William McKinley: Speak to your audience

Leadership lessons of the presidents

“When next I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps, I confess I did not know what to do with them,” William McKinley said to a group of Protestant ministers visiting the White House. America’s 1898 war with Spain had ended, leaving American forces in the Philippines, a Spanish colony since the 16th century. The war had begun over issues relating to Cuba, a Spanish colony closer to America. Few Americans, including McKinley, had given much thought to the Philippines. But the few who did included expansionists like Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, who urged McKinley to annex the archipelago as an American steppingstone to China.

McKinley considered his options. “I sought counsel from all sides, Democrats as well as Republicans, but got little help,” he told the ministers. “I thought first we would take only Manila” — the capital — “then Luzon” — the principal island — “then other islands, perhaps, also.”

The president received conflicting counsel. The annexationists were strong but not ubiquitous in McKinley’s Republican party. Democrats were skeptical. Advocates declared that in an age of empire, America needed overseas holdings. Opponents reminded that America’s origins lay in a war against imperialism and warned that America might find itself in a position against the Filipinos like that of Britain against the Americans in the 1770s.

McKinley struggled with the decision. “I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight,” he said. “And I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance.”

God answered McKinley’s prayers. “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” — the Filipinos — “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 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. And the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States.”

In his meeting with the ministers, McKinley pointed to a map on the wall of his office. “And there they are, and there they will stay while I am president!”

The ministers were duly impressed. One of them transcribed McKinley’s remarks, which were published in The Christian Advocate. Missionaries became a crucial bloc supporting McKinley’s annexationist policy. The thought of saving Filipino souls for Protestant Christianity set their proselytizing pulses racing. Apparently none of the ministers reminded McKinley that most Filipinos were already Christians, namely Roman Catholics. Likely it didn’t occur to them, as many Protestants in those days considered Catholics more in need of saving than pagans.

To other audiences McKinley emphasized different arguments for annexation. Members of the business wing of the Republicans were happy to hear that the Philippines would afford access to China’s consumer market. Export-inclined farmers shared this view. Friends of the navy relished the deepwater port at Luzon’s Subic Bay. Latter-day Manifest Destinarians aimed to export democracy alongside the Christian gospel.

McKinley made his modified map a reality. After writing annexation into the war-ending treaty with Spain, he persuaded the requisite two-thirds of the Senate to ratify it.

Though the decision for annexation brought sound sleep to McKinley, implementation of the decision revived his insomnia. Filipino nationalists took arms against the American occupiers. A nasty, demoralizing war followed. The nationalists were defeated, but the effort soured Americans on overseas empire. They didn’t repeat what they came to consider McKinley’s mistake, which they eventually — in 1946 — contrived to undo.