The White Man's Burden

The speaker in the poem has a clear and consistent point of view, which he reveals in the first line and emphasizes throughout the poem. He accomplishes this through the repetition of that first line at the beginning of each stanza and by amplifying the central point. The key word, other than the speaker addressing the white race, is “burden.” The colonial mission is a moral obligation that will demand time, patience, and sacrifice.

The poem, however, contains ironies of which the speaker is unaware. Not once does he acknowledge that a material advantage might accrue to the imperial power. (If the United States were to take over the Philippines, for example, it might gain new commercial opportunities in Asia.) On the contrary, the colonial takeover is presented as solely for the benefit of the subject people; it is a selfless rather than a selfish mission. The importance of it is implied in Line 2, in which the speaker implores the United States to send its “best” men to the Philippines to help the people there. In other words, this is not a minor expedition that anyone can accomplish; the nation must give it a high priority because it concurs with the larger moral duty that falls to the white race in its relations with nonwhite people.