Sorry @ChuckGrassley, historian here, you are wrong on both counts: 1) you imply the 1918 flu "was" Spanish; 2) they + others did object. The influenza epidemic almost definitely originated in Kansas in early 1918; US & wartime gov'ts minimized risk/hid info on flu...
Neutral Spain, on the other hand, did not impose wartime strictures against media coverage of the ravages of the flu, they covered it closely when King Alfonso XIII became very sick, & the world followed, assuming Spain as an origin point -- "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" 
The Spanish sometimes called it "French flu"! In US & UK, calling it "Spanish Flu" in the epidemic's early stages was a political act. Spain was a neutral nation in #WWI, thought to sympathize with Germany. Using the term was a politico-racist way of not confronting the illness.
In worse later stages calling it "Spanish Flu" was a way of "othering" the disease to imply blame lay abroad, or to rally people against the "foreign." By Fall 1918 most experts suspect no Spanish origin. Check out my thread: Influenza Epidemic of 1918-19
For a good brief overview, see John Barry's piece in the @SmithsonianMag "How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America" smithsonianmag.com/history/journa…
