President McKinley claims that the bitter, bloody war between Spain and Cuba must be ended to protect humanity, civilization, and American interests. A major issue that McKinley presents is that the violece between these two countries not only upsets the American citizen, but is also hurting American trade -especially the capital. In an effort to pacify his citizens and save the economy from impending doom, McKinely syllogizes two possibilities: he can either take a position of neutrality, but still intervene; or he can provide benefits and support to one side. After carefully contemplating this dilemma, McKinely deduces that if the US is forced to choose the latter, he would have to side against the insurrectionists. However, the cons of the former, which can speciously be justified, is too great of a detriment. The four major points McKinley asserts in his speech is that the "horrible miseries" and "barbarities" that take place in Cuba would continue; the unprotected Cuban citizen deserves to be protected (which relates back to the Monroe Doctrine); neutrality would create a "very serious injury to American commerce and trade"; and it would forever ruin current political affairs with Cuba. Through calculated risks, McKinley chose to protect the Cubans, openly stating that the American's are too closely intertwined Cuba for the Us citizen to ignore Spain's atrocities. Such action would later lead to the Spanish-American War (which ended oin a decisive American victory) and the eventual occupation of Cuba.
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