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This Puck cartoon endorses the expansionist foreign policy of President William McKinley as “enlightened” and “rational.” The annexation of Hawaii and Puerto Rico (respectively, during and after the Spanish-American War of 1898) are shown as natural increases in the size of the United States, a process that began with the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and continued with the acquisitions of Florida (1821), Texas (1845), California (1848), and Alaska (1867). Note that the Philippines are not mentioned. Uncle Sam rejects the tonic of “Anti-Expansion Policy” offered by three anti-imperialists (left-right): Oswald Ottendorfer, publisher and editor of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung; Carl Schurz, a vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League and former U.S. senator (1869-1874) from Missouri, secretary of the interior (1877-1881), and editor of Harper’s Weekly (1892-1898); and, Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World. |
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Warning
1860
