The U.S. Overseas

Description

Throughout the book we have attempted to make an assessment of the country's record in acquiring and administering its "empire." For the most part, the record has been spotty. In this connection, readers will find provocative parallels with other volumes in the series. Time and again, the story of regional America has turned on the actions of a strong, dominant group that has dealt poorly with or even ridden roughshod over-another, less powerful group. Thus we have seen how the white man persecuted the Indians of the Plains States and the South Central States, how the industrial magnates in the Middle Atlantic States and elsewhere in the latter part of the 19th Century treated the laboring peoples with contempt, and how white people everywhere but especially in the Old South and the Border States-subjugated the Negroes. In most cases the powerful economic or political reasons for such practices seemed at the time to override more subtle considerations of human dignity and personal feelings, and indeed the prevailing powers usually found ample moral justification for their actions.