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Imperialists

 

            Death, inequality, and poor standards of living were the reputation of the Imperialists. Where freedom and liberty were promised, death and suffering prospered. Imperialist countries were ill prepared to carry out their promises as a result of failing to realize that they had no right to want to introduce to the world their own beliefs about what constituted civilization. America was one those countries that had no right to "put its talons on any other land" (Mark Twain). In many ways Twain was correct in summarizing the sentiments of the anti-Imperialists in his quote, expressing the idea that imperialist (such as America) countries should basically keep their hands to themselves. .
             All men are born equally. There may be slight differences in physical features, but mankind is equal when it comes to basic rights. Imperialism was America's way of finding some new way to profit off of the work of others. The countries involvement in Panama, Cuba, and China resulted in a cash flow that helped shape America into a rising power in the global community. The countries policies at the time were centered on keeping land acquisitions and trade with new foreign markets open. Such an example of such policies is the Open Door Policy in which America used the ports of other Imperialist countries in China to trade. By doing so America exploited the rights of the Chinese people by robbing them of the compensation that they would receive in direct trade with America. Instead the profits of such trade went to the countries that owned the ports that America traded through. China saw very little of the revenue that came through its borders. Its social and economic well-being was of little interest to outside powers and this would eventually lead to the collapse of China's late nineteenth century infrastructure ( a collapse it would not fully recover from until the mid- twentieth century). America "talons" were not spreading the freedom and liberty that they were promised to bring, instead they dug into foreign lands and squeezed until money poured into the open pockets of America's industries.


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