In this said race, America did not want to lose. This instance had been the first time since the Monroe Doctrine that Americans were outwardly saying, "Stay away from my country!".
Also, like all nations, America also still believed in the old idea of land equals power. Some people tried to mask this idea, like Theodore Roosevelt said in his Annual Message to Congress on December 6, 1904. He cried, "If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters; if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States.' In truth, even within that statement, he showed America as a dominant power. That other nation would have to live under American standards or else be punished by America. Even though the United States may not technically own that land, it still had control over it. Great Britain had done the same thing to America back before the American Revolution. England was trying to control its colony which was three thousand miles away and yet still allowing them to have self rule. This control idea was almost blatantly stated by the Supreme Court during the Downes v. Bidwell case. The Court said, "We are also of opinion that the power to acquire territory by treaty implies, not only the power to govern such territory, but to prescribe upon what terms the United States will receive its inhabitants, and what their status shall be in what Chief Justice Marshall termed the 'American Empire'". Yes, they did bring into the equation the use of a treaty, but a treaty is only a piece of paper with words and signatures on it. America would still be controlling more land. Also, Alfred T. Mahan said that "no foreign state should henceforth acquire a coaling position within three thousand miles of San Francisco" in his The Interest of America in Sea Power. Since no other country would be allowed in that area, the United States would essentially be controlling even more territory than they really own.
