A Delayed Revenge: “Yellow Journalism” and the Long Quest for Cuba, 1851–1898

Abstract

Abstract Historians have long been intrigued by the role that the press played in McKinley’s decision to intervene in Cuba in 1898. Most, however, have focused their attention on the decade of the 1890s, ignoring the long history of interventionism aimed at Cuba. This essay uses the story of William L. Crittenden to explore the many instances where interventionists tried (and failed) to drum up support for Cuban intervention. Crittenden was executed by the Spanish in 1851 after a failed filibuster raid. Over the next four decades, interventionists wrote newspaper accounts, held boisterous public meetings, penned poems, and published novels that demanded revenge upon Spain. Yet Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, and Grover Cleveland did not choose to intervene. By focusing on nearly five decades as opposed to a single year, this essay calls into question the idea that the press reflected public opinion and challenges the larger assertion that the “Yellow Press” propelled the United States into a war with Spain. Whether they shouted “Remember the Maine,” “Remember the Virginius,” or “Remember Crittenden,” writers, editors, poets, and journalists simply did not have the power to control public opinion and certainly did not prove to be successful at manipulating presidents to intervene.