We were at that time at war with Spain, a decrepit old nation which hadn't progressed beyond torturing bulls for pastime, when Admiral George, walking his fleet out for a constitutional one morning before breakfast, out here in the China Sea, saw something flying the Spanish flag.
Admiral George Dewey of the American Navy discovered these islands May 1st, 1898
George had got word that we were at war with Spain, and anything flying the Spanish flag was fair game for the doughty George, so he shot it up.
He lowered a boat and rowed off to pick up his game, and found the Philippine Islands.
None of my readers who were old enough at the time to remember anything will fail to recall how the United States went mad with joy over the discovery.
Here this old earth had plugged along until A. D. 1898 and it was supposed that all lands had been discovered except the North and South Poles, and it was pretty well believed if they were ever discovered it wouldn't go very far toward reducing the high cost of living—it was pretty thoroughly believed that it wasn't a good farming country around either of those poles—but to discover, dropped right out of the blue, a veritable Garden of Eden, a land flowing with milk and honey, as big as New England, New York, and New Jersey—our nation went mad, delirious with joy. You all recall it.
When George came sailing home from that wonderful cruise we were for making him President of the United States, and I guess we might have done it if he had known whether he was a Democrat or Republican.
As soon as his flagship was seen in the offing on his return, we went off in a small boat to meet him, clambered on deck, and the first question we popped at him was, "George, are you a Democrat or a Republican?"