Teddy roosevelt and other imperialists, or jingoes as they were called, got very interested in intervening in the spanish crisis. Leaders called for war on humanitarian grounds, especially to free the oppressed cuban people. After a war in the caribbean and the pacific that lasted ten weeks Spain surrendered. And then, to no one's total shock a, the united states not liberating the colonies, but but taking a number of them from spain and just sort of recolonizing them, this time under ah, you know, the stars and stripes,. porte rico, guam, the philippines.