The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (11 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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Their harangues were in vain. The
Sun
was the best newspaper in America and its more traditional peers quietly adopted its successful features and practices even as they printed their denunciations. The younger generation of journalists embraced the
Sun
wholeheartedly. In fact, the paper had no greater admirer than Joseph Pulitzer, then a twenty-four-year-old reporter for the German-language press in St. Louis, Pulitzer wrote Dana a fan letter: “I read the
Sun
regularly. In my opinion it is the most piquant, entertaining, and, without exception, the best newspaper in the world.”
24
Sun
was the best newspaper in America and its more traditional peers quietly adopted its successful features and practices even as they printed their denunciations. The younger generation of journalists embraced the
Sun
wholeheartedly. In fact, the paper had no greater admirer than Joseph Pulitzer, then a twenty-four-year-old reporter for the German-language press in St. Louis, Pulitzer wrote Dana a fan letter: “I read the
Sun
regularly. In my opinion it is the most piquant, entertaining, and, without exception, the best newspaper in the world.”
24
YOUNG AS HE WAS, Pulitzer had already embarked on a spectacular career of his own. In the previous four years he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen, gained admittance to the Missouri bar, established himself as a promising political journalist, taken a seat in the Missouri state legislature, and been charged in a shooting.
The St. Louis press corps had never seen anything like Joseph Pulitzer. He was well over six feet tall and exceedingly thin. He had a crown of wavy dark hair, prominent ears, piercing eyes, a colossal nose, a jutting chin, and a bulging Adam’s apple. It was as though every feature of his face were struggling for distinction. He held himself erect and dressed with a shabby old-world elegance but underneath was a body that seemed to throw off more energy than its circuits could handle. His head jerked, his long bony fingers twitched, his chest wheezed and coughed, and he spoke in loud spasms with the guttural accent of his native Hungary. Even sitting still he seemed a buzzing, rattling hive of activity. Uncertain what to make of him, Pulitzer’s colleagues decided to mock him. His nose became a primary target—“Pull-it-sir,” they called him. Or Joey the German. Or Joey the Jew. Yet the young phenom was not without admirers. Henry Brokmeyer, nephew of Bismarck, translator of Hegel, and a towering figure in the St. Louis German community, was particularly impressed: “They think because he trundles about with himself a big cobnose . . . that he has no sense; but I tell you he possesses greater dialectical ability than all of them put together.”
25
25
Whereas Dana had left Harvard to join the Brook Farm idealists, Pulitzer had left his native Hungary looking for a fight. He was born April 10, 1847, the son of a prosperous Magyar Jewish grain dealer and an Austro-German mother who was also Jewish but a practicing Catholic. He was raised in comfortable homes in Makó and Budapest, and was educated in private schools with additional tutoring in French and German as well as Hungarian. He appears to have enjoyed a happy childhood until heart disease claimed his father. His mother remarried. Joseph, head-strong and excitable, took a dislike to his stepfather and could not wait to leave home. Drawn to the romance of battle, he applied to the British army in India and to the French Foreign Legion, as well as to the Austrian army, where he had family connections. Underage and underweight, with poor eyesight, he was rejected by all three. He finally found a Union army recruiter who received a bounty for every chump that could negotiate his gangway. Pulitzer arrived in Boston harbor in the summer of 1864. He jumped ship and made his way to New York, where he enlisted on his own rather than through his agent, thus pocketing his recruitment bonus.
Pulitzer spent less than a year with the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry. He hated every minute of his service. The regimentation and physical discomfort of army life wore on him, as did his comrades. They immediately spotted in the brainy, petulant young man an enormous capacity for indignation, and they amused themselves trying to fill it. Pulitzer obliged them with displays of rage, almost ruining his career at one point by striking a tormentor of higher rank. His fellow soldiers had discovered an important thing about Joseph Pulitzer: he could seldom keep his cool under attack.
On his discharge from the army, Pulitzer returned to New York. Unable to find work, he headed west to St. Louis, which promised a vibrant German community and plenty of work, and delivered generously on both. After a series of dead-end jobs—mule hostler, waiter, construction laborer—Pulitzer began running errands for several lawyers, one of whom allowed him access to legal texts so that he might read law. Pulitzer also fell in with a circle of German intellectuals who discussed radical democratic politics and played chess at the Mercantile Library. His unusually aggressive game brought him to the attention of Carl Schurz, a Bonneducated veteran of the German revolution and future U.S. senator. Schurz owned a piece of the
Westliche Post,
the most influential German newspaper west of New York. He offered Pulitzer a job as a reporter. “I, the unknown, the luckless, almost a boy of the streets, selected for such a responsibility—it all seemed like a dream,” Pulitzer would later write.
26
Westliche Post,
the most influential German newspaper west of New York. He offered Pulitzer a job as a reporter. “I, the unknown, the luckless, almost a boy of the streets, selected for such a responsibility—it all seemed like a dream,” Pulitzer would later write.
26
The dream only got better. Pulitzer poured himself into his new assignment, working sixteen-hour days and swiftly mastering the craft of reportage. He showed up everywhere, including an 1869 meeting of Missouri Republicans who were looking to fill a vacancy in the state legislature. Pulitzer emerged as their representative, never mind that he was three years under the age limit of twenty-five. To a man with more than a passing acquaintance with European autocracy, it was another proud moment. As one biographer has written, Pulitzer viewed American democracy not merely as another form of government: “It was something unique and precious, a huge stride in civilization, a hope for the oppressed not only in America but all over the world.”
27
Liberty
would one day be the name of Pulitzer’s grand yacht. The figure of Liberty would grace the nameplate of his most famous paper.
27
Liberty
would one day be the name of Pulitzer’s grand yacht. The figure of Liberty would grace the nameplate of his most famous paper.
The tireless Pulitzer had no trouble juggling his responsibilities in state government with reporting for the
Post.
He drew on both offices to campaign against fraud and malfeasance in the frontier world of Missouri politics. He was a brilliant crusader, with formidable analytic skills and a querulous disposition. His efforts weren’t appreciated in all corners of St. Louis, however. He walked one evening into Schmidt’s Hotel, where political types gathered, and came face to face with a local brute named Captain Augustine. The recent recipient of a public contract to build an asylum, Augustine believed that the
Westliche Post
’s reporting on his deal had impugned his honor. Before a roomful of startled legislators, he called Pulitzer a “damned liar.”
28
Post.
He drew on both offices to campaign against fraud and malfeasance in the frontier world of Missouri politics. He was a brilliant crusader, with formidable analytic skills and a querulous disposition. His efforts weren’t appreciated in all corners of St. Louis, however. He walked one evening into Schmidt’s Hotel, where political types gathered, and came face to face with a local brute named Captain Augustine. The recent recipient of a public contract to build an asylum, Augustine believed that the
Westliche Post
’s reporting on his deal had impugned his honor. Before a roomful of startled legislators, he called Pulitzer a “damned liar.”
28
Wilting under Augustine’s assault, Pulitzer skulked out of the hotel and returned a short time later with a concealed pistol. He found Augustine in a parlor and made a feeble attempt at saving face. He pulled the gun but managed only to graze his target. Augustine disarmed his shaky young assailant and after a vigorous show of displeasure left him on the floor in a bleeding, humiliated heap. Charged with breach of the peace, Pulitzer was subsequently required to pay a small fine.
That setback notwithstanding, Pulitzer advanced from lowly reporter to newspaper owner and editor in one dramatic leap thanks to the outcome of the 1872 election. The
Westliche Post
had enthusiastically backed the Liberal Republicans, led by
Tribune
editor Horace Greeley. And when the party crashed,
Post
shareholders ran for cover, offering Pulitzer a controlling interest in the paper on very reasonable terms, likely involving no cash. A few months later, when the dust settled and the paper was still standing, Pulitzer sold them back their shares at a tidy profit.
Westliche Post
had enthusiastically backed the Liberal Republicans, led by
Tribune
editor Horace Greeley. And when the party crashed,
Post
shareholders ran for cover, offering Pulitzer a controlling interest in the paper on very reasonable terms, likely involving no cash. A few months later, when the dust settled and the paper was still standing, Pulitzer sold them back their shares at a tidy profit.
Suddenly a man of means, he packed up, went back to Europe, and toured the continent, visiting family in Budapest and pampering himself on the Riviera. On his return to St. Louis, he rented a comfortable apartment and established himself as a gentleman of leisure. He read Plato and Aristotle in the original and attended the theater, where he befriended the Shakespearean actor John McCullough. He purchased a saddle horse and trotted daily about the suburbs. He also kept up his political interests, giving up on the Republicans and campaigning for the Democrat Samuel Tilden in 1876.
Already looking toward New York, Pulitzer tried without success to purchase the
Belletristische Journal,
a Manhattan-based German weekly. Late in 1876 he visited Charles Dana and tried to interest him in a German-language edition of the
Sun,
which Pulitzer would run. The
Sun
’s financial backers weren’t interested, but Dana seems to have taken a shine to the young man—certainly there was no inkling of the bloody-minded hatred they would soon share. Dana assigned his new friend to watch Congress wrestle with the disputed outcome of the 1876 election. Pulitzer believed, with justification, that the Republicans were stealing the presidency from Tilden. His outraged dispatches were featured prominently in the
Sun.
He also raised eyebrows with a speech at a pro-Tilden rally in the Capitol in which he called for 100,000 Democratic faithful to march in protest on Washington, “fully armed and ready for business.”
29
Belletristische Journal,
a Manhattan-based German weekly. Late in 1876 he visited Charles Dana and tried to interest him in a German-language edition of the
Sun,
which Pulitzer would run. The
Sun
’s financial backers weren’t interested, but Dana seems to have taken a shine to the young man—certainly there was no inkling of the bloody-minded hatred they would soon share. Dana assigned his new friend to watch Congress wrestle with the disputed outcome of the 1876 election. Pulitzer believed, with justification, that the Republicans were stealing the presidency from Tilden. His outraged dispatches were featured prominently in the
Sun.
He also raised eyebrows with a speech at a pro-Tilden rally in the Capitol in which he called for 100,000 Democratic faithful to march in protest on Washington, “fully armed and ready for business.”
29
That bit of lunacy seems only to have brought Pulitzer luck. On the same Washington trip he met the woman he would marry. Kate Davis was the beautiful and well-connected daughter of a Washington judge, and a distant relative of Jefferson Davis, last president of the Confederacy. The wedding was held June 19, 1878, at Washington’s Episcopal Church of the Epiphany. After the ceremony, the groom told the bride that his friend McCullough, the actor, would be tagging along on their honeymoon, a foreshadowing of odd living arrangements to come. He also informed Kate’s family of his previously unmentioned Jewish heritage. The union survived both revelations.
Before the year was out, the
Saint Louis Dispatch,
a bankrupt evening paper, came up for auction and Pulitzer snagged it for $2,500. The publisher of his principal evening competitor, the
St. Louis Post,
knowing Pulitzer by reputation, wasted no time in proposing a merger. A deal was struck and the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
was born. Pulitzer’s days of leisure were over. He began to remake his paper in a manner then popular with editors in Cincinatti, Chicago, and Kansas City, among other western cities: he was infused with a near-desperate commitment to engage readers through lively human-interest stories, aggressive newsgathering, public-spirited crusades, and progressive politics. He dominated every aspect of the paper’s operations, buying out his partner at the end of their first year. He began acquiring first-rate journalistic talent, notably John A. “Colonel” Cockerill, a former drummer boy and bugler in the Civil War and the man who had helped John McLean make a success of the Cincinnati
Enquirer.
The
Post-Dispatch
’s numbers began to skyrocket, rising to 9,000 in under two years and earning $45,000 annually. As with the
Westliche Post,
however, Pulitzer’s hard-hitting style got him into trouble.
Saint Louis Dispatch,
a bankrupt evening paper, came up for auction and Pulitzer snagged it for $2,500. The publisher of his principal evening competitor, the
St. Louis Post,
knowing Pulitzer by reputation, wasted no time in proposing a merger. A deal was struck and the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
was born. Pulitzer’s days of leisure were over. He began to remake his paper in a manner then popular with editors in Cincinatti, Chicago, and Kansas City, among other western cities: he was infused with a near-desperate commitment to engage readers through lively human-interest stories, aggressive newsgathering, public-spirited crusades, and progressive politics. He dominated every aspect of the paper’s operations, buying out his partner at the end of their first year. He began acquiring first-rate journalistic talent, notably John A. “Colonel” Cockerill, a former drummer boy and bugler in the Civil War and the man who had helped John McLean make a success of the Cincinnati
Enquirer.
The
Post-Dispatch
’s numbers began to skyrocket, rising to 9,000 in under two years and earning $45,000 annually. As with the
Westliche Post,
however, Pulitzer’s hard-hitting style got him into trouble.
William Hyde, editor of the
Missouri Republican,
the self-appointed voice of the state’s Democrats (notwithstanding his paper’s name), took exception to the
Post-Dispatch
’s presuming to speak for the interests of his party. One day, without warning, he walked up to Pulitzer and knocked him down in the street. More seriously, Cockerill received a visit in his office from the intimidating figure of Colonel Alonzo W. Slayback. A politically connected lawyer, Slayback was calling to defend a partner who had received handsome fees from both sides in a municipal gas-franchise dispute. The
Post-Dispatch
had attacked the partner in print, repeatedly and mercilessly, and when Slayback denounced the paper at a public meeting, he came in for his own share of abuse in its pages. He now barged into Cockerill’s office intending to slap him silly. Cockerill, apparently anticipating the confrontation, had his loaded gun lying near at hand. On seeing the weapon, Slayback pulled his own, but before he could get a round off, the editor shot him dead. Cockerill pleaded self-defense and was never prosecuted, but his deed offended respectable opinion in town and competing papers could not write enough about the killer in the
Post-Dispatch’
s editorial suite. Pulitzer stood by his man but, brittle as ever under attack, he became a nervous wreck. A chronic cough interrupted his sleep. His weight plummeted and he endured excruciating headaches. His doctor warned of a possible collapse and advised an extended vacation. At Kate’s insistence, the Pulitzers booked passage to Europe for the spring of 1883.
Missouri Republican,
the self-appointed voice of the state’s Democrats (notwithstanding his paper’s name), took exception to the
Post-Dispatch
’s presuming to speak for the interests of his party. One day, without warning, he walked up to Pulitzer and knocked him down in the street. More seriously, Cockerill received a visit in his office from the intimidating figure of Colonel Alonzo W. Slayback. A politically connected lawyer, Slayback was calling to defend a partner who had received handsome fees from both sides in a municipal gas-franchise dispute. The
Post-Dispatch
had attacked the partner in print, repeatedly and mercilessly, and when Slayback denounced the paper at a public meeting, he came in for his own share of abuse in its pages. He now barged into Cockerill’s office intending to slap him silly. Cockerill, apparently anticipating the confrontation, had his loaded gun lying near at hand. On seeing the weapon, Slayback pulled his own, but before he could get a round off, the editor shot him dead. Cockerill pleaded self-defense and was never prosecuted, but his deed offended respectable opinion in town and competing papers could not write enough about the killer in the
Post-Dispatch’
s editorial suite. Pulitzer stood by his man but, brittle as ever under attack, he became a nervous wreck. A chronic cough interrupted his sleep. His weight plummeted and he endured excruciating headaches. His doctor warned of a possible collapse and advised an extended vacation. At Kate’s insistence, the Pulitzers booked passage to Europe for the spring of 1883.
They never got on the ship. Nor did they get much rest. While passing through New York, Pulitzer discovered that the
World,
a morning paper, was for the taking. He was convinced that this was his moment and Kate Pulitzer was sure of it, too. She noticed that her husband’s physical complaints had all but vanished the moment he had caught scent of the
World.
(It does not diminish his suffering to note that there was often a psychological dimension to Pulitzer’s ailments. Throughout his career, he would display an amazing ability to will himself up from physical or nervous prostration to perform impressive feats of industry.)
World,
a morning paper, was for the taking. He was convinced that this was his moment and Kate Pulitzer was sure of it, too. She noticed that her husband’s physical complaints had all but vanished the moment he had caught scent of the
World.
(It does not diminish his suffering to note that there was often a psychological dimension to Pulitzer’s ailments. Throughout his career, he would display an amazing ability to will himself up from physical or nervous prostration to perform impressive feats of industry.)
The
World
was owned by the infamous Jay Gould, whom readers of Pulitzer’s
Post-Dispatch
knew as “one of the most sinister figures that ever flitted bat-like across the vision of the American people.” Another man might have let such invective get in the way of a business deal, but Gould was accustomed to far worse. A fellow financier rated him the “worst man on earth since the beginning of the Christian era.”
30
A slender, neat, black-bearded tycoon with polite manners and a soft voice, Gould was not the corporate monster he is often made out to be, but it is fair to say his first-class commercial mind was light on scruple.
31
Gould claimed to have acquired the
World
inadvertently, as an incidental to a larger deal, when in fact, he had made a serious attempt to salvage the paper, granting it a new building and buying it Hoe presses. He was patient with its losses but he liked to use it to promote his own stocks, and the paper had no credibility. Its circulation slumped. By the time Pulitzer came along, it was selling 11,000 copies a day and losing $40,000 a year.
World
was owned by the infamous Jay Gould, whom readers of Pulitzer’s
Post-Dispatch
knew as “one of the most sinister figures that ever flitted bat-like across the vision of the American people.” Another man might have let such invective get in the way of a business deal, but Gould was accustomed to far worse. A fellow financier rated him the “worst man on earth since the beginning of the Christian era.”
30
A slender, neat, black-bearded tycoon with polite manners and a soft voice, Gould was not the corporate monster he is often made out to be, but it is fair to say his first-class commercial mind was light on scruple.
31
Gould claimed to have acquired the
World
inadvertently, as an incidental to a larger deal, when in fact, he had made a serious attempt to salvage the paper, granting it a new building and buying it Hoe presses. He was patient with its losses but he liked to use it to promote his own stocks, and the paper had no credibility. Its circulation slumped. By the time Pulitzer came along, it was selling 11,000 copies a day and losing $40,000 a year.
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