To McKinley, none of the choices was particularly appetizing. Returning the colony to Spain would be “cowardly,” handing it over to anyone else would be “bad business.” He doubted that Filipinos could govern themselves. He thus saw only one option: take the Philippines, “educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could for them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.”
