Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
After the tragedy, many Americans wanted war. The year was 1898, and the USS Maine had sunk.
By JORGE SANCHEZ
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 1, 2001
HERNANDO -- A faded, yellowed newspaper dating back more than 100 years shows Americans pull together in times of war.
Vergie Poff, 73, a Hernando resident for the past 30 years, recently came across a newspaper from her parents' Ohio hometown. The paper, the Lake View Reporter, was dated Feb. 25, 1898.The headline: "Prelude to War."
The story referred to the sinking 10 days earlier of the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The United States declared war on Spain in April 1898 as a result.
Mrs. Poff said reading through the front-page report made her realize how Americans have historically viewed an attack, and she drew correlations to the same sentiments existing today.
"A lot of people wanted war back then," she said. "Just as they do know."
In the newspaper stories, many of the civilians in Ohio were saying they supported President William McKinley and were also urging him to "do something."
"And this was in Lake View, which is pretty much a placid lake resort town," Mrs. Poff said.
The newspaper carried pen-and-ink sketches of President McKinley and other military leaders, such as Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles.
It also carried a sketch of the Maine, with the caption "remember the Maine" beneath it.
The newspaper also published a list of the names and hometowns of the 254 seamen killed and the 80 wounded in the explosion.
The paper contained wire reports of the prelude to war, and the stories were the first of the trend referred to as yellow journalism practiced by William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's The World.
The term yellow journalism was coined after a comic strip featuring a young boy dressed in yellow regularly caused the then-new process of color printing to turn entire newspapers yellow.
But the term was also expanded to include the concept of "coloring the news" in order to gain circulation. When Heart dispatched a news team to Cuba to cover the war, the reporters wired back that there was no war.
Hearst reportedly cabled back: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Mrs. Poff says she wants to eventually give the paper, passed down to her from her mother, to a historical society or museum in Ohio.
In addition to the war stories, there are many community news stories which provide a glimpse into life in the 1890s.
For instance, a year's subscription was $1. Property in Yazoo Valley was discounted from $17 to $12 an acre.
The language was also quaint. Obituaries referred to individuals being "called from this earth."
"But I guess a hundred years from now, people will be reading the St. Petersburg Times and they'll think we spoke and wrote rather funny, too," Mrs. Poff said.