Conquering Puerto Rico, 1898
Created | Updated Mar 5, 2017
Fake News, or just totally slanted news? This was the dilemma in 1898, when – as all the world knows, well, okay, people with degrees in history know – US newspapers started a war, Teddy Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill and then bragged all the way to the White House, and Spain lost the rest of its empire1. Don't believe us? Google 'Spanish American War' and see what you get. Or read the January 1899 issue of Scribner's Magazine. Which even has a typically modest article by Teddy Roosevelt about how he won the war practically singlehanded.
The excerpt presented for your delectation here is by Richard Harding Davis. He wasn't some blogger from Macedonia, no, sir. Davis was a media A-lister. He popularised the clean-shaven look. (Thank him for the razor nicks.) He helped Roosevelt's career by mentioning him in magazines like this.
And, apparently, he really believed the stuff that spewed from his typewriter. Read and reflect, y'all.
From 'The Porto[sic] Rican Campaign'
Peace came too soon to allow the different generals who were making the ways straight to
show all that they could do and how well they could do it. In view of this fact it was almost a
pity that peace did come so soon2. For with the bungling at Santiago3and the scandal and shame after the war of the treatment of our sick soldiers on the transports and in the fever camps, the successes which would have followed the advance of the different expeditions across Porto Rico would have been a grateful relief. The generals, with the exception of General Schwan, were handicapped, to a degree, by the fact that their commands were, for the greater part, composed
of volunteers; but the personality of the generals, each in his different way, made this count for little, arid they obtained as good service out of the men as the work there was to do demanded. It was not in the field alone, where they were on their native heath, that these generals distinguished themselves; but in governing and establishing order in the towns which they captured, where their duties were both peculiar and foreign to their experience, they showed to the greatest advantage. They went about the task of setting up the new empire of the United States as though our army had always been employed in seizing islands, and raising the flag over captured cities4. They played the conquerors with tact, with power, and like gentlemen5. They recognized the rights of others6 and they forced others to recognize their rights. Wherever it was possible to do so, General Miles
propitiated the people by employing local labor. Within an hour after the firing had ceased at Juanica, he was renting ox-carts and oxen from the native ranch owners and buying cattle outright. At Ponce he employed hundreds of local stevedores who had been out of work
for many days. He set them to unloading the transports and coaling the war-ships, and when he
learned that the boss stevedores were holding back part of the men's pay he corrected the abuse at once, and saw that each man received what was due him. General Wilson in his turn, as military governor of the city and district of Ponce, was confronted with many strange conditions.
He had to invent oaths of allegiance, to tranquillize the foreign consuls7, to protect rich Spaniards from too enthusiastic Porto Ricans8, to adopt a new seal for the city, and a new rate of exchange; to appoint
new officers in the courts, to set free political prisoners, and to arrest and lock up political offenders against the new regime. But the work was not confined to the cities, and soon each of the generals had changed the magistrate's chair for the saddle. It was a beautiful military proposition as General Miles laid it down.
Ed. Note: We're sure it was. Oh, what a lovely war. They had so many volunteers for that excursion, the government had to turn them away.
Younger folk, please learn from this:
- They didn't have the internet back then, but they still managed to get into a lot of trouble with Fake News. It was called yellow journalism back in the day. Those yellow journalists started this war by claiming the Spanish sank a US battleship in Havana harbour. Later forensic evidence proved that it was a boiler fire. But hey, nobody listens to scientists, right?
- The kind of sentiments you read here are called 'jingoism'. Nobody's sure why. But it's nasty. If you hear it, you will recognise it. Do not allow these people to set your political agendas.
- People in the UK and US in 1898 really thought going around rearranging other people's governments was a peachy keen idea and good sport. Of course, some spoilsports, like Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and some preachers and vicars in the countryside weren't so keen, but they got outvoted as usual. This is not a new form of activity. Be warned: it doesn't end well. And that's why lots of people are still angry about it.
Kthxbai.
