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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
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EVANGELINA COSSIO Y CISNEROS arrived in New York Harbor on October 13. She was met by a delegation of well-wishers and
Journal
staffers, who whisked her away in a
Journal
launch to meet the proper authorities. They then bundled her into a
Journal
carriage bound for the Waldorf Hotel. The reporters noted her every utterance and blink along the way: “It is a dream, a happy, happy dream,” she said, and the quotes did not get much better in three days of heavy coverage.
47
Journal
staffers, who whisked her away in a
Journal
launch to meet the proper authorities. They then bundled her into a
Journal
carriage bound for the Waldorf Hotel. The reporters noted her every utterance and blink along the way: “It is a dream, a happy, happy dream,” she said, and the quotes did not get much better in three days of heavy coverage.
47
The thirteen-story Waldorf, built in 1893 at Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, the current site of the Empire State Building, was the first Manhattan hotel to boast electricity throughout and private bathrooms in many of its one thousand suites. With its great courtyard and Peacock Alley, it was the grandest and most public of the city’s hostelries, and thus a perfect stage for Evangelina. She found it a considerable improvement over Casa de Recojidas, even with the
Journal
at her door at 6:30 a.m. to awaken her for her first full day in New York. The paper had filled her room with boxes of dresses, lingerie, hats, and accessories from which to select a wardrobe. She went down to breakfast at 7:30 dressed head to toe in black. “I like myself best in the somber colors and often I think I may go into the convent, where I shall wear nothing else,” she told a reporter. She added that the convent was on her mind because in prison she had promised God that if he she were ever released, she would forsake the love of mortals and dedicate herself to the Church.
48
(She would marry a Cuban-American businessman in a matter of months.)
Journal
at her door at 6:30 a.m. to awaken her for her first full day in New York. The paper had filled her room with boxes of dresses, lingerie, hats, and accessories from which to select a wardrobe. She went down to breakfast at 7:30 dressed head to toe in black. “I like myself best in the somber colors and often I think I may go into the convent, where I shall wear nothing else,” she told a reporter. She added that the convent was on her mind because in prison she had promised God that if he she were ever released, she would forsake the love of mortals and dedicate herself to the Church.
48
(She would marry a Cuban-American businessman in a matter of months.)
The
Journal
stuck with Evangelina as she met Cuban and American dignitaries and other notables and took a tour of the city. She marveled at the streets, the carriages, the tall buildings, and the brass buttons on the policemen’s uniforms. She took her first elevator ride and talked of her ambition to ride a bicycle. The newspaper was impressed by her good manners and her erudition (she was familiar with Victor Hugo). It was announced that at her own request she had visited the Naturalization Bureau in the Supreme Court to swear her intention to become a U.S. citizen, a revelation that must have puzzled her fellow Cubans.
Journal
stuck with Evangelina as she met Cuban and American dignitaries and other notables and took a tour of the city. She marveled at the streets, the carriages, the tall buildings, and the brass buttons on the policemen’s uniforms. She took her first elevator ride and talked of her ambition to ride a bicycle. The newspaper was impressed by her good manners and her erudition (she was familiar with Victor Hugo). It was announced that at her own request she had visited the Naturalization Bureau in the Supreme Court to swear her intention to become a U.S. citizen, a revelation that must have puzzled her fellow Cubans.
The crowning events of her New York tour were held on Saturday, October 16. Evangelina was met at the Waldorf by a guard of soldiers and naval cadets in gleaming uniforms and paraded through the streets of the city. She attended a reception in her honor at Delmonico’s, with Cuban patriots, local dignitaries, and
Journal
staffers. Hearst himself made an appearance. “In the midst of the bizarre and pompeian reception which was given to the young woman at Delmonico’s,” wrote Frederick Palmer in
Collier’s,
“the man who footed the bills came into the room where she stood among the palms, shyly shook hands with the heroine whom his wonder machine had created, and then excused himself and hastened away in his automobile.”
49
Journal
staffers. Hearst himself made an appearance. “In the midst of the bizarre and pompeian reception which was given to the young woman at Delmonico’s,” wrote Frederick Palmer in
Collier’s,
“the man who footed the bills came into the room where she stood among the palms, shyly shook hands with the heroine whom his wonder machine had created, and then excused himself and hastened away in his automobile.”
49
From Delmonico’s, Evangelina was whisked to Madison Square, where music, searchlights, and a cheering throng of 50,000 awaited her. She stood on the platform hand in hand with Karl Decker, who had become a celebrity himself, greeted on his arrival in New York by a coterie of newsmen eager for a few more quotes. “The Prince of the Fairytale,” as his own newspaper described him, had since been holding court at the Hoffman House, accepting congratulations and passing out souvenirs of Havana—long black cigars with Captain General Weyler’s mug on the band. Now he pushed Evangelina forward “in silent deprecation of his own claim to the uproarious greeting.” Fireworks burst and hissed in the air, the band played the Cuban anthem, and the girl, according to the
Journal,
stood like a beautifully chiselled statue, motionless, awed. Her eyes were dancing with excitement; her color was constantly changing; her bosom was heaving with indescribable emotion.
50
Journal,
stood like a beautifully chiselled statue, motionless, awed. Her eyes were dancing with excitement; her color was constantly changing; her bosom was heaving with indescribable emotion.
50
While the
Journal
was busy with its Evangelina extravaganza, several of its rivals began to wonder if the whole thing was a hoax. Consul General Lee contributed to the skepticism by publicly commenting that the girl could not possibly have exited Cuba without the permission of the Spanish government. Officials in Havana, he surmised, must have “winked at” the jailbreak. Taking Lee’s cue, the
New York Times
scoffed at “a remarkable case of unobstructed rescue.”
51
Journal
was busy with its Evangelina extravaganza, several of its rivals began to wonder if the whole thing was a hoax. Consul General Lee contributed to the skepticism by publicly commenting that the girl could not possibly have exited Cuba without the permission of the Spanish government. Officials in Havana, he surmised, must have “winked at” the jailbreak. Taking Lee’s cue, the
New York Times
scoffed at “a remarkable case of unobstructed rescue.”
51
The “fake” theory gained general acceptance with the publication of Willis Abbot’s memoir in 1933. Still editorials editor of the
Journal
at the time of Evangelina’s rescue, he wrote that money had bought the girl’s way out of prison and claimed it was only to exonerate the prison guards and to furnish newspaper material that an elaborate plan of rescue was developed. Abbot’s take became the conventional view.
52
Journal
at the time of Evangelina’s rescue, he wrote that money had bought the girl’s way out of prison and claimed it was only to exonerate the prison guards and to furnish newspaper material that an elaborate plan of rescue was developed. Abbot’s take became the conventional view.
52
His estimation of Hearst ’s state of mind during the Cisneros affair has also won broad acceptance: “If ever for a moment he doubted that he was battling a powerful state to save the life and liberty of a sorely persecuted girl martyr, he gave no sign of it. It was the one dominating, all-compelling issue of the moment for him. . . . . Hearst felt himself in the role of Sir Galahad rescuing a helpless maiden.” Abbot’s comments have been taken as evidence of Hearst’s mental instability. Biographer W.A. Swanberg, for example, relies on Abbot for his diagnosis that Hearst suffered a “psychological aberration.” He could at times become “a creature of pure fantasy. He
believed
that he had performed a gallant rescue. He
believed
what his newspapers said about it. He could enter into a dream world and, like a child, live out a heroic role in it, brushing aside humdrum reality. Those who thought him a mere cynical opportunist missed half the point. The Hearst reverie could become actuality.”
53
believed
that he had performed a gallant rescue. He
believed
what his newspapers said about it. He could enter into a dream world and, like a child, live out a heroic role in it, brushing aside humdrum reality. Those who thought him a mere cynical opportunist missed half the point. The Hearst reverie could become actuality.”
53
David Nasaw, too, sees a mix of cynicism and psychological damage in Hearst’s handling of the Evangelina episode. His interest in the girl, argues Nasaw, was a desperate bid to juice the
Journal
’s front page in a slow news month. It was not important journalism: it was a “melodrama,” a “sideshow,” irrelevant to the “real story” of the war between Cuba and Spain, but at least it sold papers. The jailbreak, in Nasaw’s estimation, stoked Hearst’s megalomania and feelings of invulnerability.
54
Journal
’s front page in a slow news month. It was not important journalism: it was a “melodrama,” a “sideshow,” irrelevant to the “real story” of the war between Cuba and Spain, but at least it sold papers. The jailbreak, in Nasaw’s estimation, stoked Hearst’s megalomania and feelings of invulnerability.
54
In fact, the rescue of Evangelina Cisneros from Casa de Recojidas was not a hoax. It was an audacious and purposeful exploit, and it happened pretty much as reported. Fitzhugh Lee’s papers and other diplomatic archives corroborate the essentials of the
Journal
’s account, but there was plenty of evidence that the jailbreak was not a fake even before this material was released. The
New York Herald
had printed an account of Evangelina’s escape, gathered from Spanish sources, in the hours before Decker’s role in the affair was revealed. Her disappearance had “caused a sensation in Havana.” The paper reported that police had found a filed and bent iron bar in a window in her wing of the prison, as well as a ladder, a guide rope, and a loaded revolver. Investigators suspected outside involvement and guessed that the escape had been “long and carefully planned.” They confirmed that the house across the street had been rented by two young, well-dressed men who didn’t bother to furnish it. The girl’s cellmates claimed to have been drugged. “The police are hard at work,” said the
Herald,
“and all the Spanish authorities along the coast have been communicated with in the belief that an attempt may be made to embark . . . for the United States or elsewhere.” The jailer and four employees who were on duty the night of the escape were arrested.
55
The
Herald
’s story, coming as it did before the
Journal
announced its part in the escape, substantiates Decker’s account—unless one wants to believe that a pro-Spanish competitor of Hearst’s was in on the hoax, along with the Spanish officials who searched for Evangelina, grilled U.S. consular staff, and argued in Washington for her return to Cuba.
Journal
’s account, but there was plenty of evidence that the jailbreak was not a fake even before this material was released. The
New York Herald
had printed an account of Evangelina’s escape, gathered from Spanish sources, in the hours before Decker’s role in the affair was revealed. Her disappearance had “caused a sensation in Havana.” The paper reported that police had found a filed and bent iron bar in a window in her wing of the prison, as well as a ladder, a guide rope, and a loaded revolver. Investigators suspected outside involvement and guessed that the escape had been “long and carefully planned.” They confirmed that the house across the street had been rented by two young, well-dressed men who didn’t bother to furnish it. The girl’s cellmates claimed to have been drugged. “The police are hard at work,” said the
Herald,
“and all the Spanish authorities along the coast have been communicated with in the belief that an attempt may be made to embark . . . for the United States or elsewhere.” The jailer and four employees who were on duty the night of the escape were arrested.
55
The
Herald
’s story, coming as it did before the
Journal
announced its part in the escape, substantiates Decker’s account—unless one wants to believe that a pro-Spanish competitor of Hearst’s was in on the hoax, along with the Spanish officials who searched for Evangelina, grilled U.S. consular staff, and argued in Washington for her return to Cuba.
Decker may have induced a guard or two to look the other way. The
Journal
reported on its front page that its correspondent was carrying explicit instructions to do “all that man and money might” to bring about the escape of Miss Cisneros, and Decker appears to have bought off a policeman aboard the
Seneca.
56
But he did not bribe the whole of the Spanish army, the imperial diplomatic corps, the Cuban police force, the prison guards, and the
New York Herald.
The contention that Hearst cynically manipulated Evangelina’s plight merely to sell newspapers is itself cynical. The
Journal
was not in desperate need of front-page material when she came along. The Klondike gold rush was the paper’s preoccupation through the summer of 1897, even after the Evangelina story broke; nor was Hearst short on Cuban-related news given the Cánovas assassination.
Journal
reported on its front page that its correspondent was carrying explicit instructions to do “all that man and money might” to bring about the escape of Miss Cisneros, and Decker appears to have bought off a policeman aboard the
Seneca.
56
But he did not bribe the whole of the Spanish army, the imperial diplomatic corps, the Cuban police force, the prison guards, and the
New York Herald.
The contention that Hearst cynically manipulated Evangelina’s plight merely to sell newspapers is itself cynical. The
Journal
was not in desperate need of front-page material when she came along. The Klondike gold rush was the paper’s preoccupation through the summer of 1897, even after the Evangelina story broke; nor was Hearst short on Cuban-related news given the Cánovas assassination.
Hearst did enjoy the fact that the Cisneros saga was selling newspapers—he mentioned it to his mother when he thanked her for signing his petition. But he did not champion Evangelina’s cause simply to build circulation. Nor is it necessary to put him on the couch to discern his primary interests: they were shouted in his editorials, incessantly. Hearst honestly believed the girl had suffered injustice at the hands of the Spanish and he wanted to expose her mistreatment, free her from “Weyler’s ruthless grasp,” and arraign her jailers “at the bar of civilization.” He regarded Spain’s treatment of the girl as the exemplification of its barbarous stewardship of Cuba and he was frustrated that successive administrations in Washington had refused to rally to the Cuban people. He believed that Cleveland and McKinley had been able to maintain attitudes of neutrality on the Cuban question because too many Americans were as yet unaware of the magnitude of Spanish savagery on the island. He hoped that the Cisneros story would rid America of its apathy. “The sufferings of a whole people,” argued one editorial, “make no such appeal to the average imagination as does the atrocity of the sentence imposed on one young woman.”
57
57
GENERATIONS OF HISTORIANS and biographers have mistrusted Hearst’s outrage at the rape of Cuba. Many, in fact, have mocked it. Nasaw and Swanberg devote more than a hundred pages to this period in Hearst’s life but only a few sentences to reconcentration. Hearst’s anger was well founded. It was not just scribblers for the yellow sheets—Creelman, Scovel, Davis, Bryson—who had chronicled and decried the brutality of Spanish dominion in Cuba. The
Herald
’s Stephen Bonsal was probably the most experienced foreign correspondent in America, and the most respected due in part to his occasional assignments as a State Department diplomat. He traveled to Cuba in the early months of 1897 and moved about the island in the company of the Spanish army. Bonsal was a skeptical reporter who made his reputation in part on an exposé of exaggerated Turkish atrocities in Macedonia, yet he was shocked by what he saw in Cuba. Weyler’s method of war was “so barbarous, so blood-thirsty, and yet so exquisite, that the human mind refuses to believe it, and revolts at the suggestion that it was conceived, planned, and plotted by a man.”
58
After watching several hundred executions of Spanish prisoners in just four days, and seeing first hand the horrors of disease and starvation visited upon the
reconcentrados,
Bonsal accused Spain of following a policy of “depopulation by proclamation” and predicted that Cuba was headed for something “that would not find a parallel in the history of human suffering.”
59
That the U.S. was permitting these outrages to occur on its very doorstep, he believed, called into question its character as a nation. Bonsal testified to this effect before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Herald
’s Stephen Bonsal was probably the most experienced foreign correspondent in America, and the most respected due in part to his occasional assignments as a State Department diplomat. He traveled to Cuba in the early months of 1897 and moved about the island in the company of the Spanish army. Bonsal was a skeptical reporter who made his reputation in part on an exposé of exaggerated Turkish atrocities in Macedonia, yet he was shocked by what he saw in Cuba. Weyler’s method of war was “so barbarous, so blood-thirsty, and yet so exquisite, that the human mind refuses to believe it, and revolts at the suggestion that it was conceived, planned, and plotted by a man.”
58
After watching several hundred executions of Spanish prisoners in just four days, and seeing first hand the horrors of disease and starvation visited upon the
reconcentrados,
Bonsal accused Spain of following a policy of “depopulation by proclamation” and predicted that Cuba was headed for something “that would not find a parallel in the history of human suffering.”
59
That the U.S. was permitting these outrages to occur on its very doorstep, he believed, called into question its character as a nation. Bonsal testified to this effect before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Information pouring into the White House and the State Department throughout 1897 confirmed the very worst of what Bonsal and the yellow press had predicted for and reported from Cuba. Donnell Rockwell had been sent by Fitzhugh Lee in July to investigate the effects of Weyler’s reconcentration policy. He visited one “doomed settlement” at Artemisa, where disease and starvation claimed twenty-five to thirty-five victims a day. “The death cart makes its rounds several times daily, and into it the corpses are thrown without ceremony,” he wrote with a further description of the mass graves in which victims were interred. “This state of affairs . . . is but a repetition of what is taking place in all the towns of reconcentration on the Island.”
60
60
Rockwell’s colleague Walter B. Barker had written the State Department in July that what was happening in Cuba should no longer be considered war “but extermination of the inhabitants, with destruction of all property.” In November, the U.S. Consul in Matanzas reported the following: “As I write . . . a dead negro woman lies in the street, within 200 yards of the consulate, starved to death; died sometime this morning, and will lie there, maybe, for days. The misery and destitution in this city and other towns in the interior are beyond description.” Consular staff declared that during the first fifteen days of November, 275 deaths had been registered in Santa Clara, compared to a historic average of seventeen a month.
61
While the State Department kept most of this information to itself, Hearst and Pulitzer reporters were in constant contact with the U.S. legation in Cuba, and well aware of consular appraisals of the situation. These close relations and shared concerns go some way to explaining the willingness of consular officers to assist Hearst’s men in a diplomatically indefensible rescue of a non-American citizen from a Cuban jail.
61
While the State Department kept most of this information to itself, Hearst and Pulitzer reporters were in constant contact with the U.S. legation in Cuba, and well aware of consular appraisals of the situation. These close relations and shared concerns go some way to explaining the willingness of consular officers to assist Hearst’s men in a diplomatically indefensible rescue of a non-American citizen from a Cuban jail.
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