Cuba in War Time

In 1896 William Randolph Hearst sent journalist Richard Harding Davis to Cuba to observe the guerrilla warfare being waged against Spain and to inquire into reports of atrocities. Hearst wanted to boost circulation of his recently purchased New York Journal by filling his paper with accounts of rapine and brutality.

Initially, Davis noted in his articles that fighting, as in most wars, created unpleasantness, and neither side deserved accolades for decency. Nevertheless, Davis proved influential in drawing the United States into the war when he began to condemn Spanish actions in print. His anger at Spain stemmed primarily from Spanish boardings of American vessels in Cuban waters rather than from the supposed atrocities that other reporters were vigorously documenting—or making up entirely—to stir up anti-Spanish sentiments in the states.

This Bison Books edition of Davis's influential 1898 book, beautifully illustrated by Frederic Remington, traces a journalist's abandonment of objectivity and serves as a cautionary tale of the media's—and the public's—susceptibility to grossly sensational accounts of death, pestilence, famine, and war.

Richard Harding Davis (1864–1916) was an influential novelist and journalist. Introducer Matthew M. Oyos is an assistant professor of history at Radford University.