George Ade's Critique of Benevolent Assimilation
1983; Oxford University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1467-7709.1983.tb00392.x
ISSN1467-7709
Autores Tópico(s)American and British Literature Analysis
ResumoAlthough literary figures like Mark Twain and William Dean Howells played leading roles in the anti-imperialist movement of the 1890s, many writers of popular fiction supported overseas expansion.1 These authors wrote for commercial audiences and produced what the public wanted. Apparently believing that Americans supported the acquisition of overseas territory, they showered the public with poems, short stories, novels (including ones for children), and nickel and dime novels all singing the praises of the new American heroes and hailing their expansionist policy. While a student at Columbia University at the beginning of the Spanish-American War, for example, Upton Sinclair wrote two nickel and dime novels a week. During 1898 he published at least sixty-three novels, all of which celebrated the war.2 Not all popular writers, however, endorsed expansion. Among the opponents were two midwestern humorist-journalists: Finley Peter Dunne, whose fabulous “Mr. Dooley” kept up a running commentary on the foibles of the politicians and military leaders;3 and the less well-known George Ade, whose “Stories of ‘Benevolent Assimilation’”—until now uncollected and buried in the files of the defunct Chicago Record—held up to ridicule the pious claims of the expansionists.4 Ade's “The Sultan of Sulu,” which enjoyed a successful eleven-week Broadway run in 1903, and his “The Sho-Gun of Kachoo” (1904) remain the only readily available Ade critiques of American expansionist policy. But neither of these works is as comprehensive and as pointed in its criticism of American policy as his “Stories of ‘Benevolent Assimilation.’” As antiexpansionist documents, they merit attention because of their double-barreled attack on the political and cultural implications of the policy. Neither Fred C. Kelly nor Lee Coyle, Ade's biographers, have dealt with these stories, though Kelly acknowledges them as the basis for “The Sultan of Sulu.”5
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