In the very first settlers of our country, the missionary impulse beat strong.
John Winthrop was not less intent than Cromwell on the conquest of all humanity by his own ideals; only he believed the most efficacious means to be the power of example instead of force.

Just now there was a renewed sense throughout the Anglo-Saxon public that it was the duty of the civilized to promote the civilization of the backward, and the Cromwellian method waxed in popularity.

Kipling, at the summit of his influence, appealed to a wide and powerful public in his "White Man's Burden," which appeared in 1899.
Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden-- And reap his old reward The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard-- The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) towards the light:-- Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?
McKinley asked those having opinions on the subject of this burden to write to him, and a strong call for the United States to take up her share in the regeneration of mankind came from important representatives of the religious public.

Nor was the attitude of those different who saw the possibilities of increased traffic with the East.

The expansion of the area of home distribution seemed a halfway house between the purely nationalistic policy, which was becoming a little irksome, and the competition of the open world.
It was not, however, the urging of these forces alone which made the undecided feel that the annexation of the Philippines was bound to come.