In August of 1898, Spain and the United States agreed to an armistice in their war,

and the two sides settled down to negotiate a final agreement.

As summer passed into fall, and the negotiations with the Spanish dragged on,

the public mood in the United States shifted increasingly

in favor of taking control of the Philippines. Also, there were midterm elections coming up in

November 1898, and the Republicans wanted to claim credit for a victory over the Spanish. And if you're going to be claiming victory, it's a little too nuanced to try to argue,

yeah, that war was great and all, and boy, we sure won a big victory in Manila,

but we don't actually want to take control of the Philippines, do we?

The voters rewarded the Republicans at the polls, and afterward President McKinley told his

negotiating team to sell the Spanish, the Philippines are now part of the package and are non-negotiable.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 6, White Man's Burden

As the treaty negotiations continued in Paris, back in the Philippines,

the Spanish administration was gone from Manila, The U.S. Army had moved in,

and the city was a mess. The Americans did what Americans do best. They organized. They built

roads. They opened schools and clinics. Every afternoon, army bands performed concerts in the park for the benefit of the native Filipinos.

And every time they played, there will be a hot time in the old town tonight.

Filipino men took off their hats because by now they were sure this tune had to be the U.S. national anthem.

Music tune had to be the U.S. national anthem. Yeah, that never gets old.

But the good works happening in Manila obscured a deeper problem.

Tensions between the Americans and the Filipinos were rising.

Americans, with the casual racism of the time, which took it for granted that white-skinned people were better than dark-skinned people at just about anything, looked down on the

Filipinos, and there were incidents of violence. U.S. General Elwell Otis, who was the new

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