The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (76 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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Brisbane would estimate the cost of the
Journal
’s coverage at $3,000 a day in excess of normal requirements, a rate of an additional $1 million a year. The bulk of the money went to personnel, dispatch boats, and the telegraph companies. All of the soldiers in the
Journal
’s “journalistic army”—including some thirty-five correspondents bound for Cuba, dispatch boats and navy ships, and others in Washington, foreign capitals, and Caribbean ports—would have collected large salaries. Each vessel in the paper’s journalistic navy cost $5,000 to $9,000 a month (not counting insurance, at as much as $2,000 a month, and coal).
33
The cable tolls were breathtaking. A man in Key West filing daily could ring up bills of $7,500 a month, an amount far in excess of his annual wages. A single story filed from Jamaica or Haiti at the “urgent” rate of $1.65 a word could top out at $5,000 (by comparison, an entire roster of war correspondents at one large New York paper was costing $1,464 a week).
34
Journal
’s coverage at $3,000 a day in excess of normal requirements, a rate of an additional $1 million a year. The bulk of the money went to personnel, dispatch boats, and the telegraph companies. All of the soldiers in the
Journal
’s “journalistic army”—including some thirty-five correspondents bound for Cuba, dispatch boats and navy ships, and others in Washington, foreign capitals, and Caribbean ports—would have collected large salaries. Each vessel in the paper’s journalistic navy cost $5,000 to $9,000 a month (not counting insurance, at as much as $2,000 a month, and coal).
33
The cable tolls were breathtaking. A man in Key West filing daily could ring up bills of $7,500 a month, an amount far in excess of his annual wages. A single story filed from Jamaica or Haiti at the “urgent” rate of $1.65 a word could top out at $5,000 (by comparison, an entire roster of war correspondents at one large New York paper was costing $1,464 a week).
34
Strong as its “journalistic army” may have been, there was one warrior still coveted by the
Journal:
Sylvester Scovel of the New York
World.
He and Brisbane had become acquainted in Pulitzer’s employ. Scovel valued their relationship enough to recommend stringers to Brisbane and to smuggle photographs out of Cuba for the
Evening Journal
—a generosity Uncle Joe would not have appreciated. But there would be no reunion. Scovel believed he owed his career to the
World
and he remained loyal, despite Brisbane’s flattery and a promise of more money.
35
Journal:
Sylvester Scovel of the New York
World.
He and Brisbane had become acquainted in Pulitzer’s employ. Scovel valued their relationship enough to recommend stringers to Brisbane and to smuggle photographs out of Cuba for the
Evening Journal
—a generosity Uncle Joe would not have appreciated. But there would be no reunion. Scovel believed he owed his career to the
World
and he remained loyal, despite Brisbane’s flattery and a promise of more money.
35
The
Journal
spent still more to improve its operations on the home front. Hearst built a war desk where a dozen men worked day and night at a long table, sifting through acres of copy flowing in from around the globe, separating as best they could fact from rumor, rushing the most important news into print within minutes of its receipt. The evening paper alone could spit out as many as forty editions in a single day, a pace that required new battalions of pressmen, stereotypers, engravers, compositors, mechanics, and office boys. Special trains were hired to satisfy the demand in markets outside of New York, including 20,000 copies a night for the after-theater crowds in Buffalo. At the height of the conflict, Hearst ’s presses ran almost around the clock. The
Evening Journal
once printed just short of 1.1 million copies in a day and still fell short of advance demand by 200,000. The mor ning paper was now routinely selling more than a million copies a day; its single best day was 1.6 million.
Journal
spent still more to improve its operations on the home front. Hearst built a war desk where a dozen men worked day and night at a long table, sifting through acres of copy flowing in from around the globe, separating as best they could fact from rumor, rushing the most important news into print within minutes of its receipt. The evening paper alone could spit out as many as forty editions in a single day, a pace that required new battalions of pressmen, stereotypers, engravers, compositors, mechanics, and office boys. Special trains were hired to satisfy the demand in markets outside of New York, including 20,000 copies a night for the after-theater crowds in Buffalo. At the height of the conflict, Hearst ’s presses ran almost around the clock. The
Evening Journal
once printed just short of 1.1 million copies in a day and still fell short of advance demand by 200,000. The mor ning paper was now routinely selling more than a million copies a day; its single best day was 1.6 million.
For the benefit of readers who could not wait ten minutes for his next edition, Hearst, like other publishers, erected bulletin boards on Park Row and at strategic points throughout the city. Orchestras played to attract crowds as the latest headlines were displayed; sketch artists kept everyone entertained when, as Brisbane said, “the work of killing Spaniards progressed too slowly.”
36
The
Journal
also hosted midday sing-along concerts beside the bulletin boards throughout the spring. A cornetist and a clutch of singers would lead crowds in the “Star-Spangled Banner” and other patriotic songs. One day in June, Hearst happened to stroll out of his offices to find the little band in full flight. He paused on the steps of the Tribune Building to enjoy the full effect of several thousand voices in unison. They finished one anthem or another before bursting into a lusty drinking song. Hearst ran upstairs and cancelled all future concerts.
37
36
The
Journal
also hosted midday sing-along concerts beside the bulletin boards throughout the spring. A cornetist and a clutch of singers would lead crowds in the “Star-Spangled Banner” and other patriotic songs. One day in June, Hearst happened to stroll out of his offices to find the little band in full flight. He paused on the steps of the Tribune Building to enjoy the full effect of several thousand voices in unison. They finished one anthem or another before bursting into a lusty drinking song. Hearst ran upstairs and cancelled all future concerts.
37
DESPITE ALL OF ITS PLANNING, expenditures, and enthusiasm, the
Journal
failed to distinguish itself in any positive manner in the first two months of the Spanish-American War. One reason was the competitive environment. Every other paper on Park Row had also devoted vast resources and endless pages to war news. The
World,
the
Herald,
and the Associated Press spent at close to the
Journal
’s pace.
38
Each hired several dispatch boats, and collectively, they would field some seventy war correspondents.
39
All the major dailies had roughly the same access to sources and scenes, and all were subject to U.S. government censorship. The
Journal
’s foreign reporting on events in Spain and the European reaction to the war was often strong and distinctive but otherwise it had trouble finding an edge. It pushed to extremes and often landed in embarrassment.
Journal
failed to distinguish itself in any positive manner in the first two months of the Spanish-American War. One reason was the competitive environment. Every other paper on Park Row had also devoted vast resources and endless pages to war news. The
World,
the
Herald,
and the Associated Press spent at close to the
Journal
’s pace.
38
Each hired several dispatch boats, and collectively, they would field some seventy war correspondents.
39
All the major dailies had roughly the same access to sources and scenes, and all were subject to U.S. government censorship. The
Journal
’s foreign reporting on events in Spain and the European reaction to the war was often strong and distinctive but otherwise it had trouble finding an edge. It pushed to extremes and often landed in embarrassment.
One of its worst moments came after Manila Bay. The paper had not been with Dewey. Only three reporters were: John T. McCutcheon, a cartoonist with the
Chicago Record;
Edward Harden, a financial writer stringing for Pulitzer’s
World
and the
Chicago Tribune;
and Joseph L. Stickney of the
New York Herald.
They witnessed the Battle of Manila Bay from the decks of the revenue cutter
McCulloch.
They could not immediately file, however, because Dewey had cut the telegraph cable at Manila. The first news of the defeat of the Spanish fleet thus reached the United States from European sources. It was enough to start the celebrations, but days passed without confirmation from Dewey or any American witness. In the interim, no one knew the details of the clash, including the extent of Dewey’s losses, and every newspaper in the country wanted the scoop. The three men aboard the
McCulloch
were positioned to deliver. Dewey eventually gave their ship permission to steam for Hong Kong to dispatch its cargo of copy. He asked that his official report be filed ahead of the newspaper stories, but Harden preempted it with a thirty-word dispatch cabled at the “urgent” rate of $9.90 a word:
Chicago Record;
Edward Harden, a financial writer stringing for Pulitzer’s
World
and the
Chicago Tribune;
and Joseph L. Stickney of the
New York Herald.
They witnessed the Battle of Manila Bay from the decks of the revenue cutter
McCulloch.
They could not immediately file, however, because Dewey had cut the telegraph cable at Manila. The first news of the defeat of the Spanish fleet thus reached the United States from European sources. It was enough to start the celebrations, but days passed without confirmation from Dewey or any American witness. In the interim, no one knew the details of the clash, including the extent of Dewey’s losses, and every newspaper in the country wanted the scoop. The three men aboard the
McCulloch
were positioned to deliver. Dewey eventually gave their ship permission to steam for Hong Kong to dispatch its cargo of copy. He asked that his official report be filed ahead of the newspaper stories, but Harden preempted it with a thirty-word dispatch cabled at the “urgent” rate of $9.90 a word:
WORLD, NEWYORK
JUST ARRIVED FROM MANILA. MCCULLOCH.
ENTIRE SPANISH FLEET DESTROYED. ELEVEN SHIPS.
SPANISH LOSS THREE HUNDRED KILLED, FOUR HUNDRED
WOUNDED. OUR LOSS NONE KILLED, SIX SLIGHTLY WOUNDED.
SHIPS UNINJURED. BULLETIN. HARDEN.
40
The scoop arrived on a Saturday morning at the news offices of the
World,
just after its morning edition had left the building. Unluckily for Pulitzer, a
Chicago Tribune
reporter playing cards in the
World
’s newsroom picked up the phone and received the dispatch from the telegraph office. Because of the time-zone difference, he was able to relay the news to Chicago in time for his morning edition, winning the beat for the
Tribune.
41
The
World
was first with the news in New York.
World,
just after its morning edition had left the building. Unluckily for Pulitzer, a
Chicago Tribune
reporter playing cards in the
World
’s newsroom picked up the phone and received the dispatch from the telegraph office. Because of the time-zone difference, he was able to relay the news to Chicago in time for his morning edition, winning the beat for the
Tribune.
41
The
World
was first with the news in New York.
Although it did not have its own man aboard the
McCulloch,
the
Journal
did have a copy-sharing arrangement with McCutcheon of the
Chicago Record.
McCutcheon filed a 600-word summary of the battle later the same Saturday. He reserved the bulk of his copy—a 2,500-word report—for transmission on Sunday because the
Record
didn’t publish again until Monday. That left Hearst in a bind. The
Herald
and the
World
were certain to produce many thousands of words on Dewey’s triumph in their Sunday editions and the
Journal
had only McCutcheon’s brief file. Charles Michelson and others in the
Journal
newsroom were assigned to make up the difference. They bolstered McCutcheon’s copy with information gleaned from previously published reports, the AP wire, competing papers, and European sources. What was still missing they supplied from their imaginations. They had soon puffed out McCutcheon’s 600 words to 3,000. They ran it under his byline and shamelessly claimed for it the “Greatest Beat of Modern Times.”
42
McCulloch,
the
Journal
did have a copy-sharing arrangement with McCutcheon of the
Chicago Record.
McCutcheon filed a 600-word summary of the battle later the same Saturday. He reserved the bulk of his copy—a 2,500-word report—for transmission on Sunday because the
Record
didn’t publish again until Monday. That left Hearst in a bind. The
Herald
and the
World
were certain to produce many thousands of words on Dewey’s triumph in their Sunday editions and the
Journal
had only McCutcheon’s brief file. Charles Michelson and others in the
Journal
newsroom were assigned to make up the difference. They bolstered McCutcheon’s copy with information gleaned from previously published reports, the AP wire, competing papers, and European sources. What was still missing they supplied from their imaginations. They had soon puffed out McCutcheon’s 600 words to 3,000. They ran it under his byline and shamelessly claimed for it the “Greatest Beat of Modern Times.”
42
McCutcheon, neither recognizing nor approving of the words attributed to him by the
Journal,
was mortified, all the more so because the
Chicago Tribune,
a subscriber to the Hearst news service, picked up the
Journal
’s piece and ran it in the Chicago market on the Sunday, ahead of his own 2,500-word masterwork, which appeared in the
Record
on Monday. He vented his frustration to his employer: “You may imagine how I felt when I read the
Chicago Tribune
account over which my name appeared and saw what ridiculous and preposterous things I was credited with having sent. . . . It read as if the one who wrote it did it out of pure malice and to make me appear a gigantic idiot. . . . The officers on the
McCulloch
read the report amidst howls of laughter and naturally I felt like a yellow dog.”
43
Journal,
was mortified, all the more so because the
Chicago Tribune,
a subscriber to the Hearst news service, picked up the
Journal
’s piece and ran it in the Chicago market on the Sunday, ahead of his own 2,500-word masterwork, which appeared in the
Record
on Monday. He vented his frustration to his employer: “You may imagine how I felt when I read the
Chicago Tribune
account over which my name appeared and saw what ridiculous and preposterous things I was credited with having sent. . . . It read as if the one who wrote it did it out of pure malice and to make me appear a gigantic idiot. . . . The officers on the
McCulloch
read the report amidst howls of laughter and naturally I felt like a yellow dog.”
43
Michelson defended the
Journal
’s “bit of fakery” as common practice, which it was, but the paper nonetheless embarrassed itself in a crucial moment.
44
McCutcheon had every reason to feel humiliated. The concocted report had some dreadful writing. “I confess that my teeth chattered and I felt qualmish,” McCutcheon was said to have muttered to himself as the battle got underway. “Perhaps I had rather been at home. . . .”
Journal
’s “bit of fakery” as common practice, which it was, but the paper nonetheless embarrassed itself in a crucial moment.
44
McCutcheon had every reason to feel humiliated. The concocted report had some dreadful writing. “I confess that my teeth chattered and I felt qualmish,” McCutcheon was said to have muttered to himself as the battle got underway. “Perhaps I had rather been at home. . . .”
THROUGH MAY AND INTO JUNE, the U.S. Fifth Army assembled and trained on the mainland, awaiting deployment in Cuba. Just where it would land—Mariel, Matanzas, a point east of Havana—was undecided until events at sea settled the matter. The Spanish Caribbean Squadron, the bulk of what was left of its navy, had been discovered in port at Santiago de Cuba by elements of U.S. commodore Winfield Scott Schley’s “Flying Squadron.” Schley set up a blockade with reinforcements from Rear Admiral William T. Sampson’s Atlantic Squadron. They considered entering the port to destroy the Spanish ships, but the channel entrance was mined and protected by shore batteries. Spanish admiral Pasqual Cervera appeared content to wait in port for support, or for bad weather to interrupt the blockade. Sampson called for a land invasion and the administration obliged, but the army was still weeks from ready.
The lack of action frustrated the legions of correspondents in Florida and off Cuba, all of whom were under pressure from editors at home to fill acres of space devoted to the war. The reporters answered the demand with speculation and exaggeration. No incident or rumor was too minor to escape a headline. Stephen Crane mocked stories that arrived in Key West as mice only to be cabled north as elephants.
45
The
Journal
was as guilty of these excesses as any. It reported that U.S. ground forces had disembarked for Cuba or were hours from disembarking almost every day for a month before transports actually left Tampa. In early June, the paper offered readers running accounts of nonexistent skirmishes between Spanish and U.S. troops in Santiago. A report datelined Cape Haytien, June 5, announced that five thousand U.S. soldiers had landed at Punta Cabrera, six miles west of Santiago, and were preparing to meet the Spanish army; among the troops were Karl Decker, rescuer of Evangeline Cisneros, and Martin Seeley, of the infamous bachelor party. The report was entirely false.
46
45
The
Journal
was as guilty of these excesses as any. It reported that U.S. ground forces had disembarked for Cuba or were hours from disembarking almost every day for a month before transports actually left Tampa. In early June, the paper offered readers running accounts of nonexistent skirmishes between Spanish and U.S. troops in Santiago. A report datelined Cape Haytien, June 5, announced that five thousand U.S. soldiers had landed at Punta Cabrera, six miles west of Santiago, and were preparing to meet the Spanish army; among the troops were Karl Decker, rescuer of Evangeline Cisneros, and Martin Seeley, of the infamous bachelor party. The report was entirely false.
46
The day after the
Journal
’s Cape Haytien story, the
Herald
carried its own account of a nonexistent battle between U.S. and Spanish forces in Cuba; it also announced the sinking of several Spanish battleships that were still, in fact, afloat. The Associated Press and the
Journal
both ran rumors picked up from English sailors that Santiago had fallen, before U.S. troops had actually left Tampa. Even the Manhattan newsboys tired of the sham and hype, much of which was rushed to readers in extra editions. One took up the cry, “Here ’s yer latest extra. Fake extra! All the fakes. Exclusive fakes! Extra! Extra! Fake extra!!” According to the
Fourth Estate
, he sold out in an instant and all his colleagues copied his sales pitch.
47
Journal
’s Cape Haytien story, the
Herald
carried its own account of a nonexistent battle between U.S. and Spanish forces in Cuba; it also announced the sinking of several Spanish battleships that were still, in fact, afloat. The Associated Press and the
Journal
both ran rumors picked up from English sailors that Santiago had fallen, before U.S. troops had actually left Tampa. Even the Manhattan newsboys tired of the sham and hype, much of which was rushed to readers in extra editions. One took up the cry, “Here ’s yer latest extra. Fake extra! All the fakes. Exclusive fakes! Extra! Extra! Fake extra!!” According to the
Fourth Estate
, he sold out in an instant and all his colleagues copied his sales pitch.
47
As stories were now routinely inflated, so too was typography. Even the conservative papers, said Brisbane, suddenly looked as though they were interested in news, while the penny papers grew to look like “aggravated circus posters.” Soon, he added, half-jokingly, “a new genius was in demand, the man who could think of short words with energy . . . suitable for the construction of headings. The fact that there were only three letters in ‘war’ was the greatest blessing.”
48
On its good days the
Journal
had a bright and startling appeal; on others it seemed to have declared war on the eyes of its readers.
48
On its good days the
Journal
had a bright and startling appeal; on others it seemed to have declared war on the eyes of its readers.
Yet another lamentable element of the coverage was the tendency of journalists to fill the lull in action by turning guns on one another. It became a sport to impugn the loyalty of a rival newspaper; words like “unpatriotic” and “treasonable” flew like bullets. When the journalist Poultney Bigelow published an article in
Harper’s Weekly
doubting America’s preparedness, Richard Harding Davis leapt to the Fifth Army’s defense and blasted Bigelow for his “un-American” sentiments and for giving succor to the enemy. Hearst seized on the fact that Bennett Jr. and Pulitzer were overseas in May and, noting that the former was a European resident and the latter European-born, challenged their commitment to the fight. Pulitzer’s
World
reported that U.S. soldiers had boarded a
Journal
dispatch boat to prevent the paper from publishing war secrets: “It is said the correspondents on that vessel are suspected of having obtained government plans and documents and intended to sail for some port where they could send the matter by wire.”
49
Hearst responded with a $500,000 libel writ charging Pulitzer with impugning his patriotism and used the occasion to make public his offers to equip a regiment of cavalry and to lend his yacht
Buccaneer
to the navy. The
Journal
capped its reply with the most amusing prank of the Spanish-American War.
Harper’s Weekly
doubting America’s preparedness, Richard Harding Davis leapt to the Fifth Army’s defense and blasted Bigelow for his “un-American” sentiments and for giving succor to the enemy. Hearst seized on the fact that Bennett Jr. and Pulitzer were overseas in May and, noting that the former was a European resident and the latter European-born, challenged their commitment to the fight. Pulitzer’s
World
reported that U.S. soldiers had boarded a
Journal
dispatch boat to prevent the paper from publishing war secrets: “It is said the correspondents on that vessel are suspected of having obtained government plans and documents and intended to sail for some port where they could send the matter by wire.”
49
Hearst responded with a $500,000 libel writ charging Pulitzer with impugning his patriotism and used the occasion to make public his offers to equip a regiment of cavalry and to lend his yacht
Buccaneer
to the navy. The
Journal
capped its reply with the most amusing prank of the Spanish-American War.
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