The Filipino's First Bath (McKinley: "Oh, you dirty boy!" Judge, 10 June 1899)
"The truth is 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…. And one night late it came to me this way…: (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 and 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 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…" - US President William McKinley, 1899