Mahan, who advocated creating a colossal navy and building bases, taking more land under MD. Growth is "a vital necessity to a nation," Mahan wrote, in justifying the position that the U.S. should annex the Hawaiian Islands. Lodge was a respected writer and historian, and he put forth the notion (Merk, 237) in articles that Cuba, the Hawaiian Islands, Canada and other territories should be conquered - but not Mexico, Central America, and South America. After all, the people and land there "were not of a desirable kind."

These ideas were well received, and Lodge was rewarded with an appointment in the McKinley administration as "Assistant Secretary of the Navy" - where he used his position to push for a bigger and better navy. In the end of his book, Merk (261) argues that those who were in positions of power and who could sway public opinion were "amoral" and...
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