When Theodore Roosevelt read Rudyard Kipling‘s poem: “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands”, he was so very favourably impressed that he copied the poem and sent it to his friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge with the following comment : “rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view“. The publication of the poem in McClure’s Magazine in February 1899 coincided with the beginning of the Philippine-American War and U.S. Senate ratification of the treaty that placed Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines under American control. In his poem Kipling invited the U.S: to take up the “burden” of the empire, as Britain and other European nations had done. Kipling thought that the white man had the duty to help the less fortunate peoples of the empire and the goodness of their civilizing mission would have crushed any resented opposition even if, choosing the word “burden” to define this glorious accomplishment, Kipling somehow underlined that it was not such a simple task. More than one hundred years after the publication of this poem…
I have a black Kenyon friend who is really happy he’s able to send his children to a top notch boarding school set up by white folk in Africa. I think a good case could be made for Capitalism and Christianity uplifting the most people out of poverty. While neither is perfect I try to imagine the other utopia’s created by the rest of the world and can’t think of any.
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I believe you’re right. It’s too easy to dismiss everything when certain events in history becomes politically incorrect in hindsight. There are always good things that happened.
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Very well written, and an interesting read. I always thought that the poem should have been aboout the colonialists though, and rightly been called ‘The Black Man’s Burden.’
Best wishes, Pete.
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Yes.
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Great Post
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I’m glad you thought so, Mukul. It’s an excellent article.
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Yes it is.
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