User:Jondel/McKinleys Christianize the Filipino's

thoroughly dissatisfied subject."

DOCUMENT #26

Interview with President William McKinley, Nov. 21, 1899.

"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 went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me..: That we could not give them back to Spain -- that would be cowardly and dishonorable; that we could not turn them over to France or Germany -- our commercial rivals...; that we could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government...; and 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..."

From:

http://marchand.ucdavis.edu/lessons/HS/PhilippinesHS.htm