The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (19 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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That any of this made for a sharper paper is doubtful, but it did combine with Pulitzer’s encouragement of staff informants to institutionalize at the
World
his own suspicious, querulous nature and his admittedly “brusque, harsh, or even unjust” treatment of staff. “What are called ‘office politics,’” remembered the journalist Charles Edward Russell, “were in a state of highly irrational ferment.”
8
Another described the city room as a “witch’s brew of suspicion, jealousy, and hatred—a maelstrom of office politics that drove at least two editors to drink, one to suicide, a fourth to insanity, and another to banking.”
9
World
his own suspicious, querulous nature and his admittedly “brusque, harsh, or even unjust” treatment of staff. “What are called ‘office politics,’” remembered the journalist Charles Edward Russell, “were in a state of highly irrational ferment.”
8
Another described the city room as a “witch’s brew of suspicion, jealousy, and hatred—a maelstrom of office politics that drove at least two editors to drink, one to suicide, a fourth to insanity, and another to banking.”
9
And yet Pulitzer still had his pick of the best editorial and commercial talent in the business. It wasn’t until Hearst arrived and offered a dignified alternative to life under the Dome that Pulitzer’s style began to have consequences. He lost his three best managers—three of the most talented and dedicated executives in the annals of American newspapering—within two years of the start of the war with Hearst. In all three cases, Pulitzer initiated the damage by losing confidence in his men, demoting or quarreling with them, and making them miserable enough to quit. He effectively drove his best people into Hearst’s warm and lucrative embrace, crippling the
World,
sinking its morale, and handing its primary competitor the management capacity to expand and i mprove.
World,
sinking its morale, and handing its primary competitor the management capacity to expand and i mprove.
MORRILL GODDARD WAS THIRTY YEARS OLD at the beginning of 1896, a small, pale, sickly-looking man, but already a legend on Park Row. Born in Maine and educated at Dartmouth, he had arrived in New York fresh from school and determined to work at a great newspaper. The best any city editor would offer him was the occasional freelance assignment. For a long winter, Goddard eked out a living on piecework. His luck began to turn, however, when he befriended “Peg Leg” Fogarty, chief attendant of the city morgue. Fogarty tipped the young hack to news of prominent and untimely visitors to his shop and Goddard began churning out scoop after scoop, leading to full-time employment at the
World.
There was a similarly ghoulish touch to the most notorious coup of Goddard’s reporting career. On the occasion of President Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral procession through New York, Goddard donned a black suit, a black tie, and his most somber expression and quietly climbed into the first carriage to take a seat beside the widow and her police escort, both of whom assumed he was the undertaker’s assistant. Goddard covered the entire procession practically from Mrs. Grant’s lap.
10
World.
There was a similarly ghoulish touch to the most notorious coup of Goddard’s reporting career. On the occasion of President Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral procession through New York, Goddard donned a black suit, a black tie, and his most somber expression and quietly climbed into the first carriage to take a seat beside the widow and her police escort, both of whom assumed he was the undertaker’s assistant. Goddard covered the entire procession practically from Mrs. Grant’s lap.
10
In 1894, serving as the
World
’s city editor, Goddard led the paper’s successful campaign to elect William L. Strong as mayor of New York. Pulitzer was impressed. He offered Goddard a managing editor’s role. Goddard replied that he was content to remain in the city room. “If you have no more confidence in yourself than that,” spat Pulitzer, “I will not give you the post.” But Goddard’s stubbornness seems only to have raised him in the eyes of his employer. After a short interval, Pulitzer made him another offer: managing editor of the Sunday
World.
This time he bit.
11
World
’s city editor, Goddard led the paper’s successful campaign to elect William L. Strong as mayor of New York. Pulitzer was impressed. He offered Goddard a managing editor’s role. Goddard replied that he was content to remain in the city room. “If you have no more confidence in yourself than that,” spat Pulitzer, “I will not give you the post.” But Goddard’s stubbornness seems only to have raised him in the eyes of his employer. After a short interval, Pulitzer made him another offer: managing editor of the Sunday
World.
This time he bit.
11
The attraction of the Sunday
World
was plain: it was the bestselling edition of any paper in America. Pulitzer had practically invented Sunday journalism. When he started in New York, the vast majority of dailies ran six days a week, but as New Yorkers adopted a more casual approach to the Sabbath and department stores took to advertising on Sundays on the assumption that people had more time to read, a seventh day of publication began to make sense. Pulitzer made the most of the opening, adding a four-page Sunday supplement to his regular run of news, priced it at three cents, and he was soon selling 90,000 copies a week. By the time Goddard took the helm, circulation was up to 250,000 at five cents apiece.
12
High circulation together with an abundance of advertising made the Sunday
World
the single most lucrative issue of any paper anywhere. Most weeks it weighed in at forty-eight pages. Even with an advertising-to-editorial ratio approaching 50 percent, there was a lot of space for editors to fill. In keeping with the more leisurely pace of the day, Pulitzer loaded up on human-interest features, illustrated journalism, travelogues, science and technology stories, sermons, reviews, and society news. This was Goddard’s element: he had a gift for feature journalism. It took him only a few months to prove that Pulitzer had yet to scratch the surface of the potential market for a Sunday paper.
World
was plain: it was the bestselling edition of any paper in America. Pulitzer had practically invented Sunday journalism. When he started in New York, the vast majority of dailies ran six days a week, but as New Yorkers adopted a more casual approach to the Sabbath and department stores took to advertising on Sundays on the assumption that people had more time to read, a seventh day of publication began to make sense. Pulitzer made the most of the opening, adding a four-page Sunday supplement to his regular run of news, priced it at three cents, and he was soon selling 90,000 copies a week. By the time Goddard took the helm, circulation was up to 250,000 at five cents apiece.
12
High circulation together with an abundance of advertising made the Sunday
World
the single most lucrative issue of any paper anywhere. Most weeks it weighed in at forty-eight pages. Even with an advertising-to-editorial ratio approaching 50 percent, there was a lot of space for editors to fill. In keeping with the more leisurely pace of the day, Pulitzer loaded up on human-interest features, illustrated journalism, travelogues, science and technology stories, sermons, reviews, and society news. This was Goddard’s element: he had a gift for feature journalism. It took him only a few months to prove that Pulitzer had yet to scratch the surface of the potential market for a Sunday paper.
Goddard’s Sunday editions gave great value for five cents. “American journalism,” wrote an English observer, “has reached its highest development in the Sunday newspaper. There is no parallel to it in England or in any other country. It is at once a newspaper and a literary miscellany, a society journal and household magazine.”
13
New York churchmen and newspaper traditionalists considered Goddard’s work an abomination: among other complaints, he is accused of relying on stories of dime museum freaks, “the three-horned steer, five-legged calf, cross-eyed cow, two-headed girl.”
14
Their views were upheld by American journalism historians through most of the last century, but lately some of the original enthusiasm for his journalism has been rekindled. “Even at a distance of one hundred years,” writes Hearst biographer David Nasaw, “there is something extraordinarily exhilarating about reading through a turn-of-the-century Sunday newspaper. Like continuous vaudeville in the 1890s, amusement parks in the 1900s, and the movie palaces of the 1920s, the Sundays were intentionally oversized, overstocked, and overwhelming.”
15
13
New York churchmen and newspaper traditionalists considered Goddard’s work an abomination: among other complaints, he is accused of relying on stories of dime museum freaks, “the three-horned steer, five-legged calf, cross-eyed cow, two-headed girl.”
14
Their views were upheld by American journalism historians through most of the last century, but lately some of the original enthusiasm for his journalism has been rekindled. “Even at a distance of one hundred years,” writes Hearst biographer David Nasaw, “there is something extraordinarily exhilarating about reading through a turn-of-the-century Sunday newspaper. Like continuous vaudeville in the 1890s, amusement parks in the 1900s, and the movie palaces of the 1920s, the Sundays were intentionally oversized, overstocked, and overwhelming.”
15
Pulitzer knew he had a rocket in Goddard, and he liked him well enough to double his salary for individual weeks in which the Sunday edition posted strong sales. Circulation was hovering around 500,000 per issue at the end of 1895, by which time the Sunday edition was accounting for almost half of Pulitzer’s weekly profits.
16
Inevitably, not everyone in the dysfunctional
World
office was pleased with Goddard’s success, and the boss was soon in possession of memos accusing the Sunday editor of damaging the newspaper’s reputation with his outlandish features and journalistic stunts. Goddard was summoned to Paris to explain himself. He found Pulitzer sitting in an armchair in his darkened hotel room, wearing a robe and slippers. Goddard glanced at the familiar gray-black whiskers and fully expected the full force of the great man’s wrath to blast from beneath them. Instead, Pulitzer climbed out of his chair and grabbed Goddard’s hands in warm welcome. “I’m so glad you found it possible to accept my invitation,” he cooed. “I have just received reports by cable of our Sunday circulation. It’s going up, up, up! Most encouraging!” They spent a week together and Goddard returned home with a pair of Grecian urns and a bonus check. His days at the
World
were nonetheless numbered.
17
16
Inevitably, not everyone in the dysfunctional
World
office was pleased with Goddard’s success, and the boss was soon in possession of memos accusing the Sunday editor of damaging the newspaper’s reputation with his outlandish features and journalistic stunts. Goddard was summoned to Paris to explain himself. He found Pulitzer sitting in an armchair in his darkened hotel room, wearing a robe and slippers. Goddard glanced at the familiar gray-black whiskers and fully expected the full force of the great man’s wrath to blast from beneath them. Instead, Pulitzer climbed out of his chair and grabbed Goddard’s hands in warm welcome. “I’m so glad you found it possible to accept my invitation,” he cooed. “I have just received reports by cable of our Sunday circulation. It’s going up, up, up! Most encouraging!” They spent a week together and Goddard returned home with a pair of Grecian urns and a bonus check. His days at the
World
were nonetheless numbered.
17
LEGEND HAS IT that Hearst’s interest in Morrill Goddard was whetted by the Sally Johnson story. Goddard was in the practice of presenting fashionable cartwheel hats to actresses and models in return for society news tips. One day an artist’s model dropped by the
World
and in exchange for such a hat gave Goddard the address of another model, named Sally Johnson, who had a story to tell from her previous evening’s work. Goddard hustled out and knocked on Miss Johnson’s door just as the sixteen-year-old beauty was rising from bed. In return for a hat of her own, the girl recounted her performance at a stag dinner in the 16th Street studio apartment of the bachelor and noted artist James L. Breese. At the height of the evening, waiters carried in an enormous papier-mâché pie and set it in the center of the long dining table. Miss Johnson burst from the crust and began dancing up and down the table. She was covered, the
World
noted, “only by the ceiling.”
World
and in exchange for such a hat gave Goddard the address of another model, named Sally Johnson, who had a story to tell from her previous evening’s work. Goddard hustled out and knocked on Miss Johnson’s door just as the sixteen-year-old beauty was rising from bed. In return for a hat of her own, the girl recounted her performance at a stag dinner in the 16th Street studio apartment of the bachelor and noted artist James L. Breese. At the height of the evening, waiters carried in an enormous papier-mâché pie and set it in the center of the long dining table. Miss Johnson burst from the crust and began dancing up and down the table. She was covered, the
World
noted, “only by the ceiling.”
According to another of his biographers, John K. Winkler, Hearst read the Sally Johnson tale late on the Saturday night of its publication and immediately sent his card to request a meeting with Goddard. They sat down the following Monday at noon in Hearst’s suite at the Hoffman House. Goddard told Winkler that the butler produced “a bottle of vintage wine and a silver dish of kidneys sauté and eggs” while Hearst discussed his thoughts on newspapering and his ambition to produce a new Sunday magazine insert. He offered Goddard its editorship at double his
World
salary.
World
salary.
“Your proposition is tremendously interesting, Mr. Hearst, if you can carry out your plans,” replied Goddard. “But some of the shrewdest men on the
World
claim that you can’t possibly last longer than three months more in this town.”
World
claim that you can’t possibly last longer than three months more in this town.”
Hearst smiled a soft, inscrutable smile and pulled from his vest pocket a crumpled Wells, Fargo & Co. draft in the amount of $35,000. He instructed Goddard to take whatever he required as an advance on salary. “That ought to convince you that I intend to remain in New York quite some time,” he said. A deal was struck, with Goddard insisting on bringing his complete staff from the Sunday
World.
18
World.
18
The accuracy of Winkler’s story is difficult to gauge. His account of the Hoffman House conversation appears to have come from Goddard himself. The Sally Johnson article, however, ran in the October 13, 1895
World
, months after the Breese party, and months before Goddard informed the
World
of his intentions near the end of January 1896. It is far more likely that Hearst was impressed by the overall performance of the Sunday
World,
and not by a single story. What is certain is that Goddard did leave, taking with him every writer, editor, and artist on staff—eleven men in total, abandoning only Emma Jane Hogg, the office secretary. Pulitzer was traveling when he was notified of the defections. He dispatched the loyal Carvalho to reel Goddard back into the fold. According to his
World
colleague Don Seitz, Carvalho offered the right inducements and the Sunday staff returned for a day to the Dome but Hearst sweetened his offer and closed the deal for good. Meanwhile, as W.A. Swanberg has quipped, the
World
was left to wonder “who would help Miss Hogg get out next Sunday’s paper.”
19
World
, months after the Breese party, and months before Goddard informed the
World
of his intentions near the end of January 1896. It is far more likely that Hearst was impressed by the overall performance of the Sunday
World,
and not by a single story. What is certain is that Goddard did leave, taking with him every writer, editor, and artist on staff—eleven men in total, abandoning only Emma Jane Hogg, the office secretary. Pulitzer was traveling when he was notified of the defections. He dispatched the loyal Carvalho to reel Goddard back into the fold. According to his
World
colleague Don Seitz, Carvalho offered the right inducements and the Sunday staff returned for a day to the Dome but Hearst sweetened his offer and closed the deal for good. Meanwhile, as W.A. Swanberg has quipped, the
World
was left to wonder “who would help Miss Hogg get out next Sunday’s paper.”
19
All of the Hearst and Pulitzer biographies have Goddard moving for cash, but Seitz testifies that Pulitzer was prepared to compete on compensation. Goddard would have been the best-paid man on Park Row whichever way he turned (and given the enormous profits associated with a winning Sunday edition, he was probably worth it). So why did he leave? Why desert the mother of all Sunday editions for an upstart with as yet modest circulation and questionable staying power? The best explanation comes from the other party to the Hoffman House conversation. In an unpublished interview with a journalist many years afterward, Hearst offered his version of events:“My earliest recollection—my earliest contact with [Goddard] was when he was on the
World.
. . . Mr. Pulitzer liked him very much and valued him, not as highly as he deserved, but nevertheless he appreciated him, and Mr. Goddard left the
World
and came into our service. The average person would say that we took Mr. Goddard from the
World
; as a matter of fact we didn’t. He had a quarrel with Mr. Pulitzer who left him. Of course, we were very glad to get him.”
20
World.
. . . Mr. Pulitzer liked him very much and valued him, not as highly as he deserved, but nevertheless he appreciated him, and Mr. Goddard left the
World
and came into our service. The average person would say that we took Mr. Goddard from the
World
; as a matter of fact we didn’t. He had a quarrel with Mr. Pulitzer who left him. Of course, we were very glad to get him.”
20
Hearst did not comment on the nature or the timing of the quarrel between Pulitzer and Goddard. He may have been referring to the incident several months earlier when Goddard had gone trembling to Paris only to be saved by a sudden uptick in sales. In any case, it had to be clear to Goddard that Pulitzer’s favor was a fickle thing, that he was only as good as last week’s numbers, and that his jealous colleagues would work diligently to undermine him. Life under the Dome was precarious, Grecian urns or no. Hearst’s long-term prospects may have been in doubt, but he was already believed to be at 150,000 in weekday circulation, just slightly behind the
World
’s 185,000. He was growing at a faster rate than Pulitzer had managed on his own arrival in New York. Park Row had never seen anything like it, and if he was serious about enhancing his Sunday edition, Goddard’s job at the Sunday
World
was only going to get more difficult. Add to this the opportunity Hearst was giving Goddard to build a Sunday franchise almost from scratch—whatever Goddard achieved at the
World
was always going to be credited to Pulitzer—and the young editor had several good reasons apart from money to cross the street.
World
’s 185,000. He was growing at a faster rate than Pulitzer had managed on his own arrival in New York. Park Row had never seen anything like it, and if he was serious about enhancing his Sunday edition, Goddard’s job at the Sunday
World
was only going to get more difficult. Add to this the opportunity Hearst was giving Goddard to build a Sunday franchise almost from scratch—whatever Goddard achieved at the
World
was always going to be credited to Pulitzer—and the young editor had several good reasons apart from money to cross the street.
The importance of Goddard’s move can not be overstated. Hearst had hired away the foundations of a Sunday franchise that produced roughly half a million in annual profits. In one bold move he had radically expanded his paper’s circulation and revenue potential, and he had done it entirely at the expense of his primary competitor. In the bargain he picked up one of the best art departments in newspapers—this in the midst of a revolution in illustrated journalism sparked by new printing technologies and an insatiable public demand, which Pulitzer had been among the first to recognize.
Pulitzer now panicked. He rushed to the city from his home in Lakewood, New Jersey, for an all-night meeting with Carvalho and business manager John Norris. Worrying that Hearst’s circulation was weeks from surpassing their own, they discussed options for answering his challenge and quickly focused on the question of price reductions. Norris wanted a 50 percent cut: make the
World
available for a penny, he argued, and it would begin selling a million copies almost overnight. Advertisers would flock to the paper and Hearst would be left in their dust. Pulitzer was reluctant. At least at two cents, he covered the costs of producing a single copy of his newspaper. It wasn’t unreasonable to think that the
World
could sell a lot more papers if priced at a penny, and it wasn’t wrong to assume that higher circulation would invite more advertising, but he would need a huge boost in advertising to cover the high costs of producing many more papers for sale at one cent. And if circulation did not jump in response to the price cut, he would get no increase in advertising and he would be left to fight new and determined competition on 50 percent less circulation revenue.
World
available for a penny, he argued, and it would begin selling a million copies almost overnight. Advertisers would flock to the paper and Hearst would be left in their dust. Pulitzer was reluctant. At least at two cents, he covered the costs of producing a single copy of his newspaper. It wasn’t unreasonable to think that the
World
could sell a lot more papers if priced at a penny, and it wasn’t wrong to assume that higher circulation would invite more advertising, but he would need a huge boost in advertising to cover the high costs of producing many more papers for sale at one cent. And if circulation did not jump in response to the price cut, he would get no increase in advertising and he would be left to fight new and determined competition on 50 percent less circulation revenue.
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