Americans believed in the supremacy of the American way, and felt it their duty to spread this way of life with the world. This is clearly seen in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “White Man’s Burden,” in which Kipling asserts that Americans must Christianize underdeveloped nations to save them. America had naturally risen to the top, it was an understood responsibility to lay claim and provide for other, weaker nations. Many also supported a trend that took after social Darwinism, that imperialism was the natural expansion and success of a well-evolved culture. America hoped to spread her own religion, language, and economics while at the same time keeping other cultures out. This thinly veiled racism was a factor for the annexation of Hawaii, in an attempt to prevent the spread of Asian culture to the U.S. Instead of letting that happen, America purchased an entire chain of islands, and forcefully exerted American …show more content…
The motive behind being of the same religion or economically stable went further than eye level; the global ripple effect was what mattered. Why have money? To have more than the country across the pond. Why control territories so far away? To have more power than the growing empires of Eurasia. Why promote Protestantism? To hold to the legacy of America’s first settlers, separating from what they did not believe right. Instead of being the underdog, America wanted to be respected, to be feared, and to be envied. The United States sought to rival the imperialistic ventures of European countries such as England and Spain to reinforce its own identity. America’s humble beginnings had produced a bold and even audacious country that had prospered despite the odds. The United States of America vowed to prove that a nation founded on such revolutionary principles as found in the Constitution could weather the storms of bureaucracy, corruption, and civil war, and still rise to the top,