Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer was a Hungarian-American politician and a newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He became a leading national figure in the U.S. Democratic Party and served one term representing New York's 9th congressional district.
In the 1890s, the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal led both to develop the techniques of yellow journalism, which won over readers with sensationalism, sex, crime, and graphic horrors. Circulation reached a million copies a day and the journalism opened the way to mass-circulation newspapers that depended on advertising revenue, rather than on cover price or on political-party subsidies. Such newspapers attracted readers by using multiple forms of news, gossip, entertainment, and advertising.
Pulitzer's name is best known for the Pulitzer Prizes established in 1917 as a result of the specified endowment in his will to Columbia University. The university awards prizes annually to recognize and reward excellence in American journalism, photography, literature, history, poetry, music, and drama. Pulitzer also funded the Columbia School of Journalism with his philanthropic bequest; it opened in 1912.
Early life
He was born as Pulitzer József in Makó, about 200 kilometers south-east of Budapest, the son of Elize and Fülöp Pulitzer. The Pulitzers were among several Jewish families living in the area and had established a reputation as merchants and shopkeepers. Joseph's father was a respected businessman, regarded as the second of the "foremost merchants" of Makó. Their ancestors emigrated from Police in Moravia to Hungary at the end of the 18th century.In 1853, Fülöp Pulitzer was rich enough to retire. He moved his family to Pest, where he had the children educated by private tutors, and taught French and German. In 1858, after Fülöp's death, his business went bankrupt, and the family became impoverished. Joseph attempted to enlist in various European armies for work before emigrating to the United States.
American Civil War service
Pulitzer tried to join the military but was rejected by the Austrian Army. He then tried to join the French Foreign Legion to fight in Mexico but was similarly rejected, and then the British Army was again rejected. He was finally recruited in Hamburg, Germany, to fight for the Union in the American Civil War in August 1864. Pulitzer could not speak English when he arrived in Boston Harbor in 1864 at the age of 17, his passage having been paid by Massachusetts military recruiters. Learning that the recruiters were pocketing the lion's share of his enlistment bounty, Pulitzer left the Deer Island recruiting station and made his way to New York.He was paid $200 to enlist in the Lincoln Cavalry on September 30, 1864. He was a part of Sheridan's troopers, in the 1st New York Cavalry Regiment in Company L, joining the regiment in Virginia in November 1864, and fighting in the Appomattox Campaign, before being mustered out on June 5, 1865. Although he spoke German, Hungarian, and French, Pulitzer learned little English until after the war, as his regiment was composed mostly of German immigrants.
Early career in St. Louis
After the war, Pulitzer returned to New York City, where he stayed briefly. He moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, for the whaling industry, but found it was too boring for him. He returned to New York with little money. Flat broke, he slept in wagons on cobblestone side streets. He decided to travel by "side-door Pullman" to St. Louis, Missouri. He sold his one possession, a white handkerchief, for 75 cents.When Pulitzer arrived at the city, he recalled, "The lights of St. Louis looked like a promised land to me." In the city, his German was as useful as it was in Munich because of the large ethnic German population, due to strong immigration since the revolutions of 1848. In the Westliche Post, he saw an advertisement for a mule hostler at Benton Barracks. The next day he walked four miles and got the job, but held it for only two days. He quit due to the poor food and the whims of the mules, stating "The man who has not cared for sixteen mules does not know what work and troubles are." Pulitzer had difficulty holding jobs; he was too scrawny for heavy labor and likely too proud and temperamental to take orders.
He worked as a waiter at Tony Faust, a famous restaurant on Fifth Street. It was frequented by members of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, including Thomas Davidson, the German Henry C. Brockmeyer; and William Torrey Harris. Pulitzer studied Brockmeyer, who was famous for translating Hegel, and he "would hang on Brockmeyer's thunderous words, even as he served them pretzels and beer." He was fired after a tray slipped from his hand and a patron was soaked in beer.
Pulitzer spent his free time at the St. Louis Mercantile Library on the corner of Fifth and Locust, studying English and reading voraciously. He made a life-long friend there in the librarian Udo Brachvogel. He often played in the library's chess room, where Carl Schurz noticed his aggressive style. Pulitzer greatly admired the German-born Schurz, an emblem of the success attainable by a foreign-born citizen through his own energies and skills. In 1868, Pulitzer was admitted to the bar, but his broken English and odd appearance kept clients away. He struggled with the execution of minor papers and the collecting of debts. That year, when the Westliche Post needed a reporter, he was offered the job.
Soon after, he and several dozen men each paid a fast-talking promoter five dollars after being promised good-paying jobs on a Louisiana sugar plantation. They boarded a steamboat, which took them downriver thirty miles south of the city, where the crew forced them off. When the boat churned away, the men concluded the promised plantation jobs had been a ruse. They walked back to the city, where Pulitzer wrote an account of the fraud and was pleased when it was accepted by the Westliche Post, edited by Emil Preetorius and Carl Schurz, evidently his first published news story.
On March 6, 1867, Pulitzer became a naturalized American citizen.
Entry to journalism and politics
In the Westliche Post building, Pulitzer made the acquaintance of attorneys William Patrick and Charles Phillip Johnson and surgeon Joseph Nash McDowell. Patrick and Johnson referred to Pulitzer as "Shakespeare" because of his extraordinary profile. They helped him secure a job with the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. His work was to record the railroad land deeds in the twelve counties in southwest Missouri where the railroad planned to build a line. When he was done, the lawyers gave him desk space and allowed him to study law in their library to prepare for the bar.Pulitzer displayed a flair for reporting. He would work sixteen hours a dayfrom 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. He was nicknamed "Joey the German" or "Joey the Jew". He joined the Philosophical Society and frequented a German book store where many intellectuals hung out. Among his new group of friends were Joseph Keppler and Thomas Davidson.
Missouri State Representative
Pulitzer joined Schurz's Republican Party. On December 14, 1869, Pulitzer attended the Republican meeting at the St. Louis Turnhalle on Tenth Street, where party leaders needed a candidate to fill a vacancy in the state legislature. After their first choice refused, they settled on Pulitzer, nominating him unanimously, forgetting he was only 22, three years under the required age. However, his chief Democratic opponent was possibly ineligible because he had served in the Confederate army. Pulitzer had energy. He organized street meetings, called personally on the voters, and exhibited such sincerity along with his oddities that he had pumped a half-amused excitement into a campaign that was normally lethargic. He won 209–147.His age was not made an issue and he was seated as a state representative in Jefferson City at the session beginning January 5, 1870. During his time in Jefferson City, Pulitzer voted in favor of the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment and led a crusade to reform the corrupt St. Louis County Court.
His fight against the court angered Captain Edward Augustine, Superintendent of Registration for St. Louis County. Their rivalry became so heated that on the night of January 27, Augustine confronted Pulitzer at Schmidt's Hotel and called him a "damned liar." Pulitzer left the building, returned to his room, and retrieved a four-barreled pistol. He returned to the parlor and approached Augustine, renewing the argument. When Augustine advanced on Pulitzer, the young Representative aimed his pistol at the Captain's midriff. Augustine tackled Pulitzer, and the gun fired two shots, tearing through Augustine's knee and the hotel floor. Pulitzer suffered a head wound. Contemporary accounts conflict on whether Augustine was also armed.
While in Jefferson City, Pulitzer also moved up one notch in the administration at the Westliche Post. He eventually became its managing editor, and obtained a proprietary interest.
Break from the Republican Party and Schurz
On August 31, 1870, Schurz, Pulitzer, and other reformist anti-Grant Republicans bolted from the state convention at the Capitol and nominated a competing Liberal Republican ticket for Missouri, led by the former Senator Benjamin Gratz Brown. Brown was successful in the November election over the mainline Republican ticket, presenting a serious threat to President Grant's reelection chances. On January 19, 1872, Brown appointed Pulitzer to the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners.In May 1872, Pulitzer was a delegate to the Cincinnati convention of the Liberal Republican Party, which nominated New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley for the presidency with Gratz Brown as his running mate. Pulitzer and Schurz were expected to boost Governor Brown for the presidential nomination, but Schurz preferred the more idealistic Charles Francis Adams Sr. A loyal Brown man alerted the Governor of this betrayal, and Governor Brown and his cousin Francis Preston Blair sped to Cincinnati to rally their supporters to Greeley.
While in Cincinnati, he met fellow reformist newspapermen Samuel Bowles, Murat Halstead, Horace White, and Alexander McClure. He also met Greeley's assistant and campaign manager Whitelaw Reid, who would become Pulitzer's journalistic adversary. However, Greeley's campaign was ultimately a disaster, and the new party collapsed, leaving Schurz and Pulitzer politically homeless.
In 1874, Pulitzer promoted a reform movement christened the People's Party, which united the Grange with dissident Republicans. However, Pulitzer was disappointed with the party's tepid stances on the issues and mediocre ticket, led by gentleman farmer William Gentry. He returned to St. Louis and endorsed the Democratic ticket. Pulitzer's own views were in line with Democratic orthodoxy on low tariffs, and limited federal powers; his prior opposition to the Democrats was out of disgust for slavery and the Confederate rebellion. Pulitzer campaigned for the Democratic ticket throughout the state and published a damaging rumor that Gentry had sold a slave.
He also served as a delegate to the 1874 Missouri Constitutional Convention representing St. Louis, arguing successfully for true home rule for the city.
In 1876, Pulitzer, by now completely disillusioned with the corruption of the Republicans and their nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes, gave nearly seventy speeches in favor of Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden throughout the country. Schurz, who saw Hayes as a reformer with integrity, returned to the Republican fold. In his speeches, Pulitzer denounced Schurz and urged reconciliation between North and South. While on his speaking tour, Pulitzer also wrote dispatches to the New York Sun on behalf of the Samuel Tilden 1876 presidential campaign. After Tilden's narrow defeat under dubious circumstances, Pulitzer became disillusioned with his candidate's indecision and timid response, and would oppose Tilden's 1880 run for the Democratic nomination. Pulitzer returned to St. Louis to practice law and search for future opportunities in news.