Puck to the Rescue

After the Spanish-American War the muse of History sits beneath a tree, entering the real heroes into her book: McKinley, Dewey, Sampson, Schley, Hobson, Miles, Shafter, Roosevelt, Wood. Off to the left, on a spit of ground marked "Barren Island," Puck has put up his own monuments, two statues of the newspaper barons Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, their pedestals plastered with yellow sheets crediting the press lords with winning the war. Barren Island was New York's dumping ground for dead animals and garbage, and the color yellow names the game. This is Puck's verdict on "yellow journalism" and its habit of claiming other men's victories: honor the soldiers, and cart the self-promoters off to the trash.