answer: frederic remington, the famous artist who brought to life american images of the west was hired by newspaper magnate william randolph hearst to illustrate the revolution erupting in cuba. he wrote back to hearst one day in january 1897:
“everything is quiet. there is no trouble. there will be no war. i wish to return.”
hearst sent back a note: “ remain. you furnish the pictures and i’ll furnish the war.”
when the uss maine exploded in a harbor in cuba on the 25th of january 1898, hearst’s newspapers soon ran a story entitled: “the war ship maine was split in two by an enemy’s secret infernal machine”. this was, of course, the weapons of mass destruction of its day. the notion that spain would sink an american warship unprovoked was itself specious. so the claim that the spanish destroyed the uss maine with an explosive device was a bald-faced lie, concocted by newspaper magnates intended primarily to serve two purposes. the first purpose was to sell newspapers. the first thing that slipped beneath the waves in this battle was the truth. a salacious lie, a fact free presumption, innuendo and dog whistle journalism was leashed upon a trusting public, all wrapped in slick newspapers, and a newborn sense of national entitlement. the story was wildly successful to media magnates everywhere. the us was the new kid on the block; like an adolescent, hormones skeining through our bloodstream, what we could take we probably should take. joseph pulitzer and william randolph hearst and isaac temple of the new york journal were midwifing another manifest destiny. why should the united states accept the presence of the spanish navy in the caribbean waters near our own coast? gosh we sure could use the resources for a growing nation when this moribund empire and its shaky naval vessel can hardly maintain combat patrols around the caribbean. weren’t these poor cuban peasants under the thumb of the spanish oppressors just like the american revolutionaries who only two generations previously fought and died to shed the colonies of the clutches of the royal crown? the first attempts to go after cuba actually began before the american civil war. a short period of isolationism set in after the bloody war ended and the country licked its wounds. it wasn’t long before the expansionists began another narrative of the old empire, lurking in our territorial waters, profiting on the suffering of people who were mostly portrayed by newspapers as small black children in need of supervision and guidance, not a proud and indigenous population.
just the talk of empire sold newspapers.
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