8 AUGUST

Anti-US Imperialist Democrat William J. Bryan

1900 - One and one-half years into the  Philippine-American War (1899-1914), Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryans makes his acceptance speech condemning the United States invasion of the Philippines as an egregious deviation from the most sacred  traditions and principles supposedly held by the Bald Eagle nation; in his speech entirely devoted to the impropriety and adverse effects of American imperialism. he says that: “There can be no doubt that we did so we had full knowledge that they were fighting for their own independence, and I submit that history furnishes no example of greater turpitude than ours if we now substitute our yoke for the Spanish yoke”; Bryan, who would never win the US presidency but would become a leading "anti-imperialist," also believes that if the Americans were to "govern [the Filipinos] without their consent ... we dare not educate them, lest they learn to read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States and mock us for our inconsistency."