Chapter 1
Beginnings
Joseph Pulitzer began his career as a journalist in post- Civil War St. Louis, Missouri, a brawling young city still, like most of America, rife with the tensions that followed the end of hostilities in that bitter conflict over slavery. For anyone who has ever watched a Western movie it's easy to imagine the scenario, with horse carriages being the main mode of transportation on dirt roads beside occasional wooden sidewalks, and boots were worn as protection from the perpetual appearance of mud. Pistol packing was common, as were duels and fights for manly honor in and outside of the often crowded saloons. Most Americans still lived on farms so city life was in its infancy, compared to the way we know it today, and the people in the city lived much like the people of the country, with guns and knives often at the ready. Black- smiths were the predominant mechanics of the day and, as we will see, they had a firm hand in the power arrangements of the urban political machine. Politics was also different because the Democratic Party was still the rural, states' rights, formerly pro-slavery party of Andrew Jackson. The Bourbon Democrats, as they were called, were resentful of the intrusion of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's Party's attempt, under the Radical Republicans, to bring about racial equality in the South during Reconstruction touched a raw nerve in the gut of the still racist post-war South. Though at the start of our story Pulitzer was a staunch supporter of the Republicans and Abraham Lincoln, he would, eventually, switch to the Democrats, and point that party away from the farmers of rural America toward the immigrants and the cities as a source of political support. In this, as in many other issues, however, Pulitzer was ahead of his time, and the Democratic Party did not really follow his directions effectively until twenty years after his death. At the start of our story, though, Joseph Pulitzer was low on the totem pole of political power in the St. Louis of 1867.
* * * * * * * *
Pulitzer, a cub newspaper reporter, was walking down Main Street of St. Louis, on his way to a meeting of reporters at a saloon. His stroll, it is safe to say, was not pleasant. Other reporters were following him and, as they liked to do, were making fun of him, for he was a fairly recent Jewish looking immigrant with a strong Hungarian accent.
"That's Jewseph Pulitzer," said one.
"You mean Joey the Jew," said another.
"Naw, he's Pull It Sir," said yet another, sarcastically pulling at his nose.
Pulitzer forged onward, trying to keep his temper down amidst the cascade of anti-Semitic insults. He was six feet four inches tall and very skinny, with thick glasses perched at the end of a long nose. He would not be a formidable adversary in a fist fight.
"Hey Joey, your mother says it's time for bed."
"His English isn't very good."
"It's time to go back to Germany, Joseph."
Joseph, mounting the steps to the dining room of the establishment, returned fire.
"I'm from Hungary, you idiot!"
"He says he's hungry."
"Mommy must not have given him dinner."
Pulitzer stomped into the restaurant, wishing these buffoons would go away, but of course, they would not. His fellow reporters were, at that point, a proverbial lodestone around his neck. On top of that, a lively crowd of manly men were imbibing whiskey in the bar room adjoining the restaurant, and there another enemy awaited him. It was Edward Augustine, who clutched a copy of a newspaper containing an article Pulitzer had written exposing him as a corrupt judge. Augustine, actually, was more of a contractor than a judge, but had a very convenient position as a judge on the County Court to award himself contracts. He was perturbed, to say the least, that Pulitzer had pointed this out. As a contractor, he was a strong and burly man, and he dis- carded his drink to confront the beanpole Pulitzer, and stormed toward him.
"Let's see if you have the kind of guts in public that you do at the paper, Pulitzer," he fumed.
"You are both a liar and a crook, Mr. Augustine, and by the time I'm done with you you're going to wish you'd never come to St. Louis."
Before Pulitzer could add on to this sally Augustine seized him by the lapels and hurled him into the wall, and the thin Hungarian collapsed on the floor before rising to his knees to look up at the bully, who now had his fists up in the boxing pose. Pulitzer, realizing he had no chance in such an encounter, decided to flee, and stumbled to his feet before scurrying out of the door that he had come in, and hustled away down the street.
"You're not going to dare write about me like that again, you little pipsqueak!" Augustine blared after him.
Pulitzer rushed toward the rooming house where he was living seething with passions of revenge. On the way, he had a telling remark to make to a reporter on his way into the meeting.
"Stick around and you'll have a real story to write about," he said, without waiting for a response.
Pulitzer galloped up the stairs to his bedroom and burst into his room, searching his meager possessions for a pistol he owned. He made sure that it was loaded, and retraced the route from whence he'd come. When he reentered the restaurant Augustine again turned to confront him.
"Back for more, you little sissy?!" he cried out, storming forward.
But Pulitzer raised and cocked his pistol, in a rather clumsy fashion, allowing the men who surrounded Augustine to close in upon the attacker, and push his shooting arm downward, so the shot only grazed Augustine's leg, who fell to the floor in a not a very pleasant mood.
"You goddamn little bastard, you coward, you sneaky little dog. This ain't gonna be the end of this, I'll tell you that!"
As the manly men took their hero away Pulitzer was disarmed by others, and then taken aside by his suddenly silent reporter acquaintances, two of whom escorted him to the Police Station.
* * * * * * * *
The next day Pulitzer sat in shame at his newspaper, the Westliche Post, facing the music in a meeting with his bosses.
"It's so damn unfair, Mr. Schurz! These people are government sponsored crooks."
"Yes, Joseph, I couldn't agree with you more. But our job at the newspaper is to stay above the fray, not get down in the gutter and fight with them," Schurz replied.
Schurz was a German immigrant who had escaped from jail after the Revolution there in 1848, and came to America to become a farmer. But then the Civil War intervened, and Schurz did more than his duty for the Union Army, rising to the rank of General. He was also a well-educated man and decided, after the war, to put his learning to use in the newspaper business.
"Don't I have the right to defend myself?" Pulitzer cried out.
"You defend yourself with the newspaper, Joseph, not a gun."
"The real weapon Joseph, is that little notebook that you carry around," interjected his other boss, Thomas Davidson.
Davidson was not actually a newspaper man but a professor of philosophy, another immigrant from Germany. But he had grown tired of academia and wanted to do something closer to ordinary people. He was a very kind man, and saw that Pulitzer was very intelligent, but also a young man of strong feelings. He would come to be a mentor for the struggling young immigrant, who would grow, in time, to be Davidson's employer.
* * * * * * * *
Joseph sat grimly at a pre-trial hearing in the Municipal Court of St. Louis shaking in his boots, as they say, afraid that Mr. Augustine would succeed in putting him in jail. Of course he had to plead self-defense, and who would not believe it, Pulitzer thought, if they'd seen the way that bully had thrown him against the wall like a sack of flour. There were other aspects of the story that were the reasons for his shakingâreasons Pulitzer himself did not enjoy thinking about that would lead toward attempted murder. In Pulitzer's heart, however, this man was a public villain of the worst order so his own actions, faulted though they were, were in the public interest. Such being the case a little liberty with the facts was not unwarranted, with the added benefit of keeping him from going to jail.
The courtroom was divided in half by those parties who were sympathetic to the two sides. The halves were only regarding physical space, however, as the much larger half of spectators sat behind Augustine, with many of the belligerent manly men who had been with him in the saloon on that night. Their side reveled in a clear expectation of the imminent revenge of jus- tice upon this upstart pipsqueak that they so despised. Pulitzer's section was much smaller, unfortunately for him, consisting of Schurz, Davidson, and only three of the clique of reporters who were there on the night of the alleged attack, evidencing the fact that Augustine's proponents were not the only people who had written off the future of Joseph Pulitzer. The two sides did, however, comprise the two sides in the battle for control of St. Louis: the Bourbon Democrats and their powerful political machine versus a new and lowly group of newspaper reporters. The odds-makers in Vegas, it might be presumed, would not have given the reporters much of a chance.
Augustine approached the bench to present his case in a state of slightly restrained anger, with his right pants leg rolled up to show the bandage from the shooting. In this court of law with the blind maiden of justice, thought Augustine, surely he would prevail, so he had confidence this little whippersnapper would be off to prison, for some time, and surely, with a criminal record, never return to being a reporter. Being a newspaper reporter was a tasteless job for sissies and weasels, and such panty-waists that were in charge there would never offer someone a job who had a criminal record.
"And so, Your Honor," the fraudulent judge said to the presiding Judge, finishing up his case, "only the actions of my friends in restraining him saved my life."
When his turn came Joseph Pulitzer meekly approached the bench with feelings of greatest alarm, for the deck seemed stacked against him. He attempted to amplify his case for self-defense by casting himself as the victim of a most ruthless bully.
"Mr. Augustine has mentioned some of the facts, Your Honor, but he left out how he verbally threatened me because of some reporting I had done about him," the judge gave a knowing nod, "and then picked me up and threw me against the wall. I rose, your honor, and when I looked at Mr. Augustine, he raised his hand up in the air and he was holding something gold, your honor, which I thought looked like a gun."
"That's bullshit, Your Honor!"
The judge banged the gavel.
"Mr. Augustine, as you should be well aware," he paused, with a cool glare at the corrupt judge, "this is a court of law, requiring decorum. If you use profanity again I will hold you in contempt. In addition, sir, you were allowed to present your case without interruption, so please allow Mr. Pulitzer to do the same. Please proceed Mr. Pulitzer."
The insides of Joseph Pulitzer suddenly felt a spark. Could it be that the worm had turned? He felt a sudden rise in his standing before the court.
"And so, Your Honor, I thought that what he was holding might be a gun, so that I had to act in self-defense."
Pulitzer sat down. His adversary glared at him, and the judge had to bang the gavel to quiet the grumblings of protest amongst the grossly offended Augustine sup- porters. Pulitzer stared ahead timidly, as the judge ruminated the case, surmising the size differential between the two opponents.
"The Court rules that the Defendant acted in self-defense," ruled the judge. "There will be no trial. Mr. Pulitzer must pay the court costs, however, of one hundred dollars."
The Judge then brought down his gavel with a resounding whack, and abruptly rose to leave the courtroom.
"All rise," intoned the Bailiff.
There was no doctor present to measure the rise in blood pressure of Mr. Augustine, but it was precipitous. This was evidenced by the much redder color on his face, his apoplectic rise to his feet, and slightly restrained stamping and glaring at the departing judge. Joseph Pulitzer grinned gleefully with immense relief as he firmly shook the hands of Carl Schurz and Thomas Davidson. He clearly understood their non-verbal language however because his bosses' facial expressions clearly said you've gotten away with something and are not blameless, Cub Reporter.
Who can say whether the decision by the Judge was somewhat political because he believed, like Pulitzer, that Augustine was a public crook who should be removed from his position as a Judge? Whatever the reason for the decision, however, one thing is clear. Had he decided the other way, in all probability, the journalistic career of Joseph Pulitzer would have come to an abrupt end.
Joseph and his partisans left the courtroom somewhat quietly, under the self-righteous glare of their opponents on the Augustine side, trying to keep their chins up despite some of the foul and indiscrete insults being cast in their direction. Without the Judge there to restrain them anymore the manly men felt free to broadcast their opinions, and the Bailiff did nothing to intervene. The battle lines were clearly drawn.
* * * * * * * *
Many readers must be curious about how Joseph Pulitzer got into this position, so let's do a little back- ground. Americans love a rags to riches story, and Pulitzer's is that, or almost that. His is a riches-to-rags- to-riches story, for he came from a wealthy family in Hungary to the Unites States where he experienced poverty before pulling himself up by his own bootstraps to become wealthy again.
Pulitzer grew up in a town called Mako, a suburb of Budapest, Hungary, where his father was a successful Jewish businessman. But his father died young, and Pulitzer's mother had difficulty maintaining the business she had inherited as a widow, and remarried to res- cue her family from the threat of poverty. This marriage did not please the young Joseph Pulitzer, however, who hated his new stepfather, and who was so angry about it he blew up in the receiving line at his mother's remarriage ceremony.
"I cannot stand it," the young firebrand exclaimed to his Uncle Henri.
"Don't be silly, Joseph, your new father is a very nice man, and now he's your stepfather. You'll grow to like him."
"I hate him."
"Come now Joseph, you're young, and I'm sure you miss your Father, but what would he want, eh? Would he want you to be like this?"
"Are you crazy?! He would not want Mother to remarry! It is dishonorable for her to remarry as a widow."
"I didn't mean it that way, Joseph, I meanâ"
"I won't stand for it, I'm telling you, and I'm leaving." "You're leaving? Don't be silly, Joseph. You can't leave now."
"Oh yes I can."
"You can't possibly leave now, Joseph, for goodness sakes, where on earth are you going to go?"
"I am leaving this instant and I am going to join the army."
Joseph left the receiving line and strutted down a side hallway of the castle-like building. His brother Albert, four years his junior at thirteen, snitched on his older brother.
"Mommy, look! Joseph says that he is leaving to join the army!"
Their mother gazed pessimistically at the departing adolescent.
"Shall I go get him?" inquired Uncle Henri.
"Let him go," the stoic mother replied.
* * * * * * * *
Pulitzer faced several disadvantages in his attempt to join the army, however, most being physical. He looked a bit odd in the recruiting office in Vienna, where his emaciated, stork-like figure, large nose and thick eye- glasses put him in an unenviable position.
"You're too thin," the officer harangued, "not strong enough, and couldn't see the broad side of a barn with- out those glasses."
"But I could do it, I tell you," the young tyro protested.
"Forget it, we won't take you. Next!"
An angry Joseph Pulitzer stormed away.
He would not take no for an answer, however, and sought to join the French Army, but encountered similar difficulties in the Paris recruiting office.
"He's so thin he'd be hard to shoot," the officer said to his fellow recruiter.
"Maybe he could be a coat rack."
"I think he'd be better as a scarecrow."
"He might scare a small sparrow."
"Are you going to take me or not!?" the determined young man demanded.
"Take you? You must be kidding."
"Next!"
Pulitzer stormed out of another recruiting office.
He crossed the English Channel hoping a better fate awaited him there, but it proved a disappointment, though an officer at least afforded counseling.
"Look mate, not everyone is meant to be a soldier."
"But I could do it!" the bug-eyed Pulitzer postulated.
"Go back home, there's other careers for ya."
"I can do it, I tell you."
"There's other things you'd be perfectly good at..."
Pulitzer did not want to waste his time listening to an extrapolation of this theory, and once again, he stomped out the door.
In frustration, he went to Frankfort, Germany, and, on a chance, ended up in a recruiting office of the Union Army, who were searching desperately for soldiers to fight in the American Civil War. Pulitzer was unaware that they would take just about any living breathing male on the planet to get the bounty that the government paid for recruits crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
"Of course we'll take you," an officer informed him.
"You will?" Pulitzer inquired, dumbfounded.
"Indeed we will," a second officer told him. "We need soldiers to fight to restore the Union."
"Can you ride a horse?" the first officer inquired.
"I am an expert horse rider!" exclaimed Pulitzer energetically. "I can canter, gallop, jump fencesâ"
"Fine, fine, we'll put you in the Cavalry. Welcome to the Union Army."
Pulitzer stood to salute proudly.
"Next!"
He was greeted with cursory salutes, and shunted off again.
* * * * * * * *
On the crowded ship across the Atlantic, Pulitzer learned new things about the United States. From a German emigrant he discovered that the bounty money they were supposed to get was going to be pilfered by other selfish individuals. One of the Planet Earth's oldest traditions, government corruption, was clearly in play.
"I am not going to stand for it!" Pulitzer exclaimed, beginning a style of rebellion that would be his own life- long tradition.
Standing on the bow of the ship in New York Harbor, Pulitzer took matters into his own hands and dived overboard. Thus a seventeen year old runaway who barely spoke English made his entry into the United States. He swam to shore, found the recruiting office for the Lincoln New York Cavalry, identified himself, collected the bounty, and registered for what he hoped would be a dynamic career in the Union Army.
Here fate again disappointed him, as his unusual physique, strong accent and peculiar eye-wear made him an easy scapegoat. Men being what they are, especially young men, in the army, thrown together so quickly in close companionship, are liable to pick on people who stand out as different from themselves, and Pulitzer was that. The young foreigner was intelligent, as the future would show but, in the army, he could not demonstrate it, nor did his very limited proficiency with English help his cause. In such circumstances Pulitzer was easily frustrated, and one incident got him into trouble, on a day when he rode his horse back into camp in Manassas, Virginia.
"Back from the front so soon, Fritzy?" a soldier queried as Pulitzer tied up his horse.
"My name is Joseph!"
"Aw, come on, Fritzy," another soldier admonished.
"You look like a Fritzy," asserted a third.
"And you sound like a Fritzy," postulated a fourth.
But Pulitzer had heard enough, and sucker punched the closest man, who was a non-commissioned officer, which was a capital offense. A higher officer, however, felt compassion for the young immigrant, and argued to his senior officers as to the somewhat unfair difficulties of the young Hungarian. He saved Pulitzer's neck, so to speak, and took him on as his orderly after he finished his term in the brig. This may have been, at least in part, because he had difficulty finding a chess partner in the army, a game that Pulitzer played with flare. So Pulitzer finished the war in a bureaucratic role while other adventurous men fought the mighty cavalry battles that General Phil Sheridan engaged in to corner Robert E. Lee at the end of the Civil War.
When the war was over Pulitzer, like tens of thou- sands of other Civil War veterans, was dumped back into New York City where he trod the streets looking for work. As is often the case after a major war there was a post-war recession, contributed to because the factories were no longer so busy making weapons and the sudden enlargement of the work force of the returning soldiers created a difficult economic climate. Unable to find a lasting job, Pulitzer took what turned out to be a short trip to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to investigate the whaling industry. There he found he had nothing in common with Herman Melville, at least regarding a desire for that adventurous job in his youth because he found the possibility of getting on a whaling boat a dangerous and degrading proposition. Returning to New York he continued to plod the streets looking for work becoming, in time, almost homeless, and desperate for a career path. Yet even in his lowest condition he continued to go to the French Hotel to get his shoes shined, to maintain at least a semblance of respectability, but the patrons there did not enjoy his presence, and he was advised to get his thread- bare self out of the establishment for good. Who could have known this hotel was in the same neighborhood where Pulitzer would, some twenty years later, become one of the most influential newspapermen in modern history.
However, Pulitzer heard tales of a large German population in St. Louis, and thought that such a city might welcome him more than the places he had tried so far, so he cast his fate in that direction. To get there, he had to sell his last remaining valuable possession, a silk scarf, which he did in a clothing shop in a Jewish Ghetto on Manhattan. On a crowded street of Kosher Delis, meat stores, Jewish bookstores teeming with Jewish immigrants like himself, Pulitzer dickered with the proprietor about the value of his possession.
"Seventy-five cents?" he exclaimed. "It is certainly worth more than that!"
"Yer not sellin' it from a store, kid, you're bartering it. Sorry, that's all you get."
"It's silk! And look at the hand stitching!"
The tradesman noticed a gold chain around Pulitzer's neck.
"Hey, what's that chain? That I might give you some- thing for. Has it got a locket?"
It had a locket, with a picture of Pulitzer's mother, one of his most prized possessions, which he kept close at hand until his dying day.
"Yes," he replied unenthusiastically. "Let me at least have a look."
"Okay," and he pulled it out to give him a glance, not taking it off.
"Your mother?"
Pulitzer nodded.
"Okay, my boy, I will not attempt to make you part with that. Listen, I'll give you eighty cents for the scarf."
"Oh come on, it's worth a dollar at least."
"Eighty cents is it, and a nickel too much," the man enjoined calmly, wiping the counter. "Take it or leave it."
Pulitzer grumbled, and nodded, handing the scarf over. The fellow watched him march off.
"Good luck in St. Louis," he said, as the future newspaper magnate departed.
* * * * * * * *
Young Pulitzer had a difficult train ride across the eastern United States, shivering severely in the early spring cold. Someone, unfortunately, had stolen his Army greatcoat. Such was his impoverished condition as he surveyed the nation he had fought to unify, gazing out the boxcar at the cornfields, forests and cities on those chilly early March days. When he was put off of the train he found further difficulties, as he had to cross the mighty Mississippi River to get to St. Louis, and hadn't the funds to pay for his passage on the ferry. He talked his way into a position to feed the boiler for several trips back and forth, and stooped down with a shovel to heave coal into the fires of a ferry chugging across the river that Mark Twain would immortalize in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
St. Louis did not seem like the promised land, to Pulitzer, for a couple of years, as he worked a succession of odd jobs in order to eke out a living, such as selling steam boat tickets, driving a hansom cab, construction work and, at one point, caring for a brace of mules. He later joked that someone who has never had to care for mules does not know what work and troubles are. Judging from his behavior and disposition, one would probably bet this was an occupation that Pulitzer stormed away from in a huff. Here, in his early days, we can see elements of the personality that characterized Pulitzer throughout his entire life. He had a huge ambitions and a lofty opinion of himself as a man who could achieve great things, and in this he was correct. He was also very sensitive, did not take orders well, and was what we would today call a control freak. Pulitzer had an ego that made him feel he could do things better than other men, and considered it a gross injustice when any other occupant of the planet earth ever questioned his judgment, especially when they were telling him what to do. Because of this he was prone to mood swings, as he, whether he liked it or not, was certainly subject to many forces outside of his control, and this he found frustrating. Today we might call Pulitzer bi-polar, but at that time there was little or no counseling to deal with such a problem, except for, perhaps, organized religion, to which Pulitzer had little or no connection.
Despite these emotional problems, though, Pulitzer began his rapid ascent from his lowly economic status through the hard work and ruthless ambition he had throughout his life. When he was not working he spent almost all of his time reading at the public library, becoming a self-taught man who not only learned the intricacies of the English language, but passed an exam to obtain a law license. Poring over books as though someone was about to snatch them away, Pulitzer pursued a love of the classics that would make him a well-read man.
It was during this period, when he worked as a waiter in a popular restaurant/barroom, that he first met Carl Schurz and Thomas Davidson, who were regular customers there. Between serving things he would stop to chat with them, as he did one eventful day. On that day, Schurz and Davidson were having lunch with Peter Kepler, a cartoonist who later made himself famous by creating a magazine called Puck. Pulitzer, adapting more and more through his labors at the library to his new land, was able to engage in intellectual small talk with these prominent citizens of St. Louis.
"We still haven't decided if Thomas here is a heretic.
What do you think, Joseph?"
"Maybe he's a philosophical heretic," Pulitzer replied.
"That's negative, Carl, you sound prejudiced against me," Davidson rejoined.
"No, I'm not prejudiced, just skeptical," said Schurz. "How do you define yourself, Thomas?" asked Kepler.
"Well, if I'm a heretic, I'm an enlightened heretic, and my desire is how to best help my fellow man."
"He sounds as though he's a helpful heretic," Pulitzer observed.
"I'm not formally religious anymore, and if that is deemed heretical, I justify my heresy by saying that I've become more interested in helping my fellow man than by proclaiming myself a man chosen by God."
"Than what you are is an independent," said Schurz.
"Get in here Pulitzer! You've got an order up!" bel- lowed the manager from the kitchen.
Pulitzer raised his eyebrows and departed for the kitchen.
"He seems like a bright young man," Kepler observed.
"I saw him at the library last night playing chess with someone," said Schurz.
"Really?" asked Davidson.
"Yes, and they say he's there almost every night, reading away until closing time."
"Maybe you can hire him at your paper, Carl," Kepler suggested.
"I don't know if he knows St. Louis well enough."
"I bet he'd learn fast," said Davidson.
Suddenly the trio heard a crash, and looked over to observe that the gangling Pulitzer, stumbling on his way out of the kitchen, had dropped a tray of food right onto the table of four businessmen, destroying their lunch. Pulitzer awkwardly rushed around the table trying to pick up the mess, and the men looked at him in disgust as the manager stormed over.
"That's it for you, Pulitzer, that's the last straw. Give me your checks and get out of here right now."
He grabbed Pulitzer by the elbow, and snatched the checks out of his apron pocket. After stripping the hapless Hungarian of his apron, he shoved him toward the door.
"The only time I want to see you again is when you come to pay the checks for the meals you've just destroyed, because we're going to have to cook new ones. Get out!"
Pulitzer backed up in a meek withdrawal, his eyes full fear and anger like a newly caged animal. He then turned around and retreated quickly out the door.
"I'm terribly sorry, gentlemen. We'll move you to another table, immediately. Billy! Put these men at Table 43."
"Well, well, he is going to need a job," said Kepler.
"You've got that right," agreed Schurz.
"Will you excuse me, gentlemen?" Davidson asked.
"Have something helpful to do, Thomas?" Kepler inquired.
Davidson got up and strode off in pursuit.
"I find it useful to help my fellow man," he declared over his shoulder.
"He's going to practice the golden rule like a heretic," opined Schurz.
"That should make the front page," Kepler asserted.
Davidson caught up with Pulitzer on the dirt roadway.
"Joseph, Joseph," he enjoined, reaching out to guide Pulitzer to the wooden sidewalk, where they sat down.
Pulitzer had tears in his eyes.
"I can't seem to make it in any job," he lamented.
"Aw, Joseph, don't feel so bad. Being a waiter is a tough job, and there aren't many who can do it. Besides, I think we both know that you are cut out for better in life."
"Really?"
"Sure, Joseph. Some friends of mine own a law firm and they could use somebody to run errands, and maybe more. What do you think?"
"What do I think? Can I start right now?"
* * * * * * * *
So began Pulitzer's career in journalism, as he gradually transitioned from errand boy to reporter. His thick accent and bizarre frame did not help him become a successful lawyer, as clients were deterred by his language and appearance. These impediments did not matter to Pulitzer the reporter, however, where his immense curiosity and intellectual stamina made him do well. He demonstrated these qualities in two jobs he had on his way up the professional ladder. The first was taking charge of the island where the victims of a cholera epidemic were taken for burial, as Pulitzer had the courage to take the job when even prisoners chose to stay in jail rather than work there. The second was when he was put in charge of mapping out the counties of Missouri and adapting insurance regulations to them, where his prodigious memory enabled him to show organizational abilities that few could match.
But it was his curiosity as a reporter that best equipped him for a career in journalism, and he wore out the people he besieged with an endless procession of questions, often prompting them to cut the interview short while Pulitzer was still picking their brains for minor details. In doing so he became well acquainted with the politics of St. Louis of his day, and the place of his new city on the national scene. He also took a great and passionate interest in any democratic election. To Pulitzer, raised in the final days of aristocratic governments of Europe, where the people were ruled by kings allegedly chosen by God, the American democratic process was a new and wonderful experience. Not only did he revel in the electoral process, but, as we will see, took a passionate interest in who would win the elections.
The initial fulcrum he used to change the newspaper business of the United States, however, was the unflinching way he questioned the powers that be in the St. Louis Missouri of his day. Perhaps, in part, he had an advantage as an immigrant, for he did not take things for granted as Americans were more prone to do, and spotted exploitation where they would not. His perspective was a fresh eye on what we today know to be gross injustices, and he became one of the first people to point them out. In doing so, he started from the bottom up, and relentlessly marched the streets to question the people who were the foundation of the Bourbon Democratic Political Machine.
One day he interviewed a blacksmith who, as he could see from an insignia mounted on the wooden fence that enclosed his furnace, was a member of the Black Lantern, a professional/political organization that supported the state and city machine of the ruling Bourbon Democrats.
"Are you in the Dark Lantern?" he inquired.
"None of your goddamn business!" snorted the blacksmith.
"Well I see the logo for it over there."
"I told you it's none of your goddamn business."
"Isn't it true that you help pack the vote for certain candidates in exchange for business?"
The blacksmith pulled a red hot iron out of the fire and lunged toward Pulitzer with it.
"If you don't get out of here I'm going to stick this where the sun don't shine, asshole!"
Pulitzer jaunted away.
"I'm going to take that as a yes."
On another occasion he sought to investigate another part of the Bourbon Democrats' political empireâ bordellos. These thriving establishments were part of the machine, and sometimes even the site of political par- ties where the machine politicians had celebrations of the electoral victories that the Black Lantern helped to engineer. Pulitzer knocked on the door as if he were a customer, and the Madame of the establishment, clad in her sporty red dress, blonde curls, bright red lipstick and fishnet stockings, asked him if he were interested.
"Why certainly I'm interested," Pulitzer replied. "Well why don't you step right in then, fellow."
The Madame did not ask whether he was a police- man, partly because she knew that almost all of St. Louis' finest were paid off, and would not visit, and partly because of Pulitzer's appearance. On this occasion the attributes that had been a disadvantage to Pulitzer were turned the other way around, for the forewoman of the bordello immediately pigeonholed him in her imagination with such labels as nerd, geek, homely, ungainly and loser. She thought Pulitzer was just another of the parade of dolts, in her view, who frequented her establishment.
But upon entry, when Pulitzer pulled out his little notebook, her lofty impressions crashed to the ground as she suddenly realized that she had engaged in a dangerous mischaracterization.
"How many girls do you have working here?" Pulitzer inquired, surveying the line of concubines that stood lasciviously in the hallway.
"What the hell??!!" she screamed out. "George, get in here quickly and get this bum out of here."
Again Pulitzer hustled to escape, figuring he had garnered all the direct information he was going get from that establishment, as the burly bouncer pursued him.
Back at the paper, Pulitzer reported on the results of his lengthy investigation.
"The hall of records has the owners of all those houses of prostitution listed clearly, Mr. Schurz, and all we have to do is publish their names in the paper."
"You are certainly shaking things up, Joseph," his boss replied.
"Is that not what a newspaper is supposed to do, Mr. Schurz?"
Schurz nodded, but had a look of perplexity on his face, for Pulitzer was changing the way the game was played. He was not content to let things lay, as the other reporters were, and was determined to challenge the powers that be. I cannot imagine today how unusual this was, before the creation of what is now considered to be the Fourth Estate. Reporters before Pulitzer were content to play the role that people like Augustine imagined them to have, which was more like placid souls who wrote out the news like a business inventory, and would never relate sordid affairs like murder and divorce. Pulitzer saw no such limits in his new, adopted land, and neither his mind nor his heart were restricted by the social conventions that governed the behavior of his coworkers.
Schurz and Davidson observed the unusual energy of Pulitzer, who worked twelve to fourteen hours a day like a maniac, without fear or trepidation toward the people he investigated, as the near-miss with Augustine had not cooled him down. As the years went on, Pulitzer began to mature and feel more sure of himself, confronting increasingly more powerful people not only in the news- paper but in person as well, as he began to feel himself like a knight from the fables of old with a solemn duty to attack the evil powers that made common citizens powerless. Pulitzer and Davidson, however, had fears there would be new enemies on the horizon similar to Augustine who would confront the lowly young reporter, and were surprised when he continued to attack such people as their equal. When the two looked out their second floor window one afternoon, Pulitzer was hustling out of the building to pursue what he considered the dragons of democracy, they evaluated their protégé's efforts.
"He's certainly shaking things up," Davidson postulated.
"You can say that again," agreed Schurz. "He's attacking lots of people."
"And they're going to try to do something about it."
As they spoke, coincidentally, Pulitzer was encountering opposition. As he dashed down the stairs and was confronted by a man who approached him with a much slower tread. This man was Jake Usher, a man whose own name had been published on a list in the Post as the owner of a house of prostitution. This portly middle aged fellow, the man with the appearance of someone with a body that had gone to seed for lack of exercise, struggled mightily to ascend the staircase. In doing so, he made himself a virtual roadblock as Pulitzer, who was bouncing down the stairs, and was forced to come to a halt.
"Mr. Pulitzer, we have to have a talk. My name is Jake Usher, and you published my name as an owner of a house of prostitution. I want to tell you I have no controlâŠ"
"You have to talk with me!!! Get a grip! You, the owner of a whorehouse? You are one of the worst types of criminal, worse than the lowly street thug because you disguise yourself in rich clothes to give yourself the appearance of dignity. You have no dignity you God- damn, dirty, low down scumâget out of here before I add trespassing to your crimes and rest assured, you asshole, that we will give further attention to you in our newspaper at the earliest opportunity."
Pulitzer's mighty excoriation succeeded in propel- ling the man downward, and he backed up as though he were encountering the winds of a mighty storm. Pulitzer, relieved of the obstruction, stepped around the man to dash off to his next conquest.
"Looks like our boy can take care of himself," Schurz observed, watching Pulitzer stride down the street.
"And a few other people, too," agreed Davidson.
* * * * * * * *
A few nights later, Pulitzer stated his broad ambitions plainly to his bosses. They sat at a table in the same bar where Pulitzer had his incident with Augustine, but his former 98-pound weakling status was now but a distant memory.
"What I'm doing is not enough, Mr. Schurz." "Not enough?"
"We've got to raise the circulation or our crusades won't work."
"Circulation is going up."
"Not by enough," Pulitzer contended.
"What do you propose, Joseph?" Davidson inquired. "Giving the people what they want."
Schurz and Davidson paused for a minute, struck by the audacity of Pulitzer's statement.
"And pray tell, what is that, Joseph?" Schurz inquired.
"Gossip, entertainment and scandal." Again his bosses sat dumbfounded.
"Appealing to their lower instincts? How on earth is that going to help people, Joseph?" inquired Davidson.
"If we are going to educate them we first have to get them to read the paper. Preaching to empty pews does nothing."
Schurz and Davidson both sat back to ponder this basic truth of sensationalistic journalism. Though their traditional academic training restricted them to certain codes of conduct, they knew that the masses of man- kind did not live by such strictures. Yet they had never tried to build a bridge to communicate with ordinary people, and considered the approach suggested by their protégé out of bounds. Though Pulitzer could discuss philosophy with the best, including his bosses with their academic backgrounds, he had something that they did not, an instinct for what approach would truly resonate with the public, and the fundamental importance of dramatizing the news in stark colors that the public could understand. The young Hungarian saw plainly that newspapers that were like church bulletins would make no difference, because people would either not read them or be little influenced by what they said. He realized that newspapers had to grab people by the throat, move them, and that their instincts were best roused by the base emotions that caused fights in the barrooms or gossip over the back fence. Once a paper had used such methods to attract people's attention, circulation would have a meteoric rise, and then the people could be educated on the problems that confronted them, and they then could be roused to do something about it.
Thereafter Pulitzer began to salt the front page of the paper with controversy as a way to draw in readers. Stories about divorce, murder, petty crime and scandal with lurid headlines appealed to readers in a way they could understand. Pulitzer showed that he had a deep insight into how to liven up the news and, put an electric charge of the thrill of life when people picked up the paper. And once the readers' dander was raised, they would be ready to learn about and confront the problems that caused their oppression, such as the political machines and giant corporations who at that time, had no government regulations or supervision to impede them from the kind of exploitation that is almost unimaginable today.
The other newspapers of St. Louis quickly noticed this new style of journalism, and were very skeptical whether it would have any lasting effect on their reader- base. One such paper was the Republican, an established morning daily that, at that time, ruled the roost of St. Louis papers. Its building was in a far more established section of St. Louis than the Post, and was a solid four story red brick structure with its brass logo firmly mounted on the building, a far cry from the wooden building of the Westliche Post with an insignificant wooden sign that swung back and forth in the breeze. The Republican, oddly, was really a Democratic paper because it supported the Bourbon Democrats, and the urban machine that kept them in power, including the blacksmiths' union, the Black Lantern. Content and confident of their ruling position, they did not take Pulitzer seriously when he first began to rock the boat. The editor of the paper, William Hyde, and his right hand man, Jeffrey Salem, surveyed a copy of the Post in Hyde's office when Pulitzer began to liven up the Post's coverage.
"This Pulitzer fellow seems quite ambitious," Hyde postulated.
"Yes, his presentation of the news might be called gaudy," agreed Salem.
"True."
"Did you see this? Wily Widow Robs Suitors." "Isn't that a fine one?"
"He doesn't care what kind of cheap trash he reports," fumed the editor.
"It won't last long." "I should hope not!"
Had these men been able to gaze into a crystal ball they would have seen visions of sensationalistic journalism, and stories that would make Pulitzer's efforts seem staid by comparison. However, they did not at all feel that his new brand of opposition was a threat, even though he was getting people to read newspapers who had not done so before. Pulitzer had made newspapers truly democratic, and raised up the common man to confront the powers that be.
But even in his own paper he was making waves, as Schurz and Davidson were somewhat bewildered by the new system that Pulitzer was inaugurating. The young man was taking more control, as time went on, and circulation was going up in the dramatic rise that Pulitzer so deeply desired. He was hiring reporters, travelling around Missouri to political conventions and meetings, and designing the layout of the entire paper. Schurz felt like a bystander. It should not, therefore, have come as a surprise to Pulitzer when Schurz called him to his office for a meeting.
"I'm going to be leaving for New York, Joseph," Schurz informed him.
"You are?" Pulitzer replied incredulously.
"I've been offered the editorship of a paper called the Evening Post."
"Congratulations."
"You are going to run the show here, Joseph." "So soon?"
"I think that you are ready Joseph."
"Maybe, but I don't know if I can afford full owner- ship, Mr. Schurz."
"I think that we can work something out."
And so as the lawyers worked together to frame up articles of incorporation for Pulitzer and work out payments for his debt to Schurz to take control of the paper, Pulitzer realized that the paper was truly going to become his own baby. He had transformed it from an obscure sheet that catered to German Americans to a living breathing newspaper that contended for top billing with the big boys.
* * * * * * * *
Two weeks later there was a goodbye party for Schurz at his own home. It was a sunny day in June, and local dignitaries socialized on the lawn while listening to a chamber quartet while eating southern snacks from a catered buffet, next to a small bar that served wine and cocktails. Pulitzer was talking to Schurz when an attractive young lady named Kate Davis joined the conversation. She was an extremely attractive brunette from one of St. Louis's most prominent families.
"Is this the daring new reporter that the whole town is talking about?" she inquired.
"I hope the whole town isn't talking about me," rejoined Pulitzer.
"Miss Davis, Mr. Pulitzer. Mr. Pulitzer, Miss Davis." The two exchanged greetings.
"He talks about himself a lot," Schurz quipped. "Stop. I don't believe that for a moment. You write wonderful articles, Mr. Pulitzer."
"Why thank you, Miss Davis."
"You're going to be taking over the paper, aren't you?"
"Sort of..."
Schurz turned away, drawn into a conversation with Davidson and others.
"It is a beautiful garden here," Kate theorized. "Indeed it is. Have you seen the azaleas?" queried Pulitzer.
"I don't believe that I have."
"They're right over here. Shall we take a look?" he said, offering her his arm.
"I'd be happy too, Mr. Pulitzer," she replied, taking his arm for the stroll.
The other guests watched as the young couple chose their own path on a walkway to the azalea garden, which was down on a lower level from the patio, somewhat away from the melodies of the quartet. They strolled around the path that skirted a group of azalea bushes that surrounded a cement bench, where they sat down.
"Do you miss Hungary?"
"Sometimes," Pulitzer responded.
"What about your family?" Kate inquired. "My father passed away a few years ago."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Thank you."
Kate was curious about this young dynamo. How could such a recent immigrant as he have become so successful, so quickly?
"What about your mother?' she inquired.
"She was remarried."
"Oh?"
"I wasn't happy about it."
Kate sensed that she had touched a nerve. "So you came over here to fight in the war."
"Pretty much," Pulitzer replied.
There was a slight pause in the conversation.
"Let me ask, if you don't mind, what is your goal, Mr. Pulitzer?"
"My goal?" he questioned, somewhat taken aback.
"What drives you? What do you hope to do as a newspaperman?"
Pulitzer meditated for a minute on how to respond to this direct query, before responding.
"To help the millions of immigrants who weren't as lucky as me."
"That is very generous of you."
"Someone has to help them get away from being exploited by the fat-cats."
Thereafter, the couple transitioned into more ordinary conversation, gossiping about the theater, music, goings on about town, and started to get to know each other.