The greatest poet of European colonialism was of course Rudyard Kipling. One of his best efforts, first published in 1899, was addressed to the people of the U.S.A., exhorting us to colonize the Philippines, which we had acquired in the Spanish-American War. The title of that poem was "The White Man's Burden." A listener begged to differ. Mr. Derbyshire: Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" enumerates all the problems the U.S. would face if it took the Philippines. It is against the U.S. becoming an empire. Several verses were read in the Senate as arguments against the ratification of the Treaty of Paris. The lefties at Wikipedia agree with you however.