The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (71 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
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The
Journal
’s early belief that the
Maine
was sunk by an external force was further bolstered by two sources in Havana. The paper was in close contact with Fitzhugh Lee, who immediately took the view that the ship was destroyed by a mine, as did Captain Sigsbee. Both the
Journal
and the
World
published news that Sigsbee had sent to Secretary of the Navy Long a secret or “suppressed” cable message suggesting an external cause. The Sigsbee cable has been received with snorts in the Hearst literature but the captain did indeed send the following message to Long in cipher on February 18: “Probably the
Maine
destroyed by mine, perhaps by accident. I surmise that her berth was planted previous to her arrival, perhaps long ago. I can only surmise this.”
46
The
Journal
would have done better with a less categorical banner headline on its second day, but its statement carried an attibution and was nowhere near the acme of ruthless, truthless journalism.
Journal
’s early belief that the
Maine
was sunk by an external force was further bolstered by two sources in Havana. The paper was in close contact with Fitzhugh Lee, who immediately took the view that the ship was destroyed by a mine, as did Captain Sigsbee. Both the
Journal
and the
World
published news that Sigsbee had sent to Secretary of the Navy Long a secret or “suppressed” cable message suggesting an external cause. The Sigsbee cable has been received with snorts in the Hearst literature but the captain did indeed send the following message to Long in cipher on February 18: “Probably the
Maine
destroyed by mine, perhaps by accident. I surmise that her berth was planted previous to her arrival, perhaps long ago. I can only surmise this.”
46
The
Journal
would have done better with a less categorical banner headline on its second day, but its statement carried an attibution and was nowhere near the acme of ruthless, truthless journalism.
The
Journal
did publish diagrams and headlines suggesting that the
Maine
could have been destroyed by a mine, and it was unquestionably fond of the theory, but Hearst did not invent this, either. One of his paper’s sources was Polish-born Civil War veteran E.L. Zalinski, a retired munitions and submarine specialist who had taught military science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zalinski sketched scenarios of how a mine might have been rigged, explained patterns of damage caused by internal and external explosions, and interpreted photographic evidence of the wreck. Among the many experts cited in support of the external explosion theory were Rear Admiral George E. Belknap (retired), president of the Board of Commissioners of the Massachusetts Nautical Training School; Naval Constructor Philip Hichborn (soon to be Admiral Hichborn, chief constructor of the U.S. Navy); and Naval Constructor Francis T. Bowles of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, who oversaw construction of the battleship
Texas
and who had worked as assistant to Theodore D. Wilson, the late builder of the
Maine.
Bowles stated positively that “no destructive explosion was possible on board the vessel.”
47
But the
Journal
still did not accuse Spain of sinking the
Maine:
the day’s lead story, by George Eugene Bryson, stated that “nobody thinks the authorities were party to the crime, if crime there was.”
48
Journal
did publish diagrams and headlines suggesting that the
Maine
could have been destroyed by a mine, and it was unquestionably fond of the theory, but Hearst did not invent this, either. One of his paper’s sources was Polish-born Civil War veteran E.L. Zalinski, a retired munitions and submarine specialist who had taught military science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zalinski sketched scenarios of how a mine might have been rigged, explained patterns of damage caused by internal and external explosions, and interpreted photographic evidence of the wreck. Among the many experts cited in support of the external explosion theory were Rear Admiral George E. Belknap (retired), president of the Board of Commissioners of the Massachusetts Nautical Training School; Naval Constructor Philip Hichborn (soon to be Admiral Hichborn, chief constructor of the U.S. Navy); and Naval Constructor Francis T. Bowles of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, who oversaw construction of the battleship
Texas
and who had worked as assistant to Theodore D. Wilson, the late builder of the
Maine.
Bowles stated positively that “no destructive explosion was possible on board the vessel.”
47
But the
Journal
still did not accuse Spain of sinking the
Maine:
the day’s lead story, by George Eugene Bryson, stated that “nobody thinks the authorities were party to the crime, if crime there was.”
48
The third day’s headline, “The Whole Country Thrills With the War Fever,” does appear blatantly jingoistic when torn from context. It was, in fact, attached to reports that governors from New York, Tennessee, Minnesota, Utah, and many states in between intended to raise militias for service in Cuba. There was also news of mass assemblies, flag-waving demonstrations, and belligerent speeches from church and campus groups, community associations, and labor unions. Many of these meetings gave birth to regiments of volunteer soldiers. The first installment of a two-day
Journal
straw poll of congressional opinion indicated overwhelming support for immediate U.S. intervention in Cuba (subsequent votes in both houses were consistent with these findings). Senators on both the Naval Affairs Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee were demanding an immediate investigation into the sinking of the
Maine
and talked openly of sending ships to the island. A rumor out of Washington held that McKinley would go to Congress for a war loan (the rumor proved to be accurate). So while it is not literally true that “the whole country” thrilled with war fever, Hearst’s headline reflected the prevailing public sentiment.
49
Journal
straw poll of congressional opinion indicated overwhelming support for immediate U.S. intervention in Cuba (subsequent votes in both houses were consistent with these findings). Senators on both the Naval Affairs Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee were demanding an immediate investigation into the sinking of the
Maine
and talked openly of sending ships to the island. A rumor out of Washington held that McKinley would go to Congress for a war loan (the rumor proved to be accurate). So while it is not literally true that “the whole country” thrilled with war fever, Hearst’s headline reflected the prevailing public sentiment.
49
The
Journal
’s editorials clearly favored the external explosion theory but did not rush to judgment. In its first comment, on February 17, the paper pleaded for time and better information about the cause of the blast; it saw no reason to panic, nor any reason to believe official Spain could be culpable. The next day an editorial suggested Spain could bear some responsibility for a ship sunk in its waters but the paper did not think this fact especially consequential: “The fate of the
Maine,
heartrending as it is, profoundly as it has moved the American people, is only an episode in a drama that would have moved swiftly to its destined end without it. Intervention in behalf of Cuban independence was our duty before the
Maine
was destroyed; it was our duty before de Lôme wrote his letter, and it is our duty now.”
50
In the days ahead, the paper’s editorials would be inconsistent in their details and sometimes disingenuous in their arguments—talking of Spanish treachery and the “murder” of the ship’s crew, for instance, while still professing to withhold judgment on the cause. It continued to argue that the U.S. had a moral and humanitarian obligation to bring peace to Cuba regardless of the calamity in Havana harbor. The
Journal
never isolated the loss of the
Maine
as grounds for war, but in the wake of de Lôme it no longer saw hope for non-military solution. The paper now clearly wanted a war.
Journal
’s editorials clearly favored the external explosion theory but did not rush to judgment. In its first comment, on February 17, the paper pleaded for time and better information about the cause of the blast; it saw no reason to panic, nor any reason to believe official Spain could be culpable. The next day an editorial suggested Spain could bear some responsibility for a ship sunk in its waters but the paper did not think this fact especially consequential: “The fate of the
Maine,
heartrending as it is, profoundly as it has moved the American people, is only an episode in a drama that would have moved swiftly to its destined end without it. Intervention in behalf of Cuban independence was our duty before the
Maine
was destroyed; it was our duty before de Lôme wrote his letter, and it is our duty now.”
50
In the days ahead, the paper’s editorials would be inconsistent in their details and sometimes disingenuous in their arguments—talking of Spanish treachery and the “murder” of the ship’s crew, for instance, while still professing to withhold judgment on the cause. It continued to argue that the U.S. had a moral and humanitarian obligation to bring peace to Cuba regardless of the calamity in Havana harbor. The
Journal
never isolated the loss of the
Maine
as grounds for war, but in the wake of de Lôme it no longer saw hope for non-military solution. The paper now clearly wanted a war.
Every day for a week after the
Maine
explosion, Hearst ran eight or more pages of news, comment, and speculation—more content than any other paper on Park Row. He carried descriptions of the blast and of rescue efforts, with close attention to the movements and utterances of Consul General Lee, Captain Sigsbee, and Spain’s General Blanco. There were group pictures of the crew of the
Maine,
biographies of both the dead and survivors, and interviews with families of the victims. The administration’s efforts to manage the crisis and formulate a response received a page or more a day, not including news from Congress and Wall Street. The paper played up differences as to the cause of the blast between the secretary of the navy and his belligerent assistant, Roosevelt. There were dozens of stories on war preparations in the United States and Spain.
Maine
explosion, Hearst ran eight or more pages of news, comment, and speculation—more content than any other paper on Park Row. He carried descriptions of the blast and of rescue efforts, with close attention to the movements and utterances of Consul General Lee, Captain Sigsbee, and Spain’s General Blanco. There were group pictures of the crew of the
Maine,
biographies of both the dead and survivors, and interviews with families of the victims. The administration’s efforts to manage the crisis and formulate a response received a page or more a day, not including news from Congress and Wall Street. The paper played up differences as to the cause of the blast between the secretary of the navy and his belligerent assistant, Roosevelt. There were dozens of stories on war preparations in the United States and Spain.
Hearst was directly orchestrating coverage as evidenced by this flurry of telegrams to his European editor, Creelman:
February 19: “MADRID SEEMS DOING NOTHING HERALD HAS FINE CABLE ON ATTITUDE OF WEYLER MAINE IS GREAT THING AROUSE EVERYBODY HEARST”February 22: “CRISPI STATEMENT GREAT CAN YOU GET MORE LIKE IT WORLD HAS STATEMENT INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS LEGAL ASPECTS HEARST”February 23: “STIR UP MADRID WORLD HAS CABLED MAN THERE TO GET FROM SPANISH GOVERNMENT STATEMENT WHETHER MINES IN HAVANA HARBOR SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFSET THIS HEARST.”February 24: “TRY FOR BIG INTERVIEW STATEMENT HERR KRUPP ON GUNS POSSIBLY FURNISHING QUICKLY HAS HE ANY READY MADE FOR SALE PART OF HEAVY ARTILLERY IN MODERN WARFARE LAND BATTERIES AGAINST FLEET DEFENSE HEARST”February 27: “FOREIGN STUFF SIMPLY GREAT THANKS IMMENSELY WOULD LIKE TO REACH ACROSS AND SHAKE HANDS HEARST”
51
By the end of the first week of coverage, Hearst had three ships in or bound for Havana, carrying a who’s who of special correspondents, among them Karl Decker, James Creelman, Alfred Henry Lewis, Julian Hawthorne, and Frederic Remington. He kept his presses running around the clock and produced new editions almost hourly. His circulation had doubled. On March 1 he wrote Creelman, who had taken Hearst’s gratitude as an opportunity to renegotiate a contract now paying him $18,000 a year:
“ARRANGEMENT SUGGESTED YOUR LETTER SATISFACTORY YOURSELF AS EUROPEAN EDITOR CIRCULATION OVER MILLION DAILY DURING WAR SCARE HOW IS THAT HEARST”
52
There was a lot of solid work in the
Journal
’s eight pages a day and there was some indisputably bad journalism, as well. Hearst overreached in defense of the external explosion theory. It was not true that naval officers were “unanimous” that the ship had been purposely destroyed. Zalinski did not offer “indisputable evidence” of a submarine mine, merely a hypothesis, and the
Journal
’s photo-illustrations of the wreck in Havana harbor were not “proof of a submarine mine,” as Hearst’s headlines shouted.
53
Alfred Henry Lewis argued on no real evidence that Weylerites had blown up the
Maine.
54
The paper reported erroneously that President McKinley believed the ship had been destroyed by an external blast and that “Official Washington Now Regards War as Inevitable.”
55
The
Journal
printed on its front page a transcript of an alleged interview with Theodore Roosevelt in which he lauds the paper as “commendable,” “accurate,” “patriotic,” and “loyal.”
56
Roosevelt emphatically disavowed the interview, this time in private as well as in public. Pulitzer made the most of the spat, describing Hearst’s Cuba news as “Written by Fools for Fools.”
57
Journal
’s eight pages a day and there was some indisputably bad journalism, as well. Hearst overreached in defense of the external explosion theory. It was not true that naval officers were “unanimous” that the ship had been purposely destroyed. Zalinski did not offer “indisputable evidence” of a submarine mine, merely a hypothesis, and the
Journal
’s photo-illustrations of the wreck in Havana harbor were not “proof of a submarine mine,” as Hearst’s headlines shouted.
53
Alfred Henry Lewis argued on no real evidence that Weylerites had blown up the
Maine.
54
The paper reported erroneously that President McKinley believed the ship had been destroyed by an external blast and that “Official Washington Now Regards War as Inevitable.”
55
The
Journal
printed on its front page a transcript of an alleged interview with Theodore Roosevelt in which he lauds the paper as “commendable,” “accurate,” “patriotic,” and “loyal.”
56
Roosevelt emphatically disavowed the interview, this time in private as well as in public. Pulitzer made the most of the spat, describing Hearst’s Cuba news as “Written by Fools for Fools.”
57
There was also the usual mess of self-promotion in the
Journal
’s eight pages a day. Hearst offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to “the detection of the perpetrator of the
Maine
outrage” (on another occasion, “the persons, if any, criminally responsible for the destruction of the
Maine
”).
58
Consistent with its practice of giving readers of its Sunday edition puzzles and diversions revolving around news themes, the
Journal
invented a board game involving a shootout between the Spanish cruiser
Vizcaya
and the
Texas.
It launched a campaign for funds to build a monument to the
Maine
victims. (Grover Cleveland refused to join the fundraising committee, saying, “I decline to allow my sorrow for those who died on the
Maine
to be perverted to an advertising scheme of the
New York Journal.
”)
59
There were dozens of self-promotional stories about the
Journal
’s scoops, the
Journal
’s efforts to crack the mystery of the
Maine,
the
Journal
’s influence in Congress, and the
Journal
’s special trains carrying news of the explosion at lightning speed in all directions, among other examples of
Journal
enterprise.
Journal
’s eight pages a day. Hearst offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to “the detection of the perpetrator of the
Maine
outrage” (on another occasion, “the persons, if any, criminally responsible for the destruction of the
Maine
”).
58
Consistent with its practice of giving readers of its Sunday edition puzzles and diversions revolving around news themes, the
Journal
invented a board game involving a shootout between the Spanish cruiser
Vizcaya
and the
Texas.
It launched a campaign for funds to build a monument to the
Maine
victims. (Grover Cleveland refused to join the fundraising committee, saying, “I decline to allow my sorrow for those who died on the
Maine
to be perverted to an advertising scheme of the
New York Journal.
”)
59
There were dozens of self-promotional stories about the
Journal
’s scoops, the
Journal
’s efforts to crack the mystery of the
Maine,
the
Journal
’s influence in Congress, and the
Journal
’s special trains carrying news of the explosion at lightning speed in all directions, among other examples of
Journal
enterprise.
The worst aspect of Hearst’s coverage crept into the paper five days after the
Maine
went down. Stung by accusations of warmongering from his competitors, he took refuge in nativist demagoguery, running a boldfaced front-page editorial presented against a backdrop of the American flag:
Maine
went down. Stung by accusations of warmongering from his competitors, he took refuge in nativist demagoguery, running a boldfaced front-page editorial presented against a backdrop of the American flag:
The
Journal
is neither surprised nor affected by the abuse heaped upon it by newspapers whose owners either live in Europe, or, being native there, came to this country too late in life to absorb the spirit of American institutions or the temper of the American people. Men of this type are unfitted, by their environment, to gauge the force and trend of public sentiment in the United States. Their habits of mind are European; their instincts anti-American. The
Journal
is an American paper for the American people. It is not what the alien press, borrowing a phrase from British politics, calls a “jingo” newspaper. It does not urge war. It hopes for peace—peace in the United States and in Cuba—and it sees clearly enough that to enforce peace in the ravaged island is the surest way to assure it at home. The policy of the
Journal
is aggressive Americanism. The people have approved a course by swelling its circulation to more than a million copies a day. Peace with honor, peace with the maintenance of national dignity, peace without sacrificing the cause of humanity is the American ideal.
60
Error, poor judgment, and bigotry are never virtues in newspapering, and there is no excusing them in this instance. It is one thing, however, to regret these failings, and quite another to describe them as damnable or lunatic, especially when they weren’t even unusual. Again, context matters. Even before the
Maine
blew, Congress, the American people, and Park Row were deeply disturbed by events in Cuba. The destruction of the ship put them all in a frenzy. Hearst’s coverage was part of an uproarious national dialogue. His voice sounds freakish when plucked out and examined in isolation, but in the context of the journalistic conversation that erupted as the
Maine
sank, it sounds quite different.
Maine
blew, Congress, the American people, and Park Row were deeply disturbed by events in Cuba. The destruction of the ship put them all in a frenzy. Hearst’s coverage was part of an uproarious national dialogue. His voice sounds freakish when plucked out and examined in isolation, but in the context of the journalistic conversation that erupted as the
Maine
sank, it sounds quite different.
As Godkin noted, Pulitzer kept pace with Hearst in the days after the blast, promoting the external explosion theory, quoting many of the same sources and experts, claiming scoops, offering rewards, and making its share of mistakes. While it might be expected that the yellows would bark up the same tree, the
Sun,
more conservative in thought and style, was if anything more eager to link Spain to the sinking of the
Maine.
It gave prominence to a general in the Cuban army who claimed to know for a fact that Spanish authorities had torpedoed the vessel—“[I] would stake my life upon it.”
61
It ran on its front page several reports that Spanish soldiers in small craft had made suspicious maneuvers in Havana Bay hours before the explosion. It carried rumors that Spanish women in Havana had been warned to avoid the wharves the day of the blast, and that a caller to the U.S. consulate alerted the Americans to an impending attack on the
Maine.
It laughed at the
Tribune
and the
Herald,
among other papers, for maintaining that the
Maine
had blown itself to bits. Its editorials insisted that the Spaniards were responsible for the
Maine
whether or not they had conspired in its destruction, and they openly encouraged U.S. military intervention in Cuba, expressing strong views on the proper procedure for a declaration of war and the most advantageous deployment of American fighting resources.
Sun,
more conservative in thought and style, was if anything more eager to link Spain to the sinking of the
Maine.
It gave prominence to a general in the Cuban army who claimed to know for a fact that Spanish authorities had torpedoed the vessel—“[I] would stake my life upon it.”
61
It ran on its front page several reports that Spanish soldiers in small craft had made suspicious maneuvers in Havana Bay hours before the explosion. It carried rumors that Spanish women in Havana had been warned to avoid the wharves the day of the blast, and that a caller to the U.S. consulate alerted the Americans to an impending attack on the
Maine.
It laughed at the
Tribune
and the
Herald,
among other papers, for maintaining that the
Maine
had blown itself to bits. Its editorials insisted that the Spaniards were responsible for the
Maine
whether or not they had conspired in its destruction, and they openly encouraged U.S. military intervention in Cuba, expressing strong views on the proper procedure for a declaration of war and the most advantageous deployment of American fighting resources.
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