Creative Speculation

our nation’s founding fathers wouldn’t have been spinning in their graves for the past 100+ years over the fact that the U.S. A. had become an imperialistic nation. I think the U.S. probably would have eventually become one anyway, because there have long been American business interests wanting Asian markets, and there will probably continue to be - but at least it wouldn't have happened when it did if the Spanish has won the war. In the early 1900s there were American imperialists who wanted to plant the American flag in certain Asian countries to “civilize” the inhabitants as a part of their God-given responsibility as members of the “white race,” God’s “chosen people,” or so they told themselves (much as the British told themselves regarding India). I like knowing that both Silver Democrats as well as Gold Democrats, along with labor leaders, were anti-imperialists, and that Mark Twain and Jack London were too. Same with Mother Jones and Andrew Carnegie.

How would things here be different now? Impossible to say, but much would depend on whether America became an imperialistic power later, regardless of having lost the Spanish American War.