In our image, p.17
In Our Image, page 17
But the U.S. business community was no more a monolith then than it is today, and some of its members championed a war against the Spanish in Cuba to advance their interests. The sugar bloc, understandably anxious to retrieve its investments on the island, clamored for intervention through Republican surrogates like Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. McKinley tried to fend them off with patronage. He had reluctantly appointed Roosevelt to assuage Henry Cabot Lodge, and distributed lesser federal jobs to quiet other jingoists. To deflect the expansionists, he also endorsed the Hawaii annexation treaty shelved by Cleveland, knowing that it could not win Senate approval. Appeasement worked—for a while. Roosevelt, who lusted for “firm action,” admitted to Lodge that McKinley had “done so much that I don’t feel like being discontented.”
McKinley’s game, insofar as he operated on more than sheer instinct, was to buy the time to resolve the Cuban dilemma peacefully. But the longer he stalled, the greater the clamor for war grew.
Despite his unfamiliarity with foreign affairs, he realized that the path to a Cuban compromise passed through Madrid. Dealing with Spain, however, was a formidable task. Cuba and Puerto Rico were the last vestiges of Spain’s lost American empire. And despite their cost to the bankrupt Spanish government, they represented a symbol of past grandeur that rival political factions in Madrid could evoke in their arcane struggles for power.
María Cristina, the queen regent, was a solemn Austrian widow who had married the late king two decades earlier. Her only concern was to preserve the throne for the heir, twelve-year-old Alfonso XIII. The liberals seized on the Cuban issue to menace the crown. Concessions, they figured, would enfeeble the monarchy, and eventually lead to a restoration of the republic that had ruled briefly twenty years before. She feared them no less than she did the ultraconservative Carlists, partisans of the pretender Don Carlos, her husband’s brother. The Carlists were looking for the slightest hint of weakness on Cuba as a pretext to replace the queen regent with a more reactionary regime. Other groups were also jockeying for power, and into this tangle McKinley sent an envoy, Stewart L. Woodford, a judicious Brooklyn lawyer of sixty-two. A former lieutenant governor of New York and Civil War general, he accepted the thankless mission after four other men had turned it down.
Woodford arrived in Madrid in September 1897 and, on McKinley’s instructions, warned the Spanish that America’s patience was wearing out. He offered to mediate an “honorable” settlement, perhaps dominion status for Cuba under Spanish sovereignty, setting a deadline. If Spain failed to reply positively by November, the United States would “take such steps as its government should deem necessary” to safeguard “our interests and the general tranquility.” By implication, America would back the Cuban rebel bid for full independence—even at the risk of war.
Antonio Cánovas, the conservative prime minister, had just been assassinated by an anarchist, bringing into office Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, a liberal. Sagasta advocated reforms in Cuba, but national pride prevented him from acceding too openly to Woodford’s pressure. Within a month, however, he replaced General Weyler, the “butcher,” with General Ramón Blanco y Erenas, who as governor of the Philippines had attempted to ease tensions there. He also pledged to end the harsh reconcentrado program, and announced plans for limited Cuban self-government.
Logically, McKinley should have now delivered one of his mellifluous orations claiming that, under divine guidance, he had averted war and advanced the cause of humanity. He also could have exhorted America to focus on its own economy, and lift the nation to greater peaks of prosperity. Such a speech would have checked the imperialists and, if nothing more, given him time to ponder a solution. Instead he juggled. Addressing Congress in early 1898, he sought to soothe the doves by voicing hope for a “righteous peace,” and tried to satisfy the hawks by promising action “in the near future” should another crisis develop. As a result, he left both sides with the impression that he supported their view.
The situation, meanwhile, was deteriorating. Sagasta’s program provoked protests in both Cuba and Spain. On January 12, 1898, angry Spanish mobs led by soldiers loyal to Weyler streamed into the streets of Havana, breaking shop windows and smashing the presses of liberal newspapers. Weyler had by then returned home to crystallize a motley collection of opposition elements that even included republicans and socialists with grievances against the regime. Woodford, in Madrid, confided his concern to María Cristina. The riots in Havana and plots in Spain, he cautioned, might foil a Cuba settlement. With regal aplomb, she assured him that she could handle matters as long as the United States refrained from helping the Cuban insurgents until Sagasta’s reforms had been given a “fair chance.” The queen was trapped, Woodford concluded. If Sagasta failed and America intervened, he reported to McKinley, she “will have to choose between losing her throne, or losing Cuba at the risk of a war with us.” For the present, he added, the best course was to keep cool. But Fitzhugh Lee, the U.S. consul in Havana, was an amateur who further complicated the muddle.
A burly Virginia politician and nephew of Robert E. Lee, he was a former Confederate cavalry general who had been given the sinecure in Havana by Cleveland as a reward for his loyalty to the Democratic party. Some of Cleveland’s aides had opposed the assignment out of fear that, as a southerner, he might antagonize dusky Cubans. However, he soon hated the Spanish and adored the Cuban rebels and became a vigorous proponent of U.S. intervention. Though his passions made him unreliable, McKinley regarded his intelligence to be credible and, despite his Democratic affiliations, commended him as a dedicated American.
Lee had warned McKinley weeks in advance that Spanish agitators were planning riots, advising that a U.S. warship be sent to Havana to protect American lives and property. McKinley met the proposal halfway. He ordered the cruiser Maine to Key West, five hours from Cuba, and authorized Lee to summon the ship in case of danger. But Lee panicked when the eruption actually occurred. First he telegraphed Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, the Maine’s skipper, urging him to come. When the unrest quickly subsided, Lee was uncertain what to do. Finally he asked the Navy Department in Washington to decide. Officials there, however, had no information except distorted tales of horror from newspaper correspondents in Havana.
Roosevelt, uninterested in the truth, exploded. Though his wife was critically ill, he volunteered to fight in Cuba with the New York National Guard. He pressed Long for more men, ammunition and coal and outlined new naval deployments in the Caribbean, Asia and off Spain. “When the war comes,” he told him in a marathon memorandum, “it should come finally on our initiative, and after we have had time to prepare.” Long wearily noted in his diary that Roosevelt was a “crank” who “bores me with plans of naval and military movement” and “emergency” attack schemes. Even so, swayed by Roosevelt’s frenzy, Long advised McKinley to send the Maine to Havana.
As usual, McKinley waffled. He refused to concede to the warmongers, but the Havana riots evoked in him the ghastly vision of Americans being slaughtered by Spanish gangs. The same specter haunted Congress, where both parties had until then shown restraint in deference to the president. Now, however, they were veering toward a debate on Cuba—a prospect that rattled McKinley. As a veteran of Capitol Hill, he knew that a debate could quickly degenerate into demagoguery, thereby usurping his initiative. Perhaps, by putting the Maine in Havana, he might defuse the extremists. He endorsed Long’s proposal to send the vessel there on a “courtesy” trip. The United States and Spain, after all, were still seeking peace in Cuba.
State Department officials formally requested Spain’s permission for the visit through Enrique Dupuy de Lome, the Spanish envoy in Washington. After consulting Madrid, he told the assistant secretary, Judge William Rufus Day, that the voyage had been approved as a “gesture of friendship”—but he frostily cautioned against “provocative” American moves. McKinley ordered the Maine to depart immediately.
At nine o’clock on the morning of January 25, 1898, the ship steamed into Havana harbor. Over the next three weeks, Spanish officials treated its officers with courtesy, inviting them to a reception and a bullfight. Senator Lodge, back on Capitol Hill, casually dropped a portentous remark. “There may be an explosion any day in Cuba,” he said, that would “settle many things.”
McKinley, pleased that tensions had abated, fêted Dupuy de Lome at his administration’s first diplomatic dinner. The Spanish envoy, his uniform sparkling with gold braid and decorations, was given precedence over nine senior confreres and seated in the company of the British, French and German ambassadors. When the ladies retired, the president invited him to his own table for coffee and cigars. The guests were impressed by the honor accorded the Spaniard, who must have been touched by McKinley’s solicitude. But the crisis was about to be rekindled.
Dupuy de Lome, a blue-blooded conservative with a sad fleshy face, had served in Washington for three years. He had stuck to his post despite an aversion to the liberal Sagasta cabinet, which he disdained for buckling to U.S. demands to introduce reforms in Cuba. Even more, he loathed the uncouth American yokels and their tirades against Spain. He particularly despised McKinley, who to him embodied the lowest democratic denominator. Committing an unpardonable sin for a career diplomat, he put his opinions on paper in a personal letter to a Spanish friend in Havana.
The letter, purloined by a Cuban agent, made its way to the offices of Hearst’s New York Journal. On February 9—with the Maine sitting in Havana harbor—the text appeared in translation on the front page, under the sensational headline WORST INSULT TO THE UNITED STATES IN ITS HISTORY. Dupuy de Lome had maligned McKinley as “weak and a bidder for the admiration of the rabble … a cheap politician who leaves the door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party.” He also disclosed in the letter that his own conciliatory posture was merely a pose. What he needed, he wrote, was more help to lobby “senators and others” against the Cuban rebels.
Dupuy de Lome promptly resigned and left town. The Spanish government apologized for the breach of etiquette—and that should have ended the episode. Played up in newspapers across America, however, the letter refueled the flames of patriotic indignation. Hearst’s Journal milking its scoop to the last drop, flayed the unfortunate Dupuy de Lome on the front page for five days in a row—one issue featuring a huge cartoon of a furious Uncle Sam ordering him out of the country, its caption reading NOW LET US HAVE ACTION IMMEDIATE AND DECISIVE.
McKinley felt the heat rising inside the Republican party, whose jingoists began to criticize his moderation. The Republican League massively voted for official U.S. recognition of the Cuban insurgents. Both chambers of Congress passed resolutions calling for publication of the American consular reports in Cuba, which detailed Spanish brutality and Cuban suffering and would set U.S. opinion ablaze. Then came a real conflagration.
At nine-forty on the night of February 15, in Havana harbor, a sudden explosion ripped through the forecastle of the Maine, killing two hundred and fifty-four men instantly. Another eight, crushed or burned, died in hospitals during the days that followed. The hull of the ship sank into the mud, forty feet down, its torn and charred superstructure protruding through the water like a tombstone.
“Dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards,” shouted Roosevelt, and the yellow press echoed the cry, Hearst in the forefront. Hearst, who displayed a portrait of Napoleon over his desk, had been lusting for war for a year. He had sent the celebrated artist Frederic Remington to Cuba six months before to illustrate the conflict. When Remington reported, “There will be no war,” and asked to come home, Hearst wired his famous reply PLEASE REMAIN. YOU FURNISH THE PICTURES AND I’LL FURNISH THE WAR. Hearst, now vindicated, told his editors that, finally, “this means war.” The Journal ran a “scientific” study of the alleged Spanish sabotage to show, as its headline declared: DESTRUCTION OF THE WARSHIP MAINE WAS THE WORK OF AN ENEMY. The newspaper featured reheated versions for weeks, along with editorials deriding McKinley’s caution. Joseph Pulitzer’s rival New York World also prized the story, selling a record five million copies in a week.
The Maine debacle, despite historical legend, was not a Pearl Harbor that thrust America into war overnight. Seven weeks were to pass before the outbreak of hostilities. The conflict might have been prevented had domestic pressures both in the United States and Spain given diplomacy a chance.
Dismayed, María Cristina and her prime minister moved swiftly to deflect the invective they expected against Spain. They sent messages of regrets and sympathy to McKinley and ordered General Blanco, their man in Havana, to “gather every fact” to prove that the incident “cannot be attributed to us.” At the same time, in the United States, several distinguished business and church figures called for calm. Myron T. Herrick, the Cleveland industrialist, told McKinley that he detected no excitement over the Maine in his city, and the Omaha railroad lawyer Charles F. Manderson seconded the view. An Episcopalian minister in Washington decried the “wild clamor for blood, blood, blood,” while Congregationalist, Methodist, Baptist and Jewish clergymen delivered similar sermons in other cities. The excesses of the yellow press incensed even many proexpansionist newspapers. Whitelaw Reid, publisher of the New York Tribune and an avowed imperialist, speculated that the catastrophe could be “a blessing in disguise” that “might sober up … our jingoes a little.”
McKinley reacted with restraint. “I don’t propose to be swept off my feet.… The country can afford to withhold its judgment and not strike an avenging blow until the truth is known. The administration will go on preparing for war, but hoping to avert it.” Secretary of the Navy Long commented privately that he believed the Spanish to be innocent.
But the public outcry for reprisals against Spain intensified. Protestant fundamentalists stoked “antipapist” fervor in small towns and farm areas, accusing Catholics of being secretly sympathetic to the Spanish. A Missourian reported from his state that “patriotism is oozing out of every boy who is old enough to pack feed to the pigs,” and a Nevada editor wrote that “the clamor for war is heard everywhere … without a well-defined idea of the why or wherefor.” The Washington Post summed up the national mood in an editorial: “A new consciousness seems to have come upon us—the consciousness of strength—and with it a new appetite, the yearning to show our … ambition, interest, land hunger, pride, the mere joy of fighting, whatever it may be, we are animated by a new sensation.… The taste of empire is in the mouth of the people even as the taste of blood in the jungle. It means an imperial policy.”
McKinley continued to temporize. Late in February, he hinted that he might settle for a large cash indemnity from the Spanish if they proved to be at fault for the Maine calamity. When Congress rebuffed the idea, he suggested buying Cuba for, say, $300 million. Again Congress spurned him. So did the Spanish queen, who vowed to abdicate rather than sell the island. McKinley then floated another plan. Spain could retain nominal sovereignty over Cuba, with the Cubans ruling themselves under U.S. guidance. That notion also foundered, and now he was confronted by a growing domestic political challenge.
With congressional elections scheduled for the fall, many Democrats sensed that throwing down the gauntlet to Spain was a way to win votes. Their standard bearer, William Jennings Bryan, who until then had been silent, declared that “the time for intervention has arrived.” The Populists, who had backed him for president in 1896, swelled the prowar chorus. Their party largely represented discontented farmers who blamed their woes, in part at least, on British and other foreign creditors. Only vaguely aware of world affairs, they saw a blow against Spain as a blow against Europe.
Soon McKinley became a target of the mounting delirium. He was hanged in effigy in Colorado, audiences booed his portrait in New York theaters and many of the businessmen who favored peace began to waver. His political counselors, fearing disaster at the polls, pressed him to act tough—or else, as Lodge said, “We shall go down in the greatest defeat ever known.” Elihu Root, the eminent New York lawyer, rang the same alarm. “If the administration does not … lead instead of being pushed,” he wrote to Roosevelt, “it will be rolled over and crushed, and the Republican party with it.”
McKinley knew by late winter that the official inquiry into the Maine explosion would indict Spain. Expecting a howl from the warmongers, he devised a tactic to avert the worst. On March 6, he astounded the members of the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee by requesting $50 million in military funds. Despite his efforts to avoid war, he said, “it must come and we are not prepared,” and he needed the funds to “get ready.” The request, he hoped, would quiet the hawks in Washington, while scaring the Spanish into granting broad concessions to the Cubans. The so-called fifty-million bill passed unanimously, but his maneuver went awry.
The warmongers now reckoned that McKinley would finally fight—a premature assumption that delighted nobody more than Roosevelt. On March 26, Roosevelt addressed the annual banquet of the Gridiron Club, the peerage of the Washington press corps. Facing the hall foggy with cigar smoke, he clenched his fist and bared his teeth as his raspy voice rose in a feverish crescendo. “We will have this war for the freedom of Cuba despite the timidity of the business world and of financiers.” The wild applause flushed him with renewed confidence. He looked along the dais to Mark Hanna, one of the last holdouts for peace, taunting him: “Now, senator, may we please have war?”
A research team headed by Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover concluded in 1976 that the explosion aboard the Maine had been caused by a spontaneous fire in a coal bunker next to a reserve magazine—a frequent mishap aboard steam-driven warships of the period. So the explosion could have occurred elsewhere than Havana. Many experts at the time, including the Maine’s skipper, Captain Sigsbee, suspected something of the sort. But a U.S. Navy board of inquiry rushed to judgment despite slim evidence, and blamed an external device, presumably a submerged mine, obviously Spanish. The verdict, published late in March, set Americans to waving flags and a new ditty:
