democracy on this American soil so natural, were providential; that the rising up of an ideal leader at the beginning of our government was providential; that the peculiar situation of this republic among the powers of the earth, enabling it to build up that great democracy in the New World, untroubled by the jealousies and quarrels of other nations, was providential. But can it be maintained that in the same sense the conquest of the Philippines was providential, and that President McKinley was right when he said in Boston, February 16, 1899: “The Philippines were intrusted to our hands by the providence of God; it is a trust we have not sought”? Look at the facts.
Some time before our war with Spain broke out, its possible contingencies were attentively considered by the Administration. Commodore Dewey, commanding our Asiatic squadron, informed himself about the state of the Spanish power in those regions, and weeks before the declaration of war, on March 31, 1898, he reported to our government that he could destroy the Spanish fleet and reduce the defenses of Manila in a single day, and added: “There is every reason to believe that, with Manila taken, or even blockaded, the rest of the islands would fall either to the insurgents or ourselves.”
Dewey was instructed to make his squadron ready for battle, and then, when war was declared, to seek the Spanish fleet and destroy it. All this was done, not by any mysterious dispensation, but by order of the Navy Department. When Spain, after a series of defeats, got ready for peace, the Secretary of the Navy telegraphed to Dewey as follows:
Washington, August 13, 1898: The President desires to receive from you any important information you may have of the Philippines; the desirability of the several islands; the
