A nouveau-riche term used to describe American
imperialism from
sea to shining sea, or simply
put, Whitman's way of telling it like it is.
"Yankeedoodledom is going ahead with the resistless energy of a sixty-five-hundred-thousand-horsepower steam engine! It is carrying before it South and West, and may one day put the Canadas and
Russian America in its
fob pocket! Whether it does these things in a conventionally βgenteelβ style or not, isnβt the thing: but that it will tenderly regard human life, property and rights,
whatever step it takes, there is no doubt.β