Posted on 02/05/2005 5:37:04 PM PST by NMC EXP
In February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled The White Mans Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands. In this poem, Kipling urged the U.S. to take up the burden of empire, as had Britain and other European nations. Published in the February, 1899 issue of McClures Magazine, the poem coincided with the beginning of the Philippine-American War and U.S. Senate ratification of the treaty that placed Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines under American control.
Theodore Roosevelt, soon to become vice-president and then president, copied the poem and sent it to his friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, commenting that it was rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view. Not everyone was as favorably impressed as Roosevelt. The racialized notion of the White Mans burden became a euphemism for imperialism, and many anti-imperialists couched their opposition in reaction to the phrase.
Take up the White Mans burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child
Take up the White Mans burden
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple
An hundred times made plain
To seek anothers profit
And work anothers gain
Take up the White Mans burden
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly) to the light:
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?
Take up the White Mans burden-
Have done with childish days-
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
Source: Rudyard Kipling, The White Mans Burden: The United States & The Philippine Islands, 1899. Rudyard Kiplings Verse: Definitive Edition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1929).
I Googled "White Man's Burden" and found a version where three websites agreed.
I cannot profess an academic knowledge of Kipling, but that couplet made a lasting impression upon me when I first read it, which is why I noticed it was missing. Going back and reading the GMU version, one can see that all the negative language of the poem has been removed, which changes the tone of the poem from a precautionary tale to a pep rally.
No Human being or country can totally live up to their ideals. It doesn't mean they can't be close. America was founded on freedom, but not if you were a woman or a slave, but no-one can say it wasn't a positive for its time.
** This is true.
Thank you very much--
and thank you, too, NMC EXP, for posting the article in the first place!!!
1892
MANDALAY
by Rudyard Kipling
MANDALAY -
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier: come you back to Mandalay!" -
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay;
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from
Rangoon to Mandalay?
O the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer
China 'crost the Bay! -
'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot: -
Bloomin' idol made o' mud- What they called the Great Gawd Budd-
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed
'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay, etc. -
When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git her little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin my cheek
We uster watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. -
Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was
'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay, etc. -
But that's all shove be'ind me- long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else." -
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the
tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay, etc. -
I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin' stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand? -
Beefy face an' grubby 'and-
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner,
greener land!
On the road to Mandalay, etc. -
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', and it's there that I would be-
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea. -
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we
went to Mandalay!
Oh the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer
China 'crost the Bay! - -
THE END
The matter is forgotten and I am sorry I didn't post my response to you. Hell, I told you I was drinking, LOL!
My mistake, my apology. I'll drink a cold one for ya'!
Arioch7 out.
Wrong question.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they dont have to worry about answers."
-- Thomas Pynchon
It is the burden of civilized people.
I disagree with that from a moral standpoint. You may have a theological argument but I am not going to debate matters of faith.
You may consider it to be a responsibility (burden) but the fact is that spreading "democracy" and enlightenment is not among the enumerated powers granted to the govt.
So feel free to spend your money and possibly life to bring good things to the savages. Just don't demand that me and mine join you in your crusade.
This is the lyric version in the song based on the poem. A folk song, I guess you'd call it. Though Mr. Sinatra did a kick-a version.
Not all European colonists were created equal either if one studies England,France,Spain and Portugal together. I'd put France right at the bottom. From the looks of modern Europe, there's fertile ground for all those African preachers converted from their pagan ways.
The White man's burden was the begginig of the end for the BRitish Empire -- it made them condescending tot he people they had conquered and it was a mistake. The Brits never went anywhere to better the lot of the natives, they rather went to make money off of them.
No, you disagree from a LACK of morals standpoint.
Let the islamists rule over "their" part of Earth. Let the NAZIs rule over theirs. And the Communists. And the Klan. And the Huns and the Mongols.
What business is it of ours to oppose them? What "right" do we have to challenge their point of view?
Sleep well in your comfortable tomb, for that is what your life is.
bttt
I am glad we got that one squared away.
If you have one for me make it a double single malt scotch on the rocks.
I gave it up a while back. I reckoned I'd finally had my share.
If I misunderstood your meaning I beg you pardon.
I know nothing of Kipling, except his most famous poem which I think exemplifies President Bush.
" 'if' by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"
Yeah whatever was I thinking? :o)
That is part of my point. It's not "European" or "White" culture that is being defended. It is human advancement. It happened to take it's strongest hold on Europe, originally, but then grew to maturity in the freedom of the United States. It is the idea, not the race, that matters.
Notice that the United States is NOT a "white" nation. It is a country made up of people from all nations, all races, all cultures. Truly, we are the world. But, unlike the nation states we come from, we (those who get it) share a common set of ideals about advancing human freedom and dignity. Of protecting and preserving life. Of standing for moral principles, not merely pushing for personal advantage.
And France represents the crud left over after all of the good things left Europe.
Those who stayed behind in western Europe have very little to recommend them.
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