American History: US Begins to Extend Its Influence Far Beyond Its Shores

07 July 2010

The destruction of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Welcome to the MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the United States was not concerned much with events in other countries. It was too busy dealing with events inside its own borders. At that time, the nation was recovering from the Civil War. It was expanding to the West. And it was developing industries.

As production increased, the United States began trading more and more with other countries. At the same time, it needed a new foreign policy to defend its interests.

This week in our series, Maurice Joyce and Larry West discuss America's foreign policy in the late eighteen hundreds.

LARRY WEST: A growing number of lawmakers called for a new foreign policy. One was Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. Lodge said the great nations of the world were taking control of the world's undeveloped areas. As one of the great nations, Lodge said, the United States must not fall out of this line of march.

Another lawmaker said: "Fate has written our policy. The trade of the world must and shall be ours." Some of these ideas came from the writings of Captain Alfred Mahan. He was head of America's Naval War College.