The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (73 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
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Proctor said nothing that Hearst, Pulitzer, Dana, and many other pro-Cuban voices in the United States hadn’t been saying for many months, but it meant something for the Republicans and their press to hear it from their own. One of Proctor’s Senate colleagues confessed to a sense of shame that “we, a civilized people, an enlightened nation, a great republic, born in a revolt against tyranny, should permit such a state of things within less than a hundred miles of our shore.”
80
The
Tribune
now found “convincing force” in the call for intervention, but not all of the conservative papers were impressed.
81
The
Herald
ignored the speech entirely. Godkin’s
Evening Post,
which had initially called for the suppression of Proctor’s report, dismissed it, in twelve lines flat, as old news. Hearst and Pulitzer both reported Proctor’s speech in its entirety, hailing it as a vindication of their long campaigns on behalf of the insurgents. “Senator Proctor,” crowed a
Journal
editorial, “yesterday administered the finishing stroke to the self-styled ‘better element’ that has allied itself with tyranny and inhumanity in Cuba.”
82
80
The
Tribune
now found “convincing force” in the call for intervention, but not all of the conservative papers were impressed.
81
The
Herald
ignored the speech entirely. Godkin’s
Evening Post,
which had initially called for the suppression of Proctor’s report, dismissed it, in twelve lines flat, as old news. Hearst and Pulitzer both reported Proctor’s speech in its entirety, hailing it as a vindication of their long campaigns on behalf of the insurgents. “Senator Proctor,” crowed a
Journal
editorial, “yesterday administered the finishing stroke to the self-styled ‘better element’ that has allied itself with tyranny and inhumanity in Cuba.”
82
Vindicated or not, the
Journal
lost its bearings through the month of March. On March 9, it was encouraging Americans to rally around the president now that he had found his spine. On March 11, the paper announced incorrectly that the court of inquiry had found that Spanish government officials had blown up the
Maine.
On March 12, it gave over two pages to a review of the paper’s coverage of the crisis under the premature heading “The Part the
Journal
has Played in Making Cuba Free.” By March 19, the paper was back on McKinley’s case, finding weakness and timidity in yet another bid for a diplomatic solution.
Journal
lost its bearings through the month of March. On March 9, it was encouraging Americans to rally around the president now that he had found his spine. On March 11, the paper announced incorrectly that the court of inquiry had found that Spanish government officials had blown up the
Maine.
On March 12, it gave over two pages to a review of the paper’s coverage of the crisis under the premature heading “The Part the
Journal
has Played in Making Cuba Free.” By March 19, the paper was back on McKinley’s case, finding weakness and timidity in yet another bid for a diplomatic solution.
The naval court of inquiry delivered its report to the White House on March 24, attributing the destruction of the
Maine
to “the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the partial explosion of two or more of the forward magazines.”
83
It was beyond the court’s mandate to affix responsibility, but no one else in the country felt constrained. All fingers pointed to Spain. An exhausted, distraught McKinley still could not bring himself to give up on diplomacy. He tried belatedly to coax Spain out of Cuba with an ultimatum. It was ineffective. He considered further maneuvers, despite overwhelming public support for military intervention, pressure from Congress, and a threatened revolt in his own party.
Maine
to “the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the partial explosion of two or more of the forward magazines.”
83
It was beyond the court’s mandate to affix responsibility, but no one else in the country felt constrained. All fingers pointed to Spain. An exhausted, distraught McKinley still could not bring himself to give up on diplomacy. He tried belatedly to coax Spain out of Cuba with an ultimatum. It was ineffective. He considered further maneuvers, despite overwhelming public support for military intervention, pressure from Congress, and a threatened revolt in his own party.
The president’s stubbornness drove the
Journal
to distraction, and Hearst produced what can only be described as atrocious journalism in the first week of April. He accused McKinley of tricking Congress and the American people by delaying intervention and asking for more time, and called the state of affairs in Washington “the most scandalous in the history of the country.”
84
But the
Journal
was finally about to find relief.
Journal
to distraction, and Hearst produced what can only be described as atrocious journalism in the first week of April. He accused McKinley of tricking Congress and the American people by delaying intervention and asking for more time, and called the state of affairs in Washington “the most scandalous in the history of the country.”
84
But the
Journal
was finally about to find relief.
McKinley’s war message to Congress on April 11 confessed that all diplomatic solutions had been exhausted and that the time had come for America to act. His rationale for intervention relied in part on the national interest: the conflict in Cuba had placed in jeopardy the lives and liberty of U.S. citizens, destroyed U.S. property in Cuba, and compelled Washington to remain on a “semi-war” footing. The president argued that concern for Cuba had distracted Congress from “that close devotion to domestic advancement that becomes a self-contained commonwealth whose primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements.” McKinley included the destruction of the
Maine
in his tally of damages suffered by America. He did not suspect that Spain was directly responsible. Rather, the tragedy was “a patent and impressive proof of a state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. . . . [The] Spanish Government can not assure safety and security to a vessel of the American Navy in the harbor of Havana on a mission of peace, and rightfully there.” These were not the president’s strongest arguments. Damage to U.S. interests certainly warranted indemnities and apologies from Madrid, but what little Cuban-American trade remained certainly wasn’t worth a fight. Nor were there many American lives left to protect in Cuba: the vast majority of U.S. nationals had evacuated. Nor was a distracted Congress a powerful reason for war. The call to avenge the
Maine
had popular appeal, but should a “self-contained commonwealth whose primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements” plunge into a foreign adventure over what the president was describing as an issue of harbor safety?
Maine
in his tally of damages suffered by America. He did not suspect that Spain was directly responsible. Rather, the tragedy was “a patent and impressive proof of a state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. . . . [The] Spanish Government can not assure safety and security to a vessel of the American Navy in the harbor of Havana on a mission of peace, and rightfully there.” These were not the president’s strongest arguments. Damage to U.S. interests certainly warranted indemnities and apologies from Madrid, but what little Cuban-American trade remained certainly wasn’t worth a fight. Nor were there many American lives left to protect in Cuba: the vast majority of U.S. nationals had evacuated. Nor was a distracted Congress a powerful reason for war. The call to avenge the
Maine
had popular appeal, but should a “self-contained commonwealth whose primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements” plunge into a foreign adventure over what the president was describing as an issue of harbor safety?
McKinley was on firmer ground in citing as his “first” reason for intervention the cause of humanity: “Our people have beheld a once prosperous community reduced to comparative want, its lucrative commerce virtually paralyzed, its exceptional productiveness diminished, its fields laid waste, its mills in ruins, and its people perishing by tens of thousands from hunger and destitution.” Spain’s exercise of “cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized practices of warfare,” had “shocked the sensibilities and offended the humane sympathies” of the American people. McKinley described Spain’s war method as a species of inhumanity unprecedented in the modern history of civilized Christian peoples. “In the name of humanity,” he summed up, “in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop.”
85
85
With that, the president asked Congress to authorize him to go to war. Congress quickly approved resolutions demanding Spain withdraw from Cuba. Some fifty representatives gathered in the lobby to belt out the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Dixie.” To the delight of Hearst and Pulitzer, the Senate also passed the Teller amendment, forswearing any intention to annex or establish sovereignty over the island and asserting the objective of leaving Cuba in the hands of Cubans. It would be a war for liberty and humanity, they exulted, not one of opportunism and territorial aggrandizement.
News of the war resolution was breathlessly awaited across America and especially on Park Row. Ray Stannard Baker, already on his way to becoming one of the finest reporters of the early twentieth century, tells how the
Journal
got the news out first:
Journal
got the news out first:
A correspondent was on watch in Congress; a score of feet away a telegraph operator sat ready with his finger on the key; the wire was wide open, and in the composing-rooms of at least two New York papers a lineotype operator, who was also a telegraph operator, sat at his machine ready to tick the words into type the moment they sprung from the wire. Three minutes after the declaration of war was passed, the newsboys were struggling up out of the Journal delivery room crying and extra announcing the news. In three minutes the correspondent had gathered and written the news—just a line or two of it—the dispatch had been sent from Washington to New York, had been set up in type, printed, and delivered on the street, ready for sale at a penny. This remarkable time record was rendered possible by a process known as ‘fudging.’ The type lines set by the lineotype-telegraph operator . . . are firmly clamped in an ingenious little supplemental machine consisting of a cylinder and an inking roll for red ink. This is attached to a revolving shaft a the top of one of the huge printing presses, and so arrange that when the paper comes rushing through from the regular type cylinders below, the ‘fudge’ prints a big red ‘war’ and a few lines of extra news in spaces left for that purpose in the right hand columns of the edition. This is the genesis of the ‘Red Extra’ and it is a typical development of modern journalism.
86
OVER THE YEARS, Hearst’s biographers and critics have gleefully enumerated and inflated the failings of his Cuban coverage. Much less has been said about what his paper got right, although the list is rather impressive. It was right about the intractability of the Spanish-Cuban war. It was right to call attention to Spanish atrocities and to the suffering of the
reconcentrados.
It was right about the inadequacy and insincerity of Spain’s reforms. It was right about the futility of further negotiations with Madrid. It was right about the consequences of the riots in Havana. It was right about the significance of the Dupuy de Lôme letter. It had a reasonably firm grasp of the sentiments of Congress and the American people. Most importantly, the arguments the
Journal
advanced for U.S. intervention in Cuba were consistent with the arguments advanced by McKinley in his war message. The gray papers, excepting the
Sun
, have a relatively weak record on these fundamental points.
b
reconcentrados.
It was right about the inadequacy and insincerity of Spain’s reforms. It was right about the futility of further negotiations with Madrid. It was right about the consequences of the riots in Havana. It was right about the significance of the Dupuy de Lôme letter. It had a reasonably firm grasp of the sentiments of Congress and the American people. Most importantly, the arguments the
Journal
advanced for U.S. intervention in Cuba were consistent with the arguments advanced by McKinley in his war message. The gray papers, excepting the
Sun
, have a relatively weak record on these fundamental points.
b
Through the first half of the twentieth century, scholars tended to see Hearst and yellow journalism as the cause behind America’s war against Spain. The oft-cited Joseph Wisan, among others, argued that “the Spanish-American War would not have occurred had not the appearance of Hearst in New York journalism precipitated a bitter battle for newspaper circulation.”
87
W.A. Swanberg wrote: “It was an unnecessary war. It was the newspapers’ war. Above all, it was Hearst’s war.” Through the second half of the twentieth century, scholars began to downplay the role of the newspapers. Some argued that technological, economic, and social developments made U.S. involvement in Cuba more or less inevitable. Others emphasized the domestic political situation in 1898 and congressional anxieties about the approaching mid-term elections. A shrewd McKinley took the lead of pro-Cuban forces in advance of the mid-term elections, securing a Republican triumph (alternately, he was stampeded into a declaration of war by a Congress nervous about its re-election prospects). The yellow press is little more than a nuisance in these accounts. The latest Hearst biography argues that the United States would have crossed the Straits of Florida on much the same timetable as it did had Hearst never set foot in New York. That Hearst was mistaken as a critical player in Cuba is attributed to his “genius for self-promotion.”
88
It is a long fall from primary instigator of an international conflict and liberator of an oppressed people to bit-playing object of ridicule.
87
W.A. Swanberg wrote: “It was an unnecessary war. It was the newspapers’ war. Above all, it was Hearst’s war.” Through the second half of the twentieth century, scholars began to downplay the role of the newspapers. Some argued that technological, economic, and social developments made U.S. involvement in Cuba more or less inevitable. Others emphasized the domestic political situation in 1898 and congressional anxieties about the approaching mid-term elections. A shrewd McKinley took the lead of pro-Cuban forces in advance of the mid-term elections, securing a Republican triumph (alternately, he was stampeded into a declaration of war by a Congress nervous about its re-election prospects). The yellow press is little more than a nuisance in these accounts. The latest Hearst biography argues that the United States would have crossed the Straits of Florida on much the same timetable as it did had Hearst never set foot in New York. That Hearst was mistaken as a critical player in Cuba is attributed to his “genius for self-promotion.”
88
It is a long fall from primary instigator of an international conflict and liberator of an oppressed people to bit-playing object of ridicule.
A certain amount of correction was overdue. Hearst was by no means solely responsible for the U.S. intervention. War between Spain and America may not have been inevitable but it was probable, for the simple reason that the interests of the rebels, Washington, and Madrid were fundamentally irreconcilable. At the moment of truth, President McKinley and Congress made up their own minds to intervene. Hearst was not in the cabinet room and he did not have a vote in Congress; he was on the sidelines with the rest of the press corps. That said, he was far more influential than is presently understood.
That the press made a difference in the Spanish-American War can be seen in several realms, starting with public opinion. While the was no unanimity on the subjects, the cause of
Cuba Libre
and, ultimately, the decision to intervene were wildly popular. “The American people took a deep interest in the Cuban revolution,” writes Offner. “They sympathized with Cuban independence, favored the underdog, looked with horror on the numerous deaths in Cuban reconcentration camps, wanted to avenge the
Maine,
and by March 1898 were willing to use military force to remove Spain from Cuba.”
89
Or, as President McKinley said, the “temper and forbearance of our people have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own citizens.”
90
Cuba Libre
and, ultimately, the decision to intervene were wildly popular. “The American people took a deep interest in the Cuban revolution,” writes Offner. “They sympathized with Cuban independence, favored the underdog, looked with horror on the numerous deaths in Cuban reconcentration camps, wanted to avenge the
Maine,
and by March 1898 were willing to use military force to remove Spain from Cuba.”
89
Or, as President McKinley said, the “temper and forbearance of our people have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own citizens.”
90
It was highly unusual for the American public to get wound up about an international conflict. Nineteenth-century politics were parochial. The conduct of foreign policy was an elite preoccupation more or less immune to popular sentiment.
91
It is true that the American people had rattled sabers over the Venezuelan crisis in 1895, but only after being invited to do so by Washington’s aggressive posturing. The moment President Cleveland resolved matters to his satisfaction, he was able to throw a wet blanket over the affair.
Cuba Libre
had a birth and life independent of Washington. Both Cleveland and McKinley tried to smother it. Both failed. The Cuban cause captivated millions of people who had no material stake in the outcome of the rebellion. How do we account for their knowledge and passion? Junta propagandists? Community activists? Local homilists? Perhaps to some extent, but would the whole nation have been “swept by a hurricane of militant righteousness” into a campaign to “slay a dragon and free a damsel in distress” without the influence of the press?
91
It is true that the American people had rattled sabers over the Venezuelan crisis in 1895, but only after being invited to do so by Washington’s aggressive posturing. The moment President Cleveland resolved matters to his satisfaction, he was able to throw a wet blanket over the affair.
Cuba Libre
had a birth and life independent of Washington. Both Cleveland and McKinley tried to smother it. Both failed. The Cuban cause captivated millions of people who had no material stake in the outcome of the rebellion. How do we account for their knowledge and passion? Junta propagandists? Community activists? Local homilists? Perhaps to some extent, but would the whole nation have been “swept by a hurricane of militant righteousness” into a campaign to “slay a dragon and free a damsel in distress” without the influence of the press?
Newspapers were by far the dominant communications medium of the day. All of the important New York papers contributed to coverage of the Cuban story, and several news outlets, including the
New York Herald
and the Associated Press, played major roles, but the yellow papers were predominant. They were among the leading sources—usually
the
leading sources—for information on just about every angle of the story from the progress of the insurgency to the
Maine
explosion. They had the most reporters in the field. They conducted special investigations, straw polls of state and national politicians, and their own commissions of inquiry into affairs in Cuba. They developed the narrative lines that kept Cuba alive and vivid in the public mind: the murder of Dr. Ruiz, the trials of Evangelina Cisneros, the imprisonment of Sylvester Scovel. They were leading promoters of the progressive ideology that inspired so many Americans to want to do good in Cuba. They articulated on an almost daily basis the moral and political arguments eventually adopted to justify U.S. intervention. The Cuban story as it played out in their pages was the same Cuban story that existed in the public imagination—the same plot, the same themes, the same villains. The influence of the yellows was extended through their own circulations, which were easily the largest in the country, and through their proprietary news syndicates and the Associated Press, as well as by example. There was often a correspondence between the progression of opinion in regional papers and those of Hearst and Pulitzer.
92
And all observers cite Hearst as leader of the yellow press.
New York Herald
and the Associated Press, played major roles, but the yellow papers were predominant. They were among the leading sources—usually
the
leading sources—for information on just about every angle of the story from the progress of the insurgency to the
Maine
explosion. They had the most reporters in the field. They conducted special investigations, straw polls of state and national politicians, and their own commissions of inquiry into affairs in Cuba. They developed the narrative lines that kept Cuba alive and vivid in the public mind: the murder of Dr. Ruiz, the trials of Evangelina Cisneros, the imprisonment of Sylvester Scovel. They were leading promoters of the progressive ideology that inspired so many Americans to want to do good in Cuba. They articulated on an almost daily basis the moral and political arguments eventually adopted to justify U.S. intervention. The Cuban story as it played out in their pages was the same Cuban story that existed in the public imagination—the same plot, the same themes, the same villains. The influence of the yellows was extended through their own circulations, which were easily the largest in the country, and through their proprietary news syndicates and the Associated Press, as well as by example. There was often a correspondence between the progression of opinion in regional papers and those of Hearst and Pulitzer.
92
And all observers cite Hearst as leader of the yellow press.
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