The remarkable swiftness and completeness of Dewey's victory over the Spanish Pacific fleet on May 1st (with loss of only one American life) gave some Americans the impression that expansion was America's (Manifest) destiny.
Yet others worried that a land grab for the Philippines would put McKinley (and by extension the US) in the same imperialist league as Napoleon and Julius Caesar.
The Philippines' location just off the coast of Asia--and the lure & "myth" of the China market--made the island chain particularly attractive to supporters of expansion.
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