The rumors were: NYW, 9/26/1883, 4.
As the World’s circulation: NYW, 5/17/1883.
When he returned: NYT, 9/25/1883, 2; Oshkosh Northwestern, 08/26/1883, 3; Bismarck Daily Tribune, 9/28/83, 10.
Weeks later, as: NYT, 11/1/1883, 5.
In November, Pulitzer: A review of internal memos from the period confirms that the published circulation figures were quite accurate.
CHAPTER 17: KINGMAKER
Despite his triumphant: J. W. Buell to JP, 12/19/1883, WP-CU; NYT, 5/10/1884, 5.
Characteristically, Pulitzer made: Cunard telegram, 5/19/1884; William D. Curtis to JP, 6/18/1884, JP-CU.
As the convention broke up: NYW, 6/7/1884, quoted in Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 267.
A Republican who: NYW, 7/24/1884, 4 and 8/26/84, 4.
Although Blaine had: Pulitzer was pestered by attorneys representing disgruntled persons threatening to sue. One such case involved a college professor who felt that an article about students’ wild antics had injured him and the college. See Scott to JP, 4/2 and 4/3/1884, WP-CU; WAS, 103. Pulitzer also regularly praised Conkling in his editorials. See, for instance, NYW, 9/5/1883, 4. That Conkling was the author of the anonymous pieces for the World was common knowledge, reported in the Tribune and other newspapers.
Pulitzer could hardly: PD, 11/8/1882, 4; NYW, 10/14/1884.
With each passing day: In March, the circulation had been 40,000: ThJo, 3/29/1884, 7; 4/5/1884, 5; and 5/31/1884, 3.
By midsummer: ThJo, 6/14/1884, 2.
Nothing his competitors: ThJo, 6/7/1884, 1.
In July, sitting: Quoted in JWB, 85. Pulitzer not only attended the Chicago convention but, as he had done for the Post-Dispatch, filed signed articles. (See NYW, 7/9/1884–7/12/1884.) Years later, Pulitzer unrealistically boasted, “If it had not been for the action of the World at this stage, he could not have been nominated.” (JP to James Creelman, JC, folder 74.)
On July 29: ChTri, 7/30/1884, 1; NYT, 7/30/1884, 1.
Cleveland also carried: “There is a story in circulation concerning a record made by him ‘in youth’s hot blood’—a story which The World will never under any circumstances print—which may find its way into the channels of public gossip, if this lowest type of campaign tactics is to be adopted by the Blaine organization”: NYW, 7/25/1884, 4.
Pulitzer was only: JWB, 89.
The next day: “I did not tell him that the cartoon looked like the crab’s eyebrows, without proper reduction to refine its coarse lines.” (McDougall, “Old Days on the World,” 22.)
Pulitzer had wanted: An illustration of a man accused in the Phoenix Park murders ran in NYW, 5/26/1883, 8. The story of the apprehension in Montreal is told in GJ, 95–96; ThJo, 1/10/1885, 3.
Not all the reading public: ThJo, 6/7/1884, 3, quoted in GJ, 111.
Pulitzer enlisted McDougall’s: GJ, 99, note.
Pulitzer had no interest: ChTr, 6/29/1882, 12; NYW, 9/29/1884, 4.
The maliciousness of: Smith to JP, 11/28/1884, WP-CU.
Pulitzer interrupted his: WRR, 206; Henry, Editors I Have Known since the Civil War, 273–274.
As the campaign: NYT, 9/30/1884, 5.
As he spoke: NYW, 10/30/1884, 2. The paper devoted more than an entire page to the evening rally.
The crowd roared: ChTr, 10/4/1884, 10.
The fall campaign: NYT, 10/07/1884, 2; 10/22/1884, 2. E. A. Grozier, Pulitzer’s secretary in 1884, later described how reluctant Pulitzer was to accept the nomination. (Grozier to DCS, 12/10/1917, DCS-NYPL.)
The nomination was: ThJo, 10/11/1884, 5 and 10/18/1884, 2.
On October 16: NYT, October 16, 1884, 5; Hirsch, William C. Whitney, 238–239. For a while it seemed as if Pulitzer might have contributed $5,000 to the Republicans. What had happened was that Pulitzer had written a check to R. Hoe & Company as payment toward a new press. Hoe had given the check to the Republican Party, leading to the rumor that Pulitzer was also supporting the Republicans. See Milwaukee Sentinel, 4/28/1886, 3.
Pulitzer was not done yet: NYW, 10/30/1884, 4.
The “Royal Feast”: NYW, 11/10/1884, 4.
November 4, 1884: Figures ibid.
The World began: NYW, 11/6/1884, 4.
Pulitzer basked in: JP to James Creelman, JC, Folder 74; ChTr, 1/1/1885, 3.
Pulitzer capped off: ChTr, 1/1/1885, 3. Remarkably, newspapers reported on the check’s progress through clearing houses. So much for financial privacy.
CHAPTER 18: RAISING LIBERTY
Piled on Pulitzer’s desk: Correspondence Box 7, WP-CU.
It was all: ThJo, 11/14/1885, 1; James Scott to JP, 3/18/1885, WP-CU; Pulitzer’s friend Gibson was making inquiries for Pulitzer to determine if anyone in St. Louis would buy the Post-Dispatch for $500,000 or more; see Gibson to JP, 1/5/1885.
The news management: ThJo, 1/30/1886, 5.
His election to Congress: Correspondence in Box 5, JP-CU; Silas W. Bart to JP, 4/14/1885, JP-CU; LAT, 1/21/1885; NYT, 1/21/1885, 1.
In early February: AtCo, 2/4/1885, 5.
Politics seemed even less: ChTr, 2/6/1885, 2; NYT, 2/6/1885, 5; WES, 120–121.
Pulitzer expected: WRR, 199; NYW, 3/16/1885, 4.
Cleveland didn’t share: WaPo, 3/9/1885, 1; GD, 3/14/1885; NYT, 3/24/1885, 1 and 4/19/1885, 3; WRR, 186–187.
But Pulitzer was: NYW, 8/6/1884, 4. When the dust settled after the election, Pulitzer resumed promoting the project, arguing that Cleveland’s victory removed the fund-raisers’ last excuse for failure. “Perhaps it has been thought hitherto that a Statue of Liberty erected in the chief harbor of a Republic virtually controlled by monopolists, corruptionists, and self-created aristocrats was both unnecessary and undesirable,” Pulitzer wrote. “This is all at an end now. The people have vindicated their capacity to govern themselves and the life of the Republic has been saved.” (NYW, 11/21/1884, 4.)
The scattered editorials: NYW, 3/14/1885, 4.
The following Monday: NYW, 3/16/1885, 1.
By the next morning: NYW, 3/17/1885.
Rather than start: At about the same time, other groups were raising money for the Washington Monument in the capital. But it received congressional funding and the public’s donations were led not by a newspaper but rather by private organizations.
The public service: NYW, 6/8/1885, 4.
The long hours: The children stayed at the Thorn Mountain House resort in Jackson, NH. BoGl, 8/9/1885, 3.
While Kate shopped: Pulitzer traveled with letters of introduction from George Childs. Henry Moore to John Norton, 5/29/1895, JNP-MHS; ThJo, 6/20/1885, 2; S. P. Daniell to JP, 6/1/1885, JP-CU.
Usually Pulitzer’s transatlantic: Fragment of an undated rough draft of JP letter, quoted in WRR, 134.
The European sojourn: JPII to JP, 3/21/1908, MHS; Johns, Times of Our Lives, 61.
At home it: WAS, 131.
One friend understood: Dillon to JP, 7/8/1885, JP-CU.
On the morning of December 3: NYT, 12/4/1885, 3 and 7; ChTr, 12/4/1885, 2; ThJo, 11/28/1885, 5.
“All right, but”: JP to Conkling, 12/19/1885, WP-CU; Theron Crawford to JP, 12/9/1885 and 12/14/1885, WP-CU.
Pulitzer and the House: NYT, 12/8/1885, 4; AtCo, 1/8/1886, 1.
To maintain this schedule: He “took very little interest in his Congressional office, and was very irregular in his attendance in Washington” (Edwin A. Grozier to Seitz, 12/10/1917); WaPo, 3/4/1886, 2; Amos J. Cummings in WaPo, 4/18/1886, Dana’s Sun harped on Pulitzer’s poor attendance in Congress. Walt McDougall claimed that one night when he was in Washington with his boss, Pulitzer was almost arrested for drunkenness. “He was lit up to seventh magnitude by a few cocktails,” he said. (Walt McDougall, “Funniest Memories of a Famous Cartoonist,” WaPo, 8/22/1926, SM3.)
Pulitzer found: Edwin A. Grozier to Seitz, 12/10/1917, DCS-NYPL; BoGl, 2/16/1886, 5.
Many of Pulitzer’s colleagues: NYT, 2/27/1886, 2; ChTr 2/27/1886, 1.
When a committee: NYT, 3/13/1886, 3; WaPo, 3/13/1886, 1.
&nbs
p; The gentleman in question: JP to Crawford, 2/11/1886, WP-CU.
The committee members: An examination of the Congressional Record may be seen in WRR, 184; WaPo, 3/4/1886, 1; WaPo, 6/28/1886, 2.
When Pulitzer was nominated for: Gibson to JP, 10/10/1884, JP-CU. Full resignation letter appeared in BrEa, 4/11/1886, 1.
The World’s Washington correspondent: Crawford to JP, 4/13/1886, WP-CU.
Pulitzer’s congressional career: JP to Board of New York Press Club, April 1886, JP-CU, Box 6; WaPo, 3/23/1886, 2; Medical Record, 3/27/1886, 366. Pulitzer also mistakenly sent his letter to the New York secretary of state instead of to the speaker of the house thereby delaying the effective date of his resignation until May. (Interview with Donald Ritchie, associate historian of the U.S. Senate Historical Office, 1/17/2008.)
In late June: The landlord, who was not consulted, was not happy. See John Hoey to JP, 9/24/1886, and 10/25/1886, JP-CU.
Since Kate could not: Thomas Davidson to William T. Harris, 10/7/1884, Harris Papers, MHS.
Pulitzer was most frustrated: WHM to JP, 7/28/1886, quoted in WRR, 121.
Next Pulitzer dashed: NYW, 10/28/1886, and 10/29/1886.
Not being among: NYW, 10/28/1886, 4.
As one of: Depew, My Memories, 392.
“Well, gentlemen”: Depew was also willing to curry favor with Pulitzer. On the evening of the festivities honoring the Statue of Liberty, he attended a dinner the Pulitzers gave for the celebrated sculptor Bartholdi in the new residence which they had rented at 9 East Thirty-Sixth Street. During the dinner, Bartholdi’s declaring an interest in seeing Niagara Falls prompted Pulitzer to ask Depew for a New York Central private railcar to convey Bartholdi and the Pulitzer family there. Depew submitted a $500 bill to Pulitzer for the ride, adding that the amount should be “strong enough to pulverize the most enlightened anti-monopolist.”
Hewitt was a: JP to Davidson, 9/24/1886, TD.
In the end: Davidson to JP, 10/7/1886, JP-CU.
On Election Day: TR told Robert Underwood; Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, note 70, 800.
The double triumphs: Edwin Argent to W. A. R. Robertson, 10/14/1886, WP-CU.
Most vexing was: Masy le Doll to JP, 12/11/1886, WP-CU; Walter Hammond to JP, 12/4/1886, JP-CU.
Work and tension: JP to Emile Grevillot, 11/23/1886, JP-CU; Philadelphia Press interview with Pulitzer, reprinted in Bismarck Daily Tribune, 12/07/1886; George Childs to KP, 11/27/1886, JP-CU.
CHAPTER 19: A BLIND CROESUS
Joe Howard, one: McDougall, This Is the Life! 110; NYH, 2/9/1887, 1; ChTr, 2/9/1887, 1; Milwaukee Daily Journal, 2/9/1887, 1.
Howard was not: Churchill, Park Row, 151.
Bennett’s wrath was: Daily Inter-Ocean, 11/27/1887. The interview was conducted by Foster Coates, who would eventually become an editor for Pulitzer.
Smith was a Kentuckian: ThJo, 5/10/1884, 5.
Although Smith cut: Smith to JP, 1886, WP-CU, Box 8.
With Cockerill overseeing: Turner to JP, 2/25/1887, WP-CU.
While Pulitzer waited to: George Olney to JP, 1/27/1887, WP-CU.
In the meantime: Clippings from Public Ledger and Daily Transcript, 2/7 and 2/8/1887, WP-CU, Box 9. Also ThJo, 3/26/1887, 10; 4/7/1887, 8; and 9/10/1887, 10.
For years Hearst: Nasaw, The Chief, 54–55, 70–72.
In late March: NYT, 3/22/1887, 8; ChTr, 3/23/1887, 3.
Lawyers who knew: BoGl, 4/1/1887, 8.
Pulitzer was soon: BoGl, 4/1/1887, 8; Childs to JP, 4/13/1887, JP-CU; Lucille and Ralph, letters to JP and KP, 6/9/1887, JP-CU; Childs to JP, 4/13/1887, JP-CU.
After a stopover: WaPo, 5/2/1887 and 5/23/1887, 4; WAS, 156.
The Pulitzers took: BoGl, 6/29/1887, 8; ThJo, 1/9/1886, 5.
An enterprising American: Philadelphia Times correspondent in Paris, reprinted in several papers, including Capital (MD), 6/28/87, 1.
Joseph and Kate: T. C. Crawford did the investigating for Pulitzer. See Crawford to JP, 8/12/1887, WP-CU.
Nothing came of: Junius Morgan to JP, 6/4/1887, JP-NYSL.
Gladstone, dressed in: Morning Post, 7/11/1887, 2, 5; Daily Telegraph, 7/11/1887, 2; PD, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Number, 12/11/1903, 4.
While the ceremony: Ford, Forty-Odd Years in the Literary Shop, 148.
Unaware of the: Evening Standard, 7/11/1887, 5; Mary Gladstone, diary entry for July 9, 1887, 46, 262, Vol. 44, December 10, 1885, to Feburary 15, 1893, BLMC.
By August the Pulitzers: Smith to JP, 8/6 and 8/25, 9/7 and 9/10/1887, WP-CU; JP to Smith, 9/1/1887, WHS-IHS.
Abandoning business and: The Pulitzers rented Windhurst, owned by General John Rathbone. Childs to JP, 8/12/1887, JP-CU; Gleaner, 2/16/1887; Frank K. Paddock to JP, 12/24/1887, JP-CU.
The Pulitzers returned: BoGl, 10/01/1887, 3; ThJo, 9/11/1886, 1.
It was, indeed: Strouse, Morgan, 225–226.
While negotiating for: Platt and Bowers to trustees of Mary Grace Hoyt, 12/22/1887, JP-CU.
He invested in: ThJo, 4/16/1887, 13; Blackeslee to JP, 12/2 and 12/3/1886, JP-CU; Paul S. Potter to JP, 4/10/1887, JP-CU; bill of sale for Paris paintings in JP-CU, Box 7; JP to Goupil’s Picture Gallery, 1/14/1887, JP-CU; Fearing to JP, 1/16/1884, JP-CU; H. A. Spalding to JP (in Paris) 5/14/1887, JP-CU; John Hoey to JP, 10/25/1886, JP-CU. Payroll records show that the Pulitzers employed a chef, a kitchen staff, and cleaning women in addition to nannies; see JP-CU, Box 8. While waiting to move to Fifty-Fifth Street, the Pulitzers and their growing retinue of servants remained at 9 East Thirty-Sixth Street, having happily left behind the Fifth Avenue house with its allegedly bad plumbing, to the fury of the landlord. The landlord claimed that prospective renters had fled because the cleaning women the Pulitzers employed were spreading rumors that the plumbing was unhealthy.
Pulitzer developed a: JP to Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph, 10/18/1886, WP-CU; WaPo, 4/17/1887, 6; ThJo, 11/14/1885, 1.
Money bought the Pulitzers: NYT, 12/30/1885, 5.
The ball was held: NYT, 12/30/1885, 5.
The Pulitzers’ rising status: WaPo, 12/19/1886, 1.
In particular, Joseph: Homberger, Mrs. Astor’s New York, 176.
“J.P. always cherished”: McDougall, This Is the Life! 165.
Pulitzer did not simply: Newton Finney, one of the club’s original founders, reluctantly sold two of his shares to Pulitzer when the project neared a critical deadline and had not obtained a sufficient number of subscribers. Kate’s charm helped ease the owner’s hesitancy about including Pulitzer. (McCash and McCash, The Jekyll Island Club, 10–11.)
Despite distaste for: Homberger, Mrs. Astor’s New York, 143, 175.
Up until now: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1087–1088.
“To decide a bet”: Julius Esch to editor of World, 12/11/1885, WP-CU.
“In all the multiplicity”: ThJo, 7/12/1884, 1.
“Any man can”: ThJo, 7/19/1884, 2 and 6; 10/11/1884, 6.
Pulitzer banned: LAT, 4/28/1891, 12. Jews, according to the newspaper, possessed untold wealth and influence. “The two Pulitzers—though they are estranged—command more circulation than all the other journals combined.”
The rivalry between: ThJo, 6/20/1885, 4; NYT, 4/13/1942, 15.
“We have withdrawn”: NYS, 10/18–11/8, 1887.
Dana’s words hit: McDougall, “Old Days on the World,” 23.
Pulitzer had reached: Childs to JP, undated but most likely fall of 1887, JP-CU, Box 7.
In 1887, optometrists: Wells, A Treatise on the Disease of the Eye, 536. Which eye had failed was deduced from Dr. Hermann Pagenstecher’s later comments.
Pulitzer’s doctors were: JP to FC, 1/26/1909, JP-LC.
“I am absolutely”: JP to Varina Davis, 11/30/1887, JP-CU.
Congressman Walter Phelps: Walter Phelps to JP, 4/19/1888, JP-CU.
CHAPTER 20: SAMSON AGONISTES
On a moonlit: LAT, 2/28/1888, 3 and 3/1/1888, 6.
Pulitzer’s doctors in New York: Manton Marable to KP, 1/14/1888, JP-CU, quoted in WRR, 217.
&n
bsp; The journey drained: Details regarding the Pullman car may be found in April 1888 personal ledger, JP-CU, Box 7.
The Pulitzers had come: Cashin, First Lady of the Confederacy, 247–250; Jefferson Davis, Private Letters, 553.
For the next several weeks: Landmark, 3/1/1888, 4.
During the blizzard: Walter Phelps to JP, 4/19/1888, JP-CU; Conkling to JP, 3/16/88, JP-CU; WAS, 173;
Pulitzer nixed the idea: ThJo, 5/12/1888, 3; Smith to JP, 5/18/1888, WP-CU.
The family reached: NYW, 5/10/1888, 1.
Home again, Pulitzer: WaPo, 6/17/1888, 1; NYT, 6/10/1888, 16, and 7/8/1888, 16.
Once across the: Among the doctors Pulitzer saw were Sir Andrew Clarke; Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, one of the founders of neurology; and Dr. Charles-Edward Brown-Séquard. (See DCS-JP, 171; and WAS, 175.)
Still smarting from: Manuscript fragments, JP-LC, Box 11.
Resigned to his exile: ChTr, 9/16/1888, 12; Mansfield Times, 1/18/1889, 2.
Infirm but not: Number of employees was derived using the World directory left in the cornerstone of the building that went up that year. It may be found in WP-CU, Box 10; JWB, 133; Turner to JP, 6/7/1888, WP-CU.
Aside from creating: When a letter was read to its recipient, a report would be sent back to Pulitzer on the person’s reaction. For example, in one such case, Seitz wrote to Pulitzer, “He received it in an agreeable and appreciative way.” One wonders how else the recipient was to react. DCS to JP, 11/20/1900, WP-CU. Also see JP to DCS, 8/17/1900, JP-LC.
For years, Pulitzer: Chambers, News Hunting on Three Continents, 307.
By similar means: JP to Chambers, 2/10/1889, reprinted in Chambers, News Hunting, 333.
While Pulitzer was in California: NYT, 11/14/1886, 3; DCS-JP, 169. Pulitzer recounted his early connection to French’s Hotel several times in stories published in the World.
The architect George Brown: Post to Barlow, 4/11/1888, WP-CU.
From Paris, Pulitzer: September/December 1888, Folder, WP-CU, Box 10.
Over the winter: JP to Turner, 4/19/1889, WP-CU.
Money, of course: JP to Turner, 3/19/1889, WP-CU.
Pulitzer still considered: JP to Turner, 3/19/1889, WP-CU.
After Post’s visit: JP to John Jennings, 3/11/1889, JJJ.
Pulitzer Page 65