Never an Empire (2 page)

The political world had changed over recent years, changed almost out of recognition, and it was the newspapers that had changed it, what they were calling the Yellow Journalism. Hearst's
New York Journal
and Pulitzer's
New York World
would be the main driving force behind any decision to go to war; both wanted it and both intended they should have it. The two publishing giants might genuinely hate each other but they were allies in one thing: war with Spain. They had created a united front over Cuba; the US Government must intervene directly and with overwhelming force against the European colonial monster. It was clear from the wild stories both papers ran that neither Hearst not Pulitzer was overly worried if real people should eventually become casualties of their headlines, cartoons, and sensational reporting. War with Spain would sell papers. To Hearst and Pulitzer Spain was just one more battle in their own bitter war: a circulation war.

Senator Pratt had pretty much decided before leaving Washington that any negotiated settlement with Spain was now impracticable. McKinley would have to come round with or without Mark Hanna. He had come to Havana to talk directly with people who knew the position on the ground. That was now done so the time had come to make up his mind. Spain's grip was weak across the country. Outside Havana and a few of the other main centres the revolutionaries already had a large degree of control and it was growing rapidly and, despite the atrocity stories which ran regularly in the New York papers, the Spanish had no real stomach to take the necessary steps to achieve a suppression of the revolution. No, even without US intervention Cuba would become independent and it would most likely be sooner rather than later. But was that what America wanted? An independent Cuba which had been aided by US arms and money in its struggle might be a friend of America, but would it be a friend of American business? American businessmen had invested millions in Cuban sugar, buying up plantations, building and improving processing plants, creating warehousing and improving transport. Would an independent Cuban government be content to leave the country's only serious economic resource exclusively in American hands? The senator from New York, after his extensive discussions, doubted it, seriously doubted it. He returned to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. No, an independent Cuba would be no friend of American business. And, having answered that question to his own satisfaction, he made his decision.

He would act behind the scenes as always, but he would support and promote military intervention and war with Spain. It would mean going against the American anti-imperial lobby and that was no small thing, but the risk would have to be taken. Any US politician who proposed America use her military force to become a colonial power committed political suicide. ‘Never an Empire' was no empty rallying cry. If the anti-imperialists were to be silenced or deflected in this matter they would have to be given a reason, and a good solid reason, to declare a war of intervention. Hearst and Pulitzer might be satisfied with their fanciful reports of atrocities against innocent civilians. Shocking the public by making up murder and mayhem by the Spanish military might sell papers but it didn't buy senators. No, President McKinley would need to have something forced on him, something he could neither ignore nor set aside. What was it Hearst had said when the artist he'd sent to Cuba to get pictures of atrocities cabled that he couldn't find any? ‘Just get me the pictures and I'll give you the war'. Platt laughed to himself. Whatever else he might be, the man didn't lack self-confidence.

An interesting line of thought crept into his mind and, as he studied it, grew until it became a fully formed idea.

Well then, why not do as he asks? Why not give Hearst his pictures?

Chapter Two

Havana Harbour

15 February 1898

21:40 hrs

The enormous orange ball of flame, rapidly expanding, reflected so brightly across the surface of the dark waters that splashes of debris were clearly visible for several hundred yards around the shattered vessel. Within minutes, what was left of the United States battleship
Maine
, was sinking to the bottom of the harbour and two hundred and twenty men were dead.

The explosion had ripped apart the forward half of the vessel which housed the crew's quarters where the majority of the sailors were off duty: resting or asleep. All died instantly. The officers' quarters were housed in the rear half of the ship so most survived including the captain, Charles Sigsbee, who, as soon as he was able, sent the news of the disaster to Captain James Forsythe, Commander of the Naval Station at Key West, Florida.

Forsythe forwarded the news to Washington, to the secretary of the Navy, John Davis Long.

Sigsbee wires, Tell Admiral
Maine
blown up and destroyed. Send light House Tenders. Many killed and wounded …

The
Maine
was only the second battleship to be commissioned for the US Navy and had been based on the latest of European naval design; her main armament resembled that used in the Royal Navy's ironclad,
Inflexible
. She had been built as part of America's response to the increase of foreign sea power in the Atlantic, especially that of the Brazilian battleship
Riachuelo
. The chairman of the Naval Affairs House Committee, Hilary A. Herbert, said of said ship to Congress, ‘if the whole of this old navy of ours were drawn up in mid-ocean against the
Riachuelo
it is doubtful if a single vessel bearing the American flag would get back to port'. However, as navies on both sides of the Atlantic rapidly added new ships to their fleets design also rapidly evolved and the
Maine
proved to be obsolete as a fighting force almost as soon as she was launched. Nonetheless she had been sent to Havana to ‘protect US interests'. Quite what form this protection might take if the US considered its interests threatened was unclear.
Maine
carried no marines who could be sent ashore as some sort of ground force and its armaments were of a calibre that could easily pound to fragments any parts of Havana that it chose to shoot at, but she could do little else.

Whatever its practical purpose, however, the uninvited and unwelcome arrival of the
Maine
in Havana harbour could easily have been be interpreted by the Spanish as a deliberate attempt to exacerbate the already strained relations with America; almost an act of deliberate aggression. However, the Spanish were given no time to formulate their official response as the
Maine
went down on the evening of the day it arrived.

To the American public, when the horrific news was broken to them, the sinking of their battleship and massacre of its crew could just as easily be interpreted as a dastardly act of aggression by the Spanish military against a ship doing no more than legitimately protecting US interests, what made it worse was that this had no military action but an underhand and despicable act of cowardice. Unable or afraid to face the might of the ship, the
Maine
had been sunk by a mine placed secretly alongside it while its sailors slept. At least was how William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer set about portraying the disaster. Sales of both newspapers shot up and the story, once launched, ran and ran.

In both newspapers headline after headline deliberately tried to create an unstoppable public outcry for war with Spain. No matter to these two media moguls that their coverage was hysterical, unbalanced, and mostly inaccurate, including downright falsehoods, because neither paper cared whether the Spanish had, in truth, been responsible for the sinking or not. What they did care about was selling newspapers and a war with Spain would sell tens of thousands more of them. So the reporters, columnists, and illustrators of the
Journal
and the
World
went about their business. There could not be the slightest doubt as to who had sunk the
Maine
, could there? It was the cowardly Spanish. This truth, which both papers held to be self-evident, they blazoned forth to New York, across America, and to the world at large. Hearst, always able to turn a memorable phrase, put the seal on the
Journal
's superior coverage when he created what was to soon become, literally, a battle-cry, ‘Remember the
Maine
and to hell with Spain.' It rallied the people of America behind US armed intervention in Cuba and war with Spain. It also doomed President McKinley's negotiations which, as it happened, were well advanced and had every chance of bringing about a satisfactory negotiated outcome. But carefully negotiated peace settlements do not, alas, sell newspapers, so Congress finally gave in to public pressure, whipped up to a frenzy by New York's ‘yellow journalism', and on 19 April debated a resolution supporting US armed intervention for the achievement of Cuban independence. However, Republican Senator Henry Teller proposed an important amendment: that the US would not establish a permanent control over Cuba after the war. Teller represented that rallying cry of American anti-imperialist sentiment which Senator Platt had seen as such a risk to his preferred outcome of the Cuban struggle: Never an Empire. The amendment passed, making it clear to America and the world that the United States could have no colonial ambition in any foreign military actions it undertook.

The amended resolution, which went on to demand Spanish withdrawal from Cuba and authorized President McKinley to use whatever military force he thought necessary, passed and was sent to the White House. The President signed it into law on April 20 and an ultimatum was sent to Spain. In response, Spain severed diplomatic relations with the United States on April 21. Having anticipated such a response the US Navy, having already left their bases and been deployed at sea, now formed up and began a blockade of Cuba. Spain declared war on April 23 and on April 25 Congress announced that a state of war now existed between the US and Spain.

William Randolph Hearst had been given his picture and had got his war.

Chapter Three

The town of San Juan Bautista

Rizal Province, Philippines

May 1906

The man rolled off onto his side with his back to the woman. Both lay still for a short while, spent by the effort of their passion. Then she turned and slipped her hand under his arm onto his chest and drew herself close. He felt the softness of her thighs against his buttocks and her breasts as they pressed against his back. He put his hand over hers. He wanted to say something, to speak words of love or gratitude, but nothing came. Other thoughts filled his mind. He pressed her hand, a gesture, something in place of the words that should have come. Outside, a bell tolled the hour. Five o'clock. Now words came, not the ones he wanted but ones he had to say.

‘It is time.'

‘Yes, I understand. I will go. No one will see me.'

Her hand slipped from under his and he felt her body move away. He turned, lay on his back, and looked at her. It would not be sunrise for at least another half an hour but there was enough dawn light coming through the window to see her sitting on the edge of the bed running her fingers through her long, black hair. She was so young and so beautiful, like a dark angel. He watched as she stood up and left, closing the door silently behind her.

It was time to get up and begin the day but the man lay still for several minutes thinking. What had happened? Had it been love or lust? It could not be both. Why had it happened? Why had he let it happen? Sex was something that should only take place in marriage. Outside of marriage it was a deadly sin, an ugly stain that left a terrible disfigurement on the soul. Lust was not something beautiful like married love; it was nothing more than the feeding of animal appetite. Sex outside marriage made a man like a beast of the field and the women who gave their bodies to such men were fallen women, creatures of the devil. Dark angels.

And here his thought came to a sudden stop. The well-known formulas he had learned and lived by now suddenly sounded false. Was the young woman who had just left his bed a fallen woman, a creature of the devil? Was he no more than a beast? The image of her naked form came back to him and he felt his passion returning. He threw off the sheet, got out of bed, and looked down at his half-risen penis. Yes, it was true, he was no better than a beast, a creature of lust and passion, an animal, a sinner.

There was a knock at his door followed by a woman's voice.

‘Father, are you awake? Are you up? It is time to get ready or you will be late for Mass.'

The priest answered.

‘I am up, Maria, I will be ready soon.'

‘Do you want a lamp, Father?'

‘No, no lamp, nothing. Thank you.'

Thoughts of the young woman were swept away as he returned to reality. He was in a state of mortal sin but there was still a morning Mass to be said. What should he do? There was no other priest in San Juan to hear his Confession and give him absolution even if he had the time to go to Confession, and in the case of a mortal sin a good Act of Contrition was of no avail. For a moment he stood irresolute. What should he do? What could he do? Then, almost automatically he washed himself, dressed, and began to take up his daily routine.

Not many minutes later, wearing his long white soutane and a wide-brimmed straw hat, he left the house, crossed the gravel path through the garden, and went to a small doorway in the side of the big, white church which stood next to the priest's house and entered. Once inside his fingers found the holy water font; he blessed himself and made his way from the dark of the priest's doorway into the dim candlelight which came from the altar. Marble altar rails ran across the front of the sanctuary. At these, communicants knelt to receive what to anyone else were small, round pieces of flat bread, but they believed were in some mystical way the body and blood of their Lord, Jesus the Christ. In the middle of these marble rails were low, wrought-iron gates which gave access to the sanctuary. At these gates the priest turned and faced the altar. A tier of three, broad steps led up to the main altar which was also was marble but draped now in heavy, coloured cloths with the Latin inscription Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus sewn into it in heavy silver and red threads and over which lay a pure white linen sheet. A Catholic altar ready for the Mass. Behind the flat surface of the altar, on its own elaborate plinth stood the domed tabernacle, draped in heavy, expensive cloth: gold embroidered brocade, a temple within a temple, the inner-sanctum of the true God.