“Nonsense. I believe that threat to other people is wrong. It’s not only wrong in the eyes of God, but also in the eyes of me. I know I am not the only one who thinks about imperialism this way. Our God put us on this earth for a reason, and that is not to threaten other people when our greediness over comes us when we don’t get what we want. That is the thinking of a child and I don’t want the biggest world power to be run by ignorant children,” replied Mark Twain to Mr. Roosevelt
“All of what you are saying cannot be, and is not true. People need direction from the ones who already are aware of where they are going and what they are doing. The Human race needs guidance that religion cannot provide them and that has a major role in international trades because people do not know what they really need. The people of tomorrow are starting today and these new people need to be shown what’s right and that’s what I am doing. Showing them how imperialism is right,” defends Roosevelt.
“I cannot agree with you. Imperfect people cannot receive direction from other imperfect people. That doesn’t create perfect thinking, but it creates poor ideas and bad mistakes. And if you are so concerned about the people of tomorrow, then why are you threatening them with death? You are going to wind up killing the next generation for other countries if you live up to the military threat you put against them. Then think of their children. These aren’t just people you will kill; these are families you will kill. That’s why I disagree with you there,” debates Twain.
“The point in imperialism is to make sure we get safe transports between countries, not to kill families. The whole idea behind it is to let the countries know we have weapons it they do anything to us with through their shipments of items,” responds Roosevelt.
“There is no better way to ensure trust upon a country then going for a deal with no strings attached. You are expressing how you trust them whole heartedly. But with imperialism, you are pointing a gun at their head and telling them to do good trades with you. That is inhumane,” Mr. Twain expressed.
“No. I am being brave doing that. By not doing that would make me lazy and cowardly. I am courageous for handling trades the way I am. Besides, I know what I am doing and that is proved by all my successful affairs with other countries and because of my good affairs, I have even expanded into the Pilipino War,” argued Roosevelt.
“Being friendly to other countries while in international affairs in not cowardly or lazy in any way. If anything it is being smart with the decisions we make with them. And when we are nicer to them, maybe they will give us better trades then if we just threaten them for what we want. The more gracious we are to them, the more gracious they will be to us,” Twain protested.
Roosevelt responded by saying, “We must make trades with a big stick. They need to know that they cannot just make us pay for what they don’t want to and that we will not tolerate trades that are not fair or that are not up to the standards that we requested. We must make sure our trades are good and fair and the only way to do that is to give them a reason to give us what we want, and that reason is war.”
Twain expressed his thought with, “I at first was for