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.