Pulitzer

by James McGrath Morris

  CHAPTER 4: POLITICS AND JOURNALISM

  Politics and journalism: Johnson, “Birthday Anniversary Dinner,” 4/10/1907, PDA.

  The keystone of: Foner, Reconstruction, 41–42; Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 191; Primm, Lion of the Valley, 261–268.

  Schurz placed the: Memorial service for Schurz, 10/10/1906, JP-CU.

  Pulitzer not only: Johnson, “Birthday Anniversary Dinner” 4/10/1907, PDA; WP, 8/10/1868, 3; Saalberg, “The Westliche Post,” 196.

  A New Englander of: NYH, 4/29/1872; NYT, 7/21/1900, 7.

  His maneuver gave: Trefousse, Schurz, 173.

  Preetorius and Pulitzer: WP, 1/13/1869 (weekly edition), 3.

  Schurz’s election altered: Schurz to Preetorius, 3/12/1869, Intimate Letters, 473.

  The vacuum at: Charles E. Weller letter, 7/28/1919, PDA. Weller, who was one of the first people in St. Louis to own a typewriter, is sometimes wrongly credited with having composed the phrase “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party,” known to anyone who has taken a typing course.

  Pulitzer even took: William Fayel remembrance, reprinted in DCS-JP, 60–61.

  It wasn’t long: Charles E. Weller letter, 7/28/1919; and A. S. Walsh to JPII, June 1913, PDA.

  Reporters poked fun: Fayel in DCS-JP, 60–61.

  For good reason: Johnson, “Birthday Anniversary Dinner,” 4/10/1907, PDA.

  Although Johnson admired: Anthony Ittner to JPII, 6/11/1913, PDA.

  In the summer: Hyde and Conrad, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, Vol. 2 (New York: Southern History, 1899), 1097; PD, 4/21/1879, 4.

  From the pages: WP, 7/21/1869, 3.

  Under this withering: WP, 7/23/1869, 3.

  In battling the: Theodore Welge to JPII, 6/6/1913. PDA.

  In October 1869: Saalberg, “The Westliche Post,” 200.

  Despite the interminable: Weller letter, 7/28/1919, PDA; unknown author to JPII, 6/11/1913, PDA.

  At night, Pulitzer: Kargau, The German Element, 53–54.

  Joseph’s brother Albert: Albert’s name appears in a list of German teachers in the 14th Annual Report of the Public School Board of St. Louis (St. Louis, MO: Plate, Olshausen, 1868), lxiii; APM, 41–42, 48–49, 59–60.

  In November 1869: The election call was made on November 10, 1869: Writ of Elections, Gov. McClurg, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, MO. The Missouri Republican supported John Daily; the St. Louis Times pushed it own editor, Stilson Hutchins, for the nomination: MoDe, 12/14/1869, 2.

  The Republicans held: Eichhorst, “Representative and Reporter: Joseph Pulitzer as a Missouri State Representative,” 20; WP, 12/14/1869, 3.

  The next morning: WP, 12/14/1869, 3; MoDe, 12/15/1869, 4.

  The wishful thinking: MoRe, 12/19 and 12/21/1869, 2; Constitution of the State of Missouri, 1865, Art. IV, Sec. 3. The Democrat picked up Pulitzer’s charge; the Republican and the Times defended their candidate and accused Pulitzer of failing to pay taxes, one of the requirements for being a candidate. But in the end, the difficulty in fielding a candidate, lingering questions about the latest candidate’s eligibility, and squabbling between the Republican and the Times left the Democratic Party ill-prepared for the election. MoRe, 12/21/1869, 2; MoDe, 12/20/1869, 3; StLoTi, 12/21/1869, 1.

  With three days: Original in Oaths of Loyalty 1869, Series XIV, Sub Series B, Dexter Tiffany Collection. MHS; WP, 12/18/1869, 3. According to Jason Baker, who assisted the author in translating German documents, “At no point in the letter does he claim to be anyone other than Pulitzer, but referring to himself in the third person allows the reader to think so. He never perjures himself, but there is a certain level of deception at play.” Further, Baker said, the rhetorical devices and phrases as well as a trademark comical note leave little doubt that the letter is the work of Pulitzer.

  Not a day: WP, 12/19 and 12/20/1869, 3.

  On election day: The election results were published in all the newspapers, as well as the weather conditions. Turnout was estimated by using election results from other years.

  “We doubt that”: WP, 12/22/1869, 3.

  CHAPTER 5: POLITICS AND GUNPOWDER

  Shortly after New Year’s Day: PD, 2/15/1870, 2. Advertisements announcing that Missouri Pacific and other railroads were honoring passes for legislators traveling to Jefferson City for the legislative session were published in newspapers. For a reference to this practice see PD, 2/8/1870, 2; and Eichhorst, “Representative and Reporter,” 31. The state paid $50 for a round trip from St. Louis. Copies of Pulitzer’s per diem forms are on file in the MSA, General Assembly Records for 1870 Adjournment Session, Record Group 550, Box 94, folder 28, Jefferson City, MO.

  The state capital: A measure to move the capital to St. Louis was introduced on January 18, 1870. NYT, 1/20/1870: 1. Pulitzer, who was still imbued with the ideals of the “St. Louis movement,” offered a bill to set aside land in St. Louis for the national capitol: Twenty-Fifth General Assembly House Journal, Adjournment Session, 1870, 72. (Hereafter cited as House Journal.)

  Bringing with them: Anthony Ittner to JPII, 6/11/1913, PDA; Kremer, Heartland History, 69; Bruns, Hold Dear, as Always, 14–15.

  On January 5: House Journal, 4. Pulitzer was assigned to the Committee on Banks and Corporations.

  In Jefferson City: ChTr, 1/15/1870, 4; House Journal, 49.

  Pulitzer’s fellow Radical Republicans: Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 170; Tusa, “Power, Priorities, and Political Insurgency,” 133. A Democrat and former state official writing to a friend in the summer of 1869 asked, “What the devil is this generally abnormal condition of things, politically, to result in? My opinion is it can’t stand at what it is.” (B. F. Massey to J. F. Snyder, July 15, 1869, quoted in Barclay, The Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 183.)

  Suffrage was the: The legislature had ratified the Fifteenth Amendment during its prior session but had failed to include in its vote the second portion of the amendment; accordingly, the secretary of state had not issued a formal notification to the federal government. Its passage in this session was a foregone conclusion: ChTr, 1/7/1870, 1 and 1/10/1870, 4. See also Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri; and Tusa “Power, Priorities, and Political Insurgency,” 133.

  The state’s constitution: Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 186–187.

  From the start: Walter Gruelle in StLoDi, 1/6/1870, 2.

  On a Sunday: MoRe, 1/26/1869, 2; WP, 1/26/1869, 3.

  The new week: Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 3/8/1870, 2.

  In Pulitzer’s eyes: WP, January 25, 1870, 3.

  Among the arriving: Kargau, German Element, 139; One Hundred Years in Medicine and Surgery in Missouri (St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Star, 1900), 79–80; PD, 4/21/1879, 4; MoDe, 4/24/1869; StLoTi, 2/28/1870, 1; Ittner to JPII 6/13/1913, PDA.

  Before boarding the: Theodore Welge to JPII, 6/6/1913, PDA.

  The city-county: MoRe, 11/26/1869; William N. Cassella Jr., “City-County Separation: The ‘Great Divorce’ of 1876,” Missouri Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 15, No. 2 (January 1959), 88.

  Specifically, Pulitzer’s bill: Saalberg, “The Westliche Post,” 197–198; WP, 9/24/1869. A summary of Pulitzer’s bill appeared in MoRe, 3/11/1870, 2. See also Thomas Eichhorst, “Representative and Reporter,” 49. The critics weren’t entirely wrong. It was a common practice for politicians to steer both official advertising and printing business to papers that favored them.

  Although Pulitzer’s bill: MoDe, 1/27/1870, 1; WP, 1/30/1870, 3.

  The next morning: WP, 2/28/1870, 3. Pulitzer also described the passage in the Missouri House of the Richland County project, a kind of redistricting scheme to create a new county. “The land wildcatters, lobbyists, and other gentlemen interested in the project held a banquet that same evening to celebrate the House’s passage of the bill, in Schmidt’s new hotel, at which almost all legislators who voted for the project were in attendance, and the champagne, whiskey, and so forth flowed in streams until late i
n the evening, or better, early in the morning. It is being said that the passage of the bill ‘cost’ $35,000.”

  That evening the: The description of the events in Schmidt’s Hotel on January 27, 1870, is drawn from the following newspapers: StLoTi, MoDe, MoRe, and PD, published on 1/28/1870. Other sources are noted separately. See also WP, 1/30/1870, 3; MoDe, 1/31/1870, 3.

  Back at the boardinghouse: Ittner to JPII, 6/11/1913, PDA.

  “I want to”: There is little doubt Augustine used the word. Judge Cady, who was standing by his side, said Augustine called Pulitzer a “pup.”

  Ittner, who was: Ittner to JPII, 6/11/1913, PDA; St. Louis Times, 1/28/1870, 1.

  By the time: MoRe, 1/29/1870, 2.

  Seizing the moment: MoRe, 1/28/1870; House Journal, 305–306; StLoT, 1/28/1870, 1. The papers often ran verbatim accounts of the speeches but did not put quotation marks around the words and sometimes changed first person to third person. The quotations from this debate were compared with those appearing in several newspapers.

  The House probe: MoDe, 1/29/1870, 1 and 2/2/1870, 1; Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 1/30/1870, 2; ChTr, 1/29/1870, 4.

  The clamor impelled: WP, 1/30/1870, 3.

  He called Augustine: Late in life, Pulitzer pulled back his hair to show what he claimed were the scars from Augustine’s brass knuckles.

  The Cole County grand jury: State of Missouri v. Joseph Pulitzer, No. 1182 P.H., No. 16, Circuit Court of Cole County, MO, MSA. Pulitzer’s arrest was also noted in newspapers such as the Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 2/19/1870, 2; MoDe, 1/21/1870, 1 and 2/4/1870, 2.

  This was not: MoRe, 2/11/1870, 1; House Journal, 431–432.

  Pulitzer’s choice of: Since 1864, German language instruction for all students had been part of the public school curriculum, and it would remain so until 1887, when the German faction lost control of the school board: MoDe, 3/1/1870, 1; Eichhorst, “Representative and Reporter,” 59; Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 3/2/1870, 2.

  Pulitzer immediately moved: MoDe, 3/11/1870, 1; House Journal, 821. The debate created a problem for Pulitzer the reporter. While arguing over the fate of the accused legislator, the House adopted a resolution prohibiting members of the press from publishing any part of the plan until it granted permission. Since the measure was adopted on a voice vote, the view of the future press lord on freedom of the press was not recorded.

  The legislative session: MoRe, 2/25/1870, 2; House Journal, 577.

  On March 10: MoRe, 3/11/1870, 2. Seven of the eleven representatives at the meeting were opposed to the measure.

  The plan almost worked: MoDe, 3/17 and 3/18/1870.

  As the first: Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 3/15/1870, 2; St. LoDi, 3/15/1870, 2.

  CHAPTER 6: LEFT BEHIND

  Pulitzer’s tenure as an elected state representative is an important component of the “making” of Pulitzer the newspaper publisher. Remarkably even his two most scrupulous biographers did not explore why his tenure in the Missouri general assembly ended. Swanberg closed his chapter on the episode with the phrase “on March 24 his lone term in the legislature ended” (19). Reynolds wrote, “Thus his experience as a state legislator ended, an experience to which he often looked back with satisfaction” (23). Maybe my own experience as a journalist made me skeptical that Pulitzer would simply walk away from a prized elective office. A quick look at Missouri newspapers that fall revealed that his retirement was not voluntary at all.

  Among the serendipitous joys of research are the odd little connections one finds between figures in history. In researching the life of Gratz Brown for this chapter, I found that he was the grandfather of Margaret Wise Brown, an author familiar to all twentieth-century parents: she wrote Goodnight Moon and other classics of children’s literature.

  The prospect of: Theodore Welge to JPII, 6/6/1913, PDA.

  The trial was: General Assembly Records for 1870 Adjournment Session, Record Group 550, Box 94, folder 28, MSA; NYT, 5/25/1870; JP passport application, NARA. While in the mayor’s office Pulitzer met Julian Kune, a Hungarian who had fled to the United States following the revolution of 1848 and was also back on his first visit home: Kune, Reminiscences, 130.

  By mid-July: Ciberia passenger manifest, 7/13/1870, NARA.

  A former U.S. senator: Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 176; NYH, 4/29/1872; NYT, 7/21/1900, 7. Though it remained the state’s premier Republican newspaper, the Democrat had already turned against President Grant after he ignored the owner William McKee’s candidates for federal patronage jobs. Now it was ready to turn against the state’s governor.

  Five days following: MoDe, 8/31/1870, and MoRe, 9/1/1870, both quoted in Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 234–235 (footnotes).

  “Upon this question”: Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 243; The actual vote was 439 2/3 to 342 5/6, according to the convention’s method of counting.

  Once resettled on: Pulitzer’s dispatches in the Westliche Post revealed clearly that he had moved into the inner circle of the renegades. His pieces predicted each move of the party split with the clarity only an insider could have. See, for instance, WP, 9/2/1870, 3.

  Meanwhile, in the House: ChTr, 9/5/1870, 2; Mountain Democrat, 9/17/1870, 2.

  With the conventions: MoDe, 9/21/1870, 4.

  As exciting as: MoDe, 11/8/1870, 1; Christensen, “Black St. Louis,” 205–206; WP, 9/3/1870, 3.

  On their side: MoDe, 2/19/1870; ChTr, 7/4/1872, 4.

  Grosvenor did his: MoDe, 11/5/1870, 2, and 11/8/1870, 2.

  On November 3: MoDe, 11/3/1870, 4; original in Oaths of Loyalty 1869, Series XIV, Sub Series B, Dexter Tiffany Collection, MHS. See also MoDe, 11/8/1870, 1.

  All the rhetoric: MoRe, 11/8/1870, 2.

  In the morning: Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 188.

  In Pulitzer’s ward: MoRe, 11/11/1870, 2; WP, 11/10/1870, 3. The Anzeiger des Westens had a different take on the results. It attributed the Democratic victory to the split in the Republican Party. Pulitzer asked if the editor didn’t realize that this was a loss for Germans. “Is he not aware that it was German-haters, the dyed-in-the-wool McClurgians, the French, and the Negroes that defeated the Liberal Republican county ticket, which was supported by the majority of Germans, through their total defections and in some cases desertion to the Democrats?” The vote totals, particularly in the Third and Fifth wards, the latter being Pulitzer’s, show that it was not the Germans who elected the Democrats. It was the Irish, said Pulitzer. “They, the Irish, played this role in the Tuesday election as well, and the entire glory in which the Anzeiger may sun itself is an Irish-French-Negro victory. He may do this if he wishes, but he should call a spade a spade” (WP, 11/11/1870, 3).

  Pulitzer’s friend Joseph Keppler: Frau und Frei (St. Louis, MO: undated but certainly November 1870), MHS.

  Out of office: Avery and Shomemaker, Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri, Vol. 15, 14.

  Not quite. Schurz: Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 207.

  Pulitzer did not share: Hutchins declined to be the Democratic candidate against Pulitzer in the 1869 election. I suspect it was his friendship with Pulitzer that caused him to wait for another year to run. He did run eventually, and won a seat in the legislature.

  Any concern about: ChTr, 2/2/1871, 2; Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 191–197; Grosvenor to Schurz, 2/16/1871, CS.

  The growing movement: Receipts for payments to Pulitzer for service to the committee from January 11 until March 1 and signed by Benecke may be found in the Accounts of the Twenty-Sixth General Assembly, First Session, MSA.

  When the legislative session: Quoted in Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 198.

  But that too: ChTr, 4/22/1871, 2; Every Saturday, 10/28/1871, 418.

  Members of the: Missouri Staats-Zeitung, undated clipping, WG-CU, Box 2.

  Pulitzer’s patron, State Senator Benecke: Louis Benecke to Pulitzer, 10/26/1871, LB. One wonders if Benecke harbored som
e doubt about how Pulitzer had handled the committee vote. “If I understand and remember that proxy rule right,” Benecke said to Pulitzer, “you were simply authorized to act as this proxy in order to have a quorum and did not attempt to cast a vote for this till all members present voted. Am I correct?”

  Charles Johnson came: Hill was a colorful fellow and was loved by the press for that reason. By the time of Pulitzer’s trial he had been married twice; his second marriage was in a divorce court when his wife drowned while in Europe. A few years later he arranged for the division of Peter Lindell’s $6 million land estate by inviting in from the streets a crippled boy beggar. He had the boy draw lots of equal size from a hat. “The blindfolded boy was released, and bright tears glistened in his eyes as 10 golden half-eagles were dropped into his hands, and he was told that he completed the division of the great Lindell estate to the satisfaction of all the heirs then present”: ChTr, 2/13/1879, 2.

  The charge was: It’s not clear to what offense Pulitzer may have pleaded guilty, or if he did plead guilty at all. The court records do not reveal the case’s final disposition. Johnson’s diary is no help, either, recording only the cryptic note, “Settled case $100 fine” (Johnson, Diary, 11/20/1871, WRR, 19), 11/18/1871, WRR, 19. Pulitzer borrowed money to pay for legal fees and the fine from Henry C. Yaeger, a miller in St. Louis. Others—such as Daniel G. Taylor, a former mayor of St. Louis; and Edwin O. Standard, who was lieutenant governor when Pulitzer served in the legislature—may also have loaned money. Why Yaeger was so generous is not really known. But at some point that year or the following year, Pulitzer rendered him a personal favor. Yaeger wanted Governor Brown to pardon a friend. “Joe Pulitzer assisted me in the matter, and the very day the Governor received my letter, I received a telegram that my request had been granted,” Yaeger recalled many years later. (Henry C. Yaeger to Governor David R. Francis, 4/25/1892, Francis Papers, MHS.) Yaeger’s name is misspelled “Yeager” in some records, but clearly the same person is meant.