WE CAN, WE WILL !

THE PHILIPPINES

Two of the Army's finest fighting units, all African-American units - sometimes known as Buffalo Soldiers - were among the first of the regular troops sent to the Philippines. As the African-American troops disembarked at Manila, a white soldier was heard to call out, "What are you ******* doing here?" A Black non-commissioned officer, secure in his professionalism, familiar with the words of Kipling, and well aware of the irony of the situation, replied, "We've come to take up the white man's burden."

Kipling being British, it is popularly assumed that the poem was written about the British Empire. It was not. In fact, Kipling wrote it about America's expansion into a (thankfully short-lived) imperial empire as a result of the events of the Spanish-American War.

The White Man's Burden

by Rudyard Kipling

First published in McClure's Magazine (Feb. 1899).

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captive's 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 Man's 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 another's profit
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of those ye humor
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man's 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.