DOUG JOHNSON: The Senate vote on the treaty was set for February sixth. It seemed that the opposition had enough votes to reject it. But several things happened before the vote.

William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan, the leader of the Democratic Party, opposed the take-over of the Philippines. But he urged Democratic senators to vote for the treaty. Bryan was looking ahead to the presidential election in nineteen hundred. He believed that the Philippines' takeover would cause the United States nothing but trouble. He could put the blame for all the trouble on the Republicans. Then -- if he was elected president -- the Democrats could give the Philippines their independence.

Bryan succeeded in getting seventeen Democrats and Populists in the Senate to vote for the treaty.

STEVE EMBER: Two days before the vote was taken, violence broke out in the Philippines. President McKinley, without waiting for the Senate to act, ordered the American military government in Manila to extend its control throughout the Philippines.

The leader of the Philippine rebels, Emilio Aquinaldo, opposed the order. Rebel forces prepared to fight. On the night of February fourth, thirty thousand rebels attacked American forces around Manila. Sixty Americans were killed, and more than two hundred seventy were wounded. Rebel losses were much higher.

DOUG JOHNSON: News of the rebel attack caused some Senators to change their minds about the Philippines. Some who had opposed the treaty now agreed with the Washington Star newspaper that "the Filipinos must be taught to obey."