llars for the Philippine Islands. By the wars end America was faced with several issues. Initially, the U.S. had to face the costs of the war, which was; 250 million dollars, 5,462 dead (362 in battle), and 1,604 wounded. Second, was the dire need of a canal to connect the Atlantic to the Pacific in order to quicken the voyage of merchant marine and navy ships. This would lead to further intervention in Latin America by the U.S. Furthermore the U.S. gained further interest with the Far East, because now it owned islands less than 400 miles off the mainland of Asia. Between the end of the Spanish American War and the Great Depression, the U.S. had sent troops to Latin America 32 times. President Theodore Roosevelt had added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This was used to justify U.S. intervention in Latin America. It proclaimed that since the United States was a “civilized nation”, it had the right to stop “chronic wrongdoing” throughout the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt said, “any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. chronic wrongdoing however, . . . . may force the United States to exercise international police power”. This “police power” was used to help strengthen the United States, while not offsetting the worldly balance of power. Altogether this entailed Roosevelt’s Big Stick Policy, in which the United States uses it’s “police power” in the form of a “Big Stick”, the U.S. Navy, the Great White Fleet of 14 state of the art battleships Roosevelt had commissioned as Secretary of the Navy in the previous century. He used his executive authority to further American imperialism in Latin America. He used his power to gain the rights to build the Panama Canal, by inciting and openly supporting “a democratic revolution” in Panama. Roosevelt stated, “I took the ...
