The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (70 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
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It is not clear when the
Journal
’s Bryson arrived on the scene, but he reported that “after the big flash there was darkness. The night resounded with cries for help and inarticulate shrieks. The surface of the bay was alive with men swimming for their lives, and from the sky rained bits of pipe, small iron and other wreck dust.”
28
Whatever triggered the initial explosion, it had ignited more than five tons of powder charges in the
Maine
’s magazines. The worst damage was to the forward third of the vessel, where the crew was berthed. The officers of the
Maine
lowered their few remaining lifeboats and began scooping up survivors and bodies from the harbor. They were joined by rescue parties from the
City of Washington
and the
Alfonso XII
as well as by boats from shore. Two hundred and sixty died at the scene, most of them instantly (another six died in hospital of their injuries).
29
Most of the officers survived.
Journal
’s Bryson arrived on the scene, but he reported that “after the big flash there was darkness. The night resounded with cries for help and inarticulate shrieks. The surface of the bay was alive with men swimming for their lives, and from the sky rained bits of pipe, small iron and other wreck dust.”
28
Whatever triggered the initial explosion, it had ignited more than five tons of powder charges in the
Maine
’s magazines. The worst damage was to the forward third of the vessel, where the crew was berthed. The officers of the
Maine
lowered their few remaining lifeboats and began scooping up survivors and bodies from the harbor. They were joined by rescue parties from the
City of Washington
and the
Alfonso XII
as well as by boats from shore. Two hundred and sixty died at the scene, most of them instantly (another six died in hospital of their injuries).
29
Most of the officers survived.
Sigsbee reluctantly gave up the
Maine
for the safety of the
City of Washington,
where he jotted a telegraph to the secretary of the navy reporting the loss of his ship and many of his men. Although he believed that he had been sunk by a mine or a torpedo, a view he would never revise, delegations of Spanish officials offering assistance and sincerest sympathies moved him to include a line of caution at the close of his account: “Public opinion should be suspended until further report.”
30
He gave his transcript to the
Herald
’s Rea to wire on his behalf. Rea and Scovel hurried to the telegraph office and found it already crowded with reporters. They elbowed to the front of the line, pleading official business, and sent Sigsbee’s message. Only two other telegrams got out that night. One was a hundred-line Associated Press bulletin that would comprise almost the whole of Park Row’s first-morning coverage. The other belonged to the endlessly resourceful Scovel, who had earlier filched from the censor’s office a blank cable form with a preapproved seal; he carried it with him for just such an occasion. His brief report to the
World
added little to the AP account, but it more directly addressed the question of blame: “The injured do not know what caused the explosion. There is some doubt as to whether the explosion took place ON the Maine.”
31
His paper would be first to hint that the blast had not been an accident.
Maine
for the safety of the
City of Washington,
where he jotted a telegraph to the secretary of the navy reporting the loss of his ship and many of his men. Although he believed that he had been sunk by a mine or a torpedo, a view he would never revise, delegations of Spanish officials offering assistance and sincerest sympathies moved him to include a line of caution at the close of his account: “Public opinion should be suspended until further report.”
30
He gave his transcript to the
Herald
’s Rea to wire on his behalf. Rea and Scovel hurried to the telegraph office and found it already crowded with reporters. They elbowed to the front of the line, pleading official business, and sent Sigsbee’s message. Only two other telegrams got out that night. One was a hundred-line Associated Press bulletin that would comprise almost the whole of Park Row’s first-morning coverage. The other belonged to the endlessly resourceful Scovel, who had earlier filched from the censor’s office a blank cable form with a preapproved seal; he carried it with him for just such an occasion. His brief report to the
World
added little to the AP account, but it more directly addressed the question of blame: “The injured do not know what caused the explosion. There is some doubt as to whether the explosion took place ON the Maine.”
31
His paper would be first to hint that the blast had not been an accident.
After 2 a.m., a telegram was delivered to the front door of the Washington home of John D. Long, secretary of the navy, informing him of the destruction of his ship. He immediately telephoned the White House and instructed the duty watchman to rouse the president. McKinley reportedly took the news hard. Years later, the watchman recalled him walking the floor in shock, muttering to no one in particular, “The
Maine
blown up! The
Maine
blown up!”
32
Meanwhile, the newspapers in New York, having received the first news flash from Havana, had roused their Washington correspondents, who reached the secretary’s home and the White House almost as quickly as did the official notification. They wanted information and comment but received little beyond expressions of sorrow.
Maine
blown up! The
Maine
blown up!”
32
Meanwhile, the newspapers in New York, having received the first news flash from Havana, had roused their Washington correspondents, who reached the secretary’s home and the White House almost as quickly as did the official notification. They wanted information and comment but received little beyond expressions of sorrow.
Hearst, decades later, claimed to have returned home late that night from the newspaper to find his butler, George Thompson, waiting up for him: “There’s a telephone from the office. They say it ’s important news.”
When Hearst called the
Journal,
an editor told him that the battleship
Maine
has been blown up in Havana harbor.
Journal,
an editor told him that the battleship
Maine
has been blown up in Havana harbor.
“Good heavens, what have you done with the story?”
“We have put it on the first page, of course.”
“Have you put anything else on the front page?”
“Only the other big news,” said the editor.
“There is not any other big news,” replied Hearst. “Please spread the story all over the page. This means war.”
33
33
That anecdote is the starting point for most accounts of Heart ’s coverage of the sinking of the battleship
Maine.
It was the biggest story he addressed during his years as a hands-on editor, and it is also the moment that has defined him as a journalist. As quickly as it rolled off the press, Hearst ’s coverage of the
Maine
explosion was attacked by rival editors as the most disgraceful display in the history of American journalism, and a century’s perspective has done nothing to soften the reviews. Indeed, condemnations of the coverage have been so passionate, thorough, and numerous as to almost defy summary. Biographers, journalists, military historians, political scientists, and novelists have cited Hearst ’s response to the destruction of the
Maine
as the epitome of yellow journalism—the single point in time when all crimes of the craft were committed at once. Nothing in his journalistic career, not even his work in the 1896 election, has brought Hearst anywhere near so much opprobrium.
Maine.
It was the biggest story he addressed during his years as a hands-on editor, and it is also the moment that has defined him as a journalist. As quickly as it rolled off the press, Hearst ’s coverage of the
Maine
explosion was attacked by rival editors as the most disgraceful display in the history of American journalism, and a century’s perspective has done nothing to soften the reviews. Indeed, condemnations of the coverage have been so passionate, thorough, and numerous as to almost defy summary. Biographers, journalists, military historians, political scientists, and novelists have cited Hearst ’s response to the destruction of the
Maine
as the epitome of yellow journalism—the single point in time when all crimes of the craft were committed at once. Nothing in his journalistic career, not even his work in the 1896 election, has brought Hearst anywhere near so much opprobrium.
The criticism began even while bodies were still being lifted from Havana harbor. E.L. Godkin fired the first broadside and kept firing in both the
Evening Post
and
The Nation
for the next five weeks, setting the tone and isolating the targets for all subsequent criticisms. The following are among his most frequently cited remarks. Some are directed entirely at Hearst, while others implicate Pulitzer as well:
Evening Post
and
The Nation
for the next five weeks, setting the tone and isolating the targets for all subsequent criticisms. The following are among his most frequently cited remarks. Some are directed entirely at Hearst, while others implicate Pulitzer as well:
• The admirable conduct of the government officials at Washington renders the course of the sensational press in this city the more shameful by contrast. Nothing so disgraceful as the behavior of two of these newspapers this week has been known in the history of American journalism. Gross misrepresentation of the facts, deliberate invention of tales calculated to excite the public, and wanton recklessness in the construction of headlines which even outdid these inventions.
34
• The reason why such journals lie is that it pays to lie, or, in other words, this is the very reason for which they are silly and scandalous and indecent. They supply a want of a demoralized public. Moreover, such journals are almost always in favor of war, because war affords unusual opportunities for lying and sensation. That war involves much suffering and losses, does not matter. Their business is not to promote public happiness or morality, but to “sell the papers.”
35
• The resources of type have been about exhausted. Nothing in the way of larger letters can be used, unless only a single headline is to be given on the first page. Red ink has been resorted to as an additional element of attraction or terror, and if we had a war, the whole paper might be printed in red, white, and blue. In that case, real lunatics instead of imitation lunatics should be employed as editors and contributors.
36
• No one—absolutely no one—supposes a yellow journal cares five cents about the Cubans, the
Maine
victims, or anyone else. A yellow journal office is probably the nearest approach, in atmosphere, to hell, existing in any Christian state. As we see to-day, in spite of all the ridicule that has been lavished on the “yellow journals,” in spite of the general acknowledgement of the mischief they do, in spite of the general belief in the baseness and corruption and Satanism of their proprietors, their circulation is apparently as large as ever.
37
• A better place in which to prepare a young man for eternal damnation than a yellow-journal office does not exist.
38
• A blackguard boy [Hearst] with several millions of dollars at his disposal has more influence on the use a great nation may make of its credit, of its army and navy, of its name and traditions, than all the statesmen and philosophers and professors in the country.
39
Godkin, age sixty-seven, was a thick balding Irishman with a full gray beard and short features. Educated in the British Isles, he had covered the war in the Crimea before moving to New York, where he was made editor of
The Nation,
a weekly journal of opinion. Under his leadership, it became one of the more influential small publications in the United States. In 1881, Godkin added the
Evening Post
to his responsibilities. But he is remembered today as much for his denunciations of yellow journalism as anything else. Several of the most prominent journalism histories of the twentieth century hail him as a lonely voice of reason and sobriety amid the
Maine
madness. In 1934 Joseph E. Wisan published a comprehensive day-to-day study of Park Row’s coverage of the Cuba story. He celebrates Godkin for his “devotion to the best standards in journalism” and fleshes out the editor’s criticisms of Hearst with specific examples of erroneous reporting, inflammatory headlines, and generally irresponsible journalism.
40
Wisan’s work, in turn, has been influential among Hearst ’s primary biographers and other chroniclers of the American press.
The Nation,
a weekly journal of opinion. Under his leadership, it became one of the more influential small publications in the United States. In 1881, Godkin added the
Evening Post
to his responsibilities. But he is remembered today as much for his denunciations of yellow journalism as anything else. Several of the most prominent journalism histories of the twentieth century hail him as a lonely voice of reason and sobriety amid the
Maine
madness. In 1934 Joseph E. Wisan published a comprehensive day-to-day study of Park Row’s coverage of the Cuba story. He celebrates Godkin for his “devotion to the best standards in journalism” and fleshes out the editor’s criticisms of Hearst with specific examples of erroneous reporting, inflammatory headlines, and generally irresponsible journalism.
40
Wisan’s work, in turn, has been influential among Hearst ’s primary biographers and other chroniclers of the American press.
W.A. Swanberg’s 1961 biography of Hearst relies on the vehement denunciations of Godkin and the specific examples produced by Wisan to denounce Hearst ’s coverage of the
Maine
as “the orgasmic acme of ruthless, truthless newspaper jingoism.”
41
Hearst, according to Swanberg, wanted war with Spain and “fought for these ends with such abandonment of honesty and incitement of hatred that the stigma of it never quite left him even though he still had fifty-three years to live. Intelligent Americans realized the preposterousness of the idea that Spain had blown up the
Maine.
Proud Spain had swallowed insult to avoid a war she knew she would lose. Her forbearance had borne fruit until the explosion in Havana caused journalistic insanity in New York.” Swanberg maintains that the
Journal
ignored the White House ’s appeal for the press to suspend judgment on the cause of the explosion until a Navy Department court of inquiry had opportunity to investigate and file its report. Instead, Hearst convicted Spain in a blink. While Hearst’s editorials admitted disbelief that Spain had officially ordered the explosion, “this was tucked away in small type and later disavowed. The big type, the headlines, the diagrams, the cartoons, the editorials, laid the blame inferentially or flatly on Spain.”
42
Swanberg cites a handful of screaming headlines (most of them first noted by Wisan) as proof of Hearst ’s deliberate efforts to mislead and inflame the public: “Warship Maine was Split In Two by an Enemy’s Secret Infernal Machine”; “The Whole Country Thrills With the War Fever”; “How The Maine Actually Looks As It Lies, Wrecked By Spanish Treachery, in Havana Bay.”
Maine
as “the orgasmic acme of ruthless, truthless newspaper jingoism.”
41
Hearst, according to Swanberg, wanted war with Spain and “fought for these ends with such abandonment of honesty and incitement of hatred that the stigma of it never quite left him even though he still had fifty-three years to live. Intelligent Americans realized the preposterousness of the idea that Spain had blown up the
Maine.
Proud Spain had swallowed insult to avoid a war she knew she would lose. Her forbearance had borne fruit until the explosion in Havana caused journalistic insanity in New York.” Swanberg maintains that the
Journal
ignored the White House ’s appeal for the press to suspend judgment on the cause of the explosion until a Navy Department court of inquiry had opportunity to investigate and file its report. Instead, Hearst convicted Spain in a blink. While Hearst’s editorials admitted disbelief that Spain had officially ordered the explosion, “this was tucked away in small type and later disavowed. The big type, the headlines, the diagrams, the cartoons, the editorials, laid the blame inferentially or flatly on Spain.”
42
Swanberg cites a handful of screaming headlines (most of them first noted by Wisan) as proof of Hearst ’s deliberate efforts to mislead and inflame the public: “Warship Maine was Split In Two by an Enemy’s Secret Infernal Machine”; “The Whole Country Thrills With the War Fever”; “How The Maine Actually Looks As It Lies, Wrecked By Spanish Treachery, in Havana Bay.”
Whereas Godkin had seen a lust for circulation and Satanism behind Hearst ’s antics, Swanberg adopted a pop-Freudian approach: “His sympathies were swift and unreasoning. He was emotionally unstable, plunged into horror and indignation by the disaster. Since he wanted to believe the Spaniards guilty, he did. His ability to abandon reality and accept his own fantasies as facts absolved him from any obligation toward truth and led him into wild bypaths of error. Also, the megalomaniac in him delighted in making himself the author of mighty events.”
43
43
Godkin, Wisan, and Swanberg all blamed Hearst for America’s eventual entry into war with Spain, as did a great many other commentators in the last century. Estimations of Hearst ’s power and influence have since ebbed. Nasaw’s 1998 biography of Hearst minimizes his role, yet Nasaw too joins in the mockery and condemnation of the
Journal
’s coverage.
Journal
’s coverage.
So what, exactly, did roll off the
Journal
’s presses in the wake of the
Maine
calamity?
Journal
’s presses in the wake of the
Maine
calamity?
If Hearst did, in fact, return home late on the evening of February 15 to relay instructions to his news desk over the telephone, he appears to have been disregarded by whoever received them. Judging from surviving editions and historical accounts, the
Journal
’s first-day coverage was not significantly different from that of any other paper (not surprising given that the news did not reach New York until about 2:30 a.m.). The paper’s front page on the morning of February 16 carried a three-column factual headline: “Cruiser Maine Blown Up In Havana Harbor.” The subhead added, “Disaster a Mystery and Loss of Life Said to Be Appalling.” Captain Sigsbee’s telegraph to Washington was quoted in full. A secondary story, perhaps lifted from Scovel’s report in the
World,
stated that all boats from the Spanish cruiser
Alfonso XII
were assisting in rescue efforts, as were Spanish officers and soldiers, local firemen, policemen, and sailors. The cause of the explosion was not obvious; the wounded sailors of the
Maine
were unable to explain it. It was believed that the cruiser was totally destroyed. The only rumor presented by the
Journal
was that “it is believed the explosion occurred in a small powder magazine.” In other words, the paper opened its coverage not with an assault on Spain but by suggesting an onboard accident.
Journal
’s first-day coverage was not significantly different from that of any other paper (not surprising given that the news did not reach New York until about 2:30 a.m.). The paper’s front page on the morning of February 16 carried a three-column factual headline: “Cruiser Maine Blown Up In Havana Harbor.” The subhead added, “Disaster a Mystery and Loss of Life Said to Be Appalling.” Captain Sigsbee’s telegraph to Washington was quoted in full. A secondary story, perhaps lifted from Scovel’s report in the
World,
stated that all boats from the Spanish cruiser
Alfonso XII
were assisting in rescue efforts, as were Spanish officers and soldiers, local firemen, policemen, and sailors. The cause of the explosion was not obvious; the wounded sailors of the
Maine
were unable to explain it. It was believed that the cruiser was totally destroyed. The only rumor presented by the
Journal
was that “it is believed the explosion occurred in a small powder magazine.” In other words, the paper opened its coverage not with an assault on Spain but by suggesting an onboard accident.
The
Journal
’s second day of coverage, taking the entire front page and continuing for seven pages more inside, is closer to what we’ve been led to expect. The banner headline read “Destruction of the War Ship Maine Was the Work of an Enemy.” (Swanberg’s more colorful treatment, blaming a “secret infernal machine,” appears in a later edition. It was not the product of Hearst’s overheated imagination; an early edition of the
Herald
picked up the same rumor)
44
The source for the paper’s declarative “work of an enemy” headline was revealed in the subhead: “Assistant Secretary Roosevelt Convinced the Explosion of the War Ship Was Not an Accident.” That crucial line of attribution is not mentioned in discussions of Hearst’s coverage. The assistant secretary of the navy was a significant source on the destruction of a U.S. naval vessel, and the fact that Roosevelt had ignored his department’s cautions and advanced his own theory as to the cause of the
Maine
disaster warranted strong play. Roosevelt later denied the quote, but his personal correspondence reveals that he did believe the
Maine
to have been “sunk by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards.”
45
Journal
’s second day of coverage, taking the entire front page and continuing for seven pages more inside, is closer to what we’ve been led to expect. The banner headline read “Destruction of the War Ship Maine Was the Work of an Enemy.” (Swanberg’s more colorful treatment, blaming a “secret infernal machine,” appears in a later edition. It was not the product of Hearst’s overheated imagination; an early edition of the
Herald
picked up the same rumor)
44
The source for the paper’s declarative “work of an enemy” headline was revealed in the subhead: “Assistant Secretary Roosevelt Convinced the Explosion of the War Ship Was Not an Accident.” That crucial line of attribution is not mentioned in discussions of Hearst’s coverage. The assistant secretary of the navy was a significant source on the destruction of a U.S. naval vessel, and the fact that Roosevelt had ignored his department’s cautions and advanced his own theory as to the cause of the
Maine
disaster warranted strong play. Roosevelt later denied the quote, but his personal correspondence reveals that he did believe the
Maine
to have been “sunk by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards.”
45
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