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  • Irish-American Ambivalence Toward the Spanish-American War
  • Ryan D. Dye

The Spanish-American War is widely recognized as having begun the road to an "American Empire," and less widely remembered as a decisive moment in the formation of the so-called special relationship between Great Britain and the United States. On November 11, 1898, American General Nelson A. Miles declared at a banquet held in his honor in New York that the "war has given us reason and opportunity to appreciate our obligations to the mother country." In response to General Miles's warm tribute, British Captain Alfred Paget replied that "[w]e shall be proud in the future whenever we see the Stars and Stripes on a warship or a merchantman, for we shall know that on board we have, if not a brother, an ally."1 This friendly exchange epitomizes the sea change that took place in Anglo-American relations during the 1890s. Britain and America, after over a century-long lover's quarrel, began to find common ground during the Spanish-American War. The war removed Cuba from Spanish rule, and won Spanish lands in the Caribbean and the Pacific for the United States. During the war, Great Britain—needing an ally to support its own project of empire building in Asia and Africa—encouraged its Anglo-Saxon cousin to join them in taking up this "white man's burden."2

Irish Americans found their loyalties divided by the Spanish-American War. They joined their fellow Americans in overwhelmingly supporting America's declaration of war against Spain.3 To their chagrin, however, Catholics found their patriotism questioned by nativists who wondered whether Catholics genuinely [End Page 98] wanted an American victory over their Spanish co-religionists.4 This skepticism provoked Irish-American Catholics to redouble their efforts to prove that they could be both good Catholics and loyal American citizens.

Yet, as Irish Americans wrapped themselves in the American flag, many could not conceal their growing dismay over a prospective Anglo-American alliance. As they commemorated the centenary of the 1798 Rebellion, many believed that their real enemy—and America's true nemesis—was not Spain but Britain, and they feared that the nascent American Empire and the hated British Empire were becoming kindred spirits. Irish Americans thus trumpeted their patriotic support for America's war aims, while vigorously condemning any special relationship between the United States and Great Britain. Overall, therefore, Irish Americans expressed ambivalence about the Spanish-American War's impact upon American foreign policy.

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As a whole, Irish America of 1898 enjoyed more power, wealth, and influence than ever before. Irish Americans dominated municipal politics in numerous major cities, including in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.5 These urban power brokers enabled an increasing number of Irish to achieve or even surpass educational and occupational parity with the larger American population, and to far exceed the standard of living of the new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.6 The number of Irish Americans in manual, unskilled jobs was on the decline, though they played a significant leadership role in the emerging labor movement.7 The sons and daughters of the famine-era Irish were ascending the social and occupational ladder.

Although Irish Americans had reasons for optimism in 1898, there also were causes for concern. In the preceding decade, another of Ireland's periodic famines plagued the West, pushing thousands more Irishmen and women out of the country.8 Irish immigrants to the United States in these years arrived [End Page 99] in a country still recovering from the four-year depression brought on by the economic collapse of 1893. To make matters worse, nativists blamed immigrants for the country's economic woes. The American Protective Association, a powerful political force during the 1890s, attributed America's economic downturn to Catholics who sought to destroy the economic system in order to clear the way for the Church of Rome to seize control of the United States. The APA openly argued that agents of Rome were flooding America with Catholic immigrants to steal jobs from American citizens.9 In 1897, Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, one of congress's leading immigration...

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