war between Cuba and Spain, which broke out in 1898. In his 1901 book On the Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent, Creelman quoted Hearst as telling artist Frederic Remington "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." (Hearst's descendants adamantly deny this claim.) Creelman was an open advocate for Cuba in its war against Spain, and like many of his war correspondent peers he carried a sidearm. While covering the battle for El Caney, Creelman begged the U.S. general in command to allow him to join the charge on a blockhouse occupied by Spanish troops. Finally the general assented, and Creelman advanced on the fort along with U.S. troops. Seeing the Spanish flag lying on the ground, Creelman seized it, feeling that it was only fair that the Journal, which helped to start the war, should be the first to capture the Spanish flag at this important battle. Creelman waved the flag in front of some Spanish soldiers still entrenched nearby, who responded with a hail of gunfire, wounding Creelman in the arm and back. In the mold of most yellow journalists of his time, Creelman was as much an advocate as a reporter — in her book The Yellow Kids, author Joyce Milton describes Creelman as the self-described "conscience of the fourth estate," who "normally did as much talking as listening" during interviews, including once lecturing Pope Leo XIII on relations between Protestants and Catholics . Creelman, generally considered one of the premier reporters of his day, also had a bit of an ego — Hearst once said of Creelman: The beauty about Creelman is the fact that whatever you give him to do instantly becomes in his mind the most important assignment ever given any writer. ... He thinks that the very fact of the job being given him means that it's a task of surpassing importance, else it would not have been given to so great a man as he. On his way to the front to cover World War I, Creelman died suddenly in Berlin, of Bright's Disease. He was buried in Brooklyn, New York. Interview with Porfirio Díaz Creelman got the scoop of a lifetime when he interviewed Mexican President Porfirio Díaz for Pearson's Magazine in 1908. One scholar has described Creelman as "an obscure American journalist, who by some mysterious means, was chosen by Díaz to publish a