February 15 marks the 125th anniversary of the explosion and sinking of the USS Maine in the harbor of Havana in 1898. The sinking of the Maine caused the death of 268 men and led to the Spanish-American War, which brought us Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines—the dawn of American global power. That would be the gist of “What You Need to Know About the Sinking of the Maine.” 

The Maine has been on my mind lately, only partly for the light it throws on the proxy war in Ukraine. In the Navy archives, I recently found the last letter of Ordinary Seaman Frank Fisher, real name Tuszynski—my grandfather’s uncle. He was a German-speaking Pole, born on the lower Vistula, who came to Detroit at fifteen and enlisted at twenty-one. 

Posted from Key West on January 1, the letter has a period flavor: “I haven’t seen cold weather this winter, we are bathing here as the hottest weather just commencing. People here are as yellow as Italians because we have 100 grade heat.” Six weeks later he was one of the half-dozen men fished out of the water with burns over most of their bodies. He died after five days of unspeakable pain, with the sacraments of the Church; as ship’s chaplain, John Chidwick wrote to his family: “he was a good boy.” 

Reveille was bugled at 5:30 on a U.S. Navy ship in the 1890s. The seamen would lash their hammocks, gulp coffee, then set to work swabbing decks. They learned not to use the harbor water in Havana, as it stank up the ship. Survivors recalled the sound of accordions and mandolins the evening of the explosion, and men were playing cards. Only Captain Dwight Sigsbee and officers made shore visits in the twenty days the ship rode at anchor in the harbor. They attended a bullfight, choked on the city’s dust, and felt the locals' hostility. 

Washington had been driving up tension with Spain for years, and sending the Maine uninvited into Havana Harbor was part of that policy. For most in our government, there was little question but that the ship had been blown up by a Spanish mine. Yet Captain Sigsbee was scrupulous in sticking to facts, and he would not rush to judgment. President McKinley was similarly careful. By all accounts, Sigsbee and Chidwick were a credit to the U.S. Navy: level-headed, dutiful, and courageous the night of the tragedy and beyond. 

The naval court of inquiry soon concluded the Maine had been blown up by a device from outside the ship. Belief in this conclusion faded with time, and in the 1970s Admiral Hyman Rickover investigated and concluded the explosion was internal to the ship, as later did National Geographic. But in 1898 Spanish guilt seemed clear enough. How to right this terrible wrong? The demand was issued in April and peace terms dictated in December provided for the transfer of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam from Spain to the U.S.

This colonial expansion was at odds with the country’s republican tradition, a complete reversal of what Americans had stood for—or thought, or at least said they stood for until shortly before the start of the war. Expanding across the continent was one thing, but overseas colonies were for imperial majesties, kaisers, and other corrupt Europeans. As one might imagine, the process by which official Washington and newspaper editors used the Maine to turn the country around so quickly on a question so basic as republic or empire? was not distinguished by honesty, reflection, or judgment. 

Many things had to be passed over in silence. The Spanish government had no interest in blowing up the Maine, and understood instantly that war would follow and with it defeat and the end of its overseas empire. The rebels with whom the U.S. sympathized did have an interest in blowing up the Maine, and so did an ultra faction on the island. Nor was it newsworthy that a faction in our own government, led by Teddy Roosevelt, had been working toward war with Spain for years. 

The brutality of the Spanish army was made to order for the press campaign. It was intolerable, an affront to humanity, and the U.S. had a moral duty to put a stop to it. And in truth, the Spanish army’s fight to hold onto the island resulted in the death, in its last four years, of about 300,000 civilians.

At the time, in the yellow press and the Hearst papers, the Spanish government was cast as a bully. The only bully. “Bully for you,” T.R. liked to say, and though he put his own skin on the line at San Juan Hill, the policy he promoted was certainly bullying. The end result of the Spanish-American War was not Cuban democracy. And after the U.S. army landed in the Philippines, its fight to subdue the archipelago resulted in the death, in its first four years, of over 200,000 civilians. 

That was then, this is now. If we have a sepia-tinted affection or respect for many aspects of the America of the Maine, who knows what, from the point of view of the naked cynicism of today, we might soon enough feel for the nostrums of an older, more idealistic liberalism that has passed from the scene? 

At this point, there is hardly any need to show once again that before 2014, U.S. and European leaders understood very well that any attempt to make Ukraine an ally against Russia, within NATO or without, would likely lead to war with Russia. Or that they then proceeded, after 2014, to do exactly that. Thank you, Professor Mearsheimer. There is even less need to waste words on the role of the military-woke complex on our domestic information battlefield. Thank you, Glenn Greenwald. 

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The philosopher Josef Pieper is celebrated for his writing on the art of judging rightly, the citizenly and republican virtue of prudence. In the Christian and classical tradition, prudence is a process that begins in the perception of things as they truly are, of coming to awareness of reality. It moves on to considering what we know, weighing it, plumbing it, and taking counsel. Then it moves to judgment, decision, and action. 

Every stage of prudent judgment demands a real sacrifice of ego, which comes down to a will to perceive and consider things as they truly are rather than shaped or retouched to confirm our own interests, preferences, and preconceptions. It is the opposite of “we already know where we want to go here, it’s just as we expected, we don’t need to think about that or listen to them.” Prudence is a true bonum arduum—a prize won only with effort, and at bottom “interchangeable with conscience.” 

In his last years, Fyodor Dostoevsky reflected on the liberal ideals of his own youth. “Did we remain 'faithful'? ... Let everyone decide this for himself, by his own conscience.” Sad to say, but the great novelist was all in on the Russkiy Mir of his own day, which played a main role in driving millions of people out of East-Central Europe to the U.S., almost a dozen of whom, on my count, died on the Maine.