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U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge speaks on the Philippine Question, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1900

December 13, 1901

Senator Beveridge's speech on the Philippines reflects an era of American imperialism in the Pacific.

The White Man's Burden 1899

December 13, 1901

"The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899. It was a response to the U.S. taking over the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Although Kipling's poem mixed exhortation to empire with sober warnings of the costs involved, imperialists within the United States understood the phrase "white man's burden" as a characterization for imperialism that justified the policy as a noble enterprise.

Chinese Exclusion Act May 6, 1882

December 13, 1901

This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.

Anson Burlingame, Speech in New York, June 23, 1868

December 13, 1901

Burlingame headed the Chinese government's delegation to the United States.

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