De Lôme Letter



The de Lôme letter, a note written by Señor Don Enrigue Dupuy de Lôme, the Spanish Ambassador to the United States, to Don José Canelejas, the Foreign Minister of Spain, reveals de Lôme’s opinion about the Spanish involvement in Cuba and President McKinley’s diplomacy. Cuban revolutionaries intercepted the letter from the mail and released it to the Hearst press, which published it on February 9, 1898, in the New York Journal, in an article with the titled "Worst Insult to the United States in its History." Much of the press in New York began to demand De Lôme's resignation, and Hearst's New York Journal began a "Go Home De Lôme" campaign. These campaigns did, ultimately, lead to De Lôme's resignation. De Lôme’s unflattering remarks about McKinley helped fuel this country’s aggressive, warlike foreign policy. Two months later, on April 11, 1898, McKinley delivered a war message to Congress asking for “forcible intervention” by the United States to establish peace in Cuba.