The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (48 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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In touting the Cuban insurgency as “a humanitarian mission worthy of the generous sentiments of the American people,” editors were taking not only a principled but a popular stand.
10
Their audience was by its own history and traditions sympathetic to the story of an oppressed nation struggling for independence from a severe colonial master. Americans also felt close to the Cuban people by virtue of geography, economic integration, and immigration. And they were in an unusually compassionate mood. Walter McDougall defines the spirit of the late Victorian age as progressive idealism, or what one journalist at the time called “a tremendous impulse to the work of reform.”
11
This mindset was most obvious on the home front, where anti-poverty crusades, trust-busting initiatives, educational philanthropies, and suffrage movements were launched with impressive regularity, but progressive idealism also traveled. The same enthusiasms for social justice and public service in domestic matters were effortlessly transposed to campaigns to protect oppressed peoples from brutal occupiers. In fact, it was in some ways easier to be a reformer abroad. At home, the progressive agenda had come to include the eight-hour day and the income tax, innovations deemed radical by conservatives such as Charles Dana and Whitelaw Reid. Abroad, progressivism entailed the less controversial promotion of basic human and democratic rights. The Cuban rebellion thus became a lightning rod for the reform spirit: what better way to do good than to encourage and aid a subjugated people in its revolt against imperial despots?
10
Their audience was by its own history and traditions sympathetic to the story of an oppressed nation struggling for independence from a severe colonial master. Americans also felt close to the Cuban people by virtue of geography, economic integration, and immigration. And they were in an unusually compassionate mood. Walter McDougall defines the spirit of the late Victorian age as progressive idealism, or what one journalist at the time called “a tremendous impulse to the work of reform.”
11
This mindset was most obvious on the home front, where anti-poverty crusades, trust-busting initiatives, educational philanthropies, and suffrage movements were launched with impressive regularity, but progressive idealism also traveled. The same enthusiasms for social justice and public service in domestic matters were effortlessly transposed to campaigns to protect oppressed peoples from brutal occupiers. In fact, it was in some ways easier to be a reformer abroad. At home, the progressive agenda had come to include the eight-hour day and the income tax, innovations deemed radical by conservatives such as Charles Dana and Whitelaw Reid. Abroad, progressivism entailed the less controversial promotion of basic human and democratic rights. The Cuban rebellion thus became a lightning rod for the reform spirit: what better way to do good than to encourage and aid a subjugated people in its revolt against imperial despots?
Important as these high principles and humanitarian concerns were to the New York dailies in their treatment of the Cuban story, one does not read much about them in journalism histories. That is due to the less defensible parts of Park Row’s work.
While several books have been written on the failure of the American press in Cuba, one example catches the gist of it. On March 8, 1895, two weeks after the insurrection began, the U.S. merchant vessel
Allianca
was returning to New York from Colón with a cargo of wine, bananas, cocoa, mustard seeds, and rubber. It crossed paths with the Spanish gunboat
Conde de Venadito
off Cape Maisi in the Windward Passage. According to the
Allianca
’s captain, the Spaniards demanded he halt and submit to a search. The captain refused, being well outside Cuba’s three-mile limit. The
Conde de Venadito
opened fire and gave chase for twenty miles. New York editorialists were furious. This affront, thundered the
Tribune,
“would not have been more flagrant if the Spanish gunboat had entered the harbor of New York and bombarded the City Hall.” The
Sun
demanded that Washington “vindicate the honor of our flag and the rights of our fellow citizens.” The
Times
saw a “prima facie case for sober but decided action by the government of the United States.” Several papers insisted that a U.S. fleet be deployed in Cuban waters.
12
Allianca
was returning to New York from Colón with a cargo of wine, bananas, cocoa, mustard seeds, and rubber. It crossed paths with the Spanish gunboat
Conde de Venadito
off Cape Maisi in the Windward Passage. According to the
Allianca
’s captain, the Spaniards demanded he halt and submit to a search. The captain refused, being well outside Cuba’s three-mile limit. The
Conde de Venadito
opened fire and gave chase for twenty miles. New York editorialists were furious. This affront, thundered the
Tribune,
“would not have been more flagrant if the Spanish gunboat had entered the harbor of New York and bombarded the City Hall.” The
Sun
demanded that Washington “vindicate the honor of our flag and the rights of our fellow citizens.” The
Times
saw a “prima facie case for sober but decided action by the government of the United States.” Several papers insisted that a U.S. fleet be deployed in Cuban waters.
12
That the
Allianca
’s captain, a known gunrunner, was accused by impartial observers of drawing within 1.5 miles of the Cuban coast in an effort to land arms and men for the insurgents was barely mentioned in the U.S. papers. Spain acknowledged an error in order to smooth over relations with Washington, but its response did not soothe the American press. One of the few contrarians was Godkin, of the
Evening Post.
He blasted the
Tribune
for dramatizing the story with “fourteen headlines and a picture” and Pulitizer for an illustration that showed a shell exploding within ten feet of the American ship, “a fact that was not mentioned by the Captain.” Godkin mocked all of his fellow editors for their excitability: “A look askance at the flag cuts them like a knife, a gun pointed our way makes their hearts quiver and their eyes fill with burning tears, and a shot, an actual shot, constitutes a deadly insult which cannot be wiped out, except in double-lettered editorials and a sale of at least eleven extra copies.”
13
Allianca
’s captain, a known gunrunner, was accused by impartial observers of drawing within 1.5 miles of the Cuban coast in an effort to land arms and men for the insurgents was barely mentioned in the U.S. papers. Spain acknowledged an error in order to smooth over relations with Washington, but its response did not soothe the American press. One of the few contrarians was Godkin, of the
Evening Post.
He blasted the
Tribune
for dramatizing the story with “fourteen headlines and a picture” and Pulitizer for an illustration that showed a shell exploding within ten feet of the American ship, “a fact that was not mentioned by the Captain.” Godkin mocked all of his fellow editors for their excitability: “A look askance at the flag cuts them like a knife, a gun pointed our way makes their hearts quiver and their eyes fill with burning tears, and a shot, an actual shot, constitutes a deadly insult which cannot be wiped out, except in double-lettered editorials and a sale of at least eleven extra copies.”
13
New York papers produced so many inaccurate, exaggerated, and hysterical reports in the initial stages of the war in Cuba that just a year and a half into the conflict,
Herald
correspondent George Bronson Rea began compiling a thick catalog of purported journalistic crimes, published under the title
Facts and Fakes about Cuba.
He complained of erroneous accounts of battles between Spanish and Cuban forces and about fabrications of bloodcurdling Spanish atrocities—prisoners shot without trial or drowned in the night, women and children slaughtered and fed to dogs. Rea noted that rebel leader Máximo Gómez and Spanish general Arsenio Martínez Campos were repeatedly and wrongly reported to have been captured, wounded, killed, or recalled. He also found fictitious accounts of Amazon-like beauties overwhelming columns of Spanish soldiers, and silly reports of insurgent cannons fashioned from tree trunks. He accused many of his competitors of operating as propaganda arms for the rebels’ Junta, the U.S.-based government-in-waiting. Rea, biased in favor of Madrid, was himself histrionic, taking Spanish claims at face value while overstating the sins of the pro-Cuban papers and branding their differences of opinion as mistakes, but he nonetheless identified reams of error.
14
Herald
correspondent George Bronson Rea began compiling a thick catalog of purported journalistic crimes, published under the title
Facts and Fakes about Cuba.
He complained of erroneous accounts of battles between Spanish and Cuban forces and about fabrications of bloodcurdling Spanish atrocities—prisoners shot without trial or drowned in the night, women and children slaughtered and fed to dogs. Rea noted that rebel leader Máximo Gómez and Spanish general Arsenio Martínez Campos were repeatedly and wrongly reported to have been captured, wounded, killed, or recalled. He also found fictitious accounts of Amazon-like beauties overwhelming columns of Spanish soldiers, and silly reports of insurgent cannons fashioned from tree trunks. He accused many of his competitors of operating as propaganda arms for the rebels’ Junta, the U.S.-based government-in-waiting. Rea, biased in favor of Madrid, was himself histrionic, taking Spanish claims at face value while overstating the sins of the pro-Cuban papers and branding their differences of opinion as mistakes, but he nonetheless identified reams of error.
14
Coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish-American War are often cited as low points in the history of the American press. The yellow papers are singled out for particular abuse. Hearst is said to have been the ringleader, encouraging hostilities and inciting direct U.S. involvement in Cuba with mindless daily orgies of jingoism, sensationalism, and outright fakery—“the most disgraceful example of journalistic falsehood ever seen,” according to Swanberg.
15
Hearst’s motives are said to have extended no higher than increased sales and a megalomaniacal desire to influence events. Through most of the twentieth century, he stood accused of dragging America against its better judgment into an unwanted war with Spain. It is clear from the
Allianca
incident alone, however, that the New York newspapers had found their pitch on the Cuba story eight months before Hearst even arrived on the scene. Hearst would in time contribute to all that is deplored in the newspaper treatment of the rebellion, but he was certainly not the instigator. He gets more of the abuse because he came to dominate coverage of Cuba (among other reasons apparent in later chapters). Their errors and excitability notwithstanding, the yellow papers did far better work on the rebellion than the record shows. Just as the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history, so too are the journalistic accomplishments of the Hearst and Pulitzer papers in Cuba. Park Row made some heroic efforts to find truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances, with the yellows leading the way.
15
Hearst’s motives are said to have extended no higher than increased sales and a megalomaniacal desire to influence events. Through most of the twentieth century, he stood accused of dragging America against its better judgment into an unwanted war with Spain. It is clear from the
Allianca
incident alone, however, that the New York newspapers had found their pitch on the Cuba story eight months before Hearst even arrived on the scene. Hearst would in time contribute to all that is deplored in the newspaper treatment of the rebellion, but he was certainly not the instigator. He gets more of the abuse because he came to dominate coverage of Cuba (among other reasons apparent in later chapters). Their errors and excitability notwithstanding, the yellow papers did far better work on the rebellion than the record shows. Just as the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history, so too are the journalistic accomplishments of the Hearst and Pulitzer papers in Cuba. Park Row made some heroic efforts to find truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances, with the yellows leading the way.
HEARST’S FIRST SIGNIFICANT MOVE on the story, two months into his tenure at the
Journal
and toward the end of the first year of the uprising, was a reaction against all of the misinformation and conjecture appearing in the pages of his rivals. He dispatched to Havana as his “special commissioner” the celebrated Murat Halstead who the previous summer had defended Hanna in the
Journal
. Halstead’s assignment was to gauge the real state of play in Cuba and he was an inspired choice. In the course of his long and prolific career, much of it spent at the
Cincinnati Commercial,
he had witnessed the hanging of John Brown at Harpers Ferry and the rise of Abraham Lincoln in the conventions of 1860, and he had reported from the front lines of the Civil War and of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. He enjoyed such high repute that a town in Kansas had already been named in his honor. That he was a Republican reinforced Hearst’s commitment to an impartial report.
16
Journal
and toward the end of the first year of the uprising, was a reaction against all of the misinformation and conjecture appearing in the pages of his rivals. He dispatched to Havana as his “special commissioner” the celebrated Murat Halstead who the previous summer had defended Hanna in the
Journal
. Halstead’s assignment was to gauge the real state of play in Cuba and he was an inspired choice. In the course of his long and prolific career, much of it spent at the
Cincinnati Commercial,
he had witnessed the hanging of John Brown at Harpers Ferry and the rise of Abraham Lincoln in the conventions of 1860, and he had reported from the front lines of the Civil War and of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. He enjoyed such high repute that a town in Kansas had already been named in his honor. That he was a Republican reinforced Hearst’s commitment to an impartial report.
16
A walrus-faced man with a mussy white Vandyke, Halstead arrived in Havana by steamer from Florida and checked in at the Inglaterra, a luxurious hotel that served as an unofficial headquarters for the American press in Cuba. An experienced traveler, he was pleased with the accommodations. His sumptuously furnished room featured twenty-foot ceilings and a large four-poster bed with a mother-of-pearl inlaid headboard and red velvet canopy. Glass doors opened onto a wide white marble balcony. Halstead would press a button at the head of his bed at 7 a.m. and in precisely 150 seconds a bearded porter would arrive to take his order. In exactly five minutes more, coffee, hot milk, rolls, butter and perfectly peeled oranges would be delivered on a solid silver tray with a full breakfast to follow at 11 a.m. The quality of the food in Havana put Halstead in mind of Paris. He was also impressed with his local barber—“deliberate, artistic and couteous . . . almost the barber of my soul.” But it was his barkeep who won Halstead’s deepest admiration. The man managed to keep a steady supply of crushed ice no matter what the temperature out of doors. He mixed drinks with two crystal glasses, one large, one small. He filled the large glass with ice and the other with liquors, bitters, and sweets and splashed the ingredients back and forth between the glasses, “clinking the crystal in a way that would delight a German’s sense of sound.” He then flung the concoction through a strainer, filling the smaller glass to the rim, and then returned the large glass to the counter with a triumphant “thwack.”
17
17
Halstead soon learned that the Inglaterra stood in stark relief to much of its surroundings. Havana was a squalid city with crumbling infrastructure and a dispirited, frightened population. At all hours, the streets and cafés were awash in rumor, and there was no such thing as a dependable source of information. The local population, accustomed to an atmosphere of rebellion, was better trained in conspiracy than objectivity. “Nothing can be stated too wild to find believers,” wrote Halstead, “and exaggerations are heaped upon each other until the truth is lost even in outline. . . . ‘Perfectly trustworthy’ correspondence by secret lines of communication arrives stating highly important matters altogether imaginary.” The rebels, dependent on the United States for fundraising and moral support, regaled American reporters in Havana with claims of glorious victories while insisting on the iniquities of the Spanish leadership “to the last detail of infamy.”
18
The Spanish government was less fanciful than the rebels but it had blown its credibility at the outset by misleading the press about the extent of the rebellion: it would admit only to success in its efforts to defeat the insurrection, and it further contributed to the general confusion by restricting the movements of reporters and vigorously censoring dispatches from Havana. Though no stranger to war zones, Halstead found the overall volume of distortion on the Cuba story bewildering. That falsehood was finding its way into print, in his view, was due more to unreliable sources than to dishonest or incompetent reporters.
19
18
The Spanish government was less fanciful than the rebels but it had blown its credibility at the outset by misleading the press about the extent of the rebellion: it would admit only to success in its efforts to defeat the insurrection, and it further contributed to the general confusion by restricting the movements of reporters and vigorously censoring dispatches from Havana. Though no stranger to war zones, Halstead found the overall volume of distortion on the Cuba story bewildering. That falsehood was finding its way into print, in his view, was due more to unreliable sources than to dishonest or incompetent reporters.
19
However difficult the circumstances, Halstead managed to grasp the balance of forces on the island. Spain controlled the western and central parts of Cuba, including Havana, with a conventional army of 100,000 men; the insurgents dominated the mountainous east with less than 40,000 soldiers.
20
While they had proclaimed a provisional government, or Junta, the insurgents had no representative or parliamentary institutions, and their leaders were constantly on the move. Small bands of rebels had crossed into Spanish territory and were causing havoc in the countryside around Havana. Limited in strength and short of ammunition, they tended to avoid direct engagement with the Spanish army, choosing instead to burn cane fields and plantations. Their strategy was to cripple the imperial economy, defeating Spain financially rather than militarily. Spain had plenty of artillery and command of the railroads, but its large columns of infantry were too clumsy to catch the fleet insurgents and its generals were frustrated that their enemy would not march onto a battlefield and fight by conventional rules. The rebel’s tactics of sabotage, sniping, ambush and strategic retreats violated the Spanish sense of honor in war. Halstead sympathized with Spain’s generals but also recognized their impotence. He predicted that the rebellion was headed for a nasty stalemate, disastrous for noncombatants, particularly for the Cuban peasants whose livelihoods had been destroyed in the rebel raids. He was right on the money.
20
While they had proclaimed a provisional government, or Junta, the insurgents had no representative or parliamentary institutions, and their leaders were constantly on the move. Small bands of rebels had crossed into Spanish territory and were causing havoc in the countryside around Havana. Limited in strength and short of ammunition, they tended to avoid direct engagement with the Spanish army, choosing instead to burn cane fields and plantations. Their strategy was to cripple the imperial economy, defeating Spain financially rather than militarily. Spain had plenty of artillery and command of the railroads, but its large columns of infantry were too clumsy to catch the fleet insurgents and its generals were frustrated that their enemy would not march onto a battlefield and fight by conventional rules. The rebel’s tactics of sabotage, sniping, ambush and strategic retreats violated the Spanish sense of honor in war. Halstead sympathized with Spain’s generals but also recognized their impotence. He predicted that the rebellion was headed for a nasty stalemate, disastrous for noncombatants, particularly for the Cuban peasants whose livelihoods had been destroyed in the rebel raids. He was right on the money.
While Halstead grasped the insurgent strategy within weeks of arriving in Cuba and accepted it as practical, other observers, American and European, would never entirely come to terms with it. They were unaccustomed to a war without clashing armies, sackings, and sieges, and dumbfounded that the rebels were content to harass the Spanish forces and disappear into the weeds. During his tour with the Spaniards, young Winston Churchill wondered what kind of army would rather burn cane and shake down plantation owners than directly engage the enemy. It seemed an inglorious way to found a nation. Even before Halstead ’s visit, a
Journal
editorial had proclaimed the insurgent strategy the only possible path to success given Spanish superiority in numbers, arms, resources, and discipline. The paper recognized that torching plantations jeopardized the livelihoods of ordinary Cubans but it held Spain responsible for having mismanaged its possession in the first place, and argued that nothing was more likely to bring Madrid to negotiate with the rebels than a sharp decline in the revenue it received from the island. Other newspapers, including some that supported the rebellion, thought the rebel strategy shameful and cowardly. It was controversial even within the ranks of the insurgency.
Journal
editorial had proclaimed the insurgent strategy the only possible path to success given Spanish superiority in numbers, arms, resources, and discipline. The paper recognized that torching plantations jeopardized the livelihoods of ordinary Cubans but it held Spain responsible for having mismanaged its possession in the first place, and argued that nothing was more likely to bring Madrid to negotiate with the rebels than a sharp decline in the revenue it received from the island. Other newspapers, including some that supported the rebellion, thought the rebel strategy shameful and cowardly. It was controversial even within the ranks of the insurgency.
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