Zinn Howard How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred – by economic inequity – faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices ( Zinn, 1980 p 573).


Zinn Howard Before 1970, about a million abortions were done every year, of which only about ten thousand were legal. Perhaps a third of the women having illegal abortions – mostly poor people had to be hospitalized for complications. how many thousands died as a result of these illegal abortions no one really knows. But the illegalization of abortion clearly worked against the poor, for the rich could manage either to have their baby or to have their abortion under safe conditions ( Zinn, 1980 p 49).


Zinn Howard What of the women who didn't have jobs? They worked very hard, at home, but this wasn't looked on as work, because in a capitalist society...if work is not paid for, not given a money value, it is considered valueless ( Zinn, 1980 p 496).


Zinn Howard Was there [in 1970] fear that blacks would turn their attention from the controllable field of voting to the more dangerous arena of wealth and poverty – of class conflict?....The new emphasis was more dangerous than civil rights, because it created the possibility of blacks and whites uniting on the issue of class exploitation....Attempts began to do with blacks what had been done historically with whites – to lure a small number into the system with economic enticements. There was talk of "black capitalism."... There was a small amount of change and a lot of publicity. There were more black faces in the newspapers and on television, creating an impression of change – and siphoning off into the mainstream a small but significant number of black leaders ( Zinn, 1980 pp 455-6).


Zinn Howard Abandoned plantations, however, were leased to former planters and to white men of the North....Under congressional policy approved by Lincoln, the property confiscated during the war under the Confiscation Act of July 1862 would revert to the heirs of the Confederate owners ( Zinn, 1980 p 192).


Zinn Howard [As the colonies began to contemplate independence from Great Britain in the eighteenth century] Middle-class Americans might be invited to join a new elite by attacks against the corruption of the established rich. The New Yorker Cadwallader Colden, in his Address to the Freeholders in 1747, attacked the wealthy as tax dodgers unconcerned with the welfare of others (although he himself was wealthy) and spoke for the honesty and dependability of "the middling rank of mankind" in whom citizens could best trust "our liberty & Property." This was to become a critically important rhetorical device for the rule of the few, who would speak to the many of "our" liberty, "our" property, "our" country ( Zinn, 1980 p 57).


Zinn Howard Was all this bloodshed and deceit – from Columbus to Cortιs, Pizarro, the Puritans – a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization? Was Morison right in burying the story of genocide inside a more important story of human progress? [Morison S E Christopher Columbus, Mariner 1954] Perhaps a persuasive argument can be made – as it was made by Stalin when he killed peasants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima. But how can the judgment be made if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are either unmentioned or mentioned quickly?....If there are necessary sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves? We can all decide to give up something of ours, but do we have the right to throw into the pyre the children of others, or even our own children, for a progress which is not nearly as clear or present as sickness or health, life or death ( Zinn, 1980 p 17)?


Zinn Howard There was heated argument in the United States about whether or not to take the Philippines. As one story has it, President McKinley told a group of ministers visiting the White House how he came to his decision: Before you go I would like to say just a word about the Philippine business....The truth is I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them....I sought counsel from all sides – Democrats as well as republicans – but got little help.

I thought first we would only take Manila; then Luzon, then other islands, perhaps, also.

I walked the floor of the white House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way – I don't know how it was, but it came:

1) That we could not give them back to Spain – that would be cowardly and dishonorable.
2) That we could not turn them over to France or Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient – that would be bad business and discreditable.
3) That we could not leave them to themselves – they were unfit for self-government – and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and
4) That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly. The Filipinos did not get the same message from God. In February 1899, they rose in revolt against American rule ( Zinn, 1980 pp 305-6)...


Zinn Howard The taste of empire was on the lips of politicians and business interests throughout the country now. Racism, paternalism, and talk of money mingled with talk of destiny and civilization. In the Senate, Albert Beveridge spoke, January 9, 1900, for the dominant economic and political interests of the country: Mr. President, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever....And just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either....We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world....

The Pacific is our ocean....Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural customer....The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East....

No land in America surpasses in fertility the plains and valleys of Luzon. Rice and coffee, sugar and cocoanuts, hemp and tobacco.... The wood of the Philippines can supply the furniture of the world for a century to come. At Cebu the best informed man on the island told me that 40 miles of Cebu's mountain chain are practically mountains of coal....

My own belief is that there are not 100 men among them who comprehend what Anglo-Saxon self-government even means, and there are over 5,000,000 people to be governed.

It has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse....Senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals. The fighting with the rebels began, McKinley said, when the insurgents attacked American Forces. But later, American soldiers testified that the United States had fired the first shot. After the war, an army officer speaking in Boston's Faneuil Hall said his colonel had given him orders to provoke a conflict with the insurgents Zinn, 1980 p 306-7). (My emphasis)


Zinn Howard Back in 1907, Woodrow Wilson had said in a lecture at Columbia University: 'Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process....the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down.' In his 1912 campaign he said: 'Our Domestic markets no longer suffice, we need foreign markets.' In a memo to [William Jennings] Bryan he said he supported 'the righteous conquest of foreign markets.' ( Zinn, 1980 p 353)" (My brackets)