March 27, 2025 • 15 mins
This conflict set the stage for a lot of changes in, not just the United States, the world. Dr. Ed Moore gave us a snapshot of the most important details of the war with Spain.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Not wasting a moment of time. Our number three, the
Morning Show with Preston Scott, whose running the radio program
is always over there in Studio one A. I am
here in Studio one B. It is show fifty three
forty five, and it's time for a little more history
joining us, Doctor Ed Moore, Good morning, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
How you doing good monight? Well, I'm getting by. There's
a reason I'm on the phone this morning to set
it down there with you in the studio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And we appreciate that, and we appreciate that you acknowledged
that reason. Thank you sir very much.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, well, you know that once once a bug strikes,
you don't want to be around other people. So that's
what I'm doing this morning. Hopefully my voice will hold up, It'll.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Be fine, doctor Moore. We wanted to talk about the
Spanish American War as a as kind of an introduction
to a series that we'll do talking about wars that
America has found itself over time. Give us the kind
of an overview of what was going on in the
eighteen nineties that sort of set the stage for this conflict.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, that's what I want the listeners to think about,
because you got to think about the United States such
as it was during that time time framed. By the
end of the decade, we had forty four states, actually,
but most of the western states were very unsettled. There
were just not that many people there. The US was
relatively isolated. We were growing as a trading partner with
(01:35):
a lot of other countries. Big events of that decade
like Yosemite was created, the city of New York as
we know it now New York, Manhattan Borough annex the
counties around formed the Five Boroughs of New York City.
The first American car made in America was sold. It
(01:56):
was called the Winton, was sold to a guy in Pennsylvania.
Ford built their first car in the eighteen nineties. Nasmith
invented basketball in the eighteen nineties. Just all kinds of
things we take for granted now we're beginning then. Then
around eighteen ninety seven, seeds of war started being formed.
(02:21):
And think about it now, can you imagine Spain declaring
war on the United States now? But that's the way
the world was structured in those days. Spain, Great Britain, France,
Russia were big dominant powers, colonial powers that had spread
their tentacles all over the globe, and the United States
(02:43):
really had in the United States is essentially isolationists. We
didn't seek and there was a sentiment across the country
not getting really involved in world affairs other than trade.
And our army was small. I think we only had
the somewhere around thirty thousand people in an active US army.
(03:05):
You know, you're not really going to war on a
world stage, and that degree in scope with thirty thousand people.
So that's kind of where we were when around eighteen
ninety seven revolutionists in Cuba were battling against against Spain
(03:25):
and Spain intrusion, and same thing was occurring in the Philippines,
and there was pressure on our country to get involved,
and we surely did. Maybe we'd go into the details
in a minute, but we were not We didn't have
footprints all over the world. We have diplomats that we'd
(03:47):
started sending all over There's an interesting story of Guam
that I'll get into later. But when we actually invaded Guam,
which was a Spanish property, essentially there was one American
there that we could leave in charge. When after our
troops left, one American Guam and now is a US territory.
(04:12):
It was a bloodless takeover of the island of Guam. Guam.
We sailed ships and there ships into their harbor, took
over the island and no guns were fired. Interestingly, we
fired thirteen cannons at their main fort there didn't really
hit anything, which is kind of surprising. And they thought
(04:36):
we were just celebrating coming into their harbor for trade
and a delegation.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Once a month. We get a little more history with
doctor ed Moore and we're not drawn into this in
any way, shape or form, were it not for the
fact that Spain was in our territory by way of
Cuba at that point, right.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, they had Cuba, that Puerto Rico, and then you
know they still were involved. Mexico was a sovereign state
at that point in time. Remember you got to think
back to the days of the explorers. For about four
hundred years, Spain had had a presence in our uh
in the area, even in the Greater United States Florida
(05:23):
for where we lived with Spanish territory, so they had
the footprint here. But it got harder and harder and
more it was more difficult to maintain control. You started
having local revolutions all over South America, and Cuba was
one of them. It was getting relatively bloody, and the pressure,
(05:46):
this is the growth in the beginning really of what
became called yellow journalism, where the major newspapers would headlined
all kinds of things going on down there to try
to build pressure to get us involved. It was big
sugar then, that kind of big sugar involved. About ninety
percent of the exports out of Cuba were going to
(06:07):
the United States, not back to Spain. About forty percent
of the inbound trade coming into Cuba was coming to us.
So essentially it was an economic ties, economic ties that
drew US closer and closer in getting involved in this.
And then in February fifteenth, we had we had a
(06:27):
huge amount of citizens in Cuba. So the United States
had decided to send the Maine USS Maine into Havana Harbor,
and that's probably the only thing anybody remembers other than
that in the charge on San Juan Hill, but two
hundred and sixty six American troops sailors were killed when
(06:47):
the main blew up in the harbor. Shortly really after
they would pull into January and February fifteenth they'd exploded,
and it took about a month or so other forty
days before they said, well, it was exploded by a mine.
They tried. They blamed the Spanish for a mind blowing
up our ship and killing. He gave us an entree,
(07:10):
he gave us the reason to go in. It's interesting
little tidbit you find when you start reading on these things,
like Annie Oakley. Everybody's heard who Annie Oakley is. She
wrote a letter to President McKinley is saying that she
had fifty lady sharpshooters with their own guns and ammos
that were willing to go to Cuba. You know, we
(07:30):
imagine that happening now, you know, citizen citizen group. And
it was really the first time that there's any acknowledgement
at all of women getting involved in something. But on
April the twentieth, they could remember that Maine was sunk
on February fifteenth. They took him till April twentieth for
McKinley to sign the declaration of war. Actually it got
(07:54):
backdated April twentieth. April twenty fifth, US Congress declared war
and everything got backdated day for twentieth because by then
Spain had already declared war on the United States, so
we had a big navy, interesting for a country that
wasn't really that involved around the world, but we have
(08:16):
been protecting trade routes, and so we had enough navy
and enough sailors to decide we're going all in on this.
So it was May the first commodore Dewey took a
Spanish squadron into Manila Bay. Now think about how far
away the Philippines are also Spanish controlled. So when we
(08:37):
went to war with Spain, we went to war with Spain.
We not only invaded Cuba, we invaded the Philippines. We
took Guam America to what became American Samoa, Puerto Rico.
Each of those required invasions by our troops. But it
didn't not take very long. I mean, Spain was not
(08:58):
that strong at the point in time. Their resources had expired,
they had a bad economy at home, and the entire
war took one hundred and fifteen days. On August thirteenth,
hostilities ended in Cuba. It continued, however, in the Philippines,
(09:19):
and we ended up fighting Filipinos, not just the Spanish,
because those revolutionaries didn't want to think things that said
all out as well. The biggest thing out of all
of this to me is that the United States, because
of the Spanish American War, as short as it was,
we became a world superpower. We had not been until
(09:40):
that time. Nobody really felt the wrath of our country
when angered, nor the strength of our country when we
decided to put our minds to something to move forward.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Hang on a second, let's pause right there, perfect place.
We'll pick up when we come back. We're talking about
the Spanish American War and what kind of seeds came
from it as we discuss it with doctor Ed Moore
a little more history here on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott, Doctor edmore play and hurt this morning here
(10:17):
on the Morning Show. He will not be benched for
injury because he's under the weather. Nay nay, that's not
how we operate around here. So he's calling it in
on the program today, more history talking about the Spanish
American War. A couple questions if you don't mind. Number One,
you mentioned the decision by the United States to take
on Spain in other parts of the world, not just
(10:38):
adjacent to us in Cuba, but elsewhere was that because
it was important to let Spain know that were the
United States. I mean, what was the reason for attacking them?
In other parts of the.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
World, there are many one was there. We did have
people pushing in our country to be bigger than we were.
As the century turned to think about the colonization, Europe
had colonized Africa and broken Africa all up, and most
people ignore the fact that China was in the same
position basically that Africa was. We had the open we
(11:17):
declared I think John hay wast Us Secretary of State,
declared the open door policy in China. China was always
viewed as a big trade partner. We're going to trade
a lot with China. The fear was that the European powers,
most of which were waning by this point in time,
(11:38):
we're going to try to assert their power and maintain
more power by splitting up China the same way they
did Africa, and that would have created a huge mess,
might have solved some things for the twenty first century
if they had done that. I mean, all of this
is tied together. What you do that effects what really
what happens now. But they maintained that, you know, had
(12:00):
the Boxer rebellion and China things going on over there,
and we felt like we needed a bigger presence in
that area. So taking Guam, taking Samoa, and moving into
the Philippines. We ultimately end up giving the Philippines their freedom,
they create their own government, but we maintained huge bases
there for all of it, basically all of the twentieth century,
(12:22):
to give the United States a huge naval presence in
that region, much like we ended up with a huge
naval presence in the Caribbean. You know, you go all
the way back to the Monroe Doctor and saying that
no more, we weren't going to allow any more European
influence in our hemisphere. The Cuban Missile crisis evolved out
(12:44):
of that. I mean, we had the opportunity at the
end of the Spanish American War to take Puerto Rico,
which we ultimately we did as a US territory, take
Cuba as a US territory or ultimately a state. There
were enough of Americans down there in a lot of
American trade, and to take the Philippines. We declined really
(13:05):
to control Cuba. We declined to control the Philippines, and
then both areas became hotspots for a lot of other
activity around the country, around the world. So China at
that point was becoming an emerging nation, the largest population
in the world at the time, and our concern was,
(13:27):
we can't let China become like Africa, where we've got
fighting amongst the little tiny areas that the Dutch controlled,
or the French control, or the Spanish control. It gave
us a bigger fear of influence, and also with Japan,
so a lot went on at that point.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
It also opened the door for us to grab Hawaii,
which led to, in my opinion, one of the darkest
points of American history and the deposing of the Queen
of Hawaii. At that point, it was not a very
pretty things.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Sex on July seventh annex the Hawaiian Islands, which gave
us again, if you think in terms of world dominance
and control of the trade routes, Pearl Harbor became immensely
important on July seventh, and that at times same tenth
time frame, July seventeenth, we took San Diego Santiago Harbor
(14:22):
in Puerto Rico and on July twenty fifth week in Dad,
Puerto Rico, so we just ended up. Hostilities ended in
August of that year. We were a new country. And
you know, I think if you think back on Henry
Ford and Ford making the first automobiles coming out of
that decade, American industry expanding, American steel expanding, American agriculture expanding.
(14:45):
We created markets by the limited war that lasted one
hundred and fifteen days. We created markets that remained in
place up until now. In December, the Treaty of Paris
was signed and the rest of the world was now
knowing that Big bad Us was here to play, ready
(15:06):
to deal with any problems. And that's you know, a
lot of events from that point forward began. If you
think World War One was only this big four men
filmenting in Europe, our engagement in that was only a
little more than a decade away.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
All right, Ed, we gotta go, buddy, we're late on
the break. Pick up your lung there, and thanks for
joining us. We'll talk again next month. Doctor Ed Moore
with us this morning. More history of the Morning Show
with Preston Scott
Not wasting a moment of time. Our number three, the
Morning Show with Preston Scott, whose running the radio program
is always over there in Studio one A. I am
here in Studio one B. It is show fifty three
forty five, and it's time for a little more history
joining us, Doctor Ed Moore, Good morning, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
How you doing good monight? Well, I'm getting by. There's
a reason I'm on the phone this morning to set
it down there with you in the studio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And we appreciate that, and we appreciate that you acknowledged
that reason. Thank you sir very much.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, well, you know that once once a bug strikes,
you don't want to be around other people. So that's
what I'm doing this morning. Hopefully my voice will hold up, It'll.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Be fine, doctor Moore. We wanted to talk about the
Spanish American War as a as kind of an introduction
to a series that we'll do talking about wars that
America has found itself over time. Give us the kind
of an overview of what was going on in the
eighteen nineties that sort of set the stage for this conflict.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, that's what I want the listeners to think about,
because you got to think about the United States such
as it was during that time time framed. By the
end of the decade, we had forty four states, actually,
but most of the western states were very unsettled. There
were just not that many people there. The US was
relatively isolated. We were growing as a trading partner with
(01:35):
a lot of other countries. Big events of that decade
like Yosemite was created, the city of New York as
we know it now New York, Manhattan Borough annex the
counties around formed the Five Boroughs of New York City.
The first American car made in America was sold. It
(01:56):
was called the Winton, was sold to a guy in Pennsylvania.
Ford built their first car in the eighteen nineties. Nasmith
invented basketball in the eighteen nineties. Just all kinds of
things we take for granted now we're beginning then. Then
around eighteen ninety seven, seeds of war started being formed.
(02:21):
And think about it now, can you imagine Spain declaring
war on the United States now? But that's the way
the world was structured in those days. Spain, Great Britain, France,
Russia were big dominant powers, colonial powers that had spread
their tentacles all over the globe, and the United States
(02:43):
really had in the United States is essentially isolationists. We
didn't seek and there was a sentiment across the country
not getting really involved in world affairs other than trade.
And our army was small. I think we only had
the somewhere around thirty thousand people in an active US army.
(03:05):
You know, you're not really going to war on a
world stage, and that degree in scope with thirty thousand people.
So that's kind of where we were when around eighteen
ninety seven revolutionists in Cuba were battling against against Spain
(03:25):
and Spain intrusion, and same thing was occurring in the Philippines,
and there was pressure on our country to get involved,
and we surely did. Maybe we'd go into the details
in a minute, but we were not We didn't have
footprints all over the world. We have diplomats that we'd
(03:47):
started sending all over There's an interesting story of Guam
that I'll get into later. But when we actually invaded Guam,
which was a Spanish property, essentially there was one American
there that we could leave in charge. When after our
troops left, one American Guam and now is a US territory.
(04:12):
It was a bloodless takeover of the island of Guam. Guam.
We sailed ships and there ships into their harbor, took
over the island and no guns were fired. Interestingly, we
fired thirteen cannons at their main fort there didn't really
hit anything, which is kind of surprising. And they thought
(04:36):
we were just celebrating coming into their harbor for trade
and a delegation.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Once a month. We get a little more history with
doctor ed Moore and we're not drawn into this in
any way, shape or form, were it not for the
fact that Spain was in our territory by way of
Cuba at that point, right.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, they had Cuba, that Puerto Rico, and then you
know they still were involved. Mexico was a sovereign state
at that point in time. Remember you got to think
back to the days of the explorers. For about four
hundred years, Spain had had a presence in our uh
in the area, even in the Greater United States Florida
(05:23):
for where we lived with Spanish territory, so they had
the footprint here. But it got harder and harder and
more it was more difficult to maintain control. You started
having local revolutions all over South America, and Cuba was
one of them. It was getting relatively bloody, and the pressure,
(05:46):
this is the growth in the beginning really of what
became called yellow journalism, where the major newspapers would headlined
all kinds of things going on down there to try
to build pressure to get us involved. It was big
sugar then, that kind of big sugar involved. About ninety
percent of the exports out of Cuba were going to
(06:07):
the United States, not back to Spain. About forty percent
of the inbound trade coming into Cuba was coming to us.
So essentially it was an economic ties, economic ties that
drew US closer and closer in getting involved in this.
And then in February fifteenth, we had we had a
(06:27):
huge amount of citizens in Cuba. So the United States
had decided to send the Maine USS Maine into Havana Harbor,
and that's probably the only thing anybody remembers other than
that in the charge on San Juan Hill, but two
hundred and sixty six American troops sailors were killed when
(06:47):
the main blew up in the harbor. Shortly really after
they would pull into January and February fifteenth they'd exploded,
and it took about a month or so other forty
days before they said, well, it was exploded by a mine.
They tried. They blamed the Spanish for a mind blowing
up our ship and killing. He gave us an entree,
(07:10):
he gave us the reason to go in. It's interesting
little tidbit you find when you start reading on these things,
like Annie Oakley. Everybody's heard who Annie Oakley is. She
wrote a letter to President McKinley is saying that she
had fifty lady sharpshooters with their own guns and ammos
that were willing to go to Cuba. You know, we
(07:30):
imagine that happening now, you know, citizen citizen group. And
it was really the first time that there's any acknowledgement
at all of women getting involved in something. But on
April the twentieth, they could remember that Maine was sunk
on February fifteenth. They took him till April twentieth for
McKinley to sign the declaration of war. Actually it got
(07:54):
backdated April twentieth. April twenty fifth, US Congress declared war
and everything got backdated day for twentieth because by then
Spain had already declared war on the United States, so
we had a big navy, interesting for a country that
wasn't really that involved around the world, but we have
(08:16):
been protecting trade routes, and so we had enough navy
and enough sailors to decide we're going all in on this.
So it was May the first commodore Dewey took a
Spanish squadron into Manila Bay. Now think about how far
away the Philippines are also Spanish controlled. So when we
(08:37):
went to war with Spain, we went to war with Spain.
We not only invaded Cuba, we invaded the Philippines. We
took Guam America to what became American Samoa, Puerto Rico.
Each of those required invasions by our troops. But it
didn't not take very long. I mean, Spain was not
(08:58):
that strong at the point in time. Their resources had expired,
they had a bad economy at home, and the entire
war took one hundred and fifteen days. On August thirteenth,
hostilities ended in Cuba. It continued, however, in the Philippines,
(09:19):
and we ended up fighting Filipinos, not just the Spanish,
because those revolutionaries didn't want to think things that said
all out as well. The biggest thing out of all
of this to me is that the United States, because
of the Spanish American War, as short as it was,
we became a world superpower. We had not been until
(09:40):
that time. Nobody really felt the wrath of our country
when angered, nor the strength of our country when we
decided to put our minds to something to move forward.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Hang on a second, let's pause right there, perfect place.
We'll pick up when we come back. We're talking about
the Spanish American War and what kind of seeds came
from it as we discuss it with doctor Ed Moore
a little more history here on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott, Doctor edmore play and hurt this morning here
(10:17):
on the Morning Show. He will not be benched for
injury because he's under the weather. Nay nay, that's not
how we operate around here. So he's calling it in
on the program today, more history talking about the Spanish
American War. A couple questions if you don't mind. Number One,
you mentioned the decision by the United States to take
on Spain in other parts of the world, not just
(10:38):
adjacent to us in Cuba, but elsewhere was that because
it was important to let Spain know that were the
United States. I mean, what was the reason for attacking them?
In other parts of the.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
World, there are many one was there. We did have
people pushing in our country to be bigger than we were.
As the century turned to think about the colonization, Europe
had colonized Africa and broken Africa all up, and most
people ignore the fact that China was in the same
position basically that Africa was. We had the open we
(11:17):
declared I think John hay wast Us Secretary of State,
declared the open door policy in China. China was always
viewed as a big trade partner. We're going to trade
a lot with China. The fear was that the European powers,
most of which were waning by this point in time,
(11:38):
we're going to try to assert their power and maintain
more power by splitting up China the same way they
did Africa, and that would have created a huge mess,
might have solved some things for the twenty first century
if they had done that. I mean, all of this
is tied together. What you do that effects what really
what happens now. But they maintained that, you know, had
(12:00):
the Boxer rebellion and China things going on over there,
and we felt like we needed a bigger presence in
that area. So taking Guam, taking Samoa, and moving into
the Philippines. We ultimately end up giving the Philippines their freedom,
they create their own government, but we maintained huge bases
there for all of it, basically all of the twentieth century,
(12:22):
to give the United States a huge naval presence in
that region, much like we ended up with a huge
naval presence in the Caribbean. You know, you go all
the way back to the Monroe Doctor and saying that
no more, we weren't going to allow any more European
influence in our hemisphere. The Cuban Missile crisis evolved out
(12:44):
of that. I mean, we had the opportunity at the
end of the Spanish American War to take Puerto Rico,
which we ultimately we did as a US territory, take
Cuba as a US territory or ultimately a state. There
were enough of Americans down there in a lot of
American trade, and to take the Philippines. We declined really
(13:05):
to control Cuba. We declined to control the Philippines, and
then both areas became hotspots for a lot of other
activity around the country, around the world. So China at
that point was becoming an emerging nation, the largest population
in the world at the time, and our concern was,
(13:27):
we can't let China become like Africa, where we've got
fighting amongst the little tiny areas that the Dutch controlled,
or the French control, or the Spanish control. It gave
us a bigger fear of influence, and also with Japan,
so a lot went on at that point.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
It also opened the door for us to grab Hawaii,
which led to, in my opinion, one of the darkest
points of American history and the deposing of the Queen
of Hawaii. At that point, it was not a very
pretty things.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Sex on July seventh annex the Hawaiian Islands, which gave
us again, if you think in terms of world dominance
and control of the trade routes, Pearl Harbor became immensely
important on July seventh, and that at times same tenth
time frame, July seventeenth, we took San Diego Santiago Harbor
(14:22):
in Puerto Rico and on July twenty fifth week in Dad,
Puerto Rico, so we just ended up. Hostilities ended in
August of that year. We were a new country. And
you know, I think if you think back on Henry
Ford and Ford making the first automobiles coming out of
that decade, American industry expanding, American steel expanding, American agriculture expanding.
(14:45):
We created markets by the limited war that lasted one
hundred and fifteen days. We created markets that remained in
place up until now. In December, the Treaty of Paris
was signed and the rest of the world was now
knowing that Big bad Us was here to play, ready
(15:06):
to deal with any problems. And that's you know, a
lot of events from that point forward began. If you
think World War One was only this big four men
filmenting in Europe, our engagement in that was only a
little more than a decade away.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
All right, Ed, we gotta go, buddy, we're late on
the break. Pick up your lung there, and thanks for
joining us. We'll talk again next month. Doctor Ed Moore
with us this morning. More history of the Morning Show
with Preston Scott
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