IT has been said by those calm students of human events who were untroubled by the cries of oppressed Cuba, that the war between the United States and Spain was the work of the "yellow newspapers" -- that form of American journalistic energy which is not content merely to print a daily record of history, but seeks to take part in events as an active and sometimes decisive agent.

But when the results of that conflict justified the instrumentalities which produced it, when the world accepted the emancipation of Cuba from the bloody rule of Spain as a glorious step in the progress of mankind, -- then the part played by the newspapers was forgotten, and "yellow journalism" was left to sing its own praises; and its voice was long and loud and sometimes tiresome.

Little politicians arose and, with their hands on their hearts, acknowledged that they had done the thing and were willing to have it known of men. Heroes of a three months' war, who had faced the perils of tinned beef, bared their brows for the laurels of a grateful nation. The party in power at Washington solemnly thanked God that it had had the wisdom and courage to strike a blow for human liberty. The government's press censors in Cuba and the Philippines were instructed to suppress the attempts of indignant "yellow journalism" to call attention to its own deeds.

And yet no true history of the war which banished Spain from the western hemisphere and released the Philippine archipelago from her tyranny, can be written without an acknowledgment that whatever of justice and freedom and progress was accomplished by the Spanish-American war was due to the enterprise and tenacity of "yellow journalists," many of whom lie in unremembered graves.

As one of the multitude who served in that crusade of "yellow journalism," and shared in the common calumny, I can bear witness to the martyrdom of men who suffered all but death -- and some, even death itself -- in those days of darkness.

It may be that a desire to sell their newspapers influenced some of the "yellow editors," just as a desire to gain votes inspired some of the political orators. But that was not the chief motive; for if ever any human agency was thrilled by the consciousness of its moral responsibility, it was "yellow journalism" in the never-to-be-forgotten months before the outbreak of hostilities, when the masterful Spanish minister at Washington seemed to have the influence of every government in the world behind him in his effort to hide the truth and strangle the voice of humanity.

How little they know of "yellow journalism" who denounce it! How swift they are to condemn its shrieking headlines, its exaggerated pictures, its coarse buffoonery, its intrusions upon private life, and its occasional inaccuracies! But how slow they are to see the steadfast guardianship of public interests which it maintains! How blind to its unfearing warfare against rascality, its detection and prosecution of crime, its costly searchings for knowledge throughout the earth, its exposures of humbug, its endless funds for the quick relief of distress!

Some time before the destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana, the New York Journal sent Frederic Remington, the distinguished artist, to Cuba. He was instructed to remain there until the war began; for "yellow journalism" was alert and had an eye for the future.

Presently Mr. Remington sent this telegram from Havana: --

"W. R. HEARST, New York Journal, N.Y.:

"Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return.

"REMINGTON."

This was the reply: --

"REMINGTON, HAVANA:

"Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war.

"W. R. HEARST."

The proprietor of the Journal was as good as his word, and to-day the gilded arms of Spain, torn from the front of the palace in Santiago de Cuba, hang in his office in Printing House Square, a lump of melted silver, taken from the smoking deck of the shattered Spanish flagship, serves as his paper weight, and the bullet-pierced headquarters flag of the Eastern army of Cuba -- gratefully presented to him in the field by General Garcia -- adorns his wall.

The incident which did more to arouse the sentimental opposition of the American people to Spain than anything which happened prior to the destruction of the Maine, was the rescue of the beautiful Evangelina Cisneros from a Havana prison by the Journal's gallant correspondent, Karl Decker. There is nothing in fiction more romantic than this feat of "yellow journalism." And the events which led up to it are worth telling.

One sultry day in August, 1897, the proprietor of the Journal was lolling in his editorial chair. Public interest in Cuba was weak. The Spanish minister at Washington had drugged the country with cunningly compounded statements. The government was indifferent. The weather was too hot for serious agitation. Every experienced editor will tell you that it is hard to arouse the popular conscience in August. Perspiring man refuses to allow himself to be worked into a moral rage. The proletariat of liberty was in a hole. The most tremendous headlines failed to stir the crowd.

An attendant entered the room with a telegram, which Mr. Hearst read languidly: --

"HAVANA.

"Evangelina Cisneros, pretty girl of seventeen years, related to President of Cuban Republic, is to be imprisoned for twenty years on African coast, for having taken part in uprising Cuban political prisoners on Isle of Pines."

He read it over a second time and was about to cast it on his desk -- but no! He stared at the little slip of paper and whistled softly. Then he slapped his knee and laughed.

"Sam!" he cried.

"We've got Spain, now!" exclaimed Mr. Hearst, displaying the message from Cuba. "Telegraph to our correspondent in Havana to wire every detail of this case. Get up a petition to the Queen Regent of Spain for this girl's pardon. Enlist the women of America. Have them sign the petition. Wake up our correspondents all over the country. Have distinguished women sign first. Cable the petitions and the names to the Queen Regent. Notify our minister in Madrid. We can make a national issue of this case. It will do more to open the eyes of the country than a thousand editorials or political speeches. The Spanish minister can attack our correspondents, but we'll see if he can face the women of America when they take up the fight. That girl must be saved if we have to take her out of prison by force or send a steamer to meet the vessel that carries her away -- but that would be piracy, wouldn't it?"

Within an hour messages were flashing to Cuba, England, France, Spain, and to every part of the United States. The petition to the Queen Regent was telegraphed to more than two hundred correspondents in various American cities and towns. Each correspondent was instructed to hire a carriage and employ whatever assistance he needed, get the signatures of prominent women of the place, and telegraph them to New York as quickly as possible. Within twenty-four hours the vast agencies of "yellow journalism" were at work in two hemispheres for the sake of the helpless girl prisoner. Thousands of telegrams poured into the Journal office. Mrs. Jefferson Davis, the widow of the Confederate President, wrote this appeal, which the Journal promptly cabled to the summer home of the Queen Regent at San Sebastian: --

"TO HER MAJESTY, MARIA CRISTINA, Queen Regent of Spain: --

"Dear Madam: In common with many of my countrywomen I have been much moved by the accounts of the arrest and trial of Señorita Evangelina Cisneros. Of course, at this great distance, I am ignorant of the full particulars of her case. But I do know she is young, defenceless, and in sore straits. However, all the world is familiar with the shining deeds of the first lady of Spain, who has so splendidly illustrated the virtues which exalt wife and mother, and who has added to these the wisdom of a statesman and the patience and fortitude of a saint.

"To you I appeal to extend your powerful protection over this poor captive girl -- a child almost in years -- to save her from a fate worse than death. I am sure your kind heart does not prompt you to vengeance, even though the provocation has been great. I entreat you to give her to the women of America, to live among us in peace.

"We will become sureties that her life in future will be one long thank-offering for your clemency.

"Do not, dear Madam, refuse this boon to us, and we will always pray for the prosperity of the young King, your son, and for that of his wise and self-abnegating mother.

"Your admiring and respecting petitioner,

"VARINA JEFFERSON DAVIS."

Then Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," wrote this appeal to the Pope, which the Journal cabled to the Vatican: --

"TO HIS HOLINESS, LEO XIII.:

"Most Holy Father: -- To you, as the head of Catholic Christendom, we appeal for aid in behalf of Evangelina Cisneros, a young lady of Cuba, one of whose near relatives is concerned in the present war, in which she herself has taken no part. She has been arrested, tried by court martial, and is in danger of suffering a sentence more cruel than death -- that of twenty years of exile and imprisonment in the Spanish penal colony of Ceuta, in Africa, where no woman has ever been sent, and where, besides enduring every hardship and indignity, she would have for her companions the lowest criminals and outcasts.

"We implore you, Holy Father, to emulate the action of that Providence which interests itself in the fall of a sparrow. A single word from you will surely induce the Spanish government to abstain from this act of military vengeance, which would greatly discredit it in the eyes of the civilized world.

"We devoutly hope that your wisdom will see fit to utter this word, and to make not us alone, but humanity, your debtors.

"JULIA WARD HOWE."

The mother of President McKinley signed a petition to the Queen Regent. The wife of Secretary of State Sherman gave her name to the appeal, and soon the most representative women of the nation joined the movement. Fifteen thousand names were cabled by the Journal to the palace of San Sebastian. The country began to ring with the story of Evangelina Cisneros. Hundreds of public meetings were convened. The beautiful young prisoner became the protagonist of the Cuban struggle for liberty. Spain was denounced and the President was urged to lend his influence to the patriot cause of Cuba. The excitement grew day by day. It stirred up forces of sympathy that had lain dormant until then. The wily Spanish minister at Washington was in a trap. He did not dare to attack a movement supported by the wives and daughters of the great leaders of every political party in the United States.

How we worked and watched for poor Cuba in those days! How the tired writers stuck to the fight in those hot, breathless nights! And how the palace officials in Spain and the Captain-general in Cuba cursed us for our pains!

Presently there came a message from Cuba. Karl Decker had carried out his instructions. "Yellow journalism" had broken the bars of the Spanish prison. The beautiful young prisoner was safe on the ocean and would be in New York in a few days.

Not only had the girl been lifted out of the prison window through the shattered iron barriers and carried from rooftop to rooftop in the night over a teetering ladder, but she had been secreted in Havana in spite of the frantic search of the Spanish authorities and, disguised as a boy, had been smuggled on board of a departing steamer under the very noses of the keenest detectives in Havana.

Who, of all the countless multitude that witnessed that thrilling scene in Madison Square, knew the processes by which "yellow journalism," starting with that little message from Havana, had set in motion mighty forces of sympathy, which increased day by day, until Congress met, and the conscience of the nation found its official voice.

The time has not yet come when all the machinery employed by the American press in behalf of Cuba can be laid bare to the public. Great fortunes were spent in the effort to arouse the country to a realization of the real situation. Things which cannot even be referred to now were attempted.

It was my fortune to interview Canovas del Castillo, the Prime Minister of Spain, a few months before the outbreak of the war. As I had been exiled from Cuba -- whither I had gone as a special correspondent for the New York World -- by Captain-general Weyler, the experience in Madrid was doubly interesting.

"The newspapers in your country seem to be more powerful than the government," said the lion-headed Premier.

"Not more powerful, your Excellency, but more in touch with the real sovereignty of the nation, the people. The government is elected only once in four years, while the newspapers have to appeal to their constituents every day in the year."

If the war against Spain is justified in the eyes of history, then "yellow journalism" deserves its place among the most useful instrumentalities of civilization. It may be guilty of giving the world a lop-sided view of events by exaggerating the importance of a few things and ignoring others, it may offend the eye by typographical violence, it may sometimes proclaim its own deeds too loudly; but it has never deserted the cause of the poor and the downtrodden; it has never taken bribes, -- and that is more than can be said of its most conspicuous critics.

One of the accusations against "yellow journalism" is that it steps outside of the legitimate business of gathering news and commenting upon it -- that it acts. It is argued that a newspaper which creates events and thus creates news, cannot, in human nature, be a fair witness. There is a grain of truth in this criticism; but it must not be forgotten that the very nature of journalism enables it to act in the very heart of events at critical moments and with knowledge not possessed by the general public; that what is everybody's business and the business of nobody in particular, is the journalist's business.

There are times when public emergencies call for the sudden intervention of some power outside of governmental authority. Then journalism acts. Let me give an instance.

When Admiral Camara was preparing to sail with a powerful Spanish fleet to attack Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay, two American monitors armed with ten-inch rifles were on their way across the Pacific to the Philippines. It was a perilous situation, more perilous than the American people were permitted to know. I have seen Admiral Dewey's letters to Consul General Wildman at Hong Kong, begging for news of the movements of the Spanish fleet and confessing that his squadron was too weak to meet it unless the two monitors should arrive in time. The threatened admiral made no secret of his anxiety. The question of victory or defeat or retreat depended on whether the Spanish fleet could be delayed until the powerful monitors had time to reach Manila.

Camara's fleet left Spain to attack Dewey and actually entered the Suez Canal; but the sinking of a steamer in the narrow channel was made unnecessary by the sudden abandonment of the expedition and the return of the Spanish admiral to the threatened coast of Spain.

One does not have to be a great lawyer to understand that the obstruction of the Suez Canal could not have been undertaken by any responsible representative of the American government without a grave breach of international law. Nor was there any existing private agency that could so well undertake such a costly and serious patriotic service as a newspaper whose correspondents kept it in almost hourly touch with the changing facts of the situation. I will not attempt to defend this contemplated deed as a matter of law. It needs no defence among Americans. The facts are given as an illustration of the part which the journalism of action is beginning to play in the affairs of nations, and the varying methods employed.

But journalism that acts is no new thing, although it is beginning to act on new lines. The London Times defended Queen Caroline against the persecutions of George IV. and was denounced as a vulgar meddler. The same newspaper, after compelling the recall of Lord Raglan from the command of the British forces in the Crimea, forced Lord Aberdeen's ministry to resign. That was "yellow journalism," and John Walter was bitterly assailed for his sensationalism. Again, in 1840, the Times went beyond the orthodox frontier of journalism and, at enormous risk and expense, exposed gigantic frauds, saving millions of dollars to the merchants of London. A marble tablet over the entrance of the Times office records the gratitude of the people of the British metropolis. The New York Herald sent Stanley to find Livingstone in Africa, and equipped the Jeannette expedition to search for the North Pole. The New York Times smashed the great Tweed Ring, which had plundered and defied the public for years. The New York World averted a national disgrace by providing a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty presented by the people of France. The same newspaper defeated the famous bond conspiracy and compelled the Cleveland administration to allow the general public to compete in the $100,000,000 loan, saving millions of dollars for the treasury and demonstrating the financial independence of the United States.