e taking of the Philippines. It does not fall to
me to discuss in this article these two questions, nor do I feel certain
that all the documents necessary to a fair judgment are accessible to
the public, but I can show what was McKinley's attitude toward them by
reporting a confidential conversation he had on May 2, 1899, with Mr.
Henry S. Pritchett, president of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, who made a record of it the day afterward. The President,
Mr. Pritchett relates, spoke of the "war and of his own responsibility,
and the way in which he has gradually come to have his present position
with respect to the Philippines. The talk was started by my reminding
him of the fact that just a year ago that morning, on May 2, 1898, I had
come into his room with a map of Manila and Cavite on a large scale--the
first time he had seen such a map--and from this he drifted into a most
serious and interesting talk of his own place in the history of the past
twelve months. He described his efforts to avert the war, how he had
carried the effort to the point of rupture with his party, then came the
Maine incident, and, finally, a declaration of war over all efforts to
stem the tide. Then he spoke of Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philippines,
related at some length the correspondence he had had with the Paris
Commission, how he had been gradually made to feel in his struggling for
the right ground that first Luzon and finally all the Philippines must
be kept. He then went on to indicate his belief that Providence had led
in all this matter, that to him the march of events had been so
irresistible that nothing could turn them aside. Nobody, he said, could
have tried harder than he to be rid of the burden of the Philippines,
and yet the trend of events had been such that it seemed impossible to
escape this duty. He finally came to speak with more emotion than I have
ever seen him exhibit, and no one could doubt the sincerity of the man."

Of McKinley's achievements in the field of diplomacy Secretary Hay in
his memorial address spoke with knowledge and in words of high praise.
Sometimes the expression of a careful foreign observer anticipates the
judgment of posterity, and with that view the words of the
_Spectator_,[168] in an article on the presidential election of 1900,
are worth quoting: "We believe that Mr. McKinley and the wise statesman
who is his Secretary of State, Colonel Hay, are administrators of a high
order. They