The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (58 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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Goddard made no apologies for the fact that he worked in a popular medium and that he edited for the popular mind. He was content to produce newspaper features that reached as close to universal appeal as any have ever managed. His work was plainspoken and unpretentious. He had no academic ambitions, nor any patience for the avant-garde. He was careful to note that recognizing the importance of the emotions was not an argument for vulgarity, lewdness, or appeals to base passions. He further insisted that the point of seizing a reader’s attention was to deliver a message, preferably something bold and compelling. He did not waste much space on the nature of the message to be delivered; an editor without something to say, in Goddard’s estimation, was beyond help.
There are obvious difficulties with Goddard’s methodology. It can be read as a manual on how to manipulate reader emotions, an invitation to journalistic demagoguery. Constant appeals to feelings might actually discourage the hard and patient work of thought, and there is such a thing as prurient interest. Certainly not every lurid crime story that has lit up a newspaper audience reads like
Macbeth.
But just as Goddard’s arts can be used irresponsibly, so too can they be neglected, which perhaps helps to explain the decline of human-interest journalism since his heyday, and why newspapers continue to lose their grip on the hearts and minds of mass audiences.
Macbeth.
But just as Goddard’s arts can be used irresponsibly, so too can they be neglected, which perhaps helps to explain the decline of human-interest journalism since his heyday, and why newspapers continue to lose their grip on the hearts and minds of mass audiences.
Goddard’s book is mostly confined to feature journalism, but his insights into what works on the page, and why, apply to the newspaper as a whole. Indeed, those insights were applied to whole newspapers. Decades before Hearst arrived on the scene, Dana declared that newspapers “must be founded upon human nature” or they would never succeed.
4
All good yellow journalists, many of them trained in Dana’s newsroom, sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers. It made their careers. It made for compelling and hugely popular newspapers. And it made for the Evangelina Cisneros story.
4
All good yellow journalists, many of them trained in Dana’s newsroom, sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers. It made their careers. It made for compelling and hugely popular newspapers. And it made for the Evangelina Cisneros story.
IN THE SUMMER OF 1897,
Journal
reporters in Havana picked up a rumor that an American female had been brought in chains from the countryside and dumped in the Real Casa de Recojidas, a notoriously foul prison for abandoned women. George Eugene Bryson and George Clarke Musgrave strolled over to investigate. They do not appear to have found an American, but then again, powerfully distracted, they might not have looked very hard. Out in the prison yard, among the prostitutes, murderesses, and lunatics who constituted the Recojidas population, the reporters noticed a startlingly beautiful young woman. She was seventeen years old, with pale skin, fine features, dark eyes, and masses of black hair, and she carried herself with unusual grace. She could not have been more conspicuous in her vile surroundings. Bryson learned from her jailers that she had been arrested for taking part in the attempted assassination of a Spanish military official. Her name was Señorita Evangelina Cossio y Cisneros.
Journal
reporters in Havana picked up a rumor that an American female had been brought in chains from the countryside and dumped in the Real Casa de Recojidas, a notoriously foul prison for abandoned women. George Eugene Bryson and George Clarke Musgrave strolled over to investigate. They do not appear to have found an American, but then again, powerfully distracted, they might not have looked very hard. Out in the prison yard, among the prostitutes, murderesses, and lunatics who constituted the Recojidas population, the reporters noticed a startlingly beautiful young woman. She was seventeen years old, with pale skin, fine features, dark eyes, and masses of black hair, and she carried herself with unusual grace. She could not have been more conspicuous in her vile surroundings. Bryson learned from her jailers that she had been arrested for taking part in the attempted assassination of a Spanish military official. Her name was Señorita Evangelina Cossio y Cisneros.
Bryson could not get the girl out of his mind, nor could his colleague, George Clarke Musgrave, who wrote for both the
Journal
and the London
Chronicle
. He thought that she “resembled the Madonna of an old master, inspired with life but plunged into Hades.”
5
The journalists began frequenting the prison, as did staffers from the U.S. consulate. There is general agreement that Bryson, a former
Herald
correspondent who had also run a paper in Key West, was most assiduous in his attentions to the girl and was the one to piece together her story.
Journal
and the London
Chronicle
. He thought that she “resembled the Madonna of an old master, inspired with life but plunged into Hades.”
5
The journalists began frequenting the prison, as did staffers from the U.S. consulate. There is general agreement that Bryson, a former
Herald
correspondent who had also run a paper in Key West, was most assiduous in his attentions to the girl and was the one to piece together her story.
Evangelina was said to be a niece of Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, president of the Cuban revolutionary government. She had been raised “as carefully as the daintiest maid on Fifth Avenue,” with servants to braid her dark hair and a coachman to drive her carriage. She was educated, refined, and “harmless as a babe in its mother’s arms.”
6
Her troubles had begun in June 1895, when her father, a veteran of the Ten Years’ War, was arrested and sentenced to die for raising a rebel cavalry unit. Evangelina had managed, through personal appeals to Weyler and his predecessor, General Arsinio Martínez Campos, to have her father’s sentence commuted from death to life imprisonment in a penal settlement on the nearby Isle of Pines. She and her sister had voluntarily joined him in his exile, cooking and caring for him (their mother had died when they were young). The alleged assassination attempt for which she had been arrested was said to have been part of an uprising at the settlement, which had happened nine months before Bryson found her.
6
Her troubles had begun in June 1895, when her father, a veteran of the Ten Years’ War, was arrested and sentenced to die for raising a rebel cavalry unit. Evangelina had managed, through personal appeals to Weyler and his predecessor, General Arsinio Martínez Campos, to have her father’s sentence commuted from death to life imprisonment in a penal settlement on the nearby Isle of Pines. She and her sister had voluntarily joined him in his exile, cooking and caring for him (their mother had died when they were young). The alleged assassination attempt for which she had been arrested was said to have been part of an uprising at the settlement, which had happened nine months before Bryson found her.
Bryson did not immediately file anything to the
Journal.
He and his colleagues feared that publicity might increase Spanish resentment toward Evangelina and damage the odds on her release. They pinned their hopes to U.S. consul general Fitzhugh Lee, who had also been alerted to her plight. Lee convinced Weyler to move the girl and several other political prisoners to separate sleeping quarters in Recojidas. Bryson, according to Musgrave, also tried to spring her the old-fashioned way by offering a bribe to a military officer connected with her case. The man wanted $2,000 in gold, with $500 up front. When Bryson balked at the huge sum, the officer told him to pay up or Evangelina would get twenty years in Ceuta. Bryson responded with his first story, filed for publication on August 17 under the byline of Marion Kendrick, perhaps to keep Bryson from getting expelled.
7
Journal.
He and his colleagues feared that publicity might increase Spanish resentment toward Evangelina and damage the odds on her release. They pinned their hopes to U.S. consul general Fitzhugh Lee, who had also been alerted to her plight. Lee convinced Weyler to move the girl and several other political prisoners to separate sleeping quarters in Recojidas. Bryson, according to Musgrave, also tried to spring her the old-fashioned way by offering a bribe to a military officer connected with her case. The man wanted $2,000 in gold, with $500 up front. When Bryson balked at the huge sum, the officer told him to pay up or Evangelina would get twenty years in Ceuta. Bryson responded with his first story, filed for publication on August 17 under the byline of Marion Kendrick, perhaps to keep Bryson from getting expelled.
7
As James Creelman tells it, Hearst was lolling around the
Journal
’s editorial offices on a sultry afternoon when an attendant walked in with a telegram summarizing Bryson’s story:
Journal
’s editorial offices on a sultry afternoon when an attendant walked in with a telegram summarizing Bryson’s story:
Evangelina Cisneros, pretty girl of seventeen years, related to president of Cuban Republic, is to be imprisoned for twenty years on African coast, for having taken part in uprising Cuban political prisoners on Isle of Pines.
8
Hearst, by Creelman’s account, read the cable once, read it twice, and whistled softly. He slapped his knee and called for his editor, Chamberlain.
“We’ve got Spain, now!” exclaimed Mr. Hearst. “Telegraph to our correspondent in Havana to wire every detail of this case. Get up a petition to the Queen Regent of Spain for this girl’s pardon. Enlist the women of America. Have them sign the petition. Wake up our correspondents all over the country. Have distinguished women sign first. Cable the petitions and the names to the Queen Regent. Notify our minister in Madrid. We can make a national issue of this case. It will do more to open the eyes of the country than a thousand editorials or political speeches. The Spanish minister can attack our correspondents, but we’ll see if he can face the women of America when they take up the fight. That girl must be saved if we have to take her out of prison by force or send a steamer to meet the vessel that carried her away—but that would be piracy, wouldn’t it?
9
Creelman’s vignette, offered in the same chapter of the same book that contains the Remington-Hearst telegrams, rings with his usual mad insistence on the surpassing brilliance and omnipotence of the yellow press. The words assigned to Hearst are probably a conflation of hours (if not days) of musings and directives on the Evangelina file. Nonetheless, if Creelman says the story lit a fire under Hearst, it probably did. His account of Hearst’s instructions is a reasonably accurate summary of the
Journal
’s actions in the coming weeks.
Journal
’s actions in the coming weeks.
Hearst charged Bryson and his Havana contingent with filling gaps in Evangelina’s story—“every detail of this case.” The initial piece had said little about the circumstances of her arrest. The
Journal
now reported that the girl and her father had managed a tolerable existence at the Isle of Pines penal settlement until the arrival of its new military governor, Colonel José Berriz, a nephew of General Azcárraga, the Spanish minister of war. Berriz took an immediate shine to Evangelina or, as the paper put it, “his foul passions were aroused by the sight of this slender, helpless child.” She repulsed his advances, her “only crime.” Berriz locked her father away and tried again but she resisted still. And then, late one night, Berriz arrived unannounced in Evangelina’s room, a struggle ensued, and several exiles ran to the girl’s rescue or, as the
Journal
reported “the settlement rose in revolt.” The Cubans knocked Colonel Berriz to the ground, restrained him with rope, and determined to deliver him to a judge. His shouts and threats, however, attracted a clutch of Spanish guards. They came running and the Cubans scattered. Some were captured and at least one was shot. Evangelina and others were imprisoned and charged with sedition and attempted assassination.
10
Journal
now reported that the girl and her father had managed a tolerable existence at the Isle of Pines penal settlement until the arrival of its new military governor, Colonel José Berriz, a nephew of General Azcárraga, the Spanish minister of war. Berriz took an immediate shine to Evangelina or, as the paper put it, “his foul passions were aroused by the sight of this slender, helpless child.” She repulsed his advances, her “only crime.” Berriz locked her father away and tried again but she resisted still. And then, late one night, Berriz arrived unannounced in Evangelina’s room, a struggle ensued, and several exiles ran to the girl’s rescue or, as the
Journal
reported “the settlement rose in revolt.” The Cubans knocked Colonel Berriz to the ground, restrained him with rope, and determined to deliver him to a judge. His shouts and threats, however, attracted a clutch of Spanish guards. They came running and the Cubans scattered. Some were captured and at least one was shot. Evangelina and others were imprisoned and charged with sedition and attempted assassination.
10
The
Journal
’s correspondents waxed to exhaustion about Evangelina’s sweet face and lustrous eyes. When they ran out of adjectives they simply declared her “the most beautiful girl in the island of Cuba.” Their admiration for her physical charms was proportionate to their disgust at her treatment by the Spaniards. Her accuser, Berriz, was depicted as “a lecherous and foiled scoundrel.” The prison to which she was consigned was a rat-infested pit overseen by a cruel and corrupt warden. She was forced to scrub floors and sleep on boards. Her health was suffering. Her cellmates, judging by the
Journal
’s illustrations, were swarthy, ugly, and obviously demented—poor company for a girl “as ignorant of the world as a cloistered nun.” The paper doubted that any well-bred young woman in modern times had been subjected to such unwholesome scenes. And Recojidas was nothing compared to what awaited her in Ceuta. The latter was described as a Moroccan prison with nothing but the Atlantic before it and “wild Moors behind it.” Vicious criminals and political exiles were shipped there in equal numbers, packed into unsanitary cells and fed like animals in a zoo, and forced to labor in chain gangs. Bryson allowed that Evangelina’s sentence of twenty years in Ceuta had yet to be confirmed, but he believed her chances of survival if she were sent there were nil.
11
Journal
’s correspondents waxed to exhaustion about Evangelina’s sweet face and lustrous eyes. When they ran out of adjectives they simply declared her “the most beautiful girl in the island of Cuba.” Their admiration for her physical charms was proportionate to their disgust at her treatment by the Spaniards. Her accuser, Berriz, was depicted as “a lecherous and foiled scoundrel.” The prison to which she was consigned was a rat-infested pit overseen by a cruel and corrupt warden. She was forced to scrub floors and sleep on boards. Her health was suffering. Her cellmates, judging by the
Journal
’s illustrations, were swarthy, ugly, and obviously demented—poor company for a girl “as ignorant of the world as a cloistered nun.” The paper doubted that any well-bred young woman in modern times had been subjected to such unwholesome scenes. And Recojidas was nothing compared to what awaited her in Ceuta. The latter was described as a Moroccan prison with nothing but the Atlantic before it and “wild Moors behind it.” Vicious criminals and political exiles were shipped there in equal numbers, packed into unsanitary cells and fed like animals in a zoo, and forced to labor in chain gangs. Bryson allowed that Evangelina’s sentence of twenty years in Ceuta had yet to be confirmed, but he believed her chances of survival if she were sent there were nil.
11
In answer to Hearst’s demand for an appeal for the girl’s pardon, Creelman wired orders to some two hundred stringers to gain the signatures of prominent American women for a petition to Queen Regent Maria Christina of Spain. The response was overwhelming. Within a week, the
Journal
had more than ten thousand names. Among them were the wife of Secretary of State Sherman, the grandniece of George Washington, the mother of President McKinley, Mrs. Mark Hanna, and Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. The paper was particularly pleased with the participation of the widow of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, a Pulitzer relative. She confessed to being ignorant of all the facts but wrote that she knew the girl to be young and defenseless and “in sore straits.”
12
Journal
had more than ten thousand names. Among them were the wife of Secretary of State Sherman, the grandniece of George Washington, the mother of President McKinley, Mrs. Mark Hanna, and Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. The paper was particularly pleased with the participation of the widow of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, a Pulitzer relative. She confessed to being ignorant of all the facts but wrote that she knew the girl to be young and defenseless and “in sore straits.”
12
The campaign for Evangelina quickly took on a life of its own. Julia Ward Howe, author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” wrote His Holiness Pope Leo XIII, imploring him to emulate “the action of that Providence which interests itself in the fall of a sparrow” and intervene with Spain on the girl’s behalf.
13
The Vatican was sufficiently moved to invite the Spanish ambassador for a long chat about the case. Before August was out, the queen regent, at her summer palace in San Sebastian, was digging out from under hundreds if not thousands of telegraphed pleas.
13
The Vatican was sufficiently moved to invite the Spanish ambassador for a long chat about the case. Before August was out, the queen regent, at her summer palace in San Sebastian, was digging out from under hundreds if not thousands of telegraphed pleas.
PULITZER COULD NOT SIT placidly through all this. He knew the popular appeal of Cuban martyrs. He had suffered through a similar episode earlier in the year when Hearst had championed the cause of Dr. Richard Ruiz. A Philadelphia-trained dentist and naturalized American, Dr. Ruiz had maintained a practice in Cuba until arrested and accused of robbing a train. He was placed in solitary confinement and denied communication with the U.S. consulate. Thirteen days later he was found dead in his cell and his Spanish keepers claimed he had committed suicide. Bryson, who was first to the story, argued that Dr. Ruiz’s severe head wounds indicated he had been beaten to death. Consul General Lee accused Spain of either killing the dentist or driving him to suicide. He demanded the discharge of all American citizens in Cuban jails and requested that a U.S. warship be dispatched to Havana harbor.
14
14
Hearst kept the Ruiz story on his front page for weeks, and among other scoops printed the man’s naturalization papers to disprove a claim by Madrid that he was not an American citizen. The
Journal
argued that Washington should declare war against Spain if it was proven that his jailers had murdered Ruiz in his cell; it was the first truly bellicose statement by the paper, and its sentiments were echoed in Congress. The Senate passed a resolution requesting more information on the case, and the Foreign Affairs Committee voted to demand the release of other American prisoners in Cuba. For his finale, Hearst brought Mrs. Ruiz and her five children to Washington, where they met both President McKinley and Secretary of State Sherman. McKinley would later ask Spain for a $75,000 settlement for Mrs. Ruiz. “The cruel murder of one Ruiz,” wrote the
Mail and Express,
“does more to create sympathy for the revolutionists than a score of oily diplomats . . . can overcome in a year.”
15
Journal
argued that Washington should declare war against Spain if it was proven that his jailers had murdered Ruiz in his cell; it was the first truly bellicose statement by the paper, and its sentiments were echoed in Congress. The Senate passed a resolution requesting more information on the case, and the Foreign Affairs Committee voted to demand the release of other American prisoners in Cuba. For his finale, Hearst brought Mrs. Ruiz and her five children to Washington, where they met both President McKinley and Secretary of State Sherman. McKinley would later ask Spain for a $75,000 settlement for Mrs. Ruiz. “The cruel murder of one Ruiz,” wrote the
Mail and Express,
“does more to create sympathy for the revolutionists than a score of oily diplomats . . . can overcome in a year.”
15
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