At the time, the majority of US citizens and business leaders thought of imperialism as a good thing and a way to increase not only the physical size of the United States, but also a way to increase the economy within the United States Increasing trade between nations has been one of the benefits of imperialism. Alfred T. Mahan published a popular book that promoted a large navy to become a world power. Many Americans saw this idea as the way the nation needed to move forward. In response to this belief the United States built 2 new types of cruisers and expanded its military force. This also created the need for some sort of outposts for the navy to have places to refuel and to provide the commercial needs to support the navy itself. With strong feelings of superiority, Americans desired to spread Christianity and the idea of ​​free government (Fross, J., n.d.). With the reasons for expanding American territories including: a larger navy would need places to refuel, the spread of Christianity, and an increase in resources and trade routes (Fleischmann,2013). With these desires in mind, the Americans were not yet in a hurry to go to war with Spain. Yet what has been dubbed yellow journalism has changed the minds of many Americans. The Spanish were portrayed as evil, murderous people who had little regard for the lives of others. USS Main was near Cuba when it exploded, this gave something to yellow journalism