Correspondents braved the yellow fever and imprisonment in order to furnish the last details of each new horror.

Foremost in this work were William Randolph Hearst, who made new records of sensationalism in his papers, particularly in the New York Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, proprietor of the New York World.
Hearst is reported to have said that it cost him three millions to bring on the Spanish American War.

The net result of all this newspaper activity was that it became impossible for the American people to remain in happy ignorance of what was going on in the world.

Their reaction to the facts was their own.
President Cleveland modeled his policy upon that of Grant and Grant's Secretary, Hamilton Fish.

He did not recognize the independence of the Cuban republic, for that would have meant immediate war with Spain; nor did he recognize even its belligerency.