Ralph D Paine, 2 page ALS, Indicted Three Friends Incident smuggling into Cu-ba

Description

Ralph D Paine, 2 page ALS datelined "Dunham N.H. Feb. 10, 1913" and reads,
"Dear Lindsay Swift:
The books will be returned this week and I am most grateful for the chance to see them. If not too much trouble, I shall be interested to see Grover Flint's book as it contains about what I want.
I met him once in New York and he gave me letters of introduction to Gomez when I was headed for the jungle. How funny(?) that he was a friend of yours! I admired him tremendously. I should like to hear you talk about him.
It has been months and months since I saw Boston. In winter it is hard to ??? home as I am doing my own chores, milking & so on, and enjoy playing the ??? man. Even if he did get stranded with the ??? Rogues & hope it doesn't mean the end of our pleasant confabulations?
Very sincerely yours,
Ralph D. Paine"
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Ralph D. Paine
(1871-1925)
While his father was pastor of the Ocean Street Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville Florida. Robert Delahaye Paine (1871-1925) worked as a reporter for twelve dollars a week. He also frequented a soda fountain in a cigar shop owned by Cuban revolutionary Jose Alehandro Huau.
Paine attended Yale University, where he was on the football and rowing teams and a member of Skull and Bones. At Yale, he covered athletic news for a news syndicate. He graduated in 1894.
Paine's connection to Huau came to the attention of newspaperman William Randolph Hearst when American newspapers were publishing frenzied coverage of the Cuban War of Independece. Hearst’s New York Journal had held a contest to determine the "world's greatest living soldier", and Cuban revolutionary military commander Máximo Gómez won. Hearst needed someone to deliver the prize -- a gold-plated and diamond-encrusted sword inscribed "Viva Cuba Libre" and "To Máximo Gómez, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Republic of Cuba". He offered Paine the task. Paine replied "I am the damn fool you have been looking for.”
Huau got Paine and another reporter, Ernest McCready, on a boat, the
Three Friends
under Captain "Dynamite" Johnny O'Brien that was also smuggling munitions and soldiers to the island. The
Three Friends
got into a skirmish with a Spanish gunboat and, in the only naval battle of the war, inexplicably triumphed. However, since the US was not participating in the war, O'Brien, fearing legal entanglements and seizure of his vessel, fled and left passengers and cargo on No Name Key. After filing his story in Key West, Paine managed to get on board the
Dauntless
, which came to retrieve the cargo under the supervision of General Emilio Nunez, He let Paine and McCready on board, but Núñez, annoyed by a delay they had caused, refused to let them off at Corrientes Bay and returned them to Jacksonville. Upon his return, he discovered that he was among those indicted for piracy in the
Three Friends
incident. Paine went into hiding for a month. However, one of the co-owners of the boat was powerful sheriff and future Governor of Florida Napoleon Broward. Thanks to his influence, no witnesses could identify any participants in the affair and the case was dropped. Paine gave the sword to José Huau, who had it delivered to Gómez's wife. Paine returned to his job at the
Philadelphia Press
.
The Spanish American War soon broke out, and Paine was aboard the flagship USS New York when it bombarded Matanzas. Paine was also among a group of reporters on board the
Gussie
, an officially sponsored supply vessel whose captain's extremely poor choice of landing spots resulted in two failed attempts to deliver cargo to Cuban rebels.
In 1900, he covered the Boxer Rebellion and was with forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance in
Tientsin
and Peking. In 1902, he joined the
New York Herald
and ran a successful campaign against the beef trust. He then became managing editor of the
New York Telegraph.
In 1903, he left journalism and became a prolific writer of history and fiction.
In 1903, he married Katharine Lansing Morse, and they had three sons. In 1908, he moved to Shankhassick Farm in Durham New Hampshire (where he wrote this letter). From 1918 to 1920 he represented Durham in the New Hampshire State House of Representatives and from 1919 to 1921 served on the New Hampshire Board of Education.
During World War I, he worked for the Committee on Public Information and the United States Department of the Navy, observing and writing about Allied naval forces. He was also a commissioner of the United States Fuel Administration in 1918.
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