1897

 

Teddy Roosevelt writes, “A rich nation which is slothful, timid or unwieldy is an easy prey for any people which still retains those most valuable of all qualities, the soldierly virtues.”

 

At the time, hundreds of thousands of Cubans were dying under Spanish control. Richard Harding Davis, a correspondent who visited the island, came back convinced the U.S. had to stop the slaughter. 

Protests were not enough, he wrote. “Why should we not go a step farther and a step higher, and interfere in the name of humanity?”

 

Just a few short years before, at Wounded Knee, the U.S. had finally stopped killing Native Americans.

The role of wife and mother was the norm.