WHO SANK THE MAINE?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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WHO SANK THE MAINE?
On February 15, 1898, the city of Havana was enjoying the
second night of Carnival. American reporters sat in cafes watching
celebrants cavort through the streets wearing grotesque masks and
colorful costumes. It was hard to believe that Cuba was a country torn
by three years of revolution.
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WHO SANK THE MAINE
Out in Havana’s harbor, an American Marine Corps corporal
blew taps aboard the battleship USS Maine. Most of the Maine’s
328-man crew settled into bunks and hammocks in the forward part of
the ship. The night was unusually dark, with thick clouds concealing
the stars. The ships in the harbor were “barely distinguishable,” George
Bronson Rea, a reporter for the New York Herald, later recalled.
Since the Cuban Revolution began in 1895, American
newspapers had been crammed with stories about stupendous battles
in which Cuban rebels always were portrayed as victors over the
sluggish, inept, cruel Spaniards. At least half of these battles had never
been fought. Most of the other so-called battles were mere skirmishes.
Hundreds of columns of print had been devoted to detailed descriptions
of appalling Spanish atrocities – the dismemberment of corpses, the
butchery of wounded prisoners, rapes of helpless women. A high
percentage of these exercises in sadism never took place, either.
It was not the first time – nor would it be the last – that American
reporters had fallen in love with a foreign cause and portrayed its
supporters as heroes and their opponents as swine. With Cuba the
tendency was intensified by the attitude of the two most powerful
publishers in the United States, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph
Pulitzer, who used events real and imaginary from Cuba as
ammunition in an all-out circulation war.
George Bronson Rea had been so disgusted by this barrage of
lies, he recently had published a book, Facts and Fakes About Cuba.
He was one of the few reporters who had tried to tell the American
people that the Spaniards were winning the war. By February 15, 1898,
the rebel armies had dwindled to shadows. Antonio Maceo, the best
rebel general, the only one who did any sustained fighting, had been
killed. As part of a policy to pacify the island, the Spaniards had just
conducted elections for an autonomous legislature, which would give
Cuba the kind of dominion status the British gave Canada.
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