The Biggest Job He Has Tackled

This cartoon, published as the Senate debated the 1898 Treaty of Paris ending the war with Spain and selling the Philippine islands to the United States, illustrates the widely shared American perspective that the Filipino people were not ready for independence.

As the treaty was being debated, Philippine nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo pressed for the United States to withdraw from the islands. The leader of a native uprising, Aguinaldo had declared an independent republic the previous summer when U.S. naval forces defeated the Spanish fleet. In debating the treaty, the Senate faced a dilemma: restoring the Philippines to Spain was deemed inhumane; but granting the islands independence risked disorder and European re-conquest.

On the day this cartoon was printed, a representative from Aguinaldo was in Washington demanding American withdrawal. At the same time, Aguinaldo’s forces were surrounding the Philippine capital, launching an attack that began a bloody, three-year-long Philippine-American War. The tone of this cartoon was echoed by an article published two days later in the New York Sun that belittled the Philippine independence movement by noting that the “natives were not a match for civilized, disciplined troops.”

This cartoon was drawn by Clifford Berryman, one of Washington, DC's best-known cartoonists in the early to mid-1900s. Berryman drew for the Washington Post and Evening Star newspapers. His cartoons touched on a variety of subjects including politics, elections, and both World Wars.

This cartoon is featured in America and the World: Foreign Affairs in Political Cartoons, 1898–1940, a free PDF book from the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives.