Joseph Randolph Hearst Influence On War

“You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.” These were the words spoken by William Hearst of the New York Journal. Due to a battle for a paper sales with the other king of Yellow Journalism, Pulitzer. Hearst wanted to create a war to help his paper sales, as well as liberate the oppressed Cuban people. Through his use of Yellow Journalism, Hearst created the Spanish American War (Lawson p. 3). William Randolph Hearst was born in San Francisco in 1863. There he was raised by his two parents George and Phoebe Hearst. Hearst was well educated, attending St. Paul’s school in Concord then moving onto Harvard. During his time at Harvard, before being expelled, Hearst was the editor of the school’s newspaper the Harvard Lampoon. After

To understand this war one must know the background. Spain had ben occupying Cuba for many years. Cuba became resentful of their unfair treatment and began to rebel. American saw this rebellion as a mirror to their own struggle against British forces some 120 years earlier. In Hearst’s papers he showed the Cuban Rebels as noble patriots, though many of them had resorted to acts of terrorism. Due to these exaggerated portraits of the Cuban people Americans were hungry for war. Another key reason for wanting war came from a letter that the Spanish Foreign Minister, Dupuy de Lome, had written to his friend in Cuba. In the letter Lome had said the President Mckinley was a “low, coarse politician.” This letter was somehow stolen and published in the New York Journal. Americans to acute offense to this and again asked for war. President Mckinley said he couldn’t see going to war over “something so silly.” Still the American people wanted action against Spain. The American government responded to these American war cries by sending the battle ship U.S.S Maine for a “friendly visit.” The events that would follow would finally get these cries for war answered (Lawson