EARNING
RESPECT
Victor Lawson
helped establish
theChicago
Daily News
(headquarters
shown above) as a
leader in coverage
of international
relations.
B. O’KANE/ALAMYPRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY IN
AN 1897 PHOTOGRAPH
UIG/ALBUMheld a daily four o’clock press briefing in New
York. The Peanut Club, as it was called, made ev-
ery effort to downplay insurgent transgressions
and play up the Spanish inequity. “No matter
what the feelings of his paper,” said the Peanut
Club organizer, “I know of none who was not
personally sympathetic to Cuba in her trouble.”
Pressure of the Press
Correspondents took their pro-Cuba message
directly to Capitol Hill, which created a contin-
uous feedback loop. The journalists testified
on Spanish transgressions. The press report-
ed what the journalists said, and legislators re-
peated their stories when they returned home
to constituents. One of the most notorious
fakers, Frederick Lawrence of the Journal, told
congressmen he had no qualms about passing
along information fed to him by insurgents be-
cause they were men “of the highest character.”
Legislators exhibited the same degree of cre-
dulity. Extolling the value of newspaper reports
from Cuba, a senator observed, “In the main
it turns out that the consensus of statements
made by the American press in respect to a mat-
ter occurring in a foreign country is true.”
In this news environment American emo-
tions boiled over. The just written Ameri-
can Pledge of Allegiance became a daily ritu-
al at schools. At anti-Spanish rallies in towns
and cities, indignant citizens burned General
Weyler in effigy. In their homes
Americans used Spanish flag
toilet paper. The few anti-
interventionist elements of
the press eventually gave in.
Whitelaw Reid, owner of the
New York Tribune, told his
managing editor, “It would
be unwise for us to
be the last per-
sons to assent to
[war], or seem to
be dragged into
the support of it.”
The same could
be said of President
William McKinley. He was a reluctant warrior
as a result of his bloody experience as a Union
major in the Civil War. But he also was highly
sensitive to public opinion and well aware of
the jingoism roiling the nation. He read news-
papers for two hours each morning. A special
news digest prepared for him, called “Current
Comment,” was especially useful, his secretary
said, in gleaning “the drift of public sentiment.”
The president tried to convince Spain to
give Cuba independence. When these negoti-
ations failed, he did not explicitly call for war.
His message to Congress gave belligerent leg-
islators room to declare it. McKinley’s decision
was shrewd. If the war went poorly, the blame
could be spread around to these legislators; if it
succeeded, McKinley would get the most credit.
But when Congress declared war in April 1898,
Hearst himself was all too happy to take credit:Before the Spanish-American War,
American foreign reporting was scattershot.
A few newspapers did original reporting, and
much was provided by journalists who were
citizens of the countries being covered.the newspaper owner who did more than any other to
change this was Victor Lawson (right), a Norwegian-
American who was as respectable as Hearst and Pulitzer
were flamboyant. His Chicago Daily News epitomized
what was called in those days “clean journalism,”
meaning journalism that did not sensationalize and
sought enlightenment along with some wholesome
entertainment. Lawson, whose paper had the highest
circulation in the country in the early 20th century,
was known for innovation, which included recruiting
such literary writers as Carl Sandburg
and running a plethora of attention-
grabbing black-and-white photographs.
At the height of the war, he had 14
correspondents stretched from Cuba to
the Philippines.
When the fighting was over and the
United States had established itself
as a global power, Lawson decided it
was “no longer desirable or safe” for
Americans to rely on foreigners for
their news of the world. Initially as an