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University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1984 The rescue of Evangelina Cisneros: "While others talk the Journal acts" Kyle Hunter Albert The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Albert, Kyle Hunter, "The rescue of Evangelina Cisneros: "While others talk the Journal acts"" (1984). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 9199. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/9199 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 Th i s is a n unpublished m a n u s c r i p t in w h i c h c o p y r i g h t s u b ­ s i s t s . An y f u r t h e r r e p r i n t i n g o f its c o n t e n t s m u s t b e a p p r o v e d BY t h e a u t h o r . MANSFIELD L i b r a r y Un i v e r s i t y o f Ji i o m t a/ja D a t e : _____ 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE RESCUE OF EVANGELINA CISNEROS: "WHILE OTHERS TALK THE JOURNAL ACTS" By Kyle Hunter Albert B.A., Illinois Wesleyan University, I9 8O Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Montana 1984 Approved by: Chairman, B o ^ d of Examiners m, Graduate Scrrool Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: EP40001 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI OisMrtation UMI EP40001 Published by ProQuest LLC (2013). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Albert, Kyle Hunter, Spring 1984 Journalism The Rescue of Evangeline Cisneros : "While Others Talk the Journal Acts" Director: Warren J. Brier The New York Journal * s coverage of the rescue of Evangelina Cisneros from a Havana prison in 1897 is examined and analyzed in this study. Miss Cisneros, 17» niece of the leader of the Cuban revolutionary forces, escaped with the help of Karl Decker, a correspondent for William Randolph Hearst's Journal. An opening section chronicles the involvement of the yellow press in the Cuban insurrection up to the time of the rescue and provides background about the circulation war between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Analysis of the coverage begins with the first mention in the Journal (Aug. 14, 1897) of Miss Cisneros* incarceration. The study then traces Hearst's crusade to free her and her subsequent arrival in New York. The crusade included a petition to the Queen Regent of Spain signed by more than 15,000 women in the United States and Britain and letters to the Pope from several prominent women. The writer's primary sources were microfilm copies of the Journal and a book, The Story of Evangelina Cisneros. Told bv Herself: Her Rescue by Karl Decker, published in 1897. The study concludes that Hearst's incessant promotion of the Cisneros affair influenced public opinion and helped push the United States into the war with Spain. 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii FRONTISPIECE iv CHAPTER I The Circulation War 1 In Defense of Yellow Journalism 13 The War Correspondents 25 ENDNOTES 4-3 CHAPTER II The Crusade Begins 50 The Appeal 57 A Lesser De Lome Letter 74- ENDNOTES 114- CHAPTER III The Rescue II9 The Press Takes Over I30 Decker and Evangelina in New York 14-2 ENDNOTES I56 SUMMARY 161 ENDNOTES 166 APPENDIXES 167 BIBLIOGRAPHY I89 1 1 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. g EVANGELINA CISNEROS (From Brown, p. 3 6 9 ) XV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I The Circulation War In 1895 America was still recovering from the wounds of the Civil War. Farmers were burning wheat they were unable to sell, unemployment was burgeoning and the cities were plagued by poverty. Those problems manifested them­ selves in the Homestead Riot and the Pullman Strike of 1894. But for William Randolph Hearst, it was a time of speculation, of new adventure. He moved to New York and took a bachelor apartment in Madison Square near Broadway and Twenty-Fifth Street. He used profits from his success­ ful San Francisco Examiner to buy the foundering New York Morning Journal and the German-language companion paper, the Morgen Journal. He was 32 years old and embarking on one of the greatest adventures in journalism's history.^ Hearst was the son of a California miner who had struck it rich in the Comstock Lode and who had later invested wisely in the Anaconda Copper Company and in ranchland in Mexico and the American West. William Randolph Hearst was an only child who inherited his 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. father's ambition along with his millions. Hearst attended Harvard for two years and became the business manager of the campus humor magazine, the Lampoon. He was expelled in his sophomore year for drawing portraits of his professors on chamber pots. While at Harvard, Hearst paid rapt attention to the success of the sensational New York World, which was prospering under the guidance of its new owner, Joseph Pulitzer. Hearst returned home to California and instituted some of the techniques he had observed in Pulitzer's paper at his San Francisco Examiner. This proved so successful that the profits from it enabled Hearst to acquire the New York Journal, as the paper came 2 to be called, and begin his war with Pulitzer. Pulitzer had come to New York earlier. He was an ambitious German immigrant who had worked as a soldier, waiter, stoker and hackman (the tum-of-the-Century equivalent of a cab driver) before being hired as a reporter with Carl Schurz's Westliche Post. He then worked for the New York Sun, another major daily news­ paper, until he saved enough money to buy the St. Louis Evening Post, which later became the Post-Dispatch.^ In 1883 Pulitzer bought the New York World from tycoon Jay Gould. Pulitzer promised to make the World into "a journal that is not only cheap but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but truly democratic— dedicated to the causes of the people rather than the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. purse-potentates— devoted more to the New than the Old World— that will expose all fraud and sham, fight all public evils and abuses--that will serve and battle for 11 the people with earnest sincerity." That became the manifesto of what would be called "yellow journalism." It initiated in the annals of news­ paper history an era that never has been equaled in its vitality and sensationalism. The two giants of yellow journalism were Hearst and Pulitzer, Both stood six-foot-two, both were millionaires who spent money royally while espousing the causes of the masses, and both were shy. But that's where the similarities ended. Hearst was in perfect health, placid and courteous. Pulitzer had poor eyesight, was nervous, and was known to fly into profane rages. Hearst was at his office daily, and when the Spanish-American War broke out, he was in Cuba covering the action from the front lines. Pulitzer rarely appeared at his splendid, gold-domed skyscraper office. Hearst believed in fighting the Spanish almost from the beginning of the Cuban insur­ rection in 1894, while his rival came around on the side of the Cuban rebels because, as he later admitted, it meant increased circulation.^ There were four major morning newspapers in New York in 1895 in terms of circulation: the Journal, the World. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 the Sun, and the Herald. The leaders among the evening papers were E. L. Godkin’s conservative Evening Post, the Commercial Advertiser and the Mail & Express.^ Pulitzer's innovative management raised the World * s daily circulation from 15.000 in 1883 to 742,673 in April of 1896.^ Hearst realized from the outset that the big money could be earned by catering to the tastes of the vast, lower-class public that patronized Pulitzer's paper. Hearst's taking on Pulitzer has been likened to Luxembourg invading Germany.

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