Kipling politically proffered the poem to New York governor Theodore Roosevelt (r. 1899–1900) to help him persuade anti-imperialist Americans to accept the territorial annexation of the Philippine Islands to the United States.: "Theodore Roosevelt . . . thought the verses 'rather poor poetry, but good sense, from the expansionist stand-point'. Henry Cabot Lodge told Roosevelt, in turn: 'I like it. I think it is better poetry than you say.' "Greenblatt, Stephen. Norton Anthology of English Literature, New York 2006 .Wolpert, Stanley (2006)Brantlinger, Patrick (2007). "Kipling's 'The White Man's Burden' and its Afterlives", English Literature in Transition 1880–1920, 50.2, pp. 172–191. In September 1898, Kipling's literary reputation in the U.S. allowed his promotion of American empire to Governor Roosevelt:
