William Randolph Hearst was a newspaper magnate of fantastic extravagance. He abandoned his plan to rescue Alfred Dreyfus from Devil’s Island in order to devote complete attention to the Spanish-American War, which he started almost singlehandedly. Although his circulation boomed during the War, he took huge losses, in part due to the expense of printing “Extras.” The New York Journal printed up to 40 separate extra editions on some days.