preëminent for their illustrations. The former specialized in pictures
of “How the Maine Actually Looks, Wrecked by Spanish Treachery.”
It had drawings of dead bodies, “vultures hovering over their
grim feast”; piles of coffins; divers among the tangled wreckage;
starving reconcentrados; the Vizcaya in New York harbor; Mayor Van
Wyck insulting the Vizcaya’s captain at City Hall; big guns being
mounted on American forts; of troops drilling; and a “frenzy on the
stock exchange, realizing the imminence of war.” More than a month
before war was declared the _Journal_ plastered its first page with
an announcement of its “War Fleet, Correspondents, and Artists,”
these including Julian Hawthorne, James Creelman, Alfred Henry Lewis,
and Frederic Remington. The _World_ was notable for cartoons, the
prevailing theme of which was Uncle Sam kicking Spain out of Cuba into
the Atlantic.
Mr. Godkin’s opinion of the newspaper jingoes was only a little more
savage than that of many other sober men. When a _Journal_ reporter
just before war began fabricated an interview with Roosevelt, then
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the latter seized the opportunity
for a frank statement of his estimate of the paper. When the same
sheet asked ex-President Cleveland to serve on a committee to erect a
monument to the Maine heroes, Mr. Cleveland wired back: “I decline to
allow my sorrow for those who died on the Maine to be perverted to an
advertising scheme for the New York _Journal_.” Godkin was brutally
frank. “A yellow journal office is probably the nearest approach, in
atmosphere, to hell, existing in any Christian state,” he wrote. This
press he deemed a totally irresponsible force, without the restraint
of conscience, law, or the police. It treated war, he said, as a prize
fight, and begat in hundreds of thousands of the class which enjoys
prize-fights an eager desire to read about it. “These hundreds of
thousands write to their Congressmen clamoring for war, as the Romans
used to clamor for _panem et circenses_, and as the timid and quiet are
generally attending only too closely to their business, the Congressman
concludes that if he, too, does not shout for war, he will lose his
seat.... Our cheap press to-day speaks in tones never before heard out
of Paris. It urges upon ignorant people schemes more savage, disregard
of either policy, or justice, or experience more complete, than the
modern world has witnessed since the French Revolution.”
It was with reference to such journalism that the _Times_, which this
year went to the one-cent basis of the _World_ and _Journal_, spoke of
itself as a paper which does not “soil the breakfast table.” Godkin
argued that the public, by purchasing the yellow sheets, made itself
the accomplice of their jingo editors. The _Journal_ struck back at
him and Bennett of the _Herald_. It was not surprised, it said, by
the abuse it received from editors who either lived in Europe, or,
being native there, came to this country too late in life to absorb
the spirit of American institutions; these men were unfitted to gauge
the trend and force of national opinion, and were un-American in their
instincts, while the _Journal_, with its million buyers a day, was an
American paper for the American people.
Until just before the declaration of war, Godkin tried to cling to his
faith in McKinley’s steadfastness. On April 5 he wrote: “He has, with
a firmness for which we confess we did not give him credit, retained
the Cuban matter in his own hands, and has made no concealment of his
belief that he could settle it, if left alone, by peaceful methods.”
The editor believed that America could justly demand of Spain an
immediate armistice, relief of the reconcentrados, and an offer of
genuine autonomy to the Cubans. It appeared in the early days of April
that Premier Sagasta was willing to concede as much, and Godkin thought
this offered a bridge to assured peace. Why not accept the Spanish
Ministry’s concessions, he wrote April 9 and later, and give a fair
trial to their autonomy? What reason had we to make a further demand
for the withdrawal of all Spanish troops? And if we did demand it, how
could we expect Spain to accede until the Cortes met on April 25, since
only the Cortes had power to surrender Spanish territory? It was true
that the Cubans refused an armistice and autonomy. But, argued Godkin,
they did so only because they counted on dragging us into the war
upon the margin between autonomy and absolute independence. And what
a pitiful margin that was! No one believed that the Cubans were ready
for absolute independence, for like the Central American peoples, they
would be turbulent and unstable, requiring constant oversight. Then why
not leave them under the Spanish flag so long as they had the healthy
substance, even though not the name, of freedom?
Mr. Godkin did not give up hope even when, on April 11, McKinley sent
Congress his war message, asking that he be empowered to use the armed
forces of the United States “to secure a full and final termination of
hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba.”
He took the view that this was not equivalent to a use of our armed
forces against Spain--that it meant only that McKinley was going to
insist upon a truce. The _Evening Post_ seized upon the fact that
McKinley had advised against recognition of the Cuban Republic, and
upon his hopeful words regarding Queen Isabel’s proclamation of an
armistice, as proof that the door to peace was not closed. In fact,
many sober men hoped for days after this message that McKinley would
somehow avert a collision with Spain. Howells says that on one of
these warm April nights he walked down the street with Godkin, the
two talking gloomily of the outlook, and that as they parted, Godkin
shook off his fears with a quick, “O, well, there isn’t going to be any
war, after all.” But Spain at once severed diplomatic relations, the
United States declared a blockade of Cuba, and the die was cast. A few
mornings after Godkin’s talk with Howells, the jingo press gloated over
the capture of a poor little Spanish schooner, whose captain and owner
wept to find his all confiscated.
Not until later was it revealed that when he sent his war message to
Congress, President McKinley failed to inform it of the full scope and
definiteness of the Spanish concessions regarding Cuba. Of this failure
two views may be taken. One is that he knew no reliance could be placed
upon Spain’s good faith, and that she could not end the intolerable
state of affairs in the island if she tried. The other is that McKinley
was guilty of duplicity all along; that he had played a waiting game
until preparations could be made for war and the public mind accustomed
to it, and then willingly let the advocates of intervention have their
way. Godkin and the _Post_ took the second view, and in later days
spoke of the President’s conduct in this crisis with scorn.
Yet the newspaper, applauded though it was in its protestant attitude
by the intellectual group which Howells, Carl Schurz, Charles
Eliot Norton, and Charles Francis Adams represented, rallied to
support the war. Since it had come, it hoped it would be short and
decisive. Before hostilities began, it had said much regarding the
unpreparedness of the nation, and the certainty of graft in conducting
the conflict. But now it urged the energetic prosecution of the
contest, praised the martial ardor of American youth, and commended the
military and naval policies of the Administration. Mr. Godkin had no
petty rancor and no lack of patriotism. Other journals were lavish of
faultfinding, but no criticism found its way into the _Evening Post_
until practically all fighting was ended.
To the series of victories which began with Dewey’s exploit at Manila,
the _Post_ rose with fitting enthusiasm. It called the Santiago
campaign, when it ended on July 15, a brilliant impromptu. Who would
have thought two months earlier that a triumph of such magnitude would
so soon be won? Then the flower of the Spanish navy had lain in the
harbor, and a Spanish force estimated at 20,000 to 35,000 held the
well-fortified city; but in less than two months the fleet had been
destroyed, the city taken, and the army made prisoners, all with a loss
of less than 300 American lives. The _Post_ paid a due tribute to the
valor of American fighting men:
Lieut. Hobson deprecated the cheers that welcomed him back to the
American lines. “Any of you would have done it.” Very likely. We
know that practically every man on the fleet offered to go with him
when volunteers were called for. Such high appeals to bravery and
duty command their own response. But the men below--the engineers,
exposed to death without being able to strike a blow; the stokers,
whose enemy is the cruel heat in which they have to work--where
does their heroism come in? Of course, in the same self-forgetful
devotion to their duty which marks some world-resounding deed
of an officer like Hobson. That was a frightful detail of the
Spanish flight to ruin--the officers having to stand over gunners
and stokers with drawn pistols to keep them to their task. Ships
on which that was necessary were evidently beaten in advance.
Contrast the state of things on the Oregon, in her long voyage
against time from the Pacific. Captain Clark reported that even
the stokers worked till they fainted in the fire-room, and then
would fight to go back as soon as they recovered consciousness. To
hurry up coaling, the officers threw off their coats and slaved
like navvies. There we see the spirit of heroism pervading a ship
from captain to coal-heaver; and it is that which makes the navy
invincible.
III
As summer ended, however, and the cessation of fighting gave the
country an opportunity to ask itself what it should do with Cuba, Porto
Rico, and the Philippines, the continuity of the _Evening Post’s_
policy became plain. For one thing, it now felt able to state its frank
opinion that the war had been criminally unnecessary. Gen. Woodford,
our last Minister at Madrid, and Congressman Boutelle made speeches
at a Boston dinner on Oct. 28 in which they both virtually said as
much. In all its references to the conflict after midsummer the paper
made clear its conviction that it was “due solely to the combination
of a sensational and unscrupulous press with an equally reckless and
unscrupulous majority in Congress and a weak executive in the White
House.” But the chief energies of the _Post_ were devoted to opposing
the designs of those who wanted to annex the Philippines and Cuba, or
at least the former. When the war was impending, it had dreaded the
loss in life and money much less than the deterioration which might
be produced in the national fiber, and had predicted the possible
transformation of America into an international swaggerer. Now Godkin
saw indisputable evidence that the European virus of imperialism,
economic and political, was entering our veins.
“Manifest Destiny” was the argument used against the _Evening Post_,
Springfield _Republican_, Senators Hoar, Hale, and Spooner, Carl
Schurz, and the other leaders in the struggle against annexations.
What would you do with the Philippines? they were asked. Since they
were in our hands, could we abandon them without thought of their
future? “As matters now stand,” answered the _Evening Post_ on Oct.
1, 1898, “having possession of Manila, we should do what we could to
make Spain give the Philippines a better government or hand them over
to the lawful owners--the inhabitants.” The whole American theory of
government was opposed to alien rule. We could never incorporate
the Philippines in the Union--this argument the _Post_ had also used
against annexing Hawaii--and it was a total reversal of national
policy to acquire territory that could not be incorporated. Replying
to the contention that the Filipinos might be unable to erect a good
government, the _Post_ asked if New York and Pennsylvania under Platt
and Quay had one.
The chief assertions of the _Evening Post_, some of them since
validated and some invalidated by time, are worth noting _seriatim_.
It feared that the cost of subjugating, garrisoning and governing the
Philippines would be heavy. It pointed out that in the management of
inferior peoples--the negro slaves, Indians, Chinese--had lain the
source of our chief national troubles. Our Federal authorities had
always shown marked incapacity for governing such wards, as their
“century of dishonor” in dealing with the Indians, and wretched
treatment of the freedmen during Reconstruction proved. The American
Government had been erected to provide for the welfare and liberty
of the American nation alone, and if we undertook in a spirit of
expansion to carry benefits to every misgoverned race with which we
came in accidental contact, we would soon be in trouble in every
part of the globe. The _Post_ believed that half the talk of Duty
and Destiny was raised by people on the make, who wanted their trade
to follow the flag. The name of the United States, it asserted, had
been great because it stood for peaceful industry, contempt for the
military adventures of Europe, and the right of every separate people
to liberty; its influence had furnished the chief hope for disarmament,
and now was it to be thrown away for the pride of possessing
“subjects”? Above all, Godkin apprehended the effect of expansion
on our national character. The great question, as Bishop Potter put
it, was not what we should do with the Philippines, but what the
Philippines would do with us.
So intense was the _Post’s_ feeling that it virtually opposed Theodore
Roosevelt when the fall of 1898 he ran for the Governorship against
the Tammany candidate Van Wyck. Ordinarily, it would have supported
him enthusiastically in such a contest, but Roosevelt’s annexationist
speeches led it to declare that Tammany control would be a local
and temporary evil, while any encouragement to imperialism would be
national and irrevocable. Early in 1899 the _Post’s_ correspondents
in Manila warned it that, as one wrote, “the United States must make
up their minds either to fight for these islands or to give them up.”
Just before the peace treaty, carrying annexation of the islands, was
ratified, occurred Aguinaldo’s attempt to rush the American lines at
Manila. Godkin declared that we had paid $20,000,000 simply for a right
to conquer, adding bitterly:
We have apparently rushed into this business with as little
preparation or forethought as into the Cuban War. We got hold of
the notion that it would be a good thing to annex 1,200 islands
at the other end of the world, simply because we won a naval
victory over a feeble Power in the harbor of one of them, and
because people like Griggs of New Jersey wanted some “glory.” We
then went to work to buy 1,200 islands without any knowledge of
their extent, population, climate, production, or of the feelings,
wishes, or capacity of the inhabitants. We did not even know their
number. While in this state of ignorance, far from trying to
conciliate them, assure them of our good intentions, disarm their
suspicions of us--men of a different race, language, and religion,
of whom they had only recently heard--we issued one of the most
contemptuous and insulting proclamations a conqueror has ever
issued, announcing to them that their most hated and secular enemy
had sold them to us, and that if they did not submit quietly to the
sale we should kill them freely.
It was now impossible to advocate immediate and complete evacuation,
and during the spring of 1899 the _Post_ suggested another solution. It
proposed that instead of administering the islands as a possession, we
content ourselves with setting up a protectorate, allowing the Filipino
republic to function under our general oversight. The islanders were
willing to accept this, for they knew they could not stand alone
against the voracity of Europe. We could send them schoolteachers,
sanitary experts, missionaries, and government advisers, but we would
not have to crush their spirit before we began helping them, and would
be their friends, not their conquerors. Godkin was shocked by the
lighthearted irresponsibility of the annexationists. “The one thing
which will prevent expansion being a disgrace, is a permanent colonial
civil service,” he wrote a friend, “but who is doing a thing or saying
a word about it?”
While the controversy over the Philippines was at its hottest, in the
spring of 1899, Mr. Godkin left for Europe, where he had spent every
summer but one since 1891. In 1897 he had received his D. C. L. at
Oxford, and in 1898 an honorary degree at Cambridge, but this year
the alarming state of his health was his sole reason for sailing.
The warnings of the doctors in Paris and Vichy were so earnest that
he resolved to give up his connection with the _Evening Post_. His
formal withdrawal took place Jan. 1, 1900, but though he was home in
New York by the beginning of the preceding October, he contributed
only advice and an “occasional roar,” as Henry James put it, to the
_Post_ thereafter. It was a depressing moment for him to lay down his
pen. The United States seemed to have caught the infection of the Old
World fever that he feared. His native country was busy crushing the
Boer republics. The political condition of the nation, the State, and
the city, with Mark Hanna, Platt and Quigg, Croker and Sheehan at the
height of their power, was such as to make the editor feel that the
forces against which he had battled were too strong to defeat. But
as Charles Eliot Norton wrote him, he had earned the right to leave
the field. “When the work of this century is summed up, what you have
done for the good old cause of civilization, the cause which is always
defeated, but always after defeat taking more advanced position than
before--what you have done for this cause will count for much.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHARACTERISTICS OF A FIGHTING EDITOR: E. L. GODKIN
One essential qualification of a great editor, a masterful personality,
was so distinctively possessed by Mr. Godkin that it may be doubted
whether any other American daily since the Civil War has been so much
the expression of a single mind and character as the _Evening Post_
from 1883 to 1899. The frequent statement that he was an incomparable
leader-writer, but not an all-round journalist, has an element of
truth, but is highly misleading. The editorial page was wholly his own,
for he determined its policies, molded the ideas of his fellow-editors,
and by force of example gave several of them--as a great editor always
will--some characteristics of his style. The news pages he accorded
only distant oversight, and one of his city editors doubts whether
he regularly read more than the first page and the page opposite the
editorials. Yet every cub reporter grasped Godkin’s clear-cut ideas
of what a newspaper should be, and strove to contribute his mite to
the realization of the editor’s ideals. There was no other journal
resembling it, and its dignity, integrity, thoughtfulness, scholarly
accuracy, and pride of intellect were the reflection of Godkin’s own
traits. We may say that while Godkin did not pay close daily attention
to any part of his journal save the editorials, the news writers, the
financial writers, the critics, and the business department all paid
close attention to Mr. Godkin’s views regarding their work; they would
no more have thought of standing counter to them than of stepping in
front of an Alpine avalanche.
The soul of the paper, its editorial page, was the product of a morning
editorial conference which in its highly developed character Mr. Godkin
was the first to give New York journalism. Upon the _Post_ of Bryant’s
day, and upon the _Tribune_ under Greeley and his successive managing
editors, consultation had been brief, and the assignment of editorial
topics hasty. The elder Bennett had been wont to give _Herald_ writers
their subjects for the day as so many orders. But the necessity of
treating ten or twelve different editorial topics in each issue of
the _Post_ after 1881, and Mr. Godkin’s solicitude that each topic be
treated just right, made an elaborate conference imperative. At about
nine the editorial staff gathered in a circle of chairs in Mr. Godkin’s
room, having mastered the morning papers, and a businesslike discussion
filled forty minutes.
Every writer was encouraged to propose his own theme for a paragraph or
column editorial, and to speak freely upon themes raised by others. But
Mr. Godkin had a merciless way with unsound or commonplace ideas. When
some one started a subject, he would pounce upon him with “What would
you say about it?” and an intensely searching glance. It was a trying
moment. If the junior editor had nothing worth while to say, Godkin
would cut across his flounderings with “O, there’s nothing in that,” or
“We said that the other day,” or “O, everybody sees that”--emphasizing
the statement with a sharp gesture or a swing in his chair. “Sometimes,
after an interested attention for a few seconds,” writes Mr. Bishop,
“a quick, searching question would be put that went through the
subject like a knife through a toy balloon, leaving complete and utter
collapse.”
However, proportionately great was the reward of the fortunate man
who had an original idea, or a new way of presenting an old one. Mr.
Godkin’s eye would kindle with interest, he would lean forward alertly,
and catching up the theme, he would perhaps begin to enlarge it by
ideas of his own, search its depths with penetrating inquiries, and
reveal such possibilities in it that the original speaker had the
feeling of having stumbled over a concealed diamond. If the chief, as
was usually the fact, was provided with his own topic for the day, the
proposer bore his discovery off in triumph. If not, he sometimes had
to surrender it. “The chances were ten to the dozen,” says Mr. Bishop,
“that Mr. Godkin would become so delighted with the development of
the subject, so intoxicated with the intellectual pleasures of the
treatment, that he would say, with a serene smile of perfect enjoyment,
‘I’ll write on that.’”
The editorial page represented work done not leisurely, but under
the highest pressure. Articles of twelve hundred words, dealing
informatively, thoughtfully, and in compressed style with some subject
perhaps quite unexpected until that morning, had to be completed
in about an hour and three-quarters. Taken, often without change,
into the _Nation_, they withstood the test of submission to the most
scholarly and exacting audience in America. The pace was not for
the muddleheaded. But no one on the staff could hope to write quite
like Mr. Godkin--with his wealth of ideas, ability to see a dozen
relationships in a subject where the ordinary man saw one, and concise,
pithy, and graphic style. Lowell told him, “You always say what I would
have said--if I had only thought of it.” In the correction of proofs
the whole staff was expected to join. Godkin was far from being the
most approachable of editors, but to any suggestion that there was a
defect in his idea or expression he turned a ready ear. Indeed, if a
fellow-editor believed that a phrase or sentence was obscure, he would
usually alter it whether he agreed or not, arguing that what one man
in the office found faulty might seem so to a large body outside. The
editorial page which thus appeared in its final form at two o’clock was
an embodiment of the wisdom of the whole editorial group, Mr. Godkin
dominating.