William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish American War
How far is a person willing to go to be the best? Will he sacrifice friends, family, even the lives of his countrymen? What makes someone that devoted to competition that they are willing to destroy everything that they’ve ever known, and quite possibly start a war in the process all to see that they’ve outsold there competition? These are the questions one must ask once you learn of the life’s story of William Randolph Hearst. From his news empire that included over 2 dozen major newspapers in 15 cities (Swanberg) to his more then slightly warped sense of moral propriety, Hearst’s life led him into the position where he escalated an international dispute into a war with one of Europe’s colonial powers.
William Randolph Hearst was born on April 29, 1863, in San Francisco, California, to George Hearst and Phoebe Apperson Hearst. George Hearst was a self-made multimillionaire miner and rancher who spent much of his young life in Franklin County, Missouri in the 1820’s. Growing up he received very little in the way of formal education but he did learn a lot about the so-called "lay of the land," particularly in regards to mining. In fact, legend has it that local Indians referred to him as the "boy that the earth talk to." (Loe)
The Senior Hearst quickly made himself wealthy through his investment in mining operations in the United States. Doing all of the research into these sites himself he owned some of the largest claims in the nation, “including the Comstock Lode in Nevada, the Ontario silver mine in Utah, the Homestake gold mine in South Dakota and the Anaconda copper mine in Montana” (Loe). The Comstock, Homestake and Anaconda claims would become three of the largest mining discoveries in American history. (Swanberg)
This sudden success story was an inspiration to his son and his overbearing mother constantly told William of his father’s great successes. It was Williams Mother who became the fiery driving force in the young man’s life, constantly pressuring him to succeed and be better then all others. While George Hearst was running about the American West securing mine space, land grants, and buying hundreds of acres of grazing lands for what would be his second empire, cattle, Phoebe was prepping her son for a life of wealth and privilege. In 1873 she organized a European tour to educate...
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...at Hearst and the other yellow journalists started the war, it is fair to say that the press turned what had been overlooked since Grant into a major international affair. Without sensational headlines and stories about Cuban affairs, the mood for Cuban intervention may have been very different. In the end the escalation of the crisis was a simple drive to be the best, to beat everyone else and to prove to the world (and his mother) that William Randolph Hearst was a success in his own right.
Works Cited
Dyal, Donald H.. Historical Dictionary of the Spanish American War. Greenwood Press: Westport, CT, 1996.
Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of William McKinley. University Press of Kansas, 1980.
Loe, Nancy E. Hearst Castle. Hearst Castle Historical Society. 03 Dec. 2004 .
O'Toole, G.J.A., The Spanish War: An American Epic-1898. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1984.
Miller, Daniel A."Crucible of Empire." PBS, New York. Video Archive. 02 Dec 2004 .
Milton, Joyce. The Yellow Kids: Foreign Correspondents in the Heyday of Yellow Journalism. Harper-Perrenial: New York, 1989.
Nasaw, David . The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst . New York: Mariner Books , 2001.
First, the pros of year round schooling can include; effects on absence and burnout rates, effects on budget, more frequent breaks, and also a big effect on academic achievement. The way that year round schooling works to reduce burnout and also reduce absences is that by having more frequent breaks; students are less likely to want to skip class. This is definitely noticeable after spring break where most schools don’t have any days off until the end of the year that is usually more than 2 months straight. In other words the “April, May, June stretch”. Year round schooling will also help students with their academics as well because with the way the schedule is set up, students do not ha...
This book by Otis A. Singletary deals with different aspects of the Mexican war. It is a compelling description and concise history of the first successful offensive war in United States military history. The work examines two countries that were unprepared for war. The political intrigues and quarrels in appointing the military commanders, as well as the military operations of the war, are presented and analyzed in detail. The author also analyzes the role that the Mexican War played in bringing on the U.S. Civil War.
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain." In Sources of Making of the West, by Katarine J. Lualdi, 269-273. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
Konstam, Angus. San Juan Hill 1898: America's Emergence as a World Power. Osprey Publishing, 1998.
United States of America. U.S. Department of State. Office of the Historian. The Spanish-American War, 1898. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
The Spanish-American war cannot be directly sourced to one cause. Rather it was the result of the combination of events pre-dating the war and the spark that ignited our intervention into this conflict. This paper will trace the reasons behind the United States involvement in this war. The United States partaking in this war, was a signal to the rest of the world that the United States was ready to emerged as a world power. By having one of the best Naval Fleets, by the beginning of the war, the United States sent a messaged to the rest of the world that the US is ready and capable to become more involved in foreign affairs. However, it is important to question the importance of each cause that led up to the United States declaring war with Spain and putting itself between them and Cuba.
The struggle of Cuba to gain its independence from Spain, which began in 1895, has captured the attention of many Americans. Spain’s brutal repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed for the U.S. public by American newspaper publishers, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer which caused to shape the national mood of agitation against Spain. Hearst and Pulitzer exaggerated the actual events in Cuba and how did Spanish brutally treated their prisoners by adding sensational words to catch the emotions of readers. However, publishing stories against the atrocities of Spain did not convince President Cleveland to support the intervention with Spain. When President McKinley held the office in 1897, he wanted to end the revolt peacefully, and he tried to avoid the involvement of America to the conflict between Cuba and Spain. McKinley sent Stewart Woodford to Spain to negotiate for peaceful Cuban autonomy and it all went smoothly and the independence of Cuba was supposed to be awarded after the negotiation. However, the peaceful settlement suddenly vanished after the incident of February 1898 when a private letter for a Cuban friend written by the Spanish minister Enrique Dupuy de Lome was stolen by a Cuban age...
Nonetheless, there is some resistance to schools converting to a year-round calendar. Most of that opposition comes from the reduction in intersession length, and some students and/or parents don 't like the idea of year-round education from the start. This gives families a reason to voice their opposition when both the parents and child 's schedules do not line up with one another. This usually affects households that wish to take long vacations over the course of a summer. Parents, in some cases, may oppose this change because of child care needs. Child care raises opposition since there is a shift in the school year calendar. Parents may not be able to find nannies or babysitters. In addition, parents will have to check for or maybe even search for new or different childcare services. To add, parents with multiple children may have to worry about their children being put
In conclusion, the advantages of year-round schooling are beneficial to all. If all schools did change to year round schooling, I believe we would be able to teach all the students without having to reteach skills from previous years, it could be done during intersessions. Year-round schooling benefits both the teachers and students. Teachers are able to reflect on their teachings and adjust in time before the next session would begin. The students would feel positive about themselves in school. With this change, we may even be able to accomplish No Child Left Behind.
Trask, David F.. The war with Spain in 1898. Collector's ed. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press,
For 113 days during the summer of 1898, the United States was at war with Spain. Neither the president of the United States, nor his cabinet, nor the the queen of Spain, nor her ministers wanted the war wanted the war. It happened eventhough they made their best efforts to prevent it. It happened because of ambition, miscalculation, and stupidity; and it happened because of kindness, wit, and resourcefulness. It also happened because some were indifferent to the suffering of the world’s wretched and others were not (O’Toole 17). By winning the war the United States proved the the rest of the world and to itself that it could and would fight against foreign nations. For many years, world power had been concentrated in the countries in Europe. Nations such as Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain had the most influence in global affairs. But a shift in power was gradually taking place as the United States matured. The young nation gained wealth and strength. Its population grew immensely, and many people believed it would become a major world power (Bachrach, 11) Spain was one of the many European countries that had territory in the United States. Spain controlled mostly some islands off the coast of Central America. The most important of these were Cuba and Puerto Rico. The United States was led to believe that the Spanish mosgoverned and abused the people of these islands. In fact, Spain did overtax and mistreat the Cubans, who rebelled in 1868 and again in 1895. Thus, the American people felt sympathetic toward the Cuban independence movement. In addition, Spain had frequently interfered with trade between its colonies and the United States. Even though the United States had been a trading partner with Cuba since the seventeenth century, Spain sometimes tried to completely stop their trade with Cuba. In Spain doing so, this sometimes caused damage to U.S. commercial interests. The United States highly disagreed with Spain’s right to interfere with this trade relationship. (Bachrach, 12) The United States was also concerned that other trading and commercial interests were threatened by the number of ships and soldiers Spain kept in the area. If the United States had to fight a war with Canada or Mexico, these Spanish forces could quickly mobilize against the United States.
As a student, it can be hard to remember things from past school years, when you have a long summer break breaking the educational flow. This knowledge loss over a long summer break can lead to a lot of time being wasted on re-teaching past lessons. Year round schooling supports the teachers to just keep continually teaching kids new information over a year long period, without big reviews which can take up days or weeks depending on the subject. Also, when students are let out for a long summer break, it can cause new sleeping patterns and motivational habits to develop. This can be a problem when school starts up and kids are out of sync from the long summer break they just had. With the year-round schooling the breaks are much shorter which could prevent a student from getting into a new sleep or study habit. Having well rested and attentive students is a big help to the teachers.Year-round schooling is also helpful for teachers because with the numerous breaks they would have more time to catch up on grading papers and/or projects from their classes; parents would then have better up-to-date status of their child’s grades. If students go to a year-round school they could have a better chance of not getting homework over their breaks (Debate.org). This is because most teachers who teach at year-round schools feel that they are not as rushed to teach their curriculum because they don’t have to waste time on reviewing past lessons and kids can use their past knowledge better to help understand what they are learning
Year round school is something not many people have to go to. But it is common throughout some state in the U.S. There are large arguments over the year round school calendar and whether it is a good idea or not. Year round school consists of a much larger school year, but throughout the year you have more breaks and they are longer too. In a regular school calendar you have short breaks and only a couple of them, but have a three month summer. A year round school calendar is not a good idea because it is not as easy for a high school student to get a summer job and is causes aspense in a family because all they are doing throughout the year is school.
Although year-round school is not something that most Americans are used to, it is much more beneficial than the original nine-month schooling. Nine-month schooling has been around for a very long time, but it is also out dated. Nine-month schooling was a way to help farmers keep their children at home for extra help during the summer months. Now, more and more people are living in town, and farmers have advanced equipment. Year-round school is a great way to give students and teachers more frequent breaks throughout the school year so they do not get burnt out. It will also shorten the review time each year, and allow teachers to teach more throughout the school year. The multi-tracking system allows
The first reason why year round schooling wouldn’t be a good idea is because of focusing for long periods of times for some students. First of all, many kids with disabilities or elementary school would have a hard time focusing that long of a time without their traditional three month summer break. Second, the more breaks students have might make it harder to focus before and after breaks. Before breaks many kids would be excited to