Hey look! The historical reason why the prices changed! You all get a history lesson! Here we go! Enjoy! :)

Today the headline is going to give them astronomical selling.

A war.

All the newsies breath in deep long sighs of relief. A really good headline.

Everyone buys 100 papes that day. Anyone who can afford it buys even more than a hundred papes.

Race has never seen something like this in his life. Ever.

April 21, 1898, the first day of the Spanish-American War, every single newsie sells every single pape they bought. No one is eating paper tonight (nor will they eat paper from April to August).

Race saves one. Of course he does. This is intriguing.

Of course, they need to understand what's going on if they're going to sell the headline.

April 21, 1898: the day the Spanish-American War started.

So far, what they know is that tensions have been high between America and Spain for some time over the territories in the Caribbean. Then yesterday, April 20th, a joint Congressional resolution was signed demanding the Spanish to withdraw their colonial rule of Cuba and authorized the President to use military force to help Cuba gain its independence from Spain. Now, today, April 21th, both sides declared War. So far, neither have allies.

Race can't wait to dump a bunch of info about the war onto any poor unsuspecting soul. If he's cute enough or suave enough, or both, he can probably get away with it.

He can't wait.

"Can't believe people are still eating this up," Blink comments a week in.

"Except now we ain't the ones eating the news!" Mush adds.

"I know! We're finally getting by more than okay," Jack says.

Except, the next day, the prices go up.

It used to be fifty cents per hundred papes.

Now it's sixty cents per hundred papes.

They're paying a tenth of a cent more for their papes than before. It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up quickly.

Some aren't exactly happy about that. Way more than some.

"Why'd the prices go up?" Race asks.

"Well, it's simple. The people who own the newspapers want to make more money than they already are," Jack explains. "Ya see, circulation has gone up and up and up since the War began, because there is new news constantly. It's a power move for them. Don't worry. The prices are gonna go back down, I know they will."

And so, everyone has to accept that, buy their papes, and continue on with their day, still managing to sell all one hundred of the papes they collect. More, even, if they took more.

As the war goes on, the interest the people have stays the same.

And the newsies still need to have some idea what's going on, to be able to sell these papers.

So to their understanding, this is how it goes.

The war is being fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific.

In the Pacific, on May 1st, the first battle between Spain and America began in Manila Bay in the Philippines, where Commodore Dewey's Squadron defeated the Spanish naval force that was defending the Philippines.

On June 10th, in the Caribbean, U.S. troops land at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and brought additional forces to the nearby harbor city of Santiago on June 22nd and June 24nd. On July 3rd, the U.S. Navy completely defeats the Spanish Caribbean squadron in its attempted escape from the Navy.

July 26th, a French ambassador on behalf of the Spanish government came to the McKinley Administration to discuss peace-terms.

Finally, August 12th of 1898, the war is over after a cease-fire is called and peace-terms were settled. By August 13th, they are war-free.

Of course, there were many, many more details involved.

But all people need to get hooked is a headline and the occasional little tidbit of information.

Race can honestly say that this is the most exciting thing he has ever read or has ever had to sell.

He keeps an edition from each day. 

He has a big collection of newspapers. Ever since he became a newsie at age 8. He has hundreds of papers. And now he has one from every day from April 21st to August 13th of 1898.

On August 15th, he goes to see Spot, grinning. No way is he ever going to forget that birthday.

Race has a strange memory. There are sometimes where he can remember in very great detail things that happened years ago. He'll remember birthdays. Or he'll remember it was Sunday, September 1st, 1895, when the earthquake struck. Yet, there are other times where he'll forget what he got from the Sisters that morning. 

Today, Spot sees Race right away. He smiles. "Hey, Race."

Race grins back. "Hi, Spot! I was just comin' to wish ya a happy birthday!"

"Why, thank you!"

"How's it going after the war ended for all of you?"

"Good, good," Spot replies. "People are still in a buzz over the war. Since the writers are smart, they've been coming up with headlines still involving the war. When they're done? We'se just gonna have to say that there's still some news."

"Yeah, that's how it goes, doesn't it?"

"Yep. How's it in Manhattan?"

"Same as here, I'd suspect." Then Race smirks. "Not that I sell that much in Manhattan anyway."

They both chuckle a little at that, both all too used to Race's gambling habits.

They continue to make conversation. Some about the war, some about their boroughs, and a little bit of everything else. It's nice.

The next week, the price of papers goes back to where it was; fifty cents for a hundred papes.

The newsies rejoice.

"Whew! Good thing we weren't gonna have to deal with that forever," Blink grins.

"Headlines ain't gonna be so good anymore after the war," Crutchy agrees.

And so, they continue on with their selling.

They won't ever truly know when they'll get a good headline. Some days, headlines are good. Others, not so much. Either way, they'll figure out a way to sell it, and keep getting by.

At least their papers are back to fifty cents a hundred. They don't know what they would have done if it stayed at sixty cents.

I love foreshadowing. :)

I got all the info on the Spanish American War from wikipedia (I know, I know) and history.state.gov (not a link). I thought you all might wanna know more about that. Because the prices did go up in 1898, because The World wanted more money from the extra circulation. But I changed something. After the war, the prices didn't go back down. Then, a year later in July the newsies of Long Island did something radical, instantly drawing Manhattan and Brooklyn's attention, and so the strike began. Not entirely historically accurate by having the prices put back to where they were, I know, but it needs to be fifty cents per hundred for my strike, and I wanted a tad bit more historical accuracy than the movie and the musical being like oh, I wanna make more money randomly and acting like the prices have never been raised before.

Wait, what did you think of the badly put together history lesson?

Spot shares a birthday with one of my family members. That just happened randomly. I wanted his birthday to be thirteen days after the strike ends, since Gabriel Damon's birthday is thirteen days after 92sies came out. And since I could make his birthday whenever I want, this happened. I just like things to be a certain way like this.

Remember that Bryan Denton talked about writing about the war in Cuba. They did acknowledge that the war happened.

I literally do so much research on wars in and out of school, but it all goes over my head about why and who and where. I'm like "uh huh. But what actually happened?" Yeah, I hate wars. I found someone to sum up disinterest in a subject while having ADHD: "when we have to focus on something we don't want to, it's like trying to nail jell-o to a wall. And I'm not joking." That is so accurate.

Speaking of ADHD, can you catch of Race's ADHD tendencies in there? Or previous chapters? Or that he likes to info-dump?

Okay so funny story. I'm trying to read Moby Dick (that's a long story (not just the story itself haha I meant why I'm reading it) and there is a part where I found a word and I read it wrong, but it looked like nowsie. So I thought about how Newsies fans will add -sie(s) to a lot of things. I mean, we call ourselves fansies. And it's 92sies and Livesies. And so much more. So I was like, NOWsies? That sounds like newsies but...now. So then I wanted every modern au to now be referred to as Nowsies.

Then I reread the sentence and found out that the word was nowise. Makes more sense.

But can we now refer to modern au's of Newsies as Nowsies? Please? 

Please, no homophobia, profanities, hate etc in the comment section at all times.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (who left their computer to specifically go downstairs and watch the digital clock say that it was 12:34:56 pm--another story on its own)