The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (78 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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Hearst and friends landed at the village of Siboney, where the Fifth Army continued to unload personnel and supplies. Hearst, carrying a camera and with a pistol strapped to his belt, was dressed in light flannels with a gaily-colored band on his panama hat. Creelman, a veteran of many war zones, wore a khaki uniform with bright buttons, polished leather boots, and puttees. It is probably true, as W.A. Swanberg has suggested, that the “slightly older and immensely more self-assured Creelman” would have struck the uninitiated as the employer of the quiet and slightly awkward Hearst.
66
They made their way to the outskirts of town, where scores of newspaper correspondents had constructed a village of white tents. The
Journal
had established headquarters in what Hemment described as a “cosy little Cuban dwelling” next to the Red Cross offices.
67
66
They made their way to the outskirts of town, where scores of newspaper correspondents had constructed a village of white tents. The
Journal
had established headquarters in what Hemment described as a “cosy little Cuban dwelling” next to the Red Cross offices.
67
Hearst’s first objective ashore was a meeting with a third leader in the war against Spain, General Calixto García, commander of the Liberating Army, which was the eastern half of the rebel force under Commander-in-Chief Gómez. García had already agreed to support the U.S. landing and the advance on Santiago, although his ragged and emaciated army would fight as a separate force, the Americans not wanting direct responsibility for Cubans. The insurgent general would deploy several thousand men inland from Guantanamo to shelter the U.S. presence there, and thousands more at various inland approaches to Santiago to prevent the Spaniards from reinforcing their garrison in the city.
García and his staff had taken quarters outside Siboney near the rail tracks in a blue and white shanty with a broad veranda and a red-tiled roof. The general was a tall, graceful old warrior with flowing white mustaches, a frank and appealing nature, and a deep, hollow scar in the lower middle of his forehead, a souvenir of a suicide attempt during the Ten Years’ War (captured by Spaniards, he had fired a bullet under his chin, only to have it emerge above the bridge of his nose). “When he stood up on his veranda and bade us welcome,” writes Hemment, “we saw a man between sixty and seventy years of age, with a physique and frame which had doubtless once been ideal in its massiveness and strength. He was clad in a pair of light brown leather boots, the inevitable blue-striped trousers, a white duck coat, and a large wide-brimmed panama.”
68
68
The
Journal
men were served coffee and introduced to García’s son and other members of his staff. The general regaled them in English with stories of the hardships and trials on the long road to Cuba’s liberation, and apprised them of the insurgent army’s movements. García’s son brought forward a gift which his father offered with great ceremony to Hearst: “I present to the
New York Journal,
in commemoration of its services to liberty, the headquarter flag of the Eastern Department of the Republic. You see upon it the marks of Mauser bullets. This flag has been borne through many battles, and hundreds of brave men have died under it. Its colors are faded but it is the best thing the Cuban Republic can offer to its best friend. You were our friend in the dark days when we had few friends, and now that we have many friends, we do not forget what you did for us when we were weak and alone.”
69
García then shouted “
Viva Cuba Libre.
” All returned his call.
Journal
men were served coffee and introduced to García’s son and other members of his staff. The general regaled them in English with stories of the hardships and trials on the long road to Cuba’s liberation, and apprised them of the insurgent army’s movements. García’s son brought forward a gift which his father offered with great ceremony to Hearst: “I present to the
New York Journal,
in commemoration of its services to liberty, the headquarter flag of the Eastern Department of the Republic. You see upon it the marks of Mauser bullets. This flag has been borne through many battles, and hundreds of brave men have died under it. Its colors are faded but it is the best thing the Cuban Republic can offer to its best friend. You were our friend in the dark days when we had few friends, and now that we have many friends, we do not forget what you did for us when we were weak and alone.”
69
García then shouted “
Viva Cuba Libre.
” All returned his call.
There was more than gratitude in the Cuban general’s embrace of Hearst and the
Journal.
García harbored doubts about the intentions of President McKinley and his armed forces. In a letter to Palma in New York, he confided his fear that the administration would think better of granting the Cubans self-government once the Spaniards were defeated. García was pinning his hopes on the good faith of the American people: “I do not doubt that before concluding the campaign all the people of the United States will be convinced to leave to us conditions for governing ourselves and for organizing all the necessary institutions for realizing the ends of an independent state.” Hearst was thus welcomed as a key ally and installed in comfortable quarters while his competitors rested in tents.
70
Journal.
García harbored doubts about the intentions of President McKinley and his armed forces. In a letter to Palma in New York, he confided his fear that the administration would think better of granting the Cubans self-government once the Spaniards were defeated. García was pinning his hopes on the good faith of the American people: “I do not doubt that before concluding the campaign all the people of the United States will be convinced to leave to us conditions for governing ourselves and for organizing all the necessary institutions for realizing the ends of an independent state.” Hearst was thus welcomed as a key ally and installed in comfortable quarters while his competitors rested in tents.
70
While Hearst was getting acquainted with García, one of his reporters, Edward Marshall, was traveling with the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, better known as Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, who belonged to a dismounted cavalry division of 2,700 men under Major General Joseph Wheeler. They had been first off the transports at Daiquiri, and as quickly as Wheeler was able to gather his troops on the beach, he began a march in oppressive heat over steep coastal hills to Siboney, the army’s second landing site. He arrived on the morning of June 23 after an uncomfortable night of camping amid rain and giant land crabs. The cavalry’s instructions were to secure the area and wait for the rest of the Fifth Army to reach shore, but Wheeler was in a hurry to meet the enemy. Early on the morning of the twenty-fourth, after another near sleepless night, he dispatched two regular regiments and the Rough Rider volunteers up a narrow jungle trail on an armed r econnaissance.
Stealth was not a priority on the march. Stephen Crane, who had joined Marshall, Richard Harding Davis, and a handful of other reporters on the trail, was alarmed at the Rough Riders’ cheerful lack of discipline: they “wound along this narrow winding path, babbling joyously, arguing, recounting, laughing; making more noise than a train going through a tunnel.”
71
The happy troops more or less walked into an ambush.
71
The happy troops more or less walked into an ambush.
Named for a stand of nut trees, Las Guasimas was the site of the first serious land battle of the Spanish-American War. It was a high ridge with stone breastworks and several blockhouses—nothing imposing, but it offered Spain a solid defensive position with good angles on the approaching troops. At 8 a.m., the 1,500 men under General Antero Rubín, Spanish military commander at Las Guasimas, began firing their German-designed rifles in disciplined volleys. A handful of Wheeler’s soldiers fell dead in the first hail of bullets, among them the great collegiate athlete and society scion Hamilton Fish, a member of the Rough Riders. “The shots came thicker and faster every moment,” the
Journal
reported, “and the air seemed filled with the singing and shrieking sound of the Mauser bullets. The short pop of the Spanish rifles could be distinguished easily from the heavier reports of the American weapons.”
72
Journal
reported, “and the air seemed filled with the singing and shrieking sound of the Mauser bullets. The short pop of the Spanish rifles could be distinguished easily from the heavier reports of the American weapons.”
72
Edward Marshall and Richard Harding Davis stuck close to the Rough Riders, and to Theodore Roosevelt in particular. When the advance guard of his regiment came under heavy attack, Roosevelt hustled his men across a barbed-wire fence and through a thick ravine to offer assistance. They emerged in deep grass under bright, clear skies and a hail of bullets. They were eager to return fire but could not locate the enemy (the Spaniards, unlike most of the Americans, used smokeless gunpowder). Davis, scanning the hillsides with his high-powered binoculars (probably the same glasses bought for his earlier expedition with
Journal
expense money), spotted Spanish sombreros on a ridge amid thick vegetation. He pointed them out to Roosevelt. The Rough Riders redirected their fire and succeeded in breaking Spain’s front line and eventually claiming the ridge. Roosevelt put Davis forward for an official commendation and continued to enjoy stellar press in the
New York Herald
for the duration of the conflict.
Journal
expense money), spotted Spanish sombreros on a ridge amid thick vegetation. He pointed them out to Roosevelt. The Rough Riders redirected their fire and succeeded in breaking Spain’s front line and eventually claiming the ridge. Roosevelt put Davis forward for an official commendation and continued to enjoy stellar press in the
New York Herald
for the duration of the conflict.
That is not to say praise of Roosevelt was unwarranted. Marshall had watched the lieutenant colonel help a dozen men through the barbed wire and into the tangled ravine: “Then he stepped across the wire himself. . . . It was as if that barbed-wire strand had formed a dividing line in his life, and that when he stepped across it he left behind him in the past all those unadmirable and conspicuous traits which have so often caused him to be justly criticized in civic life, and found on the other side of it, in that Cuban thicket, the coolness, the calm judgment, the towering heroism, which made him, perhaps, the most admired and best beloved of all Americans in Cuba.”
73
73
Marshall was himself in the front lines of the fight. At one point he emptied his revolver in the direction of the Spanish positions. Davis picked up a carbine from a wounded soldier and drained it in similar fashion. They felt, Marshall explained, “that every man who was hit was my personal friend, and there was nothing professional in the interest which I took in each one of them.”
74
Firing or not, Marshall continued to make professional observations as the action unfolded around him. He noted the sickening smells of the crushed jungle vegetation and the way men fell in silent heaps when shot. He was one of several Americans fascinated by the noise of the Mauser bullet. As one soldier wrote, it was “not impressive enough to be really terrifying until you have seen what it does when it strikes. It is a nasty, malicious little noise, like the soul of a very petty and mean person turned into sound.”
75
74
Firing or not, Marshall continued to make professional observations as the action unfolded around him. He noted the sickening smells of the crushed jungle vegetation and the way men fell in silent heaps when shot. He was one of several Americans fascinated by the noise of the Mauser bullet. As one soldier wrote, it was “not impressive enough to be really terrifying until you have seen what it does when it strikes. It is a nasty, malicious little noise, like the soul of a very petty and mean person turned into sound.”
75
Marshall did not hear the shot that ripped through his own body. He didn’t even feel it. He simply found himself collapsed on the ground, unable to use his legs, feeling “perfectly satisfied and entirely comfortable in the long grass.” The regiment’s surgeon found him where he fell and after a quick examination told Marshall that if he wanted to dictate any letters home, he had better hurry. Marshall was on his third letter before the burden of the surgeon’s remarks hit him.
76
76
Marshall has no profile in journalism lore except as the
Journal
correspondent shot in the spine at Las Guasimas. He was, in fact, a prolific (if not a celebrated) playwright and a well-regarded newspaperman. Four years before the war, as Sunday editor of the
New York Press,
he had been in the habit of publishing the street sketches of an as yet unknown literary talent, Stephen Crane. They had met as members of the Lantern Club, a loose society of young authors and newspapermen that dined, drank, and argued daily on William Street near Park Row.
Journal
correspondent shot in the spine at Las Guasimas. He was, in fact, a prolific (if not a celebrated) playwright and a well-regarded newspaperman. Four years before the war, as Sunday editor of the
New York Press,
he had been in the habit of publishing the street sketches of an as yet unknown literary talent, Stephen Crane. They had met as members of the Lantern Club, a loose society of young authors and newspapermen that dined, drank, and argued daily on William Street near Park Row.
Crane distinguished himself at Las Guasimas, as he would throughout the war, with a reckless disregard for his own safety. (The
Journal
’s reporter Langdon Smith at one point noticed him standing under a tree, calmly rolling a cigarette as Spanish bullets cut the leaves to either side of him and other men fell a few feet from him.) Crane heard a passing soldier speak of a correspondent “all shot to hell,” went to investigate, and found Marshall where the surgeon had left him.
77
Journal
’s reporter Langdon Smith at one point noticed him standing under a tree, calmly rolling a cigarette as Spanish bullets cut the leaves to either side of him and other men fell a few feet from him.) Crane heard a passing soldier speak of a correspondent “all shot to hell,” went to investigate, and found Marshall where the surgeon had left him.
77
“Hello, Crane!” said Marshall.
“Hello, Marshall! In hard luck, old man?”
“Yes, I’m done for.”
“Nonsense. You’re all right, old boy. What can I do for you?”
“Well, you might file my dispatches. I don’t mean file them ahead of your own, old man—but just file ’em if you find it handy.”
78
78
Crane believed Marshall was doomed. “No man,” he later wrote in the
World,
“could be so sublime in detail concerning the trade of journalism and not die.”
79
He put aside his own duties and walked five miles to the cable station to wire Marshall’s copy to the
Journal.
He then gathered a handful of correspondents, including George Coffin of the
Journal
and Acton Davies of the
Sun,
to carry Marshall back through the jungle to a field hospital, where the battlefield surgeon Dr. William Gorgas operated on him by candlelight under a mango tree. Gorgas amputated Marshall’s left leg and saved his life. The patient was subsequently transported to the
Olivette,
now serving as a hospital ship. Giddy with shock, Marshall bellowed “On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away” from his stretcher.
World,
“could be so sublime in detail concerning the trade of journalism and not die.”
79
He put aside his own duties and walked five miles to the cable station to wire Marshall’s copy to the
Journal.
He then gathered a handful of correspondents, including George Coffin of the
Journal
and Acton Davies of the
Sun,
to carry Marshall back through the jungle to a field hospital, where the battlefield surgeon Dr. William Gorgas operated on him by candlelight under a mango tree. Gorgas amputated Marshall’s left leg and saved his life. The patient was subsequently transported to the
Olivette,
now serving as a hospital ship. Giddy with shock, Marshall bellowed “On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away” from his stretcher.
After performing his heroic act of friendship, Crane spent the evening smoking and chattering, unable to eat. He startled Davies and Coffin with gruesome deliberations on what it must be like to be shot, describing in minute detail how soldiers had fallen through the day. Sixteen American soldiers died at Las Guasimas. While the
Journal
was filled with praise of the valiant performance of the Rough Riders and army regulars, it did note that during the fight in the thicket several of the troops “did some wild shooting into the troop ahead of them, and a part of the American loss is due to this fact.”
80
Journal
was filled with praise of the valiant performance of the Rough Riders and army regulars, it did note that during the fight in the thicket several of the troops “did some wild shooting into the troop ahead of them, and a part of the American loss is due to this fact.”
80
Amid its reports on the battle, the
Journal
profiled several of the prominent casualties, including Hamilton Fish. He was remembered as a rower, a footballer, a society favorite, and a practical joker who had once tied “a little darky” to a telegraph pole and hired a band to play “I Wish I Was in Dixie” to the helpless fellow.
81
The sacrifice of Edward Marshall was prominently treated: he had proved his courage by pushing himself to the front lines of the fight, and he was yet another example of the dedication of yellow journalism to the cause of Cuban freedom. His injuries occasioned a tribute to the role of the battlefield reporter, who must face the hardships and dangers of battle, including being fired upon, without shooting back. The editorial desk of the
Journal
probably didn’t know that its correspondent had done his best to thin the Spanish lines.
Journal
profiled several of the prominent casualties, including Hamilton Fish. He was remembered as a rower, a footballer, a society favorite, and a practical joker who had once tied “a little darky” to a telegraph pole and hired a band to play “I Wish I Was in Dixie” to the helpless fellow.
81
The sacrifice of Edward Marshall was prominently treated: he had proved his courage by pushing himself to the front lines of the fight, and he was yet another example of the dedication of yellow journalism to the cause of Cuban freedom. His injuries occasioned a tribute to the role of the battlefield reporter, who must face the hardships and dangers of battle, including being fired upon, without shooting back. The editorial desk of the
Journal
probably didn’t know that its correspondent had done his best to thin the Spanish lines.
Hearst and his entourage did not venture inland until after the skirmish at Las Guasimas. Hard rains had by then swamped the road inland from Siboney. Hemment complained of “mud, fetid odours, miasmatic mists, and biting insects.”
82
Hearst studied the battle-scarred ridge captured by Wheeler’s troops while Hemment photographed the graves of the fallen American soldiers and captured the massive figure of General Shafter performing a reconnaissance on horseback. Returning to the
Sylvia
that night, the
Journal
men polished off a hearty meal served by Hearst’s steward before setting off to Jamaica and the cable office (thus bypassing the censors at Key West). As they steamed south into the night, Hemment went below to his makeshift darkroom and developed the three dozen plates he’d exposed that day. The next morning he sent a set of prints to New York aboard a Boston Fruit Company steamer.
82
Hearst studied the battle-scarred ridge captured by Wheeler’s troops while Hemment photographed the graves of the fallen American soldiers and captured the massive figure of General Shafter performing a reconnaissance on horseback. Returning to the
Sylvia
that night, the
Journal
men polished off a hearty meal served by Hearst’s steward before setting off to Jamaica and the cable office (thus bypassing the censors at Key West). As they steamed south into the night, Hemment went below to his makeshift darkroom and developed the three dozen plates he’d exposed that day. The next morning he sent a set of prints to New York aboard a Boston Fruit Company steamer.
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