The Myth of 'I'll Furnish the War'

Had it occurred, the legendary but unlikely exchange of telegrams between William Randolph Hearst and the artist Frederic Remington–in which Hearst supposedly vowed to “furnish the war” with Spain–would have taken place 114 years ago this weekend.

The uncertainty as to exactly when the purported exchange occurred is one of many signals the tale is apocryphal, a media-driven myth.

As I discuss in my latest book, Getting It Wrong, the Remington-Hearst anecdote is “perhaps the hardiest myth in American journalism.”