construct a canal through Panama without British involvement, as well as attempting to reduce British involvement in the strategically located Kingdom of Hawaii. His plans for the United States' involvement in the world stretched even beyond the Western Hemisphere, as he sought commercial treaties with Korea and Madagascar. By 1882, however, a new Secretary was reversing Blaine's Latin American initiatives. Serving again as Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison, Blaine worked for closer ties with the Kingdom of Hawaii, and sponsored a program to bring together all the independent nations of the Western Hemisphere in what became the Pan-American Union. Before 1892 senior diplomats from the United States to other countries, and from them to the U.S., were called "ministers." In 1892 four major European countries (Britain, France, Germany, and Italy) raised the title of their chief diplomat to the US to "ambassador"; the US reciprocated in 1893. Hawaii While European powers, and Japan, engaged in an intense scramble for colonial possessions in Africa and Asia, the United States stood aloof. This began to change in 1893. In the early 1880s, the United States had only a small army stationed at scattered Western forts, and an old fashioned wooden navy. By 1890 the U.S. began investment in new naval technology including steam-powered battleships with powerful armaments and steel decking. Naval planners led by Alfred Thayer Mahan used the success of the British Royal Navy to explore the opportunity for American naval power. In 1893 the business community in Kingdom of Hawaii overthrew the Queen for trying to become an absolute monarch. They sought annexation by the U.S. President Harrison, a Republican, was in favor and forwarded the proposal to the Senate for approval. But the newly elected President Cleveland, a Democrat opposed to expansionism, withdrew the proposed annexation. Hawaii instead formed an independent Republic of Hawaii. Unexpectedly foreign-policy became a central concern of American politics. Historian Henry Graff says that at first, "Public opinion at home seemed to indicate acquiescence....Unmistakably, the sentiment at home was maturing with immense force for the United States to join the great powers of the world in a quest for overseas colonies." Cleveland, on taking office in March 1893, rescinded the annexation proposal. His biographer Alyn Brodsky argues he was deeply adverse to an immoral action against the little kingdom which no longer existed. Cleveland tried to mobilize support from Southern Democrats to fight the