Dear Editor,

“Remember the Maine.” William Randolf Hearst started all this. His newspapers harangued the Spanish in Cuba, that old Bill McKinley had to avenge the act of “blowing up the Maine.” Thus began the United States’ first step onto the world stage.

So the 20th century may be called the “American Century.” Its major wars may be called the “War of the Roosevelts.” A book of long-forgotten cartoons of TR’s day, published in 1910, draws out the climate of the day quite nicely. The success of finishing the Panama Canal and the circumnavigation of the globe by the Great White Fleet, signaled to Europe – more specifically, the Kaiser – that a new world order was emerging. Get ready. They did, after over 60 million dead. Meanwhile, the Kaiser and TR died broken hearted and/or in obscurity. Quite nicely, FDR amended this schism on the heap of another war. The testament of success has been half a century so far.

96 years ago the Great White Fleet sailed out of Hampton Rhodes. What fleet sails forth today from American shores? May America’s “Big Stick” speak softly.

Pray humanity benefits from her recent experience. Let us “Remember the Maine” in a different way, Mr. Hearst.

Fred Stewart

Glenwood Springs