Spanish–American War (1898–1902)

Responding to the Crisis

The conflict began in 1895 when New York–based Cuban exiles decided to revive their stalled rebellion against Spanish rule. José Martí led an armed expedition back to the island. Although he was killed almost immediately, the spirit that he and his fellow fighters ignited swept the eastern end of the island. Spain responded by sending thousands of fresh soldiers and a new governor-general, Valeriano Weyler. He instituted a reconcentrado policy: collecting rural residents in towns or camps where Spanish troops could “protect” them and, more to the point, prevent them from aiding the rebels. Disease, starvation, and death plagued the artificially concentrated population. The rebel support group, or junta, that remained in New York generated an avalanche of news reports describing an oppressed people seeking to overthrow an autocratic regime. The junta frequently drew comparisons to the American peoples’ democratic revolutionary struggles in the 1770s.

Bitter rivals William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer owned competing New York newspapers, the Herald and the World. To promote circulation, the newspapers published sensational stories about the Cuban “patriots” struggling against colonial oppression personified by “Butcher” Weyler. In addition to relying on junta press releases, both newspapers sent reporters to the embattled island seeking more sensational stories. These spread to newspapers nationwide, and American public opinion became increasingly sympathetic to the rebel cause.

When Republican William McKinley became president in March 1897, pro-rebel emotionalism pervaded the country. At one extreme were “jingoes” who insisted that the United States had a moral duty to go to war to aid the rebels. More moderate Republican businessmen favored neither side but desired a quick end to a conflict that disrupted their trade, the New York Stock Exchange, and America's recovery from an economic depression that had begun in 1893. McKinley was no jingo, so he urged Spain to cancel its repressive policies and negotiate a settlement. This approach annoyed the Spanish minister to the United States, Enrique Dupuy de Lome, who wrote a Cuban friend criticizing McKinley as “weak” and a “bidder for the admiration of the crowd.” A rebel sympathizer stole the letter from the Havana post office and sent it to Hearst. On February 9, 1898, the “de Lome Letter” dominated the Journal's front page, adding fuel to the anti-Spanish firestorm.

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