The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(32)
The scoop Rafael gave me on Ricardo Ruiz made a good impression, but since the initial coup of delivering the news to Hearst has faded, the story passed on to more senior—and male—colleagues, I am back where I started: desperate to prove myself and looking for a story that could make my career. It’s a difficult time to be a journalist in the city. It seems there are more of us than the demand calls for, and all of the major newsrooms have been rife with layoffs. Each day, I walk into work wondering if it’ll be my last. It’s hard to stand out among the likes of writers like Mark Twain and Stephen Crane.
Hearst is standing just over the threshold with Arthur Brisbane when I walk into his office.
“We need someone to go to the Peanut Club and listen to the press briefing,” Brisbane announces. “Everyone else is tied up on stories right now and can’t make it. Besides, you did good reporting on Ruiz earlier. It seems fair to give you a shake at the story.”
Nicknamed the “Peanut Club” for the large boxes of peanuts provided for all who gather there, reporters meet daily each afternoon at the Junta offices on Broadway. The office where Rafael took me the night of the Bradley-Martin ball is the office of Horatio Rubens, a local lawyer who is sympathetic to the Cuban cause. It’s the primary place for the dissemination of news about Cuba, and is our own sort of wire service, offering details of life on the island we would otherwise be unable to glean, particularly useful considering Pulitzer has blocked all possibility of Hearst ever having an Associated Press wire service.
“Can you handle it?” Hearst asks me.
“Absolutely.”
* * *
—
The street is teeming with people when I walk outside. These are the moments when I love the city most, when everything feels so alive, the air electric. Some of the Journal’s newsboys stand out on the street, hawking our latest edition to pedestrians. Without them, Hearst, Pulitzer, and the rest wouldn’t be able to reach the circulation numbers they dream of with their afternoon editions. The young boys buy the papers and then turn around and sell them in the afternoons and evenings at a half a cent profit for each paper, the money going to support themselves, and for some, their families. Many of them are orphans and runaways.
“How’s it going, Johnny?” I ask, recognizing my favorite of the bunch.
He’s a tall boy, about eleven, with a full head of red hair and a big personality. He smiles when he sees me.
“Good news day.” He gestures to the nearly empty satchel bag next to him. “You write any of these articles on the front page?”
I shake my head. “Maybe next time.”
He grins. “Can’t wait for opportunities to come your way, you know. You gotta make ’em on your own.”
This city. It makes children grow up in an instant.
I reach into the pocket of my dress and hand him a bag of the saltwater taffy he favors. I make a point of keeping them handy should our paths cross when I leave the office.
Johnny’s eyes light up at the familiar sweet.
I’ve often wondered where he stays when he leaves for the day. Some days, the newsboys who don’t sell enough papers are simply gone. If they don’t sell enough of their inventory, then they don’t have money to buy papers to sell the next day. It’s a hard, risky business.
“Working on a story?” he asks me.
“Hopefully.”
We say a quick good-bye when a customer approaches him, and I hurry down the street toward the Junta meeting. I follow the line of reporters into the Junta offices, unsurprised to find that I am the only woman in the group.
Today, the president of the Junta, Tomás Estrada Palma, stands at the front of the room, addressing the growing crowd of journalists. Estrada Palma came to New York after the Ten Years’ War and worked closely with José Martí, the famous writer and poet who spent most of his life fighting for Cuban independence. Since Martí’s death two years ago, Estrada Palma has become the Junta’s leader, and there has been speculation that Martí had privately tapped Estrada Palma as his successor in the event of his death due to the close friendship between the two.
The more time I spend around the Junta, the more I’m not sure what to make of them. There is no question that they’re passionate and devoted to their cause, nor is there doubt that at times the stories they give to the press are exaggerated beyond belief. Rafael’s earlier warning to be careful forever rings in my ears. And yet, we come to these meetings, because thanks to the Spanish censors and their reluctance to allow an independent international press, the Junta is all we have. While the stories might be a mythologized version of actual events, the unvarnished truth is that something horrible is going on in Cuba.
The Spanish in all of their ire and eagerness to cast blame at the American newspapers have failed in one important lesson. The Junta has harnessed the power of the press to sway public opinion, so we hear very little of the other side of the violence.
War is not only waged on the battlefield.
Even the Junta’s critics have to acknowledge their impressive reach. Their petitions in support of the revolutionaries secure hundreds of thousands of signatures. They publish over a dozen exile newspapers. They’ve organized to advocate for their interests in a way that is certainly powerful, and with good reason.
It turns out, Rafael was right about the Clemencia Arango story, and Joseph Pulitzer pounced on the information I gave him, sending reporters from the World to interview Arango and her friends when their ship docked in New York. Davis was left embarrassed over the journalistic mistake, but from what I can tell, Hearst is hardly fazed.