In 1985 Cuba and the Philippines resentment against the country of Spain's control grew to the point of revolution. Cuba attained independence but the Philippines did not. In 1898 the U.S. ship USS Maine was blown up and the cause was determined to be a mine. The U.S. demanded that Spain resolve it's differences with Cuba or the United States would become involved militarily. By April of 1898, the US became involved in the war.

Imperialism is the concept that financially military superiority required control of the smaller political entities of the world. The United States, Spain and Britain viewed it as colonialization. The imperialists viewed it as an excuse for racism.

Rudyard Kipling's poem " The White Man's Burden" is an example of the Imperialists' view of racism. The need to take care of the Cuban and Filipino "Half devil and half child" was the burden. However, the anti-imperialists regarded the citizens of other countries as individuals that did not need to be cared for and that the "White Man's Burden" only existed in their commitment to the continuation of oppression.

 After two years of devastating warfare in the Philippines, Mark Twain remarked:

"The White Man's Burden has been sung. Who will sing the Brown Man's?"

From Jim Zwick's introduction to the Anti-Imperialist web site