0.1 The progressive era (part ii)  (Page 6/11)

Take up the White Man's burden--

Send forth the best ye breed--

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild--

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child.

Overwhelmingly, Progressive reformers did not look upon African Americans as needing tutelage, rather they looked upon the need of bringing American political, social, economic, and religious ideas to the less-fortunate around the world, such as in the Philippines. Senator Albert Beveridge (R-Ind) articulated the necessity of the United States being active in helping to civilize the Philippine people arguing that unless the U.S. helped them to develop western ideas and practices over there, those people might migrate to the United States. Beveridge also believed in the special mission of the United States, evidence by his 1898 speech entitled “March of the Flag” when he asked, “Therefore, in this campaign, the question is larger than a party question. It is an American question. It is a world question. Shall the American people continue their march toward the commercial supremacy of the world? Shall free institutions broaden their blessed reign as the children of liberty wax in strength, until the empire of our principles is established over the hearts of all mankind?”

During the Progressive Era, American decision-makers’ attentions were certainly not focused on the plight of minorities. One sad reality of the federal government turning their backs towards the newly-freed citizens in 1877 was lynching. The episodes of lynchings throughout the South increased ach decade. In the wake of the Great War, blacks began to be lynched in increasing numbers in the North and in the West. Those who participated in these murders typically held no fear of arrest or incarceration as many of the perpetrators had their photograph taken next to the dead black people. These photos were then sold as souvenirs throughout the United States.

Lynchings were extrajudicial punishment and thus were, by definition, murder. However, almost no one was arrested for these murders. Local and state officials turned blind eyes, and at times were even complicit in the lynchings. Thus, American reformers, such as Ida B. Wells, sought help from the federal government. After the death of three close friends by the hands of a white mob, and after no support from the local police, Wells wrote: “The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition without pay, but the order is rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.”