Empire and Expansion Part 1

In his book, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, the Reverend Josiah Strong advocated American expansion to

• maintain the international balance of power.
• open up new markets for industrial goods.
• spread American religion and values to backward nations.
• ease labor violence at home.

A major factor in the shift in American foreign policy toward imperialism in the late nineteenth century was the

• desire for more farmland.
• construction of an American-built isthmian canal between the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
• closing of the frontier.
• need for overseas markets for increased industrial and agricultural production.

Alfred Thayer Mahan argued that

• free trade was essential to a nation's economic health.
• control of the sea was the key to world domination.
• the United States should continue its policy of isolationism.
• the United States should immediately build an isthmian canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

To justify American intervention in the Venezuela boundary dispute with Britain, Secretary of State Olney invoked the

• Platt Amendment.
• Open Door policy.
• Monroe Doctrine.
• Foraker Act.

A primary reason that the British submitted their border dispute with Venezuela to arbitration was

• that growing tensions with Germany made Britain reluctant to engage in conflict with the United States.
• that they expected the Monroe Doctrine to be ruled invalid in the World Court.
• that they did not want to become involved in a dangerous war in South America.
• to undermine Spain's close relations with the Latin American republics.

One reason that the white American sugar lords tried to overthrow native Hawaiian rule and annex the islands to the United States was they

• found the government of Queen Liliuokalani repressive and inefficient.
• sought to control American foreign policy in the Pacific.
• wanted to convert the native Hawaiians and East Asian immigrants to Christianity.
• feared that Japan might intervene in Hawaii on behalf of abused Japanese imported laborers.

Which of the following prominent American leaders was least enthusiastic about U.S. imperialistic adventures in the 1890s?

• William Randolph Hearst
• Alfred Thayer Mahan
• William McKinley
• Grover Cleveland

President Grover Cleveland rejected the effort to annex Hawaii because

• he wanted to protect the interests of Louisiana sugar producers.
• the United States did not have the naval power to protect the islands against Japanese or German threats.
• he believed that the native Hawaiians had been wronged and that a majority of Hawaiians opposed annexation to the United States.
• passage of the McKinley Tariff made Hawaiian sugar unprofitable.

Americans favored providing aid to the Cuban revolutionaries for all of the following reasons except

• fear that the substantial American investment in Cuban sugar and other businesses would be lost.
• a belief that Spain's control of Cuba presented a national security threat to the United States.
• fear that Spanish misrule in Cuba menaced the Gulf of Mexico and the route to the proposed Panama Canal. .
• sympathy for Cuban patriots fighting for their freedom.

The battleship Maine was sunk by

• the Spanish.
• an accidental internal explosion on the ship.
• Cuban rebels.
• pro-war agents of William Randolph Hearst.