Anti-Imperialist Reaction to Rudyard Kipling's White Man's Burden

The February issue of McClure's Magazine in 1899 published Rudyard Kipling's The White Man's Burden, a poem that forewarned of the pitfalls of imperialism and also gave an encouraging push to those who believed the civilizing 'lesser-peoples' a noble mission. The same month Kipling's poem was published the Treaty of Paris was ratified and the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam were acquired by the United States while Cuba remained occupied by the military. Advocates of this acquisition gravitated to the poem and popularized it as the literary voice of "benevolent assimilation."

In opposition, anti-imperialists acted on the popularity of the poem to attack the McKinley policies as too great a "burden" or one that was impossible to realize through poetic parodies, essays, and editorials.

Find below the original poem as published in McClure's and the response from anti-imperialists. Some sources have not yet been digitalized.

Rudyard Kipling, 'The White Man's Burden,' McClure's Magazine, February, 1899.

'The White Man's Burden,' Buffalo Express, February 6, 1899.

Alfred Webb, 'Mr. Kipling's Call to America,' The Nation, February 7, 1899.

'The White Man's Burden,' Washington Post, February 7, 1899.

C. S. H., 'Mr. Kipling's God,' Outlook, February 10, 1899.

'Text is "White Man's Burden",' Chicago Daily Tribune, February 13, 1899.

Ernest Howard Crosby, 'The Real "White Man's Burden",' New York Times, February 15, 1899.

Caroline B. LaMonte , 'National Hymn Revised,' New York Times, February 16, 1899.

E. A. Strong, 'Take Up the White Man's Burden,' The Nation, Vol. 68, Issue 1755, February 16, 1899.

Droch, 'The White Man's Burden: Uncle Sam to Kipling,' Life, February 16, 1899.

Winslow Warren, 'The White Man's Burden,' Boston Evening Transcript, February 18, 1899.

F. C. W., 'The White Man's Burden,' The Public, February 18, 1899.

Howard S. Taylor, 'The Poor Man's Burden,' The Public, February 18, 1899.

William Augustus Croffut, 'The White Man's Burden,' Washington Post, February 19, 1899.

Bruce Grit, 'Why Talk of the White Man's Burden,' The Colored American, February 25, 1899.

David Greene Haskins, 'What is the White Man's Burden,' February, 1899.

Paul P. Randall, 'The Poor Man's Burden,' The Broad Axe, March 2, 1899.

Alice Smith-Travers, 'The White Man's Burden,' The Freeman, March 4, 1899.

'The White Man's Burden,' The Washington Bee, March 11, 1899.

Henry Labouchere, 'The Brown Man's Burden,' Christian Observer, March 15, 1899. (Including 'The Christian Burden').

W. P. G., 'Beware of the Lion When He Talks Like a Man,' City and State, March 16, 1899.

J. Dallas Bowser, 'Take Up the Black Man's Burden,' The Colored American, March 18, 1899.

'Two Burdens,' The Colored American, March 18, 1899.

'The White Man's Burden,' The Colored American, March 25, 1899.

Henry Slade Goff, 'Take Up the Strong Man's Burden,' Farm, Stock, and Home, March, 1899.

George E. MacNeill, 'The Poor Man's Burden,' Boston Globe, March, 1899.

H.T. Johnson, 'The Black Man's Burden,' The Christian Recorder, March, 1899.

Tom Carder, Jr., 'The Bearers,' The Public, April 1, 1899.

'A White Man's Burden,' Chicago Daily Tribune, April 1, 1899.

'The White Man's Burden,' Washington Post, April 3, 1899.

H. Blunt, 'Take Up the White Man's Burden,' Illinois Record, April 15, 1899.

William Dean Howells, 'Opinions on "The White Man's Burden",' New York Sun, April 30, 1899.

R. K. Beecham, 'America's Mission,' Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, April 1899.

'The White Man's Burden,' Eclectic Magazine, Vol. 69, No. 4. (April, 1899).

Anna Manning Comfort, 'Home Burdens of Uncle Sam,' The Public, May 13, 1899.

Henry Austin, 'The Kipling Hysteria,' The Dial, May 16, 1899.

Herbert Welsh, 'The White Man's Burden?,' City and State, July 20, 1899.

Virgina M. Butterfield, 'Cling to the White Man's Burden,' The Public, August 19, 1899.

John J. Hill, 'The White Man's Burden,' Christian Advocate, October 19, 1899.

Robert Underwood Johnson, 'The White Man's Burden,' New York Evening Post, January, 1901.

Stephen Bell, 'The White Man's Burden,' The Public, July 4, 1901.

Bertrand Shadwell, 'The Wrong Man's Burden,' The Public, July 25, 1903.

C. E. D. Phelps, 'The Burden of Profit,' City and State, December 12, 1903.

Lulu Baxter Guy, 'The Black Man's Burden,' Cleveland Journal, December 26, 1903.

Sixto Lopez, 'The Filipinos Will Not "Take Up the White Man's Burden",' Springfield Republican, May 6, 1904.

M. Patrick Cullinane, Liberty and Anti-Imperialism, August 3, 2008.

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