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- STORY OF THE MAINE Reason Why Battleship Went to Ha vana Is Revealed. ? Misinterpreted cable messagi Cable Brought Battleship Instead o Cartridges?Incident Brought on th< Spanish-American War. ' W. S. Meriwether in Mississippi Sun. W. S. Meriwether, the autnor or int following article, was formerly on the staff of the New York Herald, but is new editor of the Mississippi Sun published at Charleston, Miss.: In Stephenson's American history the 6tie now being used in oyr public schools, occurs this paragraph:"' "At Havana there were public demonstrations of ill will toward Americans. Therefore, the battleship Maine was ordered to Havana as an intimation that Americans would be protect"1 r- ed by their government." The Maine was not sent to Havana "as an intimation that Americans v/ould be protected by their governJ ' ' ment." She was sent there because of a ministerpreted cable message which a newspaper correspondent ir Havana sent to his paper in New York. All the correspondent wanted " was a box of cartridges. A battleship was sent instead. The battleship was blown up in Havana harbor, war with Spain ensued and a considerable part of the geography of the world was charged as a result. The. writer was in Havana at the time of the Maine disaster, reported that immortal horror to the identical newspaper vhoee assistant cable editor had misinterpreted the message about cartridges and makes trus coming February 16?twenty-fourth annlversy of the tragedy?the occasion for setting history right. > The reason this Yeveating chapter has not been written before Is this: Tha correspondent who had sent the ca|ale was one of my most valued friends. Under seal of confidence he had told me the entire story. ,He had planned -to write it himself but thought it inadvisable to do so until Borne yea*s had intervened. I asked and obtained his permission to make a passing reference to- it in an article which I had been asked to prepare describing the scenes in Havana on " 'd the night of the Maine's destruction, but the reference did not attract the attention it deserved. More with the idea of supplying my friend with data than employing it myself, I had, ar opportunity served aBked the several actors in the drama, each of w'aom I intimately knew, the parts they had played. Then the man for whom those notes were uiicnueu, come yata uviu . Havana, where he had been stationed as correspondent for the Associated Press, and suddenly died. I felt that his death released the story to me, but just at that time I was plunged Into war work as publicity manager for the United States Shipping; board and the episode was forgotten until .((i the calendar brought its reminder that the twenty-fourth anntversy of the 1 disaster comes around on this February 16. Here is the full story: Relieved Havana Man. It was early in February. 1898, that I received orders from my newspaper, the New1 York Herald, to proceed to Havana and relieve John R. Caldwell, in charge of the Herald's Havana bureau. Caldwell was an exceedingly capable newspaper man, but somehow had come into disfavor with the thenowner of the Herald, the late James Gordon'Bennett, who had cabled from Paris a curt order to make the change. Havana at that time was a troublous city. The relrtions between this country and Spain were strained to the breaking point. Riots were frequent and every American felt that his life was in danger at all times. Caldwell realized it and sought to arm himself. But there was a strict edict against the sale of firearms, one chiefly directed against Cubans, for the island was then in a blaze of insurrection. So unable to equip himself with the means of self-defense, 'Caldwell wrote to the Herald and asked that a revolver be sent to him. One was purchased immediately and shipped. Hut when it arrived there were no cartridges, and the correspondent could no more purchase cartridges than he could purchase revolvers. Meanwhile the situation was growing worse. Instead of writing for cartridges he cabled. The Herald and its Havana correspondent employed a private code. This was necessary because of the stfict censorship exercised in Havana ? by the Spanish. And as it happened the Herald man, Fred Burgin, who was in charge of the code and of Havana cable news, was home sick when this message came clicking into the Herald office one night: Camera received but no plates. Please hurry by next steamer. jonn K. uniaweu. t Young Assistant Mixes Things The full name "John R. Caldwell" signified that the message meant more than the words indicated and that the office would have to puzzle it out. Had Hurgin been on duty he would instantly have understood that the revolver had arrived but that there were no cartridges. Rut Spain's Nemesis was around that night. A young assistant got the message and turning to the code book, translated it to mean y that the American consulate had been 2 attacked. Fireworks ensued. An attack on our consulate in Havana was a spark to set off the long-brewing trouble between America and Spain. The hour was 9:30 p. m. The Havuna cable office closed at 9 p. m. and there was no possible way of getting further news < that night. The Herald got its Wash' ' V- - * i c , ' V ' *1 t i : . s ! 1 , Pere Is Dr. Wellington Koo, Chi member of the Chinese delegation baby aon, born January 30. Baby I i Baby" and the name of "January Sh L suggested for him. v. t. ?Ington Bureau on the 'phone, and di- j rected that every man be hustled out on th? story. John D. T^ong was then i 1 secretary of the navy. The word that 1 th^ American consulate in Havana | 1 had. been attacked was telephoned to him by the Herald's Washington bu- 1 reau. There was a rapid telephonic i conference with the state department i and the white house and_along about ? 11 o'clock a wire was sent to Rear Ad- i miral Montgomery Sicard, command- < 1 ing the North Atlantic fleet, then at ?'iff riw fnrtiio-na tn rl^tnnh n < vessel of his command and send it to > Havana forthwith, the reason being 1 that an eminently trustworthy cor- 1 respondent of an important newspap- 1 er had cabled the report of an attack < upon the American consulate. After the lapse of all these years I cannot now recall whether it was lieu- ( tenant, now Real Admiral Albert ] Gle^ves, whose torpedo boat conveyed the message from the Key West naval 1 station to the flagship. New York. ; Which ever it was. the message reach- ] ed the admiral about midnight and directly thereafter a signal was made ] for the commanding officer of the i Maine to report on board. i Midnight Visit to Flagship. < In a conversation I had with Capt. : Slgsbec some years later, he describ- I ed that midnight-visit to the flagship, I his orders from Admiral Sicard to pro- : ceed to Havana at once, the admiral adding he did not know what condi- < tlon he would find upon arrival. Ho < did not hamper the Maine's command- s der with any instructions, leaving all 1 to his discretion. I I Capt, Sigsbee returned to his ship, j 1 gave the necessary orders for spreading fires under tho boilers and to get I 1 PALM BEACI * William Jennings Bryan, dry 1 bride of the former Premier of Gre Florida winter resorts, where this j :hinese envoy, and ? his "conference baby." . ina's representative to London and to the Arms Conference, with his Koo is known as the "Conference antung Washington Koo" has been under way as soon as steam could be made ready. Awnings were rolled up and sent below, and awning stanchions which might have interfered with gunfire, were removed, along with their ridge ropes. Guns were not loaded for under the high discipline that is maintained in the navy, every one could have been made ready for opening fire within two or three minutes after the ringing of the gong, calling the crew to "general quarters," which means that upon the sounding" of that signal every one jumps to his appointed place, the men detailed to the magazines springing to their stations and sending up ammunition for the gunB, the gun crews loading with equal celerity. The Maine Underway. Now with the.Maine underway and churning her way to the harbor where, her destruction was destined to involve two nations in war, let us leave the doomed battleship for a moment ind take up the narrative from1 the [nglaterra Hotel in Havana. It was,Ot an early hour in the forenoon when a messenger from the cable office knocked on the door of Mr. Caldwell's room and handed him a cablegram. It was from the Herald and read: "Hush story you bulletined on Cuban cane'crop?we want It for main section." . Not having sent any bulletin on the Cuban cane crop, Mr. Caldwell realized at once that this was a code message and turning to his code book found the first part of it conveying the tidings that "A United States man-ofsvar .has been ordered to Havana." He was puzzled a moment over the rest, lor there was nothing in the code book i VISITORS. - I Copyright by Underwood & Underwood. aw advocate, and Mme. Venizelos, ece, are passing the season at the ilcture was taken, ^ anyway resembling: It. Then St flashed upon him that the use of the words "main section" was employed to tell him the name of the vessel that had Knan tn Uni'nnn AtKacntioa tha I i?vtH uiucivu VU umcma, wwnv* mov Maine. Directly across the hall was the room of the former Confederate general, Fitz Hugh Lee, then United States consul general to Havana. "Impossible," Gen. Lee, replied, "the government would never send a warship here unless I asked for one and that I have not don?." At that moment came the thud of guns. Hurrying to the balcony the two saw the Maine entering the harbor and bulbs of white suqpke drifting from her saluting battery,. The Facts ConsldsrstJ. As a newspaper correspondent who reported the blowing up of the Maine and as one who rertia ed in Havana during the sitting of the ^meriran naval court of inquiry, a body .whose verdict was that the Maine had been destroyed as the result of an jnitside explosion, I have frequently been asked ray opinion as to the cause.,. That the court of InquU-y. was convinced the Maine had been blown up by a mine planted b^ the Spaniards In Havana harbor, I have never for a moqient doubted. That they did not say so in as many words was doubtless due to reasons other than .tfiose contained in the facts which thev con sidered. Hero they arc-: The relations between America and Spain had been strained to the breaking point. It was at this moment of severe tension that an American battleship entered the hprbor. At her anchorage inside the harbor she commanded the entire situation, thjere not being a single Spanish gun that could be brought to bear against her, all of these being in the batteries that overlooked the sea approaches. A Spanish pilot brought the Maine into harbor and designated the buoy to which she was to make fast. If, under the circumstances the Kpaniards had not laid a mine under that predetermined bouy in order to dominate any foreign warship making fast to it, they would have been incredibly short sighted. There has been much talk of an inside explosion. ^Jut the keel of the Maine was found within eighteen inches of the surface. No inside explosion could have driven thatipart of the underbody upwards. Some Unwritten History. The reference to the finding-or the Maine's keel so near the suffice of the water recalls another lilt of unwritten history. On the heels of the disaster. *11 correspondents statipned In Havun& began receiving: more or less frantic cables from their home offices telling how imperative it was for the American public to b,e informed at once whether the Maine had been blown up by & Spanish mine, or whether, as Spain was contending, she had come to her undoing throtigh the explosion of one of her own magazines. Day by day these messages became more urgent. But what' were the correhpondents to do? Pending the arrival of the American naval court, the Spaniards had established a cordon around the wreck and no one was allowed near it. The court of Inquiry, headed by the late Reax Admiral Sampson, arrived on the lighthouse tender Fern, and began its hearings on board that vessel; But that did not help the harried correspondents, none of whom were allowed on board-. There were no risks the correspondents would not have ventured to have obtained some inkling of the case. But they were confronted with obstacles impossible to overcome. Such was the situation whpn there came one night a hurried knock on my hotel door, the hour belog about 10 o'clock. Even after the lapse of all these years I do not feel free to reveal the name of this caller. But I may say that he was an officer attached to the flagship New York and that he had been sent from Key West to superintend the work of the divers engaged in examining the wreck. I had been shipmates with this officer before leaving the navy to tttke up newspaper wor^c, and we were warm friends. As he htirried into the room I saw he was intensely excited. He first swore me to secrecy, exacted a promise that 1 would not reveal the source of my information and then without more ado, told in one breath what all the world was on tiptoe to know. "The keel of the Maine," he said, stepping to the door find closing it, and speaking low and fast, "is within eighteen ipches of the surface. We found it there tonight. Mr. Powelson was with me and he has positively identified the keel plates." Wilfred Van Ness Powelson was ono 01 ine constructors v. no nuu, uum* the Maine and had been summoned as an expert to go qver "the wreck. I I knew his reputation as a highly com- ! petent and thorough-going officer, and I knew any Information my caller gave me, could be entirely depended upon. Keel Up Eighteen Inches. Here was the* biggest piece of news that could have emanated out of Havana at that time, the answer to the urgent question which editors were cabling to their Havana correspondents. The fact that the Maine's keel had been hove up until it was within eighteen inches of the surface meant only one thing, that the battleship had been blown up by a mine placed beneath the keel and had not been destroyed by the explosion of one of her own magazines. It meant war. Hut how w;yi this portentous news to be gotten past the Spanish censor? The rule of closing the cable office at 9 p. m. had been changed and the office was wide open at .all times. But Madrid and Washington were kcep ; < ing it busy and there was very little ! that correspondents were allowed to | send, that little being subjected to the ! closest scrutiny by the censors. I had J a dispatch boat in the barbor, which had been used for the carrying of dispatches to the telegraph office at Key West, hut she could render no help in Hb fr\v> Kv tllfi Bl'.lftO r\f tho I Ill 10 ^IliCI I iWi M.? Hit t u??0 w?. V?.v port, no vessel could leave between the hours of sunset and sunrise. Eluding the Censor. I There was nothing in our secret code bpok by which this information about the Maine keel cculd be conveyed, and while on my way to the censor's office I evolved several messages, meant to deceive him, and yet be clear to the editor for whom it was intended, but rejected thera all as unsuitable. The one was finally submitted, read as follows: "In important story which will be filed from dispatch boat in Key West tomorrow, please note the main story Is mine." ?The censor, a Spanish cblonel, and whose knowledge of English was disappointingly complete road the message attentively, and then inquired if I thought It necessary to pay high cable toll in order to claim credit for a dispatch that had not yet been sent. I endeavored to assure him that unless I took this precaution the'dispatch might be credited to some one else in the bureau. Whereupon the colonel grinned, said I could tell that to the American marines, added that he didn't like the use of the word "mine" anyway and that tho editor might ndd an "e" to the word main, and reach some wholly erroneous con elusion, that is, erroneous from the j Spanish viewpoint. I proffered this altogether too adroit colonel a cigar and took u turn down the corridor, in an effort to think up something else. I knew this particulcr censor would be going off duty at 11 o'clock, and I was trying to be ready for the next one. Making Use of Kipling. From the hotel news stand that day I had bought a copy of Life and had read therein Kipling's poem, "The Destroyers;'' I thought that might help, and going back 'to the hotel, got the copy, and when the relief censor came on, presented him with this: r^o I byuracelV I Copyri^Kt by tittle, I T'HE MILLIONS wKos the story of "Tess of t were equally affected fc heroine as acted on the scre< charmed by this new tale of lived on Lake Cayuga, a few Polly herself, crude and uni and fine in spirit, is an ado thick and thin, tcmpestuoi is aroused by wrong or in to all weak and helpless ere The situations in "Storm emotional, skillfully portra j ?i i?>- ?L.. cuiu u1c icaucl d dyilipduiy never lapses from start to f ^ ii ii mi n 1111 hi iiiuiiii ii 11 ii mi ni i This DELIGHTFUL STOI US to RUN as a SERIAL DO NOT MISS the OPE . ?- w t interested in Kipling's poem Destroyers appearing in current issue of Life. Naval contingent assert technical ac- j curacy of last verse impossible to im- j prove upon." After reading that tribute to Kip-I 1ino?'u r\nom flic* nonori* oal/Arl ma if I had a cojjy of Life with r.ie. I told him I did not. Whereupon he summoned an orderly and told him to go to the hotel and get one. The last verse of the poem reads: The strength of twice three .thousand horse ' That serve the one command; The hand that, heaves the headlong force, The hate the backs the hand; The doon?-bolt in the darkness freed. The mine tlint apllts the main; The white hot wake, the 'wilder'.ng' speed? The Choosers of the Sla'nL As the crux of the situation was a magazine or mine, I very well knew that my office would at once hit upon that pregnant line. "The mine that splits the main" as containing tho message I was trying to get to them. The orderly returned with the copy of Life, the censor took it and turning to the laBt verse of the poem read down to those fateful linet "Vpry clever," he said, as he handed back tho despatch. Baffled In all efforts to pet the story through that night I went on board our despatch boat and set out for Key West as soon as the harbor rules permitted, and filed enough on ti e Key West wire that evening: to occupy a full page of the Herald, of the next day. I refer to this merely to bring in the sequel. On the day of my departure from Havana, another of the corespondents got an inkling of what I had hdard the preceding night. Having no despatoh boat he had to trust wholly to the cable. Knowing from experience how hard it was tc get anything past the censor, he wrote a purely descriptive story, the 'crowds on the Prado, the brilliant sunshine, sea breezes droning through the palm trees, the shimmering bay and buzzards roosting on the keel of the Maine. As all of it was extremely complimentary to the scenery and the climate, the censor let it go. But when it reached the New York office, the cable editor failed to catch the significance of the r? ' pi l]v : lillerWhite I Brown and Company | i 1=5 ie hearts were touched by :he Sto^m Country" or who >y the sweet, pathetic little :n by Mary Pickford, will be " the squatter folk who once miles outside of Ithaca, N.Y. aught, but beautiful in face rable heroine, loyal through is at times when her anger [justice, but tenderness itself atures. Country Polly" are tensely yed and adroitly handled, with Polly and her people inish. I llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 3.Y has been SELECTED by in THESE COLUMNS V NING INSTALLMENT ? I line "buzzards roosting on the keel of \ the Maine," and as the paper had no m room for flowery description, It was assumed that the Havana man'had be- * come over enthused with aguardiente, and th^3eipatch was spiked. 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