Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [193]
Hood hoisted his feet onto the rail and looked across the harbor at the lights of the city twinkling on the calm water’s surface. In a flash, his reverie was shattered by an explosion coming from the front of the vessel. The massive ship lurched upward and was engulfed in flames. The harbor was illuminated by a brilliant white light. The repercussion burst windows and caused late-night strollers to dash for cover. Two of the World’s correspondents ran to the harbor. Gazing across the water, they saw the Maine burning, its sinking hull lit by an exploding shell from the battleship’s magazine. As it went off in the sky above, two ships circled below in search of survivors. There were fewer than ninety. Two-hundred-sixty-six men had died.
Later that night, the Associated Press bulletin of the disaster broke the predawn calm in the World’s city room in New York, where editors had just put the early editions to bed. The AP dispatch was soon followed by that of the paper’s correspondents on the scene in Havana. Among those who got the news from the early edition of the World as it hit the streets was Arthur Brisbane, who by then had joined Carvalho and other World refugees at the Journal.
His boss already knew. An early-morning telephone call from the office had awakened Hearst.
“Have you put anything else on the front page?” Hearst asked the editor who called.
“Only the other big news,” he replied.
“There is not any other big news. Please spread the story all over the page. This means war.”
Within twenty-four hours, the Journal was blaming the Spaniards for the destruction of the Maine and the loss of life. DESTRUCTION OF THE WAR SHIP MAINE WAS THE WORK OF AN ENEMY…NAVAL OFFICIALS THINK MAINE WAS DESTROYED BY A SPANISH MINE, screamed its front page, above a drawing showing a Spanish mine. The World began its coverage in a more circumspect fashion. MAINE EXPLOSION CAUSED BY BOMB OR TORPEDO? asked its headline, above its illustration of the ship exploding. But soon, its editors sounded as shrill as Hearst’s: WORLD’S LATEST DISCOVERIES INDICATE MAINE WAS BLOWN UP BY SUBMARINE MINE.
President McKinley begged the public to be patient while experts worked to determine the cause of the explosion. In the din, no one heard his pleas, especially on Park Row where the disaster released a pent-up war fever. The Cuban struggle, a dramatic and poignant fight for liberty so close to the American coast, was a story made for the newspapers. During the past two years, the World and the Journal had exploited every angle of the rebellion. It made for great reading, especially as the papers enlisted such writers as Stephen Crane and Richard Harding Davis. At times, the newspapers made their own news. The Journal, for instance, helped engineer the escape of an eighteen-year-old Spanish prisoner, described as Cuba’s Joan of Arc, and brought her to New York.
All journalistic conventions were thrown aside. It was almost as if the pages were not wide enough to accommodate either the headlines or the incendiary drawings. From the start, Hearst rode at the head of the pack clamoring for war. He led his reporters like troops into battle, dispatching artists and reporters by the dozen to Cuba, engaging yachts to ferry politicians to the island, offering rewards to anyone who could prove how the Spanish had blown up the Maine, and hammering the president for resisting the call to war. Every day the Journal outdid the World in size, scope, and drama, and often in readers. The Journal became the first American newspaper to circulate more than 1 million copies of its morning and evening editions, a goal Pulitzer had long sought for the World.
There was an atmosphere of desperation under the gold dome of the Pulitzer Building as the publisher remained secluded on Jekyll Island, grieving over Lucille’s death. The staff, from the editors at the top to the reporters on the beat, consisted of men and women whose loyalty ran so deep they had chosen to cast their lot with Pulitzer rather than Hearst. They were willing to do anything for their