In response to the changing needs of the U. S. Army, Secretary of War Elihu Root proposed to reorganize the armed forces. Following his lead, Congress passed the Army Appropriations Act of 1901. The Army Act, as it became known, addressed the weaknesses that the army had shown in the recent Spanish-American War, and it laid out the organization of the modern American army. It also established guidelines for American intervention and governance in Cuba and the Philippines.
Root, a lawyer, statesman, and future Nobel Peace Prize winner, became secretary of war on August 1, 1899. He brought to the War Department administrative reforms and a new mission for the army. During the Spanish-Amer-ican War, Root noted, the lack of planning and preparation, failure of cooperation, and bureaucratic red tape led to inefficiency in the military. Root was determined to improve this record. He believed a modern army required an operation akin to modern industrial corporations. In his efforts to reform the military, he abolished the position of commanding general and instituted the position of chief of staff acting under the authority and direction of the secretary of war and the president. He established a General staff, founded the War College in Washington, and expanded West Point.
Secretary of War Root was most concerned, however, with the three dependencies the United States acquired at the end of the war. He devised a plan for returning Cuba to the Cubans and supplanting military rule with a civilian charter in the Philippines. Root designed amendments to the Army Act that would accomplish his goals, and Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut presented it to the Senate.
The Platt Amendment was attached as a rider to the Army Act. It set the conditions for the withdrawal of troops remaining in Cuba since the war. The Platt Amendment mandated that Cuba adopt into its constitution a provision that prohibited it from transferring land to any country other than the United States. Further, the United States acquired a lease to land on Guantanamo Bay as a result of the treaty. The U. S. Navy built Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 1903. Cuba had limited rights in negotiating treaties, and the United States could intervene, if necessary, for mutual protection and the preservation of “Cuban independence.” Cuba incorporated the articles into its constitution. The Platt Amendment remained in force until in 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under the Good Neighbor Policy, gave up the stipulated rights of the United States, except its naval base.
The Spooner Amendment to the Army Act established an end to U. S. military government of the Philippines, which Spain ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. Philippine nationalists had assumed that they, like the Cubans, would be given their independence once the treaty had been signed. The Senate, however, refused to pass a resolution to this effect. There was consequently much Philippine bitterness toward the United States. Resistance to the American occupying forces erupted into a guerrilla war with the Moro insurrection in February of 1899. Fighting was prolonged and vicious between the American troops and the Filipino guerrillas, led by Emilio Aguinaldo. The American army finally put down the resistance in 1901, but sporadic guerrilla fighting continued for months after.
In July 1901 President William McKinley established a civilian government in the Philippines, to be headed by William Howard Taft. Elihu Root wrote a democratic charter for the governance of the Philippines designed to ensure a free government, protection of local customs, and the promise of eventual self-determination. Despite this promise, the United States maintained a military presence in the Philippines throughout most of the 20th century. The Army Act’s reorganization of the armed forces similarly remained intact for most of the century.
See also armed forces; foreign policy.
Further reading: Philip C. Jessup, (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1938).
—Annamarie Edelen
World History
