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At that point, many Americans were caught up in the great muscle-flexing passion of Manifest Destiny. They heard Indiana's Senator Albert J. Beveridge cry: '''God did not make the American people the mightiest' human force of all time simply to feed and die ... He has made us the lords of civilization . . . The Philippines are ours forever." They heard President McKinley trying to set his own mind straight: "When ... I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps, I confess I did not know what to do with them ... I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance . . ." The guidance McKinley thought he got was that the ILS. should annex the islands; it was the U.S.'s duty to "Christianize" and civilize a nation that had been devoutly Catholic for 200 years before the U.S. was born. "And the next morning I sent for the Chief Engineer of the War Department—our mapmaker—and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the U.S."
Most Americans probably felt more like Mr. Dooley. "Suppose ye was standin' at th' corner iv State Sthreet and Archey R-road," Mr. Dooley mused. "Wud ye know what car to take to get to th' Ph'lippeens? If yer son Packy was to ask ye where th' Ph'lippeens is, cud ye give him anny good idea whether they was in Rooshia or jus' west iv th' thracks? . . . An' what shud I do with the Ph'lippeens? ... I can't annex thim because I don't know where they ar-re."
"Philippines for the Filipinos." The U.S. had suddenly become caretaker of more than 7,000 islands and islets in the Pacific, and manager of the destinies of some 7½ million people. It took four years to subdue the guerrillas in the hills, battling for independence from caretakers—whether Spanish or American. General Arthur MacArthur, whose son was to loom even more largely in Filipino destiny, said of the guerrillas: Let's civilize 'em with a Krag rifle—and tried to. Then came years of civil rule, under strong and foresighted men like William Howard Taft and Henry Stimson. Taft's slogan was "The Philippines for the Filipinos." The U.S., which had always looked down its nose at colonial powers, persuaded itself that it was really engaged in a great anticolonial experiment: to make the Philippines "a show window of democracy."
A people exploited for 3½ centuries by the Spanish was taught to read,* given good medical treatment, practice in self-government, and the highest standard of living in the Orient. The Americans also planted the imported seeds of civil liberties and free speech.
Mixed Motives. In the 1920s, the U.S. was already talking of giving "our little brown brothers" their independence—for a variety of motives. Powerful U.S. interests (sugar, tobacco, dairy, cottonseed and peanut oil, the West Coast labor unions) objected to the rivalry of cheap Filipino products and cheap Filipino labor. They were joined by U.S. liberals who squirmed when Filipinos quoted U.S. doctrine back at them—i.e., that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. The U.S. gave the Philippines partial independence in 1935, and set the date of complete independence for 1946.