From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (47 page)

The problem of Chinese immigrants in the United States was more complex. Lured to America to perform backbreaking work in western mines and on the transcontinental railroad, the Chinese played an instrumental role in developing the nation. But their growing numbers, pronounced cultural differences, resistance to assimilation, and willingness to work for cheap wages provoked a vicious nativist backlash. Chinese were beaten, lynched, and brutally murdered, giving rise to the saying that a doomed person did not have a "Chinaman's chance." There was also rising agitation, especially in the West, for the exclusion of Chinese immigrants. China had once been indifferent to the treatment of its nationals abroad, but American actions were so egregious that it could not
but express outrage. It must have wondered too at the pretenses of people who claimed to have established a superior civilization. Because of the unequal treaties, China was not even sovereign in its own territory. It could do little but protest. While Westerners enjoyed the protection of extraterritoriality in China, the Chinese government could not safeguard the lives of its citizens who were victimized in America.

The United States settled the issue on its own terms. Congress in 1879 passed a bill limiting the number of Chinese who could come into the country on any ship. As anti-Chinese as he was anti-British, then-Senator Blaine defended the legislation as a blow for the "civilization of Christ" against the "civilization of Confucius."
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Arguing that the bill violated U.S. treaty obligations, Hayes courageously vetoed it. Recognizing the political strength of the agitators, however, the government negotiated a new treaty with China permitting the United States to limit or suspend but not to "absolutely prohibit" Chinese immigration. Congress immediately suspended immigration for twenty years, provoking an Arthur veto. The legislators responded with a new bill suspending Chinese immigration for ten years, the first such exclusion in U.S. history. More exclusionist laws followed. With no choice but to acquiesce, the Chinese in 1894 agreed to a new treaty that "absolutely prohibited" the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. Diplomatic relations worsened during the 1890s.
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The brutal mob killing of eleven Italians in New Orleans provoked an 1891 mini-crisis with Italy. A sharp rise in the number of Italian immigrants and an increase in gang warfare caused rising tensions in that tradition-bound southern city. The murder of a popular young police superintendent, allegedly by Italians with connections to a sinister "mafia," set off popular outrage. When the first group of those charged was found not guilty—a "thunderbolt of surprise," screamed the
Times-Picayune
—an angry mob including some of the city's leading citizens descended upon the jail, gunned down eight of the accused inside the walls, and removed and lynched three more from nearby tree limbs and lampposts. A dishonored and furious Italian government denounced this "atrocious deed," demanded protection for Italians in the United States, and insisted upon reparations. Belying his nickname "Jingo Jim," an ill and preoccupied Blaine at first responded complacently. Rising to the occasion as the dispute heated up, he retorted in notably undiplomatic language that some
of the victims were U.S. citizens, explained that the federal government could not impose its will on the state of Louisiana, and expressed to Italy's minister his indifference what Italians might think about U.S. institutions. "You may do as you choose," he snarled in conclusion. Italy recalled its minister from Washington. Both nations strutted and blustered, and there was talk of war. After months of irresolution, Italy finally backed away from its threats, Harrison expressed regret for the killings, and the Italian minister returned to Washington. The perpetrators went unpunished, but an indemnity of $25,000 was eventually paid to the families of three of the victims. In the United States, the affair stoked a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment leading to pressure for additional exclusionist legislation. Sea power advocates used the threat of war and the alleged vulnerability of U.S. ports even to the Italian fleet to drum up support for a larger navy.
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Quite different and much more significant was an increasingly assertive American response to the treatment of Jews in Russia. Russian anti-Semitism was deeply rooted. It grew much worse in the 1880s when famine ravaged the country and Jews were scapegoated for mounting revolutionary activities and assassination of the tsar. The issue involved the United States in several ways. American Jews traveling to Russia on business suffered various kinds of discrimination and appealed to their government for help. In addition, as their treatment in Russia became unbearable, thousands of Jews fled to a seemingly welcoming United States and through public protests called attention to the plight of those left behind. Americans were reading more about events abroad and beginning to sense that, as an emerging power, their country might exert some influence over other societies. Some began to view Russia's treatment of Jews as an outrage against humanity. Immigration officials and relief societies were overwhelmed by floods of immigrants and pleaded for surcease. Some Americans, including Secretary of State Walter Gresham, privately accused Russia of conspiring to undermine American society by "forcing upon our shores a numerous class of immigrants destitute of resources and unfitted in many important respects for absorption into our body politic."
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The "Jewish Question" assumed growing importance in U.S. foreign relations. The State Department managed to protect the interests of most American Jews through quiet and persistent diplomacy. While affirming U.S. reluctance "officiously and offensively to intermeddle," diplomats also appealed to the Russian government in the most carefully phrased language and on the grounds of its own self-interest to cause the mistreatment of "these unfortunate fellow beings to cease."
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Russian officials retorted that the United States had effectively dealt with problems posed by Chinese immigrants. If the influx of Jews grew too burdensome, they too could be excluded. Heightened Russian repression stimulated further Jewish emigration to the United States. The St. Petersburg government opened a new area of conflict by refusing to issue visas to American Jews. Along with Russian-speaking journalist and lecturer George Kennan's imflammatory mid-1880s expose of the horrific conditions in Siberian prisons, the ongoing dispute over treatment of Jews soured traditional Russian-American friendship and provoked some Americans to call for revolution in Russia. The issue was as important as any other in getting the American public involved in the "new foreign policy" of the 1890s. It was the first of numerous cases where pressure from ethnic groups and humanitarian concerns pushed the United States to challenge other governments, even friendly ones, on issues of human rights.
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The U.S. economy was the marvel of the world in the late nineteenth century. The gross national product quadrupled from $9 billion during 1869–73 to $37 billion between 1897 and 1901. Production soared. Steel output increased from 77,000 tons in 1870 to 11,270,000 in 1900. Wheat and corn production doubled. The quality of American products, their low prices, and improved transportation produced a surge in trade. Exports jumped from $234 million in 1865 to $1.5 billion in 1900. In 1876, the centennial year, exports for the first time began regularly to surpass imports. As a result of rampant industrialization, exports of manufactured goods started to catch up with traditionally dominant agricultural products and would pass them in 1913. Britain was the major consumer of U.S. exports, followed by Germany and France—in all, Europe absorbed close to 80 percent of the total by the late 1880s. Closer to home, Canada and
Cuba were the major purchasers. For the first time, Americans had capital to invest elsewhere. By the end of the century, the nation was second only to Britain as an economic power. Americans hailed their rising prowess in the most exuberant terms. It is "our manifest destiny to rise to the first rank among the manufacturing nations," one enthusiast proclaimed. We have sent "coals to Newcastle, cotton to Manchester, cutlery to Sheffield, potatoes to Ireland, champagne to France, watches to Switzerland," boasted another.
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Some Americans increasingly feared that their blessing could become their curse. A severe depression in 1873 wreaked devastation across the land, raising concerns among some businessmen and government leaders that producing more than could be absorbed at home threatened economic stability. Exports still represented only about 7 percent of the gross national product, but they came to be seen as the key to economic well-being. "The house we live in has got too small," economist David Wells warned. Without an expansion of foreign markets, "we are certain to be smothered in our own grease."
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Gilded Age politicians and businessmen thus set out to protect existing foreign markets and find new ones. The government began to play a more important role in this process. Such efforts were not always determined or systematic. Most businesses continued to focus on the domestic market. Devotion to protectionism inhibited the negotiation of new trade agreements and overturned existing ones. The results thus did not match up to the rhetoric.
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At the same time, a growing concern for foreign markets spurred the United States to project its influence into new areas and even participate in an international conference, use old weapons with new vigor, and take a tough line with the European powers on vital trade issues.

The search for markets took Americans to distant shores. As early as 1867, Cdr. Robert W. Shufeldt had sought to emulate Perry by opening Korea, the "Hermit Kingdom," but he was twice rebuffed. Finally, in 1882, with the help of Chinese intermediaries, he negotiated the Treaty of Chemulpo, providing for trade on a most-favored-nation basis, the establishment of diplomatic relations, and, as in earlier treaties with China and Japan, extraterritoriality. The Chinese hoped to use the United States to strengthen their own control over a neighboring country, but the
Americans insisted, in Frelinghuysen's words, that "Corea is an independent, sovereign power." Seeking to exploit the United States to secure its independence, Korea agreed to an exchange of missions. A group of Koreans visited the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. A U.S. naval officer served as adviser to the Korean court. The Yankees quickly learned that Seoul was an especially precarious place to work. Minister Lucius Foote helped arrange a settlement between pro-Chinese and Japanese factions, but the result was to reduce U.S. influence. In any event, the United States quickly contented itself with being a minor player in a country torn by rivalries between larger and nearby nations. Trade was negligible.
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Some Americans also looked to the Congo River basin of West Africa for markets. A series of reports in the
New York Herald
first drew notice to the region. The newspaper in 1869 sent Scottish-born adventurer Henry M. Stanley to the Congo to find the long-missing medical missionary David Livingstone, who had gained international notoriety by "discovering" the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls. Stanley's 1871 encounter with his fellow Scotsman near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania, immortalized in the oft-quoted greeting "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," caused a worldwide sensation, attracting more attention to Africa. After a triumphant return to the United States, the intrepid explorer ranged deep into the Congo region, extolling its commercial possibilities. Some timely lobbying by Civil War diplomat and entrepreneur Henry Sanford, at this time serving as an agent for Belgium's King Leopold II, further promoted the Congo as a market for U.S. products. President Arthur himself spoke of "covering those unclad millions with our domestic cottons," calculating that "but three yards per capita would make an enormous aggregate for our cotton mills."
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The lure of African markets caused the United States in 1884 to break long-standing precedent by participating in an international conference held in Berlin to deal with the Congo region. The U.S. delegates were instructed to promote freedom of trade and steer clear of European entanglements—no mean task. The result was far less than America's Congo publicists had hoped. The conference solemnly declared itself in favor of free trade, but it also recognized Leopold's African International Association as the governing body. The association turned out to be a thinly veiled cover for exclusive trading arrangements and the most brutal
exploitation of Africans. In any event, Republicans and Democrats denounced the agreement as an "entangling alliance." Cleveland took office in March 1885 just as the act was negotiated and, as with several other expansionist measures, refused to submit it to the Senate. The "noble dream" produced negligible results.
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Republican efforts to use reciprocity treaties to expand foreign trade met a similar fate. Monroe and Adams had employed the device earlier in the century to challenge mercantilist trade barriers. More recently, Hamilton Fish through reciprocity had bound Hawaii economically to the United States. At a time when Europeans threatened to shut America out of foreign markets, reciprocity had a special attraction. It seemed an ideal means to secure new outlets for U.S. products when free trade was impossible and retaliation dangerous while still permitting some protection. In dealing with less developed nations, it had special advantages. It could gain free entry for foreign raw materials and markets for U.S. manufactured goods. As the Hawaiian example had shown, it established a means of control without resort to colonial rule.

Reciprocity was the "linchpin" of Arthur and Frelinghuysen's foreign trade policy. They especially targeted Latin America, a "natural mart of supply and demand," in Arthur's words, hoping to tie Latin economies to the United States, weaken European influence, and promote larger U.S. political aims. They attached special importance to a treaty with Mexico, naming former president U.S. Grant as a negotiator and working out an agreement that exchanged American manufactured goods for Mexican foods and raw materials. Diplomat John W. Foster bludgeoned Spain into agreements for Cuba and Puerto Rico that eliminated virtually all barriers to trade. The Cuban deal, Foster boasted, was "the most perfect reciprocity treaty our Government has ever made," giving the United States "an almost complete commercial monopoly" and thus "annexing Cuba in the most desirable way."
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Foster negotiated an even more favorable agreement with Santo Domingo making the U.S. dollar the unit of currency in bilateral trade.