic Party to aver that imperialism was its major issue in the election of 1900, and to detach Republican voters from their party on that single issue. It had, certainly, an ambitious program, considering the fact that the active group within the League was only a handful of men. But these were men who gave their time and money to the propagation of an ideal, and what they accomplished was indeed remarkable.
          What were the means employed by the anti-imperialists to appeal to the public? They were varied,—First, whenever favorable occasion presented itself, organized public meetings were held. Faneuil Hall was the most-favored scene of such gatherings in Massachusetts, chosen because of its historical connection with American independence. It was not only the birthplace (3) of the Anti-Imperialist League itself, but was especially chosen as a platform of appeal during the campaign against the abuses of the army in the Philippines. (4) The anti-imperialists appealed from the pulpit, at meetings of labor organizations, at dinners, and in general wherever and whenever they could find a sympathetic audience. Lectures were given when possible, and men were employed for this purpose. Also, returned soldiers were paid to give talks before the public, the expenses incurred being born by the League. The employment of returned soldiers was most frequent from 1902 to 1904. (5) It was in connection with such lectures that pictures of massacres of the Filipinos were distributed with the evident purpose of arousing indignation at the alleged inhuman conduct of the army. The picture which aroused the Most discord ways one depicting a massacre of the Moros by a detachment commanded by Leonard Wood, who twenty-five years later became Governor General of the Philippines.
          Secondly, although public meetings and lectures were able to create interest, a wider propaganda could only be carried on through the distribution of printed matter. A grand total of 1,184,188 (6) printed items in pamphlets, leaflets, broadsides, books, poems, newspapers, cards, circulars and letters, reached the American reading public. The amount of work done by a handful of men seems almost beyond comprehension. For convenience the great mass of printed material used by the League is here considered under several heads, such as pamphlets and leaflets, reports, reprints of printed letters and articles from the newspapers and magazines, appeals, addresses and protests, broadsides, cards and circulars, books, poems and newspapers.
          The pamphlets and leaflets were articles and arguments either printed by the League or presented to it for distribution. In many cases, they were written by people who were not members of the organization; but the work was published by the League with their consent. There were in all 417,250 kinds of this sort published by the League. Of a similar order were the reprints of articles and letters previously published in magazines and newspapers, such as those written by Andrew Carnegie, Senator Hoar, Carl Schurz, Moorfield Storey, William Howard Taft, (7) Elihu Root, Winslow Warren, Grover Cleveland, Charles Eliot Norton, Governor Boutwell, Herbert Welsh, Fiske Warren, H. Parker Willis, and numerous others. (8)
It is deemed proper to mention in this connection two men who went to the Philippines for the purpose of investigation, unofficially, but much heralded by the League. The first was Mr. Fiske Warren, who, because of a personal friendship with the Lopez (9) family, went to the Islands twice. Mr. Warren wrote many articles and reports which were lavishly used by the Anti-Imperialist League, although before he left for the Islands he resigned from the executive committee in order that his journey might be quite unofficial. The other was the visit made by H. Parker Willis in 1903, at the expense of Mr. Moorfield Storey, Charles Francis Adams, and William J. Palmer. It should not be forgotten that Mr. Willis went there outwardly as a private investigator, and not at the expense of the Anti-Imperialist League. Whatever was done was upon his responsibility and that of the few who sent him. (10) As a result of this trip, Mr. Willis wrote articles on the economic condition of the Philippines. His book Our Philippine Problem still ranks as one of the best references on the Philippines. The volume was published at the expense of Mr. Storey, but had such a sale that Mr. Willis (11) returned the money and gave part of his royalties to the League. (12)
          Another form of pamphlet extensively utilized was the reprint of speeches made on the public platform or delivered in the halls of Congress. As a public appeal, the effect of this form of propaganda was enormous. It was the form which the anti-imperialists first employed in disseminating their sentiments, and in which they trusted to the last. From 1913 (13) it was upon the speeches delivered in Congress or in the Philippine Committee meetings and hearings that the Anti-Imperialist League depended for materials of propaganda, except for the publication of its annual official report, which was a very brief enumeration of its activities, and appeals for the continuance of its work.
          The “appeals” and “addresses” were usually a page or two of printed matter distributed in the form of a letter to the American People, or to the President, or to Congressmen, asking them to fight against the tendency towards imperialistic expansion. The broadsides and Liberty Tracts were in the form of large leaflets, and contained brief quotations or summaries of speeches of well-known American statesmen and writers on the colonial problems of the United States. Washington was quoted time and time again, especially that part of his farewell address in which he warned his countrymen from European entanglements. Lincoln's several speeches on slavery and human rights were often reprinted.
          There were a few books which the anti-imperialist propagandists considered important, such as the Liberty Poems, a collection of poems written against imperialism, books on observations in the Philippines, and books like that of H. Parker Willis Our Philippine Problem, Herbert Welsh’s The Other Man’s Country, Charles Francis Adams’ Imperialism and Tracts of our Forefathers, The Story of the Lopez Family.Mr. Fiske Warren procured the publications of the last, because of his friendship with the Lopez family. He was likewise responsible for the publication of a little diary entitled A Massachusetts Woman in the Philippines, written in 1902. It is among the early tourist reports written by an American woman about the Philippines, and is important only on that account, for it does not contain much material of great political value.
          The poems written about imperialism cannot be passed without comment. Kipling's The White Man's Burden was used by the Imperialists as an excuse far American dominion in the Philippines, and the anti-imperialists enthusiastically responded in poetry condemning the egotism of the white man in thinking that God has created him as the kindly master and guardian of other races. In the Liberty Poems is David Greene Haskins’ interesting answer to the imperialists entitled, What is the White Man's Burden?, in which he contends that it is nothing but the white man's hypocritical excuse for their greed of other peoples’ lands.
The records show that 169,700 chain cards were sent out officially by the Anti-Imperialist League. Each recipient was asked to write ten others to persons who might be interested. There are, of course, no means of checking up the spread of these cards Edward Atkinson, because of his extreme views and activities with regards to the Philippine problem, was most responsible for this particular propaganda. Atkinson was at one time subjected to administrative investigation for sending allegedly seditious documents to soldiers in the Philippines, and although he was never prosecuted, the Postmaster General ordered his works such as “The Cost of War and Warfare” removed from mail for the Islands.(14)
          Even newspapers containing important Philippine news were bought by the thousands and distributed. Also available Filipino papers were used, either as a whole or translated in part. Philippine manuscripts were translated, the most widely known being General Aguinaldo's Resena Veridica de la Revolution Filipina (The True Version of the Philippine Revolution).
          The Anti-Imperialist League sent thousands of personal letters to friends in Congress and to others. These letters form one of the most important manuscript sources of this work. They came from all classes of Americans, from enemies of the League, and from sympathizers. The effect of information thus given by the League to anti-imperialists in Congress cannot be accurately estimated. It seems, however, to have been the source of many of the anti-imperialist arguments. Members of Congress time and again asked for information from the League, and chiefly on this account, Erving Winslow, the Secretary, found it desirable to have an office in Washington. Furthermore, Mr. H. Parker Willis, then a young journalist, although not a member of the League, helped the League in interviewing the people in the capital, acting as an intermediary between Congressmen and other public officials and the League. (15) The League also encouraged essay contests and debates in schools and gave prizes for them. (16)
          A more official role was that played by Mr. Jackson H. Ralston, an eminent lawyer employed by the League in the Friar Lands Question. Mr. Ralston was a rabid “anti,” a brilliant scholar, and well-known among the officials in the government. His views created disquiet among the imperialists and evidently much of discomfort, if not of actual fear. Dean C. Worcester, who was then Secretary of the Interior in the Philippines greatly, resented his activities. Worcester was accused of favoring himself, a nephew, and friends in the sales of government lands in the Philippines. He was accused, with strong circumstantial evidence against him, of avoiding the law cleverly enough not to violate the letter of it. Feeling became extremely bitter, and resulted in retaliation through public correspondence. Failing to personally obtain the information of the League membership and activities and inside workings, he employed (17) a man who posed as a sympathizer of the League, and through the latter's hypocrisy obtained the mailing list of the organization. To the anti-imperialists this was a black spot on Worcester's character. However, Worcester was thus enabled to send his reply to the people who had heard Mr. Ralston's accusations and that of Erving Winslow. (18)
          The annual reports of the League and reports of all of its important public meetings (in which the addresses given were printed in full) were widely distributed as propaganda over a period of twenty years. 32,500 of these documents were printed and sent throughout the country. After 1910, they constituted the only means of printed propaganda which the Anti-Imperialist League employed, aside from reprints of speeches in Congress and occasional newspaper articles.
          The following table gives the number of items distributed annually by the
League between 1898 and 1916, according to the official records of the organization:
    1898 (Nov. to Dec.) 165,550
    1899            128,633

                                                                                Total    1,164,188

          Note: The Executive Committee Records do not include any record for 1917, even of meetings. For 1918 there is no record of meetings, although there seem to have been no materials printed or distributed. In so far as contribution and expenses are concerned, the League kept a complete record until 1920, found in its annual report.

Table of propaganda material, classified as to character, distributed, 1898-1916:

Pamphlets and leaflets	417,250
Reports, annual and special	29,000
Letters and magazines reprints	92,500
Speeches, private and in Congress	400,643
Appeals, addresses and protest	31,500
Broadsides an1d Liberty Tracts	12,000
Circulars and chain cards	169,700
Books and poems	4,830
Newspapers	12,765

                                                                                Total    1,164,188

 

1. Annual Reports of the Anti-Imperialist League, 1905-1919.
2. See Appendix B for Details.
3. Annual Reports, 1898-1899.
4. Report of the Faneuil Hall Meeting of Protest, March 19, 1903.
5. Annual Reports, 1898-1920.
6. Record Book of the League, 1898-1921.
7. Then Secretary of War, and soon afterwards first civil governor of the Philippines.
8. See Appendix A.
9. Sixto Lopez, Secretary to Felipe Agoncillo when the latter came to the United States as ambassador of the Philippine Republic.
10. Possibly George Foster Peabody and Edwin Burritt Smith also helped. There is no absolute way of ascertaining the fact. Moorfield Storey to General Palmer, July 28, 1903; H. Parker Willis to Charles Francis Adams, August 9, 1902; H. Parker Willis to Herbert Welsh, August 14, 1902; August 19, 1902. General Palmer to Matthew K. Sniffen, August 4, 1903.
11. Sixth Annual Report of the Anti-Imperialist League, 3.
12. H. Parker Willis and Moorfield Storey, Correspondence, 1904-1906.
13. See Appendix B.
14. Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1899.
15. See Chapters VIII, IX.
16. Annual Reports, 1902-1920.
17. See Chapter Xl.
18. Dean C. Worcester, Open Letter to the Members of the Anti-Imperialist League.

 

M. Patrick Cullinane, Liberty and Anti-Imperialism, July 5, 2007.

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