Most Americans, and especially those who were in a position to alter the course of history,
had allowed themselves to be deluded by their own subterfuges in holding on to the Philippines, belaboring the many good deeds they had done for the sake of the Philippines, forgetting perhaps that
it was not goodness that Filipinos desired but their freedom and the opportunity to shape their own destiny.
Why did it happen? Why did a country founded on the great traditions of freedom and democracy succumb to the temptation of conquest? Until four months before the Spanish-American War, President William McKinley assured Congress that the United States would not annex Cuba, for “it would go against the American code of morality and it would be an act of criminal aggression.” This, too, initially was the attitude toward the Philippines. Annexation was unanimously condemned by both the American people and their political and economic leaders.
Some believe that the yellow press, led by William Randolph Hearst’s Journaland Joseph Pulitzer’s World, contributed to reverse this attitude. These two newspapers started a campaign to tantalize Americans with the fruit of conquest. Before long, just as there had been near unanimity about the evils of imperialism, there was general agreement after Dewey sailed into Manila Bay that the islands should be kept at all cost. Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Kansas told an enthusiastic audience in Boston: “Fate has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must and shall be ours. . . . Our institutions will follow our flag on the wings of commerce. American law, American order, American civilization, and the American flag will plant themselves on shores hitherto bloody and benighted, but by those agencies of God henceforth to be made beautiful and bright. . . . The Philippines are logically our first target.” Thus did the Philippines become America’s colony.
The ultimate rationalization was expressed by President McKinley in what has become a classic: “I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came. . . . And then I went to bed, and went to sleep and slept soundly....