should set example in these respects, not follow the selfish and vulgar greed for territory which Europe has inherited from medieval times. Our declaration of war upon Spain was accompanied by a solemn and deliberate definition of our purpose. Now that we have achieved all and more than our object, let us simply keep our word." 1

Admiral Chadwick, after citing Gray's dissent, wrote: "There is no questioning the cogency of Judge Gray's argument, nor the nobility of its sentiment. To demand the Philippines was undoubtedly to alter the moral position of the United States and change its attitude from one of altruism to one of self-interest. This much is self-evident and scarcely requires statement." But McKinley stuck to his determination and had Hay telegraph it to Commissioner Day on October 28: "The sentiment in the United States," he said, "is almost universal that the people of the Philippines, whatever else is done, must be liberated from Spanish domination. In this sentiment the President fully concurs. Nor can we permit Spain to transfer any of the islands to another power. Nor can we invite another power or powers to join the United States in sovereignty over them. We must either hold them or turn them back to Spain.

"Consequently, grave as are the responsibilities and unforeseen as are the difficulties which are before us, the President can see but one plain path of duty- the acceptance of the archipelago. Greater difficulties and more serious complications, administrative and international, would follow any other course. The President has given to the

1 Oct. 25, Foreign Relations, 1898, 934.

2 ii. 461.

views of the Commissioners the fullest consideration, and in reaching the conclusion above announced, in the light of information communicated to the Commission and to the President since your departure, he has been influenced by the single consideration of duty and humanity." 1

On November 13, the President's idea was further elaborated by Hay's despatch again to Commissioner Day. "Do we not owe an obligation to the people of the Philippines which will not permit us to return them to the sovereignty of Spain?" he asked. "You are therefore instructed to insist upon the cession of the whole of the Philippines and, if necessary, pay to Spain $10,000,000 to $20,000,000. The trade and commercial side as well as the indemnity for the cost of the war are questions we might yield. They might be waived or compromised but the questions of duty and humanity appeal to the President so strongly that he can find no appropriate answer but the one he has here marked out." 2

The biographer of McKinley shows us the working of his mind in some words he addressed to his Methodist brethren: "The truth is," he said, "I didn't want the Philippines and when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them. . . . I sought counsel from all sides - Democrats as well as Republicans -but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands, perhaps, also. 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

1 Foreign Relations, 1898, 937.

2 Ibid., 949. For an interesting account of the work of the Peace Commission, see Life of Whitelaw Reid, Cortissoz, ii. chap. xiii.

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: (1) that we could not give them back to Spain that would be

cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany our commercial rivals in the Orient that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves they were unfit for self-government and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep and slept soundly." 1

It is true that McKinley was inconsistent in his public words. In his message of December, 1897, he had said, "Forcible annexation . . cannot be thought of; that, by our code of morality, would be criminal aggression.” 2 One cannot read the proceedings of the Peace Commission in Paris and see in any other light than that our taking of the Philippines was "forcible annexation." In his instructions to the Commissioners of September 16, 1898, he had said that the United States must be "scrupulous and magnanimous in the concluding settlement." It should not be tempted into "excessive demands or into an adventurous departure on untried paths.” 3 But our attitude to Spain denied the injunction to show magnanimity, and our demand for and the taking of the

1 Interview, Nov. 21, 1899. Life of McKinley, ii. 109.
'Richardson, x. 131. 'Foreign Relations, 1898, 907.

Philippines was an excessive demand and a venture on untried paths.

Yet McKinley was entirely sincere. He was truly religious, and when he told his Methodist brethren of the working of his mind, he told exactly the truth as he saw it. When he wrote, "The war has brought us new duties and responsibilities which we must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career from the beginning the Ruler of Nations has plainly written the high command and pledge of civilization," 1 he meant what he said; and many good moral and religious men were entirely of his mind. Indeed it was a troublesome question to decide. The opinion of a majority of the American people was opposed to allowing the islands to go back to Spain; and yet as we see it now, that was the only alternative. They and the President did not believe that things should be permitted in the Eastern Hemisphere that they had gone to war to stop in Cuba. While the humanitarian impulse did the President honor, he had no right to commit his country to a dangerous course, to run the risk of "an adventurous departure on untried paths," on account of a religious sentiment. Despite the obvious opinion of the majority, which with "his ear close to the ground" " he well knew, his hold on the country was so great, increased as it was by a victorious war, that he could have led it to accept any conditions that he deemed necessary for the conclusion of a peace. The only possible alternative, leaving the islands to Spain, might have been done under conditions suggested by Commissioner Day. Such con

'Peck, 659.

1 Foreign Relations, 1898, 907.
Foreign Relations, 1898, 926, 934.

ditions would have filled the measure of humanity; but there would naturally have been the query whether Spain would or could carry them out.1

An American condition, however, should have influenced the President without fail. The Monroe Doctrine had come to be regarded as sacred and the spirit of it, if not the letter, was violated when we annexed the Philippines. We held that no European Power should take territory or increase what she possessed in the Western Hemisphere. In other words we said, "You keep away from us and we will keep away from you." 2 By the same token we were bound not to encroach on the Eastern Hemisphere. A cartoon in Punch entitled "Doctrine and Practice" represented Dame Europa in a garden, her attitude haughty, saying coldly to an intruder, "To whom do I owe the pleasure of this intrusion?" The intruder, in face, figure and get-up of the well-known type, replied "Ma'am - my name is Uncle Sam!" When came the rejoinder, "Any relation of the late Colonel Monroe?" True it was urged that we had grown too large to be confined by the Monroe Doctrine, that the teachings of Washington, Monroe and John Quincy Adams applied to the country as it was then and had no longer application. Others reasoned that the Monroe

1 General MacArthur said in his Testimony before the Senate Committee on the Philippines on April 11, 1902: "When we landed [MacArthur sailed for Manila from San Francisco on June 27, 1898] we found the entire population [of the Philippines] in open, violent, vindictive resentment against Spain, as an expression of their desire to be emancipated from that monarchy. . . . I think if they had been granted the reforms which were extended to the people of the peninsula [of Spain] that the Filipinos would have been loyal Spaniards to-day."— Part ii. 1384. 2 The Nation, Nov. 10, 1898, 345.

'Punch, Aug. 6, 1898; Winslow Warren in Boston Herald, Apr. 18, 1919. See The Nation, May 19, 1898, 376.