Skip to main content

Time Of Maturity

March 2023
2min read


But if it is easy to understand why the Spanish war brought unexpected problems to the Army, it is not quite so easy to see why the country got into that war in the first place. Mr. William Miller considers this question in his first-rate New History of the United States , and concludes that “every justification has been offered for America’s going to war with Spain because no clear justification can be found.”

As its title indicates, Mr. Miller’s book is concerned with the whole story of America’s growth and development, and not simply with the military phase of it. It is a very good job—one of the best single volumes on American history currently available to the general reader—and its section on the Spanish war is perceptive and thoughtful.

We considered it our duty to liberate Cuba, our destiny to open new markets in new lands, our obligation “to bring western culture to the dark places of the earth.” If it is hard to say just why we finally decided to do this in 1898 rather than at some other time, Mr. Miller’s suggestion is perhaps as good as any other —“throughout the nineties Americans seem to have set their souls upon having a war.” But we began this war by announcing that any annexation of territory would be “criminal aggression”; then we annexed Hawaii, announced that we would take Puerto Rico and Guam, and finally demanded complete cession of the Philippine Islands. In the end, the task of suppressing the “Philippine insurrection” took more time, men, and money than the original war itself had taken; and America found itself with a colonial empire, the mere possession of which had a profound effect on American life thereafter.

A New History of the United States , by William Miller, with an introduction by Frank Friedel. George Braziller, Inc. 474 pp. $5.00.

The line from all of this to American intervention in the First World War is direct and clear enough; and the reaction of the early igao’s, in which the people of this country tried unavailingly to re-enter the lost world of isolation and innocence, was both inevitable and doomed to failure. And it is one of the great virtues of this fine book that Mr. Miller moves so easily and persuasively from Admiral Dewey’s salvos in Manila Bay to the middle of the twentieth century.

It is good to stand off and take a look at that progression, because it has brought us a good deal of bewilderment and confusion. Colonel Croghan’s chain of tiny army posts in the 1840*8 looks no more remote and out-of-date now than does the mental and emotional attitude which was then developed. With the Spanish war we stepped off into a wholly new kind of world, in which the old vision of a self-contained, selfsufficient America went into permanent obsolescence. The vision may be gone, but the deep optimism which it bred still remains, and “the country itself often finds it hard to escape its pleasant childhood and youth.”

But the adjustment has to be made, and it is taking place. To realize that the age of innocence is indeed gone forever and that profound new responsibilities are inescapable is essential, and this realization is increasing. As Mr. Miller puts it: “We and our allies have met many of the challenges of a new barbarism almost despite ourselves. Our values remain humane; we cherish the preservation of the single life, the individual spirit, voluntary unity. The preservation and extension of American ideals is the task of our maturity.”

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "December 1958"

Authored by: Theodore Roosevelt

No matter how busy he was, Theodore Roosevelt always found time for his children. The charming “picture” letters below, addressed to his thirteen-year-old son Archie from a Louisiana hunting camp, recall a man who for millions of Americans will always live on, forever vigorous, forever young.

Authored by: Malcolm Cowley

Nathaniel was poor and sunk in his solitude; Sophia seemed a hopeless invalid, but a late-flower love gave them at last“a perfect Eden”

Authored by: Carl Carmer

Over 350 years a mighty pageant of history has moved through the myth-haunted valley of the “Great River of the Mountains”

Authored by: Claude M. Fuess

Discreet helpers have worked on the speeches and papers of many Presidents, but a nation in a time of trial will respond best “to the Great Man himself, standing alone”

Authored by: George W. Groh

Long after the Civil War was over, the Shenandoah’s die-hard skipper was still sinking Yankee ships

Authored by: Fitzhugh Turner

Snowshed crews on the Central Pacific, battling blizzards and snowslides, built “the longest house in the world”

Authored by: Henry Steele Commager

A leading American historian challenges the long-entrenched interpretation originated by the late Charles A. Beard

Authored by: Lou Ann Everett

Scores of towns and counties all over the nation honor some heroics largely invented by Parson Weems

Authored by: George Howe

The most serious threat to white colonization of New England was the Indian uprising of 1675-76, known as King Philip’s War. What follows is the story of the tragic man who led that futile struggle, Philip, chief of the Wampanoags. But perhaps it is just as much the story of Philip’s erstwhile friend and resourceful pursuer, Benjamin Church. This account is taken from George Howe’s superb history of Bristol, Rhode Island, Mount Hope, due in February from the Viking Press.

Featured Articles

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Rarely has the full story been told how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.