PULITZER: A LIFE IN POLITICS, PRINT AND POWER
By James McGrath Morris
Harper, $29.99, 558 pages
Illustrated
REVIEWED BY JOHN M. TAYLOR
Few barons of the Gilded Age offer so remarkable a story as press mogul Joseph Pulitzer. Born in Hungary in 1847 to middle-class Jewish parents, Joseph opted initially for a military career, but was repeatedly rejected because of his poor eyesight. At 17, he made his way to the United States, where he served briefly in the Union Army, which by 1864 was not fussy about eyesight. But the end of the war found him a tall, scrawny youth who spoke little English and had no money and no employment prospects.
Pulitzer made his way to St. Louis, probably attracted by its reputation as the home of many German speakers. There he worked at odd jobs but was handicapped by his frail physique, limited English and volatile temper. His stint as a restaurant waiter came to an abrupt end when, annoyed by a customer’s complaint, Pulitzer slammed him on the head with his beefsteak.
In time, Pulitzer befriended Carl Schurz, a leader of the German-American community, who hired him as a reporter for a German-language newspaper, the Westliche Post. Working long days, Pulitzer soon acquired a reputation for uncovering abuses in public office. Following Schurz’s example, Pulitzer also became active in reformist politics and supported the unsuccessful 1872 campaign to unseat President U.S. Grant. At about that time, he persuaded Schurz to sell him a controlling interest in the Westliche Post, a first step on the road to Pulitzer’s becoming a press baron.
At age 30, Pulitzer won the hand of Kate Davis, the intelligent and lively daughter of a prominent St. Louis family. After returning from his honeymoon in Europe - Pulitzer was becoming an inveterate traveler - he bought two failing newspapers and merged them into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Convinced that a large circulation was the key to a paper’s influence, Pulitzer provided a mix of sensation, human interest and reform. Fiercely competitive, he drove his employees hard but rewarded good work. Mr. Morris writes, “Pulitzer paid better than other publishers, granted vacation time, frequently rewarded good work with bonuses, and remained intensely loyal to those who served him.”
By 1883, Pulitzer was a wealthy man, and in that year he purchased the money-losing New York World from millionaire Jay Gould. Pulitzer was now in the big leagues. He shifted the paper’s focus to his proven formula of human interest and sensationalism, but, according to the author, was a stickler for accuracy. Mr. Morris writes, “Words could paint brides as blushing, murderers as heinous, politicians as venal, but the facts had to be right.” In his editorials, Pulitzer insisted on independence and readability.
In the closely run presidential election of 1884, the World lambasted Republican James G. Blaine at every opportunity, and many gave Pulitzer credit for Grover Cleveland’s eventual victory. Pulitzer had an active social life. Anti-Semitism was prevalent in New York society, but Pulitzer’s money opened most doors. At home, however, the publisher’s tantrums left his family life in tatters. He once accused Kate of “failing in her duties as a wife” and of being unable to make him feel at home. When Kate responded, telling Pulitzer that he was totally spoiled, Pulitzer ordered her out of the room.
And he was not easy to work for. One staffer wrote, “He is such an ill-mannered surly brute and keeps throwing in one’s teeth that he is paying one for all one does for him - and he is evidently quite determined to get his money’s worth.” Pulitzer loved travel, and owned a succession of ocean-going yachts, but his health began to fail in the late 1880s. He had long suffered from anxiety, insomnia, bad digestion and a hypersensitivity to sound that led him to attempt to make his various mansions soundproof.
In 1887, he was nearly blind in one eye when he lost the sight in the other. “Wherever he went,” Mr. Morris writes, “it was in the company of an all-male retinue of secretaries, readers, pianists and valets.”
Despite his health problems, Pulitzer sought to retain editorial control over his empire from various spas in Europe. When, in 1895, William Randolph Hearst bought the New York Journal, a circulation war erupted that would link both Hearst and Pulitzer with the charge of practicing “yellow journalism.”
“Next to power,” Mr. Morris writes, “Pulitzer most sought respectability.” In 1892, he raised the possibility of endowing a school of journalism with the trustees of Columbia University, who rejected the idea. A decade later, he raised the subject again, promising $2 million and suggesting annual prizes for quality journalism. This time, Columbia agreed. “Irascible to the end,” Mr. Morris writes, Pulitzer added a provision that the money would go to Harvard if Columbia failed to live up to its promises.
But Columbia came through, and Pulitzer purchased respectability. Mr. Morris, for his part, has provided an attractive, superbly illustrated and gracefully written account of his subject that might well catch the attention of the Pulitzer Prize trustees.
Biographer and historian John M. Taylor lives in McLean, Va.
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