Chapter VIII

The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation 139-151

President McKinley's celebrated proclamation of December 21, 1898, cabled out to the Islands, December 27, 1898, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris on the 10th, and intended as a fire-extinguisher, in fact acted merely as a firebrand, the Filipinos perceiving that Benevolent Assimilation meant such measure of slaughter as might be necessary to "spare them from the dangers of" the independence on which they were bent.