Using Primary Sources to Evaluate Secondary Sources
When historians are faced with competing interpretations of the past, they often look at primary source material to help evaluate the different arguments. Four speeches follow, each by an American politician who supported U.S. annexation and rule over the Philippines. The first is from President William McKinley’s State of the Union speech following U.S. annexation of the Philippines and the start of the Philippine-American War. The second is from Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican senator from Massachusetts who was a leading supporter of American imperialism. The third speech is from Albert Beveridge, senator from Indiana, who supported Lodge’s imperialist policies. And the last speech, from Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, was delivered twelve days prior to assuming the presidency following McKinley’s death. While these four politicians offer very different justifications for American annexation and rule over the Philippines, they were all prominent advocates of American imperialism. Your task is to understand their arguments and see how they might be used to support the analysis of the two historians.
Carefully read the primary sources and answer the following questions. Decide which of the primary source documents support or refute Painter’s and Hoganson’s argument about the annexation of the Philippines. You may find that some documents do both but for different parts of each historian’s interpretation. Be sure to identify which specific components of each historian’s argument the documents support or refute.
What arguments for U.S. retention of the Philippines does each senator offer?
Which of these sources would either Painter or Hoganson (or both) find most useful, and how might they use them to support their argument?
What might be the limitations on the usefulness of the sources for supporting their arguments?
After looking at the primary sources about annexation, which historian’s argument do you find more compelling, and why do you find it so? If you find both arguments equally compelling, how could you combine the arguments?