Leader’s own masthead printed on it.
The sheet Father handed to Brother Timberly was of that sort, with the same local
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stuff inside as had been in the Leader’s weekly edition dated Thursday, 21 April
1898, except that the upper half of page two had been reset in large type with one
short news story:
SPAIN DECLARES WAR!!!
By wire from the New York journal April Z4 Madrid – Today our Ambassador was
summoned to the office of the Premier and was handed his passport and a curt note
stating that the `crimes’ of the United States against His Most Catholic Majesty
have forced His Majesty’s government to recognise that a state of war exists between
the Kingdom of Spain and…
Reverend Timberly read that one news story aloud from the pulpit, put the paper
down, looked solemnly at us, took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow, then blew
his nose. He said hoarsely, `Let us pray.’
Father stood up, the rest of the congregation followed. Brother Timberly asked Lord
God Jehovah to lead us in this time of peril. He asked Divine guidance for President
McKinley. He asked the Lord’s help for all our brave men on land and sea who now
must fight for the preservation of this sacred, God-given land. He asked mercy for
the souls of those who would fall in battle, and consolation and help in drying the
tears of widows and orphans and of the fathers and mothers of our young heroes
destined to die in battle. He asked that right prevail for a speedy end to this
conflict. He asked for help for our friends and neighbours, the unfortunate people
of Cuba, oppressed for so long by the iron heel of the King of Spain. And more,
about twenty minutes of it.
Father had long since cured me of any belief in the Apostles’ Creed. In its place I
held a deep suspicion, planted by Professor Huxley and nurtured by Father, that no
such person as Jesus of Nazareth had ever lived.
As for Brother Timberly, I regarded him as two yards of noise, with his cracks
filled with unction. Like many preachers in the Bible Belt, he was a farm boy with
(I strongly suspected) a distaste for real work.
I did not and do not believe in a God up there in the sky listening to Brother
Timberly’s words.
Yet I found myself saying ‘Amen!’ to his every word, while tears streamed down my
cheeks.
At this point I must drag out my soap box.
In the twentieth century Gregorian, in the United States of America, something
called ‘revisionist history’ became popular among ‘intellectuals’. Revisionism
appears to have been based on the notion that the living actors present on the spot
never understood what they were doing or why, or how they were being manipulated,
being mere puppets in the hands of unseen evil forces.
This may be true. I don’t know.
But why are the people of the United States and their government always the villains
in the eyes of the Revisionists? Why can’t our enemies – such as the King of Spain,
and the Kaiser, and Hitler, and Geronimo, and Villa, and Sandino, and Mao Tse-Tung,
and Jefferson Davis – why can’t these each take a turn in the pillory? Why is it
always our turn?
I am well aware that the Revisionists maintain that William Randolph Hearst created
the Spanish-American War to increase the circulation of his newspapers. I know, too,
that various scholars and experts later asserted that the USS Maine, at dock in
Havana harbour, was blown up (with the loss of 226 American lives) by faceless
villains whose purpose was to make Spain look bad and thereby to prepare the
American people to accept a declaration of war against Spain.
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Now look carefully at what I said. I said that I know that these things are
asserted. I did not say that they are true.
It is unquestionably true that the United States, acting officially, was rude to the
Spanish government concerning Spain’s oppression of the Cuban people. It is also