THE PULITZERS
Joseph Pulitzer was the greatest man I ever knew; great as a
journalist, great as a writer, great as a business man, great as a
scholar, great as a thinker, great in his knowledge of the events
of the world, great as the directing force of a big organization
of workers. To be associated with him and to listen to the wisdom
that came from his lips in ordinary conversation, was an education
in itself. To study the working of his wonderful mind was a rare
privilege. Some of the most enjoyable hours of my life were spent in
his library and in the long drives we sometimes had together. I never
came away from him that I did not feel inflated with ambition to
accomplish something big and worth while, not just something that might
attract his attention and perhaps win commendation for myself, but
something that would be a credit to the newspaper he was so proud of.
It was the reflex of his magnetic personality.
The story of his humble beginning and his rise to greatness in the face
of obstacles that would have kept most men groveling in the mire, has
been told so often and is so familiar to all I shall not even attempt
to sketch briefly his biography. I am content to write just a few words
of the Great Master as I knew him. He was my best friend among men. I
watched them lower his body into the grave and I felt as if my spirit
were being buried with him. I loved Joseph Pulitzer.
I have heard what others who professed to know him better than I did
said of him after he was dead. Some spoke with bitterness, called him a
tyrant and described him as unfeeling and brutal. My own experience was
just the opposite.
To me he was always kind, courteous, generous, and indulgent, mild
in criticizing and almost prodigal when praising my efforts. His
mind worked like a kinetoscope. I felt a keen delight while reading
newspapers to him, he grasped everything so quickly and with such
perfect understanding. No matter what the topic might be, blind as he
was, nothing need be elaborated or explained. He instinctively knew.
Sometimes when I have been reading to him he would become explosively
profane over an article in the _World_ he disapproved of, or
perhaps an editorial writer had not fully comprehended his instructions.
And how shockingly that blind man could swear! With him profanity was
more of an art than a vice. Once when I had read something to him that
made him angry with the writer’s stupidity he swore so passionately
and so loud and grew so choleric and red in the face, that I feared
something inside of him might snap.
Suddenly he checked himself and pricked up his ears. There were angry
voices in an adjoining room. One of his young sons was having a run-in
with his tutor and was forcibly telling what he thought of him. A
peculiar expression, a mixture of annoyance and amusement, came over my
employer’s countenance.
“Dear me,” he said, “I wonder where that boy learned to swear.” He
didn’t utter another oath during the remainder of my visit.
It was at the time of this incident that I learned a useful lesson
that guided my conduct in all the years afterward that I was with his
newspaper. He had telephoned to my home before six in the morning,
asking me to call at his home before going to the office. He was
breakfasting alone when I got there and the first question he asked me
was: “What is the news at the office?”
I replied that the most important to me was that I had discharged a
dozen young reporters the day before.
“Were there no good ones among them?” he asked.
“Some were very promising and in time might have developed into
first-class men.”
“Then, why fire them?”
“I was ordered to by Norris.”
John Norris was at that time financial manager of the entire
_World_ establishment. Whenever a spasm of economy hit him he
would order the head of each department to reduce his payroll and
often this involved discharging men without regard for merit. The last
ones employed were usually the victims. It was a rotten thing to do and
all of us knew it, but Norris was supposed to have full authority from
the proprietor and we took it for granted that when he said retrench
the order must be obeyed.
“But why fire men you considered worth keeping?” demanded Mr. Pulitzer.
He was looking straight into my face and his blind eyes seemed to be
searching my inmost thoughts.
“What could I do but obey the order from Norris?”
His face twitched nervously, there was a frown on his brow and his
compressed lips indicated irritation.
“I know what I would have done had I been in your place,” was the
placid response, after it had been carefully weighed in his mind.
He didn’t explain in words what he would have done and I didn’t ask
him to, but the next time Norris ordered me to cut down the staff I
didn’t do it. Norris fumed and fussed and ripped and snorted and even
threatened, but I stood pat and never again did I discharge competent
men for no other reason than that I was ordered to. The financial
manager who came after Norris won his reputation for efficiency by less
destructive methods.
If other newspaper proprietors would speak as candidly to subordinates
as Mr. Pulitzer did to me that morning there would be fewer wholesale
dismissals of capable men at the whim of the chap who controls the
finances. It is the instability of newspaper employment that rises
like a specter to disturb the peace of mind of every young man who is
fighting for a foothold on the elusive ladder of journalistic fame.
They never know when the dreaded “iron ball” will next roll and knock
them out. I have watched their faces when a hateful blue envelope
reached them with its curt note of dismissal, and I have seen the look
of dismay as they packed their belongings and silently headed for the
elevator; and I have fairly hated myself for being in a job that made
me the instrument of such ruthless treatment of men.
Once when I had breakfasted with Mr. Pulitzer he asked me to read the
morning newspapers to him. While I was opening the bundle his butler
brought, he lit a black cigar and settled contentedly back in his chair
to listen. In a few minutes he interrupted to ask if his cigar was
burning. With the inquiry he blew a cloud of fragrant smoke into my
face and I was nearly choked.
I have thought of this incident many times and I have closed my eyes
while smoking to try and realize the sensation that comes to a blind
man when he is unable to tell if his cigar is lit. I have read of the
enjoyment of blind men for tobacco, but I don’t believe it.
Another pathetic incident connected with his blindness impressed me
deeply. We were both in London. I had completed my vacation, after an
extended automobile tour of France and England, and had packed and was
intending to sail for New York the following day. Mr. Pulitzer arrived
from the continent shortly before midnight and when he was told that I
was in London and was to sail in a few hours he had them call me up and
ask me to cancel my passage and come to him the next day for luncheon.
He was interested in all I told him about my trip and insisted that
I remain at least another week, suggesting points of interest in and
about London he particularly wished me to visit. Among others were the
House of Commons and the National Portrait Gallery.
I spent the next two days in visiting places he recommended and
the third day drove with him through the park and described what I
had seen. I recall how interested he was in the speech I had heard
Chamberlain deliver, of my being invited to tea with lords and their
ladies on the broad portico overlooking the Thames, of being shown the
wardrobe of the King and his Queen in a room off from the House of
Lords and of being permitted to sit in the throne chair and to recline
on the Cardinal’s woolsack.
What interested him most was the description I gave of the wonderful
paintings in the portrait gallery. I had spent almost an entire day
there and he had me lead his imagination through all of the rooms as I
had visited them and describe to him the portraits of English Kings
and Queens of bygone centuries and of some of the famous men who were
conspicuous figures in the history of Great Britain. When I finished
tears were flowing down his cheeks.
“What wouldn’t I give to see what you saw,” he sobbed, as he sank
back into the cushions of the carriage and remained pensively silent
throughout the remainder of our drive. I thought then that I would
gladly have given him one of my eyes were it possible.
Mr. Pulitzer was ambitious that his three sons should follow in his
footsteps and be fitted by actual experience some day to assume control
of his newspaper properties. They were fine chaps, the best types of a
rich man’s sons, but they were full of the joy of youth and the father
seemed to expect them to grow into sedate, serious men before nature
intended they should. Ralph, the eldest of the three, came from college
and passed through the various stages of news reporting, gravitating to
the editorial rooms after a few years, he having developed an inherent
ambition for editorial writing. Consequently he was well-equipped with
actual experience as well as brains to assume active control upon the
death of his father.
I recall when young Joe came from college. He was a lovable lad,
with many of his father’s characteristics and much of his mother’s
gentleness. Joe loved fun. Something at college, bills I suspect,
displeased the father and by way of discipline Joe was told that he was
to be put at work in the office. Nothing could have pleased him more.
Mr. Pulitzer got me on the telephone and these were the instructions he
gave, as nearly as I can remember:
“I am sailing for Europe in the morning and I am sending Joe down to
work under you. Treat him exactly as you would any other beginner and
don’t hesitate to discipline him should he need it. There is to be no
partiality shown because he is my son. Do you quite understand?”
“I think so.”
“Promise me you will do as I ask.”
“Your instructions will be carried out.”
“Good, I shall rely on you. Don’t forget about the discipline. I have
told him that he is to report to you every morning promptly at eight
and work until five. Please see that he does it and that he gets there
on time. I know how you handle young men and I wish you to do the same
with him that you do with them.”
Joe came the following morning and we talked matters over. He appeared
to be enthusiastic and eager. He was assigned to assist Bob Wilkes
in covering the Criminal Courts Building. Wilkes had grown up in
the office, and was a veteran reporter and I knew that he would be
particularly interested in breaking Joe in. Joe reported for duty
promptly at eight for two consecutive mornings. The third morning he
was more than an hour late. His excuse was that the “butler neglected
to call me.” I explained to him that reporters were not supposed to
rely on butlers getting them out of bed and suggested that he stop at
a department store on his way home and invest in an alarm clock. The
alarm clock did the business and Joe got down on time for almost a
week. Then came a day when he failed to put in even a tardy appearance.
When next I saw him he explained his absence by saying that he had been
at his dentist’s an entire morning and at a ball game in the afternoon.
We had a serious talk about it and I tried to impress upon his youthful
mind that every member of the staff was expected to obey the rules of
the office, one of the rules being that no one should be absent from
duty unless he were ill or had been excused. He was sorry he hadn’t
understood and promised not to do it again. The next day he asked to
get off in order that he might be at the station to welcome a girl
friend who was coming from the West. The day following it was a request
to spend the week-end with the young lady’s relatives in the country. I
explained to him what his father’s instructions were, but both of his
requests were granted.
There was another week-end party a week later and Joe would very much
like to be with it, he positively wouldn’t ask again and would work
very hard when he got back to make up for his absence. Again I was a
traitor to the promise I had given his father. Joe must have enjoyed
the party, for he overstayed his leave and was roundly scolded when he
got back. He was as penitent as an heir to millions might be expected
to be and he made a lot of promises that I think he sincerely intended
to keep.
But the sting of reprimand is soon forgotten, and promises and good
resolutions are easily broken when a pretty girl beckons from afar. And
that is what happened to Joe the following week. Despite all I had told
him about the instructions his father had given me and his own promise
not again to ask me to disobey them, he came with another pleading
request to get away for a few days and I refused. Joe went without
permission and didn’t come back for almost a week. When he did come I
fired him.
The office gasped with astonishment when it got noised about that I had
discharged “Prince Joe,” as they called him, but Joe good-naturedly
treated it as a joke and took the night train for Bar Harbor, where he
fitted out his yacht and sailed it in all of the regattas there that
summer, or until his father returned from Europe and sent him out to
St. Louis. This was just what Joe wanted, for that is where his heart
was. He married the girl and they have a beautiful home and babies, and
Joe is now president of the _Post-Dispatch_ Publishing Company and
one of the important men of the town. I imagine he has forgiven me for
firing him.
Ralph was more serious-minded. Although in such delicate health in
his early manhood as to cause his parents much anxiety, he built up
his strength by outdoor life and hunting expeditions in the western
mountains, and was in full vigor of robust manhood when called upon
to take the management of his father’s newspapers. His management has
been along safe and sane lines, but few changes having been made in
the splendid organization that his father so intelligently assembled.
The most important change has taken place within the past year when
Florence White was made general manager, a title that is new in the
_World_ office. He had been financial manager for many years
and has been with the Pulitzers ever since he came from college, more
than thirty years ago. He is the quietest and most seldom seen man in
the entire establishment, and certainly one of the most efficient.
Another quietly efficient man is Don Seitz, business manager for nearly
twenty-five years. Much of the prosperity of the _World_ is due to
his untiring energy. I always found him broadminded and liberal.
I have mentioned the instability of newspaper employment, but this
condition no longer exists in the _World_ office, where nearly
every man who occupies a responsible position in the business, the
editorial, or the mechanical departments, has been with the paper for
twenty years or longer, many of them in the same positions they now
fill. I do not think this can be truthfully said of any other American
newspaper.