Pulitzer
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On his return: KP letter, 1898, JP-CU, Box 8; NYT, 8/28/1898, 13.
The “Journal’s war”: Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 615, 629.
By the war’s end: JN to JP, 9/11/1899, WP-CU. At least the Post-Dispatch was making money. Its 1898 profits were better than all but two previous years.
Also coming to Narragansett: KP to CP, 1989, JP-CU. Box 8; NYT, 7/23/1898; AtCo, 7/23/1898, 1.
The trip through the South: Cashin, First Lady, 290.
On September 21, 1898: NYT, 9/22/1898, 4.
The World was desperate: WaPo, 10/10/1898, 6, and 10/14/1898, 6; John Norris, “Journal and World Revenues Compared,” 11/14/1898, WP-CU.
Norris, along with Seitz: Memo, 1898, JP-CU, Box 8; DCS to JP, 11/18/1898, WP-CU.
The typewriters were still: Memo, 11/28/1898, JP-CU.
Pulitzer assigned the business manager: JP to JN, 1/31/1899, JP-CU; Noted in February 8–14, 1900 Folder, JP-CU, Box 10. A year later, Norris hinted that he thought the reason the deal to sell the Post-Dispatch failed was Pulitzer’s inability to understand the financing arrangements. (JN to JP, 3/13/1900, JP-CU.)
Kate was also: JN to JP, 2/17/1899, WP-CU; AB to KP, 3/14/1899, JP-CU.
Pulitzer told his staff: JP to DCS, 5/4/1899, JP-LC; JP to KP, 5/31/1899, JP-CU.
In Britain: Walter Leyman to JP, 10/9/1899, JP-CU, quoted in WES, 298–299.
Pulitzer headed back: LAT, 5/3/1899, 5.
That summer Pulitzer: NYT, 5/27/1899, 2. The builder eventually sued to get his payment.
His house in New York: NYT, 1/10/1900, 2; personal ledger for April 1899 shows expenses and descriptions of items, JP-CU.
Kate joined Joseph: JAS to KP, 8/1/1899, JP-CU.
CHAPTER 25: THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS
One icy night: NYT, 2/15/1891, 5. Jacob Riis reported the story in his Children of the Poor but gave the children different names.
Newsies, as boys: Charles Dickens’s fictional Martin Chuzzlewit encountered them when he disembarked in New York. ‘“Here’s this morning’s New York Sewer!’ cried one. ‘Here’s this morning’s New York Stabber! Here’s the New York Family Spy!…Here’s full particulars of the patriotic locofoco movement yesterday, in which the whigs was so chawed up; and the last Alabama gouging case; and the interesting Arkansas dooel with Bowie knives; and all the Political, Commercial, and Fashionable News. Here they are! Here they are! Here’s the papers, here’s the papers!’” (Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, 267.)
Since most copies: The headline, though it may be apocryphal, is said to have been written by Charles Chapin and appears twice in works by Irwin Cobb. See Exit Laughing, 140, and his novel Alias Ben Alibi, 126.
The newsies became: There is no existing record as to which of the two newspapers raised its wholesale price first. However, only the World’s managers were under orders to cut costs. Hearst was still spending money in hopes of beating the World and establishing his own paper. It makes sense that he would have matched the World’s price increase but not instigated it.
The newsies demanded: David Nasaw, “On Strike with the Newsboy Legion, 1899,” Big Town, Big Time: A New York Epic: 1898–1998 (New York: Sports Publishing, 1998), 1839; DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on the Newsboys’ Strike,” July 27, 1899, WP-CU; NYT, 7/22/1899, 4.
The strike exacted: Pulitzer had left England on the Majestic on July 12, 1899, and a special train car had brought him and the family to Bar Harbor on July 20, 1899. See Lowell Sun, 7/10/1899, 19, and Daily Kennebec Journal, 7/21/1899; DCS to JP, 7/22/1899, WP-CU; John M. Quinn, Anaconda Standard, 8/6/1899, 3.
But enemies with: DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on the Newsboys’ Strike. 7/22/1899, WP-CU. As Seitz left the Journal’s office he spotted Hearst with four leaders of the newsboys. They had come from his office and had promised to call off the strike against the Journal if Hearst agreed to lower the price to 50 cents per 100. The meeting set off a rumor that he would give in. “I cannot believe he will be so foolish,” Merrill wired to Pulitzer. “The boys cannot last many days—in spite of encouragement the other papers are giving.”
Advertisers abandoned the papers: DCS, “Memorandum on the Newsboys Strike,” 7/25/1899, WP-CU.
Using homeless men: DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on the Newsboys’ Strike,” 7/27/1899, WP-CU.
As the strike continued: David Nasaw, “Dirty-Faced Davids and the Twin Goliaths,” American Heritage, Vol. 36, No. 3 (1985), 46; NYT, 7/27/1899, 3.
A clever ruse: The compromise broke the strike but was recognized by others as a loss for the newsboys. For example, newsdealers who had supported the boys withdrew their support, declaring the strike a failure: NYT, 8/1/1899, 4.
Facing the resolute partnership: DCS to JP, 7/26/1899, WP-CU; DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on the Newsboys’ Strike.” 7/27/1899. WP-CU Seitz also told Pulitzer he had paid no bribes: NYT, 7/28/1899, 4.
This was no longer: DCS to JP, 7/26/1899, WP-CU.
When David Graham Phillips: JP to GWH, 12/22/1910 reprinted in DCS-JP, xii–xiii.
The pressure was: JP to Merrill, quoted in DCS, 246.
One could never: JP to WHM, reprinted in DCS, 247.
Despite the outburst: JP to DGP, 8/17/1899, JP-LC.
Pulitzer, however, was: Maurice, The New York of the Novelists, 139; Marcosson, David Graham Phillips and His Times, 208.
In Phillips’s novel: Phillips, The Great God Success, 11.
Following the settlement: DCS to JP, 10/5/1899, WP-CU; DCS, “Memorandum for Mr. Pulitzer on Los,” 7/31/1899, WP-CU.
The two managers: DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on Mr. Seitz’ Conversation with Los,” 8/14/1899, WP-CU.
Proposals for a peace treaty: Nasaw, The Chief, 110; JP to BM, 8/29/1898, JP-LC; DCS to JP, October 4, 1898, JP-LC; memo, 12/19/1898, JP-LC; see also Nasaw, The Chief, 148–149. The squabble over the wire service would not die. Hearst enraged Pulitzer when he started using wire copy from the Journal in his Evening Journal. Pulitzer sued. Faced with the threat of being personally dragged into court, Hearst vowed to terminate the negotiations and resume his attacks on Pulitzer in the paper, “making it as personal and as powerful as he can,” Carvalho warned.
Keenly aware of: JP to DCS, 7/24/1899, JP-LC.
Combination instead of: JP to DGP, 8/23/1902, The Sherman act specified, “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony.”
Remaining in Bar Harbor: JP to DCS, 8/19/1899, JP-LC.
Pulitzer placed high hopes: JP to DCS, 8/25/1899, JP-LC.
Like a nervous suitor: JP to DCS, 9/4/1899, and 9/5/1899, JP-LC.
Upon finally sitting: DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on Mr. Seitz’ Conversation with Los,” 8/14/1899, WP-CU.
From the start, both: DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on Los and Treaty,” 8/3/1899, WP-CU. “By the way,” said Carvalho, “Mr. Pulitzer is taking a great deal of my time and much of our money in fighting an Associated Press suit against the Journal, in which he will be beaten on several important points. It seems to me that any agreement ought to be preceded by the abandonment of that suit.” Seitz tried to keep the issue off the table by arguing that it would resolve itself in court. His view prevailed, and he and Carvalho decided to draft a contract to bring to Hearst and Pulitzer. “Of course,” Seitz told Pulitzer, “I could see that a treaty of peace was hardly feasible while an active war went on.”
While the men negotiated: JN to JP, 8/8/1899, WP-CU.
Pulitzer pledged: JP to DCS, 9/23/1899, JP-LC. The proposed contract may be found in WP-CU, Box 12, 9/1–15/1899.
When Norris reviewed: JN to JP, 9/7/1899, and BM to JP, 9/14/1899, WP-CU.
Pulitzer ignored both: JP to DCS, 9/2/1899, JP-LC; DCS, “Memo for Mr. Pulitzer on Mr. Seitz’ Conversation with Los,” 8/14/1899.
As with crushing: JP to DCS, 9/23/1899, JP-LC.
The negotiations dragged: DCS to JP, 11/23/1899, WP-CU.
“I cannot get over”: Marcosson, Phillips, 98–99.
With the arrival of winter: Phillips, The Great God Success, 170, 274, 278–279.
CHAPTER 26: FLEEING HIS SHADOW
Muffled sounds of screaming: NYT, 1/10/1900, 3; WaPo, 1/10/1900, 3; BrEa, 1/9/1900, 18; NYH, 1/10/1900; James W. McLane to JP, 1/14/1900, JP-CU.
Kate and the children: ChTr, 2/21/1900, 4; NYC Fire Department Chief and Police Chief Clerk letters to DCS, 3/5/1900, JP-CU.
As Pulitzer’s fifty-third birthday: NYT, 4/13/1900, 9; 1899 Expenditures, in January 1–7, 1900, Folder, JP-CU, Box 10.
Kate had not yet: Dr. McLane to JP, 5/7/1900, JP-CU; JAS to JP, 5/7/1900, JP-CU.
At the World: JP telegram, 1/5/1900, JP-LC.
Since January: JN to JP, 4/2/1900, JP-CU; Berger, The Story of the New York Times, 127; ChTr, 10/17/1902, 12.
Phillips was also: DGP to JP, 4/5/1900, JP-CU; BM to JP, 4/5/1900, WP-CU; JAS to JP, 4/14/1900, JP-CU. When Phillips returned, he got into a fight with Pulitzer over the cost of the trip.
After more than a decade: Transcript of JP talk, 1900 Folder, WP-CU, Box 14.
The telegrams tested: ABi to AB, 2/29/1901, JP-CU.
People in competitive: The only known surviving copy of the codebook once belonged to H. A. Jenks, JP-CU. Here is a sample of a coded telegram, followed by the decoded version. Coded: “Would unhesitatingly give atlas of angers aroma for arm on second art agony especially if I were anxious to get rid of management of amour.” Decoded: “Would unhesitatingly give approval of Knapp’s proposition for arbitration on second-class security especially if I were anxious to get rid of management of Post-Dispatch.” JP to AB, 2/22/1899, JP-CU.
This 5,000-entry book: Sometimes Pulitzer’s choice of codes must have raised an eyebrow or two. One must wonder what a telegraph operator in the 1890s made of a message that spoke of “vagina” ($27,500 in advertising for a week) or “vaginal” ($28,000). Pulitzer organized his lexicon by letter groupings. Codes for cash balances, for instance, were all words that began with H. “Ha” stood for $1,000; “hypocrite” meant $400,000. For his private bank balance, Pulitzer used a term that many people looking at their own checkbooks could relate to: “hysterics.” The complex code was rendered even more cumbersome by the addition of codes within coded messages. When Pulitzer sought to have checks sent out in his name, his requests were supposed to include one of five names from a list of cities found in the annual World Almanac. Without the name, no payment was authorized.
To stay out of trouble: The memo dated 2/23/1910, is bound in Jenks’s codebook, JP-CU.
For himself, Pulitzer: In 2005, when the Pulitzer family announced the intention of selling the Post-Dispatch, a group of employees made a last-ditch effort to purchase it. They named their attempt the “Andes Project”: Guild Reporter, 2/11/2005, 1.
In late June 1900: NYT, 6/26/1900, 6; RP to JP, 6/15/1900, JP-CU.
Like most of: Ralph did not want Butes to bring the matter up with his father. “I judge that the paper is worrying him considerably and I hate to talk money with him, as you know”: RP to AB, 8/1899, JP-CU.
Ralph’s fifteen-year-old brother: JPII to JP, 3/12/1901, JP-CU.
It was not until: Pfaff, Joseph Pulitzer II, 32. Seven years later, Joseph Jr. was present when his father received an appeal from a worker who had been fired after his parents refused to let him come to work on Rosh Hashanah. “I appeal to you, being that you are a Jew (otherwise, I would not appeal),” wrote Isaac Feigenbaum. Joseph Jr. told Seitz that his father said, “If this chap really has a sincere religious conviction, that fact should be considered. He leaves the matter with you.” (Feigenbaum to JP, 9/27/1907, JP-LC.)
Pulitzer supervised the children’s: JP to DCS, 10/30/1900, JP-LC.
Pulitzer had even: DWP, 33; JP to KP, 11/24–29/1901, dictation in notebook, JP-CU, Box 16, Folder 5.
Pulitzer took less interest: JP to KP, 12/4/1900, JP-CU. Pulitzer’s attitude toward his daughters was typical of fathers at the time. At his death, he left his daughters each a fraction of his estate but no interest in any of the newspapers.
Joseph endlessly expressed: JP to KP, 1/14/1897, JP-CU; Adam Politzer to JP, 10/19/1900, JP-CU.
As her time: DGP to JP, 11/22/1900, WP-CU. The passage to which Phillips alludes may have been Horace, Epistles, Book 1, Poem 1, lines 81–93.
When one of the governesses: Ledlie to JP, 6/29/1900, JP-CU; KP to JP, no date, probably 6/29/1900, June Folder, JP-CU, Box 11; KP to JP, 7/18/1900 and 7/19/1900; JP to KP, 7/21/1900; KP to JP, 7/22/1900, KP to JP, 7/25/1900, JP-CU; JAS to JP, 8/1/1900, JP-CU.
It was not a good time: JP to KP, 10/22/1899, JP-CU.
After Davidson’s death: J. Clark Murray to JP, 9/16/1900, and W. R. Warren to JP, 9/21/1900, JP-CU.
In the fall of 1900: JC to JP, no date, in 1900 folder, WP-CU, Box 14.
Backing Bryan put: Kazin, A Godly Hero, 105.
In the early morning: ChTr, 10/10/1900, 1.
“In the few moments”: GHW to KP, 10/15/1900, JP-CU.
The new century: Details of the war between the large retailers and the World may be found in WP-CU, Box 18.
An upturn in: The modern securities laws were years away. What Pulitzer was doing was not illegal. For instance, his banker obtained confidential information about his bank’s forthcoming dividends and purchased shares for Pulitzer to benefit from the higher price the stock would fetch. (DC to JP, 10/14/1904, JP-CU.)
Pulitzer invested in: In 1902 and 1904, Pulitzer asked Clarke to sell railroad and steel stocks because he was uncomfortable owning them. In one instance, Clarke replied, “It would seem a pity to make the sacrifice simply because your sense of what is right and just is not complied with” (DC to JP, 9/2/1902, JP-CU); JP to DC, undated, JP-CU, Box 8.
All the income: DuVivier and Company to KP, 4/5/1901; Gebrüder Simon to JP, 12/5/1900; GWH to KP, 2/21/1901, JP-CU.
The new mansion: William Mead to Hughmon Hawley, 12/14/1900, MMW.
Just when matters: Stanford White to JP, 2/11/1902, MMW.
In the circulation war: DCS to JP, 9/17/1891, WP-CU. Earlier in the year, when giving instructions to his editors, Pulitzer used an example that eerily came to pass, “Not even if McKinley is assassinated.”(JP comment, in Merrill summary upon return from Jekyll, 3/8–10/1901 WP-CU.)
For the first: WAS, 324; BM memo, 10/21/1901, WP-CU.
On the other hand: PB to JP, 9/10/1901, WP-CU.
The combination of: Two years later the Wall Street Journal, which regularly commented on the city’s journalism, noted the change. “The World has in the past few years retained all the more desirable attributes of the ‘yellow’ journalism, [but] it has abandoned many of the methods of degraded demagoguery which have made the Journal a stench in the nostrils of people who are able to think.” (WSJ, 5/11/1903, 1.)
The calm that Pulitzer: Figures contained in 1902 Folder, JP-CU, Box 19.
In choosing art: GHL to JP, 3/24/1902, JP-CU.
Kate was willing: JP to KP, 4/16/1902, JP-CU. In fairness, Joseph also included tender words about how much he was thinking of her. But these may well have been written to make her feel better or may have been the idea of Butes, who would have taken the dictation.
Kate, however, did not: GHL to AB, 5/23/1902, JP-CU.
“I not only”: DCS-JP, 254.
Joseph left Kate: Dr. Bounus to JP, 7/3/1902, JP-CU; KP to GHL, 7/27/1902, JP-CU.
Alone in Maine: GHL to AB, 8/9/1902 and AB to GHL, 8/10/1902, JP-CU.
In September, John Dillon: BoGl, 10/16/1902, 4; ChTr. 10/17/1902, 12.
For an additional: JP to FDW, 10/16/1902. Bills, letters, and drawings, 10/29/1902; prepaid voucher, 10/29/1902, JP-CU; JP dictation to White Star, 8/28/1905, LS Folder, 1903–1905; JP to White Star, 11/17/1900, JP-CU. White Star kept the mats in storage for times when Pulitzer booked passage. See AI, 196–197.
Years before, while running: PD, 5/30/1879, 2. The meeting was the Thirteenth Annual Session of the Missouri Press Association, held at Columbia, MO, May 27 and 28, 1879; Chicago Inter-Ocean, 11/27/1887. See also NYW, 4/4/1887, quoted in WRR, 754.
By the 1890s: Life, 9/8/1898, 189. Henry Luce would later buy this magazine and turn it into the famous weekly of the twentieth century.
While he was at rest: Correspondence, 8/12/1902, JP-CU, indicates that a lawyer came to Maine to revise the will. For an example of press figures with whom Pulitzer discussed his ideas, see H. W. Steed to JP, 7/6/1904, BLMC; “Rough Memorandum,” 1902, JP-CU.
Although his idea: Franklin Prentiss to JP, 11/26/1887, and “Christmas Prizes Offered by Mr. Pulitzer,” 11/3/1899, JP-CU; November memo, 1899, JP-LC, Box 2.
Pulitzer assigned Hosmer: JP to KP, 5/20/1904, JP-CU.
On the train: JP to GWH, 8/11/1902, JP-CU; DCS-JP, 435; AtCo, 2/3/1903, 5.
Ignoring Seitz’s opinion: JP to GWH, 8/11/1902, JP-CU.
On Sunday, February 22: Volo and Volo, Family Life in Nineteenth-Century America, 196.
Pulitzer let loose: JP telegram, 2/26/1903; WP-CU, DCS to JP, 2/27/1903; JP memorandum, 2/27/1903; JP memo to DCS, 2/28/1903; Council notes, 3/2/1903, WP-CU.
Pulitzer replied that: Gale was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921, for a play based on her novel Miss Lulu Bett. For more on her work at the World, see Morris, The Rose Man of Sing Sing, 155–156.
When Edith arrived: BoGl, 5/9/1903, 20; Edith Pulitzer to JP, 5/1903, JP-CU; NYT, 5/9/1903, 8.
Pulitzer took great joy: Draft of letter in July 3–6, 1903 Folder, JP-CU, as well as numerous other items in the files.
In fact, not long after: James Tuohy to JP, 7/17/1903, JP-CU. I have chosen not to use the man’s name, as there is no way to ascertain his side of the story. There exists one letter in which the man is said to deny the charges.
One reader in particular: JWC to JP, February 1903, WP-CU.
Writing to Joseph: KP to JP, 6/21/1903, JP-CU.
CHAPTER 27: CAPTURED FOR THE AGES
In early 1904: JWB, 183–185.