The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (36 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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Not to be outdone, the
World
’s indefatigable James Creelman also followed Bryan to the wire but slipped away long enough for a last interview with McKinley in Canton. His mission was to finally break the candidate’s silence on the issue of corporate trusts, a source of great frustration to the
World.
Creelman’s article matched Hawthorne’s both for its effusive praise of the candidate (McKinley is described as “a god of speech”) and for the intimacy of access he was granted:
World
’s indefatigable James Creelman also followed Bryan to the wire but slipped away long enough for a last interview with McKinley in Canton. His mission was to finally break the candidate’s silence on the issue of corporate trusts, a source of great frustration to the
World.
Creelman’s article matched Hawthorne’s both for its effusive praise of the candidate (McKinley is described as “a god of speech”) and for the intimacy of access he was granted:
[McKinley ’s] voice rang out over the heads of the surging thousands with the tone of a bugle in it. His eyes flashed and his face was radiant with the pride of conscious power. But when I saw him Sunday he was dumb, and in the morning he sat in church with bowed head while the minister drawled, “Not all who say Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”In the afternoon I watched him as he stood in his little study with his back to the hearth, pleasant blaze in the grate. The snow whirled down from the dull heavens and swept against the window panes.All around the house, the ground trampled smooth by hundreds of thousands of feet, was matted with yellow and crimson leaves fallen from the half bare branches. There was a hush to the place.The ruddy glow of the fire was on Mr. McKinley’s back, and the cold hard light of the winter day was on his face. It was a handsome face, strong, masculine, and refined. The large hazel eyes seemed to be in wait under the great bushy eyebrows. There was a suggestion of ambush in them, as when one looks in the shadowed surfaces of deep pools.Mr. McKinley thrust his hands in his pockets in a boyish way and snuggled backward towards the comfortable fire. He looked fresher than he did before the nomination. He is stouter and stronger. Presently he lit a cigar and spread his hands out before the dancing flames, rubbing them briskly and glancing out at the soft white mist that drizzled through the tree-tops.Not a word did he have to say about trusts—not one.
64
On the morning of November 3, 1896, Hearst presented to
Journal
readers his plans for announcing election results in New York that evening. A system of colored electric lights attached to a “monster balloon” tethered high above the city would flash news of the outcome to greater New York and New Jersey. The lights would flash red for a Bryan victory, green for McKinley. He also offered state-by-state results projected on huge bulletin boards on Park Row, as well as stereopticon and kinetoscope exhibitions, musical bands, and other entertainment.
65
Journal
readers his plans for announcing election results in New York that evening. A system of colored electric lights attached to a “monster balloon” tethered high above the city would flash news of the outcome to greater New York and New Jersey. The lights would flash red for a Bryan victory, green for McKinley. He also offered state-by-state results projected on huge bulletin boards on Park Row, as well as stereopticon and kinetoscope exhibitions, musical bands, and other entertainment.
65
Pulitzer likewise announced plans to transform his own building and several others around New York into huge screens on which to project results. His elaborate system of multicolored signals and searchlights—the “greatest electrical display ever produced”—would announce by a series of codes, published in the
World,
the presidential result and the Senate, House, and swing-state outcomes as well.
66
World,
the presidential result and the Senate, House, and swing-state outcomes as well.
66
Almost 14 million Americans voted that day, or 79 percent of those eligible, a record that still stands. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers began pouring into Park Row and Madison Square Garden even before dusk. They brought tin horns and noisemakers and raised a rumpus as each state reported. When the
Journal
declared McKinley elected, the Seventh Regiment Band broke into “The Star Spangled Banner.” Amid the throng was Richard Harding Davis, who described the scene in a letter to his brother:
Journal
declared McKinley elected, the Seventh Regiment Band broke into “The Star Spangled Banner.” Amid the throng was Richard Harding Davis, who described the scene in a letter to his brother:
On the election night every newspaper had from four to seven places for showing bulletins instead of one as formerly. . . . [T]hey all had cinematographs showing life-sized figures in motion and McKinley walking in his garden. . . . [B]rass bands played in front of all the newspaper uptown offices and clubs—the
Journal
had a map of the United States with the silver and gold states picked out in white or tallow electric lights & the number of the electoral vote of each. It stretched from Broadway to 5th Avenue. It was the most remarkable sight ever witnessed in New York. All of the “plain people” apparently went down town to learn the returns. . . . [E]veryone was laughing and shrieking and waving flags and yellow ribbons. It was exactly like the football crowd on Thanksgiving Day and it packed the streets so that the cable cars could not move.
67
The margin of victory was comfortable: 7,111,607 to 6,509,052 for McKinley in the popular vote (or 51 percent to 47 percent), and a decisive 271 to 176 in the electoral college. McKinley and Hanna had run a mistake-free campaign, persuading a majority of voters that they were the safe bet for stability, commercial progress, and high wages. McKinley took not only the urban and industrialized Northeast but the prosperous farm country of the Midwest and several western states as well. Bryan could not break out of the stricken agricultural regions of the West and South.
As New Yorkers celebrated in the streets, Hearst and his editors put together a front page with a statesmanlike illustration of the Republican president-elect under the headline “McKinley Carries the Country.”
68
Pulitzer’s
World
adjudged its own performance more significant than McKinley’s. It designed a front page with a huge cartoon of Liberty leaning from her pedestal to shine the light of publicity on a vanquished, serpentine Silver Trust. On the pedestal were scrolls quoting Pulitzer’s warnings to the Democrats that adoption of the free-silver heresy would be suicide.
69
The
Tribune,
a sore winner, remixed its previous editorials for one last broadside at Bryan and the Democrats: “There are some movements so base, some causes so depraved, that neither victory can justify them nor defeat entitle them to commiseration. . . .”
70
68
Pulitzer’s
World
adjudged its own performance more significant than McKinley’s. It designed a front page with a huge cartoon of Liberty leaning from her pedestal to shine the light of publicity on a vanquished, serpentine Silver Trust. On the pedestal were scrolls quoting Pulitzer’s warnings to the Democrats that adoption of the free-silver heresy would be suicide.
69
The
Tribune,
a sore winner, remixed its previous editorials for one last broadside at Bryan and the Democrats: “There are some movements so base, some causes so depraved, that neither victory can justify them nor defeat entitle them to commiseration. . . .”
70
Hearst’s morning-after editorial acknowledged “the high privilege of the citizens of this Republic to decide for themselves what is good for them.” It added that while the
Journal
“regrets the decision,” believing that bimetallism would be better for the country than monometallism and that trusts and syndicates require checking rather than encouraging, “the duty of all good citizens now is to acquiesce loyally and quickly in Major McKinley’s election, forget the rancors and excitements of politics as soon as possible—parting with no convictions, but remembering that there is a time for all things—and settle down to business. The country needs a rest.”
71
Journal
“regrets the decision,” believing that bimetallism would be better for the country than monometallism and that trusts and syndicates require checking rather than encouraging, “the duty of all good citizens now is to acquiesce loyally and quickly in Major McKinley’s election, forget the rancors and excitements of politics as soon as possible—parting with no convictions, but remembering that there is a time for all things—and settle down to business. The country needs a rest.”
71
Hearst, too, needed a rest. Hot haste and hard work had been his daily routine for more than a year now. He was just a few days from his official first anniversary as the acknowledged proprietor of the
Journal.
He had given the paper every ounce of his care and concentration and prodigious energy from the start. Weary but proud, he telegraphed his mother from the newsroom before leaving on election night:
Journal.
He had given the paper every ounce of his care and concentration and prodigious energy from the start. Weary but proud, he telegraphed his mother from the newsroom before leaving on election night:
Am going home to sleep a little for a change. Will be up in the morning. Too bad about Bryan but don’t worry about Journal. The orders for tomorrow are nearly nine hundred thousand. I don’t know how we can print them. Hope you are well. I’m tired out but all right otherwise.
72
By the time Hearst awoke, he was well on his way to a record sale. His presses had started running within minutes of the declaration for McKinley, and they ran virtually nonstop for twenty-four hours. The
Journal
printed and distributed, exclusive of giveaways, 956,921 copies of its morning paper, 437,491 copies of the
Evening Journal,
and 112,312 copies of its German edition. Election extras were rushed by chartered express trains to Washington, Buffalo, and Boston. With more than 1.5 million copies sold in a single day, Hearst boasted of an achievement “not only unparalleled in the history of the world, but hitherto undreamed of in the realm of modern journalism.”
73
Journal
printed and distributed, exclusive of giveaways, 956,921 copies of its morning paper, 437,491 copies of the
Evening Journal,
and 112,312 copies of its German edition. Election extras were rushed by chartered express trains to Washington, Buffalo, and Boston. With more than 1.5 million copies sold in a single day, Hearst boasted of an achievement “not only unparalleled in the history of the world, but hitherto undreamed of in the realm of modern journalism.”
73
Pulitzer, meanwhile, had booked passage for Europe on the liner
Columbia.
His careful advance parties had somehow failed to note the presence of a brass band on the ship. It played nonstop, and no pleading or inducement would make it quit. When Pulitzer finally arrived, irritated and exhausted, in Monte Carlo, the constant chiming of the ships’ bells in the harbor drove him to distraction. He took out his frustration on his secretaries, who scrambled to find him a quieter refuge. They finally located an isolated country villa in Cap Martin, near the Italian border, where he would rest and regroup in the company of the empress of Austria.
Columbia.
His careful advance parties had somehow failed to note the presence of a brass band on the ship. It played nonstop, and no pleading or inducement would make it quit. When Pulitzer finally arrived, irritated and exhausted, in Monte Carlo, the constant chiming of the ships’ bells in the harbor drove him to distraction. He took out his frustration on his secretaries, who scrambled to find him a quieter refuge. They finally located an isolated country villa in Cap Martin, near the Italian border, where he would rest and regroup in the company of the empress of Austria.
A few days after the election, Assistant Secretary Perkins of the Republican National Committee walked into his boss’s office and said, “Mr. Hanna, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Homer Davenport.” Mutual acquaintances had insisted upon a meeting of the caricaturist and his prized subject. By the
Journal
’s account, Hanna put on a semi-serious face and extended his hand. “So you are the scamp, are you, that ’s been doing it? Well, ain’t you ashamed of yourself?” The men had a good laugh and admired one another’s genius while messenger boys and party operatives crowded into the office to watch and listen. Even Murat Halstead and Vice President Hobart dropped by to witness the occasion. Davenport described his efforts to observe Hanna and the techniques he’d employed in his portrayals. Hanna answered that some of the cartoons were “pretty tough” but allowed that he had “many a good laugh” over them. “Just don’t let Mrs. Hanna get her hands on you,” he added.
74
Journal
’s account, Hanna put on a semi-serious face and extended his hand. “So you are the scamp, are you, that ’s been doing it? Well, ain’t you ashamed of yourself?” The men had a good laugh and admired one another’s genius while messenger boys and party operatives crowded into the office to watch and listen. Even Murat Halstead and Vice President Hobart dropped by to witness the occasion. Davenport described his efforts to observe Hanna and the techniques he’d employed in his portrayals. Hanna answered that some of the cartoons were “pretty tough” but allowed that he had “many a good laugh” over them. “Just don’t let Mrs. Hanna get her hands on you,” he added.
74
Mark Hanna emerged from the election a hero to Republicans, and he is credited today with ushering in a new era of well-funded, tightly scripted political campaigning. The diplomat and author John Hay, a former secretary to Abraham Lincoln, saluted Hanna’s “glorious” performance and called him a “born general in politics.”
75
McKinley did offer Hanna a seat in cabinet and also sought his advice on senior appointments to the administration. Hanna landed his associates in plum jobs but refused a cabinet role, citing the press as a factor in his decision: “All the newspapers would have cartoons of me selling the White House kitchen stove.”
76
Hanna had something better in mind for himself: a seat in the U.S. Senate would bring him prestige and influence and allow him to establish an independent power base that could outlast the McKinley regime. In particular, Hanna asked the president-elect for the seat filled by Ohio senator John Sherman. McKinley obliged him, creating the vacancy by taking the infirm and fast-deteriorating Sherman, aged seventy-four, as his secretary of state. After his inauguration, McKinley kept Hanna at arm’s length, and he was in every way the master of his administration.
75
McKinley did offer Hanna a seat in cabinet and also sought his advice on senior appointments to the administration. Hanna landed his associates in plum jobs but refused a cabinet role, citing the press as a factor in his decision: “All the newspapers would have cartoons of me selling the White House kitchen stove.”
76
Hanna had something better in mind for himself: a seat in the U.S. Senate would bring him prestige and influence and allow him to establish an independent power base that could outlast the McKinley regime. In particular, Hanna asked the president-elect for the seat filled by Ohio senator John Sherman. McKinley obliged him, creating the vacancy by taking the infirm and fast-deteriorating Sherman, aged seventy-four, as his secretary of state. After his inauguration, McKinley kept Hanna at arm’s length, and he was in every way the master of his administration.
As for the great currency debate, monetary historians, led by Milton Friedman, now tend to believe that stubborn insistence on the gold standard through the deflationary years of 1879 to 1896 was “a mistake that had highly adverse consequences” for the economy and the American people.
77
In any event, the currency soon sorted itself out. After the election, vast production of South African and Klondike gold accomplished much the same increase in the money supply that Bryanites had sought through free coinage of silver. Prices picked up after McKinley’s victory and rose an average of 2 percent a year until the start of the Great War, taking heat off farmers and small producers.
78
The reality is that both Democrats and Republicans overestimated the potential consequences of the other’s monetary policies. Moreover, as the historian Stanley L. Jones writes, the Democrats were no wiser to believe that free coinage of silver would answer all their problems than the Republicans were to consider protective tariffs a panacea. On the deeper struggle for control of the government and the economy between the industrialized lending states of the East and the more agrarian debtor states of the West and South, the outcome is mixed. Over the next several decades, almost every plank in the Democratic platform would be accepted as policy by the national government, but the Republicans would dominate the White House for most of that time.
79
77
In any event, the currency soon sorted itself out. After the election, vast production of South African and Klondike gold accomplished much the same increase in the money supply that Bryanites had sought through free coinage of silver. Prices picked up after McKinley’s victory and rose an average of 2 percent a year until the start of the Great War, taking heat off farmers and small producers.
78
The reality is that both Democrats and Republicans overestimated the potential consequences of the other’s monetary policies. Moreover, as the historian Stanley L. Jones writes, the Democrats were no wiser to believe that free coinage of silver would answer all their problems than the Republicans were to consider protective tariffs a panacea. On the deeper struggle for control of the government and the economy between the industrialized lending states of the East and the more agrarian debtor states of the West and South, the outcome is mixed. Over the next several decades, almost every plank in the Democratic platform would be accepted as policy by the national government, but the Republicans would dominate the White House for most of that time.
79
CHAPTER EIGHT
Four Sensations and the Morals Police
W
ill Hearst might have backed a loser in ’96, but the trade press had no doubts as to which New York newspaper emerged from the campaign a winner. The
Journal
had covered the race “in splendid style,” earning a reputation for courage, cleverness, and accuracy, said
The Fourth Estate,
which cited the enormous circulation of Hearst’s election edition as evidence that people relied on the paper even in its hour of political defeat.
1
The young man from San Francisco, it continued, was the talk of the newspaper community: “[The
Journal
’s] accomplishments have been truly remarkable. . . . which even rivals must acknowledge, though they have a habit of paying tribute in the form of sneers.”
2
ill Hearst might have backed a loser in ’96, but the trade press had no doubts as to which New York newspaper emerged from the campaign a winner. The
Journal
had covered the race “in splendid style,” earning a reputation for courage, cleverness, and accuracy, said
The Fourth Estate,
which cited the enormous circulation of Hearst’s election edition as evidence that people relied on the paper even in its hour of political defeat.
1
The young man from San Francisco, it continued, was the talk of the newspaper community: “[The
Journal
’s] accomplishments have been truly remarkable. . . . which even rivals must acknowledge, though they have a habit of paying tribute in the form of sneers.”
2
The sneers were many and heartfelt. The
Journal
’s success was causing havoc up and down Park Row as Hearst’s competitors struggled to keep up. Pulitzer wasn’t the only one reeling: expenses were leaping and profits shrinking all along the street. After the panic of ’93, publishers had been looking forward to another era of fat and easy returns but instead they were being forced, as
The Fourth Estate
joked, to put their “rheumatic limbs to unaccustomed exercise.”
3
Journal
’s success was causing havoc up and down Park Row as Hearst’s competitors struggled to keep up. Pulitzer wasn’t the only one reeling: expenses were leaping and profits shrinking all along the street. After the panic of ’93, publishers had been looking forward to another era of fat and easy returns but instead they were being forced, as
The Fourth Estate
joked, to put their “rheumatic limbs to unaccustomed exercise.”
3
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