prensa comercial y de los propagandistas que se incorporaban al "pa.r–
tido" del imperialismo, clarificaron sus propias ideas.
24
Los acontecimientos, como siempre, fueron estrechando el hori–
zonte de las opciones o posibilidades y sobrepasaron incluso sus ota.
ciones. Finalmente el mismo se encarga de explicar los motivos de
su decisión, debido a la importancia de este testimonio
prefer~mos
cL
tar en extenso las expresiones de Mc Kinley:
.
"The truth is 1 didn't \vant the Philippines, and when they came
to
us, as a gift from the gods, 1 did not know what
to
do with
them. When the Spanish War broke out, Dewey was at Hong–
Kong, and 1 ordered him to go to Manila and to capture or des–
troy th€ Spanish fl€et... But that was as far as 1 thought then.
.. .I
thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then
other islands, perhaps, also. 1 wa1ked the floor of the White Hou–
se night after night until midnight; and 1 am not ashamed to
tell you, gentlem€n, that 1
w~mt
down on my knees and prayed
Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And
one night it came to me this way
1 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 fol' us to do but to take them an, and to educate the
Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by
God's grace to do the best we could by them... And then 1 went
to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning'
1 sent fol' the chief eng.íneer of the Wal' Department (our map–
maker) an 1 told him
to
put the Philippmes on the map of the
United States... and thel'e they are, and thel'e they
wi1I
stay white
1 am Pl'esident."
2S
En la soledad de sus meditaciones, pareciera ser que Madrid acom–
pañ6 al Presidente. Como producto de la guerra, España debió ceder
su soberanía sobre Cuba y Puerto Rico; ceder Filipinas contra un pago
de US$
20.000.000,
'además de la Isla de Guam. "España quedaba
marginada del Hemisferio Occidental, del Pacífico, y los Estados UnL
dos se convertían en una potencia colonial",
26
El
ciclo
del despegue político de Estados Unidos como potencia
mundial había alcanzado una nueva etapa de movilización ascendente
y de un sostenido desarrollo. La hegemonía británica comenzaba a
24Ibid., p.
47.
Según el autor, los diarios comerciales, Journal
of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal, The American Bunker se cam–
biaron hacia el lado proimperialista.
2S
William Me Kinley, citado de The Christian Advocate, January
22,
1903, en DulLes, Ibíd., p. 51.
26
Ibíd.
16
