JOSEPH PUl 
 
 SCENCES OF A SECRETARY 
 
 BY 
 
 RELAND 
 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 EX LIBRIS 
 ERNEST CARROLL MOORE
 
 THE SARGENT PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH PULITZER, 
 PAINTED IN 1907
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF A 
 SECRETARY 
 
 BY 
 
 ALLEYNE IRELAND 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
 MCMXIV
 
 Copyright igi4 by 
 Mitchell Kennerley
 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 BY KIND PERMISSION 
 
 AND 
 
 WITH SINCERE REGARDS 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 865145
 
 PREFACE 
 
 A FEW words of explanation are necessary 
 in regard to these reminiscences of the late 
 Joseph Pulitzer. 
 
 The present volume is in no sense a biog- 
 raphy of that extraordinary man. It is 
 merely an accurate and somewhat detailed 
 account of my experiences as a subordinate 
 member of the personal staff which was al- 
 ways in attendance upon him. 
 
 Only one side of a singularly rich and com- 
 plex nature is disclosed in these pages — ^the 
 side which he turned to a new secretary. It 
 is to be hoped that someone who knew him 
 intimately and for a long time will supple- 
 ment this record by a work which will do jus- 
 tice to the varied and remarkable qualities of 
 one of the most vigorous, picturesque, and 
 original personahties that ever played a part 
 in the interesting drama of American public 
 life. 
 
 • • 
 
 Vll
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 I wish to express my sense of indebtedness 
 to Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer, to Mr. Harold 
 Stanley Pollard, and to Mr. Norman G. 
 Thwaites for their permission to use the vari- 
 ous pictures of Mr. Pulitzer reproduced in 
 this book. 
 
 Alleyne Ireland 
 
 New York, March, 1914.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER Text p^Qjj 
 
 I. In a Casting Net 9 
 
 II. Meeting Joseph Pulitzer 39 
 
 III. Life at Cap Martin 71 
 
 IV. Yachting in the Mediterranean 103 
 
 V. Getting to Know Mr. Puhtzer 142 
 
 VI. Wiesbaden and an Atlantic 
 
 Voyage 176 
 
 VII. Bar Harbor and the Last Cruise 211 
 
 Illustrations 
 
 The Sargent portrait of Joseph Pulit- 
 zer, painted in 1907 Frontispiece 
 
 Joseph Pulitzer at the age of thirty- ^^"^^ 
 four 42 
 
 Joseph Pulitzer at Monte Carlo, 1911 94 
 
 Joseph Puhtzer and one of his secre- 
 taries on the deck of the "Liberty" 104 
 
 Joseph Pulitzer listening to the morn- 
 ing's news on the "Liberty" 124 
 
 Joseph Pulitzer at the age of twenty- 
 three 172 
 
 Joseph Pulitzer in 1906, taken on the 
 train between London and Dover 178 
 
 Joseph Pulitzer in 1902, riding in Cen- 
 tral Park with a secretary 218
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 In a Casting Net 
 
 ALONG illness, a longer convalescence, 
 a positive injunction from my doc- 
 tor to leave friends and business asso- 
 ciates and to seek some spot where a com- 
 fortable bed and good food could be had 
 in convenient proximity to varied but mild 
 forms of amusement — and I found myself 
 in the autumn of the year 1910 free and 
 alone in the dehghtful city of Hamburg. 
 
 All my plans had gone down wind, and 
 as I sat at my table in the Cafe Ziechen, 
 whence, against the background of the glit- 
 tering blue of the Alster, I could see the 
 busy life of the Alter Jungfernstieg and 
 the Alsterdamm, my thoughts turned nat- 
 urally to the future. 
 
 9
 
 10 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 It is not the easiest thing in the world to 
 reconstruct at forty years of age the whole 
 scheme of your life; but my illness, and 
 other happenings of a highly disagreeable 
 character, had compelled me to abandon a 
 career to which I had devoted twenty years 
 of arduous labor; and the question which 
 pressed for an immediate answer was : What 
 are you going to do now? 
 
 Various alternatives presented themselves. 
 There had been a suggestion that I should 
 take the editorship of a newspaper in Cal- 
 cutta; an important financial house in Lon- 
 don had offered me the direction of its in- 
 terests in Western Canada; a post in the 
 service of the Government of India had 
 been mentioned as a possibility by certain 
 persons in authority. 
 
 My own inclination, the child of a weary 
 spirit and of the lassitude of ill health, 
 swayed me in the direction of a quiet re- 
 treat in Barbados, that peaceful island of 
 an eternal summer cooled by the northeast 
 trades, where the rush and turmoil of mod- 
 ern life are unknown and where a very
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 11 
 
 modest income more than suffices for all the 
 needs of a simple existence. 
 
 I shall never know to what issue my reflec- 
 tions upon these matters would have led me, 
 for a circumstance, in the last degree trivial, 
 intervened to turn my thoughts into an en- 
 tirely new channel, and to guide me, though 
 I could not know it at the time, into the 
 service of Joseph PuUtzer. 
 
 My waiter was extremely busy serving a 
 large party of artillery officers at an adjoin- 
 ing table. I glanced through The Times 
 and the Hamburger N achricliten, looked out 
 for a while upon the crowded street, and 
 then, resigning myself to the delay in get- 
 ting my lunch, picked up The Times again 
 and did what I had never done before in my 
 life — read the advertisements under the head 
 "Professional Situations." 
 
 All except one were of the usual type, the 
 kind in which a prospective employer flat- 
 ters a prospective employee by classing as 
 "professional" the services of a type^vriter 
 or of a companion to an elderly gentleman
 
 12 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 who resides within easy distance of an im- 
 portant provincial town. 
 
 One advertisement, however, stood out 
 from the rest on account of the peculiar re- 
 quirements set forth in its terse appeal. It 
 ran something after this fashion: "Wanted, 
 an intelligent man of about middle age, 
 widely read, widely traveled, a good sailor, 
 as companion-secretary to a gentleman. 
 Must be prepared to live abroad. Good sal- 
 ary. Apply, etc." 
 
 My curiosity was aroused; and at first 
 sight I appeared to meet the requirements in 
 a reasonable measure. I had certainly trav- 
 eled widely, and I was an excellent sailor — 
 excellent to the point of ofFensiveness. 
 Upon an unfavorable construction I could 
 claim to be middle-aged at forty ; and I was 
 prepared to live abroad in the unlikely event 
 of any one fixing upon a country which 
 could be properly called "abroad" from the 
 standpoint of a man who had not spent 
 twelve consecutive months in any place since 
 he was fifteen years old. 
 
 As for intelligence, I reflected that for
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 13 
 
 ninety-nine people out of a hundred intelli- 
 gence in others means no more than the dis- 
 covery of a person who is in intellectual ac- 
 quiescence with themselves, and that if the 
 necessity arose I could probably affect an 
 acquiescence which would serve all the pur- 
 poses of a fundamental identity of convic- 
 tions. 
 
 Two things, however, suggested possible 
 difficulties, the questions of what interpreta- 
 tions the advertiser placed upon the terms 
 "widely read" and "good salary." I could 
 not claim to be widely read in any conven- 
 tional sense, for I was not a university grad- 
 uate, and the very extensive reading I had 
 done in my special line of study — the control 
 and development of tropical dependencies — 
 though it might entitle me to some considera- 
 tion as a student in that field had left me 
 woefully ignorant of general literature. 
 Would the ability to discuss with intelligence 
 the Bengal Regulation of 1818, or the Brit- 
 ish Guiana Immigration Ordinance of 1891 
 be welcomed as a set-off to a complete un- 
 familiarity with Milton's "Comus" and
 
 14 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 Gladstone's essay on the epithets of motion 
 in Homer? 
 
 On the subject of what constituted a 
 "good salary" experience had taught me 
 to expect a very wide divergence of view, 
 not only along the natural line of cleavage 
 between the person paying and the person 
 receiving the salary, but also between one 
 employer and another and between one em- 
 ployee and another; and I recalled a story, 
 told me in my infancy, in which a certain 
 British laboring man had been heard to re- 
 mark that he would not be the Czar of Rus- 
 sia, no, not for thirty shillings a week. But 
 that element in the situation might, I re- 
 flected, very well be left to take care of it- 
 self. 
 
 I finished my lunch, and then replied to 
 the advertisement, giving my English ad- 
 dress. My letter, a composition bred of the 
 conflicting influences of pride, modesty, 
 prudence, and curiosity, brought forth in due 
 course a brief reply in which I was bidden 
 to an interview in that part of London
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 15 
 
 where fashion and business prosperity seek 
 to ape each other. 
 
 Upon presenting myself at the appointed 
 hour I was confronted by a gentleman 
 whose severity of manner I learned later to 
 recognize as the useful mask to a singularly 
 genial and kindly nature. 
 
 Our interview was long and, to me at 
 any rate, rather emban-assing, since it re- 
 solved itself into a searching cross-exami- 
 nation by a past-master in the art. Who 
 were my parents? When and where had 
 I been born? Where had I been educated? 
 What were my means of livelihood? What 
 positions had I filled since I went out into 
 the world? What countries had I visited? 
 What books had I read? What books had 
 I written? To what magazines and re- 
 views had I contributed? Who were my 
 friends? Was I fond of music, of paint- 
 ing, of the drama? Had I a sense of 
 humor? Had I a good temper or a good 
 control of a bad one? ^-NHiat languages 
 could I speak or read? Did I enjoy good 
 health? Was I of a nervous disposition?
 
 16 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 Had I tact and discretion? Was I a good 
 horseman, a good sailor, a good talker, a 
 good reader? 
 
 When it came to asking me whether I 
 was a good horseman and a good sailor, I 
 realized that anyone who expected to find 
 these two qualities combined in one man 
 was quite capable of demanding that his 
 companion-secretary should be able to knit 
 woollen socks, wi'ite devotional verse, and 
 compute the phases of the moon. 
 
 I remember chuckling to myself over this 
 quaint conceit; I was to learn later that it 
 came unpleasantly near the truth. 
 
 Under this close examination I felt that 
 I had made rather a poor showing. This 
 was due in some measure, no doubt, to the 
 fact that my questioner abruptly left any 
 topic as soon as he discovered that I knew 
 something about it, and began to angle 
 around, with disturbing success, to find the 
 things I did not know about. 
 
 At one point, however, I scored a hit. 
 After I had been put through my paces, a 
 process which seemed to me to end only at
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 17 
 
 the exact point where my questioner could 
 no longer remember the name of anything 
 in the universe about which he could frame 
 an interrogation, it was my turn to ask 
 questions. 
 
 Was the person I was addressing the gen- 
 tleman who needed the companion? 
 
 No, he was merely his agent. As a mat- 
 ter of fact the person on whose behalf he 
 was acting was an American. 
 
 I nodded in a non-committal way. 
 
 He was also a millionaire. 
 
 I bowed the kind of bow that a French- 
 man makes when he says 3Iais parfaite- 
 ment. 
 
 Furthermore he was totally blind. 
 
 "Joseph Pulitzer," I said. 
 
 "How in the world did you guess that?" 
 asked my companion. 
 
 "That wasn't a guess," I replied. "You 
 advertised for an intelligent man; and this 
 is simply where my intelligence commences 
 to show itself. An intelligent man couldn't 
 live as long as I have in the United States 
 without hearing a good deal about Joseph
 
 18 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 Pulitzer; and, after all, the country isn't 
 absolutely overrun with blind millionaires." 
 
 At the close of the interview I was told 
 that I would be reported upon. In the 
 meantime would I kindly send in a written 
 account of the intei-view, in the fullest pos- 
 sible detail, as a test of my memory, sense 
 of accuracy, and literary style. 
 
 'Nor was this all. As I i)repared to take 
 my departure I was handed the address of 
 another gentleman who would also examine 
 me and make a report. Before I got out 
 of the room my inquisitor said, "It may in- 
 terest you to know that we have had more 
 than six hundred applications for the post, 
 and that it may, therefore, take some time 
 before the matter is definitely settled." 
 
 I was appalled. Evidently I had been 
 wasting my time, for I could have no doubt 
 that the gallant six hundred would include 
 a sample of every kind of pundit, stationary 
 or vagrant, encompassed within the seven 
 seas ; and against such competition I felt my 
 chances to be just precise^ nothing. 
 
 My companion observed my discomfiture.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 19 
 
 and as he shook hands he said, "Oh, that 
 doesn't really mean very much. As a matter 
 of fact we were able to throw out more than 
 G^ve hundred and fifty applications merely 
 for self-evident reasons. A number of 
 school teachers and bank clerks applied, and 
 in general these gentlemen said that al- 
 though they had not traveled they would 
 have no objection to living abroad, and that 
 they might venture to hope that if they did 
 go to sea they would prove to be good sail- 
 ors. 
 
 "Most of them appeared to think that the 
 circumstance of being middle-aged would 
 off -set their deficiencies in other directions. 
 There are really only a few gentlemen whom 
 we can consider as being likely to meet Mr. 
 Pulitzer's requirements, and the selection 
 will be made finally by INIr. Pulitzer him- 
 self. It is very probable that you will be 
 asked to go to Mentone to spend a fort- 
 night or so on Mr. Pulitzer's yacht or at 
 his villa at Cap Martin, as he never engages 
 anybody until he has had the candidate with 
 him for a short visit.
 
 20 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 "And, by the way, would you mind writ- 
 ing a short nan-ative of your hfe, not more 
 than two thousand words? It would inter- 
 est Mr. Pulitzer and would help him to reach 
 a decision in your case. You might also 
 send me copies of some of your writings." 
 
 Thus ended my interview with Mr. James 
 M. Tuohy, the London correspondent of the 
 New York World, 
 
 My next step was to call upon the second 
 inquisitor, Mr. George Ledlie. I found him 
 comfortably installed at an hotel in the West 
 End. He was an American, very courteous 
 and pleasant, but evidently prepared to use 
 a probe without any consideration for the 
 feelings of the victim. 
 
 As my business was to reveal myself, I 
 wasted no time, and for about an hour I 
 rambled along on the subject of my Ameri- 
 can experiences. I do not know to this day 
 what sort of an impression I created upon 
 this gentleman, but I felt at the time that 
 it ought to have been a favorable one. 
 
 We had many friends in common; I had 
 recently been offered a lectureship in the uni-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 21 
 
 versity from which he had graduated; some 
 of my books had been pubHshed in Amer- 
 ica by firms in whose standing he had con- 
 fidence; I paraded a sHght acquaintance 
 with three Presidents of the United States, 
 and produced from my pocketbook letters 
 from two of them; we found that we were 
 both respectful admirers of a charming lady 
 who had recently undergone a surgical oper- 
 ation; he had been a guest at my club in 
 Boston, I had been a guest at his club in 
 New York. When I left him I thought 
 poorly of the chances of the remnant of the 
 six hundred. 
 
 Some weeks passed and I heard nothing 
 more of the matter. During this time I had 
 leisure to think over what I had heard from 
 time to time about Joseph Pulitzer, and to 
 speculate, with the aid of some imaginative 
 friends, upon the probable advantages and 
 disadvantages of the position for which I 
 was a candidate. 
 
 Gathered together, my second-hand im- 
 pressions of Joseph Pulitzer made little 
 more than a hazy outline. I had heard or
 
 22 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 read that he had landed in New York In the 
 early sixties, a penniless youth unable to 
 speak a word of English; that after a re- 
 markable series of adventures he had be- 
 come a newspaper proprietor and, later, a 
 millionaire; that he had been stricken blind 
 at the height of his career; that his friends 
 and his enemies agreed in describing him as 
 a man of extraordinary ability and of re- 
 markable character; that he had been vic- 
 torious in a bitter controversy with Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt; that one of the Rothschilds 
 had remarked that if Joseph Pulitzer had 
 not lost his eyesight and his health he, Pulit- 
 zer, would have collected into his hands all 
 the money there was; that he was the sub- 
 ject of one of the noblest portraits created 
 by the genius of John Sargent; and that 
 he spent most of his time on board a mag- 
 nificent yacht, surrounded by a staff of six 
 secretaries. 
 
 This was enough, of course, to inspire me 
 with a keen desire to meet Mr. Pulitzer; it 
 was not enough to afford me the slightest
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 28 
 
 idea of what life would be like in close per- 
 sonal contact with such a man. 
 
 The general opinion of my friends was 
 that life with Mr. Pulitzer would be one 
 long succession of happy, care-free days 
 spent along the languorous shores of the 
 Mediterranean — days of which perhaps two 
 hours would be devoted to light conversa- 
 tion with my interesting host, and the re- 
 mainder of my waking moments to the gai- 
 ties of Monte Carlo, to rambles on the pic- 
 turesque hillsides of Rapallo and Bordi- 
 ghera, or to the genial companionship of my 
 fellow-secretaries under the snowy awnings 
 of the yacht. 
 
 We argued the matter out to our entire 
 satisfaction. Mr. Pulitzer, in addition to 
 being blind, was a chronic invalid, requiring 
 a great deal of sleep and repose. He could 
 hardly he expected to occupy more than 
 twelve hours a day with his secretaries. That 
 worked out at two hours apiece, or, if the 
 division was made by days, about one day 
 a week to each secretary. 
 
 The yacht, I had been given to under-
 
 24 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 stand, cruised for about eight months in the 
 year over a course bounded by Algiers and 
 the Piraeus, by IVIentone and Alexandria, 
 with visits to the ports of Italy, Sicily, Cor- 
 sica, and Crete. The least imaginative of 
 mortals could make a veiy fair and alluring 
 picture of what life would be like under 
 such circumstances. As the event turned 
 out it was certainly not our imaginations 
 that were at fault. 
 
 As time passed without bringing any 
 further sign from Mr. Tuohy my hopes 
 gradually died out, and I fixed in my mind 
 a date upon which I would abandon all ex- 
 pectations of securing the appointment. 
 Scarcely had I reached this determination 
 when I received a telegram from Mr. Tuohy 
 asking me to lunch with him the next day 
 at the Cafe Royal in order to meet Mr. 
 Ralph Pulitzer, who was passing through 
 London on his way back to America after 
 a visit to his father. 
 
 I leave my readers to imagine what sort 
 of a lunch I had in the company of two 
 gentlemen whose duty it was to struggle
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 25 
 
 with the problem of discovering the real 
 character and attainments of a guest who 
 knew he was under inspection. 
 
 I found Mr. Ralph Pulitzer to be a slen- 
 der, clean-cut, pale gentleman of an ex- 
 tremely quiet and self-possessed manner. 
 He was very agreeable, and he listened to 
 my torrent of words with an interest which, 
 if it were real, reflected great credit on me, 
 and which, if it were feigned, reflected not 
 less credit on him. 
 
 As we parted he said, "I shall write to 
 my father to-day and tell him of our meet- 
 ing. Of course, as you know, the decision 
 in this matter rests entirely with him." 
 
 After this incident there was another long 
 silence, and I again fixed upon a day be- 
 yond which I would not allow my hopes to 
 flourish. The day arrived, nothing hap- 
 pened, and the next morning I went down 
 to the offices of the West India Royal Mail 
 Steam Packet Company and made inquiries 
 about the boats for Barbados. I spent the 
 afternoon at my club making out a list of 
 things to be taken out as aids to comfort-
 
 r 
 
 26 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 able housekeeping in a semi-tropical coun- 
 try — a list which swelled amazingly as I 
 turned over the fascinating pages of the 
 Army and Navy Stores Catalogue. 
 
 By dinner time I had become more than 
 reconciled to the new turn of affairs, and 
 when I reached my flat at midnight I found 
 myself impatient of the necessary delay be- 
 fore I could settle down to a life of easy 
 literary activity in one of the most delight- 
 ful climates in the world and in the neigh- 
 borhood of a large circle of charming 
 friends and acquaintances. 
 
 On the table in the hall I found a tele- 
 gram from Mr. Tuohy instructing me to 
 start next morning for Men tone, where Mr. 
 Pulitzer would entertain me as his guest for 
 a fortnight, either at his villa or aboard his 
 yacht Liberty, and informing me that I 
 would find at my club early in the morning 
 an envelope containing a ticket to Mentone, 
 with sleeper and parlor-car accommodation, 
 and a check to cover incidental expenses. 
 
 The tickets and the check were accom- 
 panied by a letter in which I was told that
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 27 
 
 I was to consider this two weeks' visit as a 
 trial, that during that time all my expenses 
 would be paid, that I would receive an 
 honorarium of so much a day from the time 
 I left London until I was engaged by Mr. 
 Pulitzer or had arrived back in London after 
 rejection by him, and that everything de- 
 pended upon the impression I made on my 
 host. 
 
 I left London cold, damp, and foggy; 
 and in less than twenty- four hours I was in 
 the train between Marseilles and Mentone, 
 watching the surf playing among the rocks 
 in the brilliant sunshine of the Cote d'Azur. 
 In the tiny harbor of Mentone I found, 
 anchored stern-on to the quay, the steam 
 yacht Liberty — a miracle of snowy decks 
 and gleaming brass-work — ^tonnage 1,607, 
 length over all 316 feet, beam 35.6 feet, crew 
 60, all told. 
 
 A message from Mr. Pulitzer awaited 
 me. Would I dine at his villa at Cap Mar- 
 tin? An automobile would call for me at 
 seven o'clock. 
 
 I spent the day in looking over the yacht
 
 28 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 and in trying to pick up some information 
 as to the general lay of the land, by observ- 
 ing every detail of my new surroundings. 
 
 The yacht itself claimed my first atten- 
 tion. Everything was new and fascinating 
 to me, for although I had had my share of 
 experiences in barques, and brigs, and full- 
 rigged ships, in mail boats and tramp steam- 
 ers, only once before had I had an opportu- 
 nity to examine closely a large private yacht. 
 Ten years before, I had spent some time 
 cruising along the northern coast of Bor- 
 neo in the yacht of His Highness Sir 
 Charles Brooke, Raja of Sarawak; but with 
 that single exception yachting was for me 
 an unknown phase of sea life. 
 
 The Liberty — or, as the secretarial staff, 
 for reasons which will become apparent 
 later, called her, the Liberty, Ha! Ha! — 
 was designed and built on the Clyde. I 
 have never seen a vessel of more beautiful 
 lines. Sailors would find, I think, but one 
 fault in her appearance and one peculiarity. 
 With a white-painted hull, her bridge and 
 the whole of her upper structure, except the
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 29! 
 
 masts and funnel, were also white, giving to 
 her general features a certain flatness which 
 masked her fine proportions. Her bridge, 
 instead of being well forward, was placed so 
 far aft that it was only a few feet from the 
 funnel. The object of this departure from 
 custom was to prevent any walking over Mr. 
 Pulitzer's head when he sat in his library, 
 which was situated under the spot, where 
 the bridge would have been in most vessels. 
 
 The boat was specially designed to meet 
 Mr. Pulitzer's peculiar requirements. She 
 had a flush deck from the bows to the stern, 
 broken only, for perhaps twenty feet, by a 
 well between the forecastle head and the 
 fore part of the bridge. 
 
 Running aft from the bridge to within 
 forty feet of the stern was an unbroken 
 line of deck houses. Immediately under the 
 bridge was Mr. Pulitzer's library, a hand- 
 some room lined from floor to ceiling with 
 books; abaft of that was the dining saloon, 
 which could accommodate in comfort a 
 dozen people; continuing aft there were, on 
 the port side, the pantry, amidships the en-
 
 30 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 closed space over the engine room, and on 
 the starboard side a long passage leading to 
 the drawing-room and writing-room used by 
 the secretaries and by members of Mr. Pulit- 
 zer's family when they were on the yacht. 
 
 The roof and sides of this line of deck 
 houses were extended a few feet beyond the 
 aftermost room, so as to provide a sheltered 
 nook where ]Mr. Pulitzer could sit when the 
 wind was too strong for his comfort on the 
 open deck. 
 
 Between the sides of the deck houses and 
 the sides of the ship there ran on each side 
 a promenade about nine feet broad, un- 
 broken by bolt or nut, stanchion or venti- 
 lator, smooth as a billiard table and made 
 of the finest quality of seasoned teak. The 
 promenade continued across the fore part of 
 Mr. Pulitzer's library and across the after 
 part of the line of deck houses, so that there 
 was an oblong track round the greater part 
 of the boat, a track covered overhead with 
 double awnings and protected inboard by 
 the sides of the deck houses, and outboard
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 31 
 
 by adjustable canvas screens, which could 
 be let do\\Ti or rolled up in a few minutes. 
 
 About thirty feet from the stern a heavy 
 double canvas screen ran 'thwartships from 
 one side of the boat to the other, shutting 
 off a small space of deck for the use of the 
 crew. The main deck space was allotted as 
 follows: under the forecastle head accom- 
 modation for two officers and two petty offi- 
 cers, abaft of that the well space, of which 
 I have spoken; under the library was Mr. 
 Pulitzer's bedroom, occupying the whole 
 breadth of the ship and extending from the 
 bulkhead at the after part of the well space 
 as far aft as the companion way leading 
 down between the library and the saloon, 
 say twenty-five feet. 
 
 A considerable proportion of the sides of 
 this bedroom was given up to books ; in one 
 corner was a very high wash-hand-stand, 
 so high that Mr. Pulitzer, who was well over 
 six feet tall, could wash his hands without 
 stooping. The provision of this very high 
 wash-hand-stand illustrates the minute care 
 with which everything had been foreseen in
 
 32 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the construction and fitting-up of the yacht. 
 When a person stoops there is a shght im- 
 pediment to the free flow of blood to the 
 head, such an impediment might react un- 
 favorably on the condition of Mr. Pulitzer's 
 eyes, therefore the wash-hand-stand was high 
 enough to be used without stooping. 
 
 In the forward bulldiead of the cabin were 
 two silent fans, one di-awing air into the 
 room, the other di'awing it out. The most 
 striking feature of the room was an im- 
 mense four-poster bed wliich stood in the 
 center of the cabin, with a couch at the foot 
 and one or two chairs at one side. Hang- 
 ing at the head of the bed was a set of elec- 
 tric push-bells, the cords being of different 
 lengths so that Mr. Pulitzer could call at 
 will for the major-domo, the chief steward, 
 the captain, the officer on watch, and so on. 
 
 The bedroom was heavily carpeted and 
 was cut off from the rest of the ship by 
 double bulkheads, double doors, and double 
 portholes, with the object of protecting Mr. 
 Pulitzer as much as possible from all noise, 
 to which he was excessively sensitive. A
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 33 
 
 large bathroom opened immediately ojff the 
 bedroom, and a flight of steps led down to 
 a gymnasium on the lower deck. 
 
 Abaft of ]Mr. Pulitzer's bedroom there 
 were, on the port side, the cabins of the 
 major-domo, the captain, the head butler, 
 the chief engineer, an officers' mess room, 
 the ship's galley, a steward's mess room, and 
 the cabins of the chief steward and one or 
 two officers. 
 
 Corresponding with these there were, on 
 the starboard side, the cabins of the secretar- 
 ies and the doctor, "The Cells," as we called 
 them. They were comfortable rooms, all 
 very much on one pattern, except that of the 
 business secretary, which was a good deal 
 larger than the others. He needed the ad- 
 ditional space for newspaper files, docu- 
 ments, correspondence, and so on. Each 
 cabin contained a bed, a wash-hand-stand, 
 a chest of draw^ers, a cupboard for clothes, 
 a small folding table, some book shelves, an 
 arm chair, an ordinary chair, an electric fan, 
 and a radiator. Each cabin had two port-
 
 34 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 holes, and there were two bathrooms to the 
 six cabins. 
 
 The center of the ship, between these 
 cabins and the corresponding space on the 
 port side, was occupied by the engine room; 
 and the entrance to the secretaries' quarters 
 was through a companionway opening on to 
 the promenade deck, with a door on each 
 side of the yacht, and leading down a flight 
 of stairs to a long fore-and-aft passage, 
 out of which all the secretaries' cabins 
 opened. 
 
 Abaft the secretaries' cabins, and occupy- 
 ing the whole breadth of the boat, were a 
 number of cabins and suites for the accom- 
 modation of Mrs. Pulitzer, other members 
 of the family, and guests; and abaft of 
 these, cut off by a 'thwartships bulkhead, 
 were the quarters of the crew. 
 
 The lower deck was given over chiefly to 
 stores, coal bunkers, the engine room, the 
 stoke-hold, and to a large number of elec- 
 tric accumulators, which kept the electric 
 lights going when the engines were not 
 working. There were, however, on this deck
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 85 
 
 the gymnasium, and a large room, directly 
 under Mr. Pulitzer's bedroom, used to take 
 the overflow from the Hbrary. 
 
 The engines were designed rather for 
 smooth running than for speed, and twelve 
 knots an hour was the utmost that could 
 be got out of them, the average running 
 speed being about eight knots. The yacht 
 had an ample supply of boats, including 
 two steam launches, one burning coal, the 
 other oil. 
 
 During my inspection of the yacht I was 
 accompanied by my cabin-steward, a young 
 Englishman who had at one time served 
 aboard the German Emperor's yacht, 
 Meteor. Nothing could have been more 
 courteous than his manner or more intelli- 
 gent than his explanations ; but the moment 
 I tried to draw him out on the subject of 
 life on the yacht he relapsed into a vague- 
 ness from which I could extract no gleam of 
 enlightenment. After fencing for some time 
 with my queries he suggested that I might 
 like to have a glass of sherry and a biscuit in
 
 36 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the secretaries' library, and, piloting me 
 thither, he left me. 
 
 The smoking-room was furnished with 
 writing tables, some luxurious arm chairs, 
 and a comfortable lounge, and every spare 
 nook was filled with book shelves. The con- 
 tents of these shelves were extremely varied. 
 A cursoiy glance showed me Meyer's Neues 
 Konversations-Leocicon, The Yacht Regis- 
 ter, Whitakej^'s Almanack, Who's Who, 
 Burke's Peerage, The Ahnanach de Gotha, 
 the British and the Continental Bradshaw, 
 a number of Baedeker's "Guides," fifty or 
 sixty volumes of the Tauchnitz edition, a 
 large collection of files of reviews and maga- 
 zines — The Nineteenth Century, Quarterly, 
 Edinburgh, Fortnightly, Contemporary, 
 National, Atlantic, North American, Revue 
 de Deux Mondes — and a scattering of vol- 
 umes by Kipling, Shaw, Rosebery, Pater, 
 Ida Tarbell, Bryce, Fen'ero, Macaulay, An- 
 atole France, Maupassant, "Dooley," and a 
 large number of French and German plays. 
 I was struck by the entire absence of books 
 of travel and scientific works.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 37 
 
 I spent part of the afternoon in the draw- 
 ing-room playing a large instrument of the 
 gramophone type. There were several hmi- 
 dred records — from grand opera, violin 
 solos by Kreisler, and the Gilbert and Sulli- 
 van operas, to rag-time and the latest comic 
 songs. 
 
 Before the time came to dress for dinner 
 I had met the captain and some of the offi- 
 cers of the yacht. They were all very civil; 
 and my own experience as a sailor enabled 
 me to see that they were highly efficient men. 
 I was a good deal puzzled, however, by 
 something peculiar but very elusive in their 
 attitude toward me, something which I had 
 at once detected in the manner of my cabin- 
 steward. 
 
 With their courtesy was mingled a cer- 
 tain flavor of curiosity tinged with amuse- 
 ment, which, so far from being offensive, 
 was distinctly friendly, but which, neverthe- 
 less, gave me a vague sense of uneasiness. 
 In fact the whole atmosphere of the yacht 
 was one of restlessness and suspense; and 
 the effect was heightened because each per-
 
 38 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 son who spoke to me appeared to be on the 
 point of divulging some secret or deliver- 
 ing some advice, which discretion checked at 
 his Hps. 
 
 I felt myself very much under observa- 
 tion, a feeling as though I was a new boy 
 in a boarding school or a new animal at the 
 zoo — interesting to my companions not only 
 on account of my novelty, but because my 
 personal peculiarities would affect the com- 
 fort of the community of which I was to 
 become a member. 
 
 At seven o'clock my cabin-steward an- 
 nounced the arrival of the automobile, and 
 after a swift run along the plage and up 
 the winding roads on the hillsides of Cap 
 Martin I found myself at the door of Mr. 
 Pulitzer's villa. I was received by the 
 major-domo, ushered into the drawing- 
 room, and informed that Mr. Pulitzer would 
 be down in a few minutes.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Meeting Joseph Pulitzer 
 
 BEFORE I had time to examine my sur- 
 roundings Mr. Pulitzer entered the 
 room on the arm of the major-domo. My 
 first swift impression was of a very tall 
 man with broad shoulders, the rest of the 
 body tapering away to thinness, with a noble 
 head, bushy reddish beard streaked with 
 gray, black hair, swept back from the fore- 
 head and lightly touched here and there with 
 silvery white. One eye was dull and half 
 closed, the other was of a deep, brilliant 
 blue which, so far from suggesting bhnd- 
 ness, created the instant effect of a search- 
 ing, eagle-like glance. The outstretched 
 hand was large, strong, nervous, full of 
 character, ending in well-shaped and im- 
 maculately kept nails. 
 
 39
 
 40 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 A high-pitched voice, clear, penetrating, 
 and vibrant, gave ovit the strange challenge: 
 "Well, here you see before you the miser- 
 able wreck who is to be your host ; you must 
 make the best you can of him. Give me 
 your arm into dinner." 
 
 I may complete here a description of Mr. 
 Pulitzer's appearance, founded upon months 
 of close personal association with him. The 
 head was splendidly modeled, the forehead 
 high, the brows prominent and arched; the 
 ears were large, the nose was long and 
 hooked; the mouth, almost concealed by the 
 mustache, w^as firm and thin-lipped; the 
 jaws showed square and powerful under the 
 beard ; the length of the face was much em- 
 phasized by the flowing beard and by the 
 way in which the hair was brushed back 
 from the forehead. The skin was of a clear, 
 healthy pink, like a young girl's ; but in mo- 
 ments of intense excitement the color would 
 deepen to a dark, ruddy flush, and after a 
 succession of sleepless nights, or under the 
 strain of continued worry, it would turn a 
 dull, Hfeless gray.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 41 
 
 I have never seen a face which varied so 
 much in expression. Not only was there a 
 marked difference at all times between one 
 side and the other, due partly to the con- 
 trast between the two eyes and partly to a 
 loss of flexibility in the muscles of the right 
 side, but almost from moment to moment 
 the general appearance of the face moved 
 between a lively, genial animation, a ciniel 
 and wolf -like scowl, and a heavy and hope- 
 less dejection. No face was capable of 
 shoeing greater tenderness; none could as- 
 sume a more forbidding expression of anger 
 and contempt. 
 
 The Sargent portrait, which forms the 
 frontispiece of this volume, is a remarkable 
 revelation of the complex nature of its sub- 
 ject. It discloses the deep affection, the 
 keen intelligence, the wide sympathy, the 
 tireless energy, the delicate sensitiveness, the 
 tearing impatience, the cold tyranny, and 
 the flaming scorn by which his character was 
 so erratically dominated. It is a noble and 
 pathetic monument to the suffering which 
 had been imposed for a quarter of a century
 
 42 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 upon the intense and arbitrary spirit of this 
 extraordinary man. 
 
 The account which I am to give of Mr. 
 Pulitzer's daily life during the months im- 
 mediately preceding his death would be un- 
 intelligible to all but the very few who knew 
 him in recent years if it were not prefaced 
 by a brief biographical note. 
 
 Joseph PuUtzer was born in the village 
 of Mako, near Buda Pesth in Hungary, on 
 April 10, 1847. His father was a Jew, his 
 mother a Christian. At the age of sixteen 
 he emigrated to the United States. He 
 landed without friends, without money, un- 
 able to speak a word of English. He en- 
 listed immediately in the First New York 
 (Lincoln) Cavalry Regiment, a regiment 
 chiefly composed of Germans and in which 
 German was the prevailing tongue. 
 
 Within a year the Civil War ended, and 
 Pulitzer found himself, in common with hun- 
 dreds of thousands of others, out of employ- 
 ment at a time when employment was most 
 difficult to secure. At this time he was so 
 poor that he was turned away from French's
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 AT THE AGE OF THIRTY'FOUR
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 43 
 
 Hotel for lack of fifty cents with which to 
 pay for his bed. In less than twenty years 
 he bought French's Hotel, pulled it down, 
 and erected in its place the Pulitzer Build- 
 ing, at that time one of the largest business 
 buildings in New York, where he housed 
 The World. 
 
 What lay between these two events may 
 be summed up in a few words. At the close 
 of the Civil War Mr. Pulitzer went to St. 
 Louis, and in 1868, after being engaged in 
 various occupations, he became a reporter 
 on the Westliche Post, In less than ten 
 years he was editor and part proprietor. 
 His amazing energy, his passionate interest 
 in politics, his rare gift of terse and forcible 
 expression, and his striking personality car- 
 ried him over or through all obstacles. 
 
 After he had purchased the St. Louis 
 Dispatch, amalgamated it with the Post, and 
 made the Post-Dispatch sl profitable busi- 
 ness enterprise and a power to be reckoned 
 with in politics, he felt the need of a wider 
 field in which to maneuver the forces of his 
 character and his intellect.
 
 U JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 He came to New York in 1883 and pur- 
 chased The World from Jay Gould. At 
 that time The World had a circulation of 
 less than twelve thousand copies a day, and 
 was practically bankrupt. From this time 
 forward Mr. Pulitzer concentrated his every 
 faculty on building up The World. He 
 was scoffed at, ridiculed, and abused by the 
 most powerful editors of the old school. 
 They were to learn, not without bitterness 
 and wounds, that opposition was the one 
 fuel of all others which best fed the triple 
 flame of his courage, his tenacity, and his 
 resourcefulness. 
 
 Four years of unremitting toil produced 
 two results. The World reached a circula- 
 tion of two hundred thousand copies a day 
 and took its place in the front rank of the 
 American press as a journal of force and 
 ability, and Joseph Pulitzer left New York, 
 a complete nervous wreck, to face in soli- 
 tude the knowledge that he would never read 
 print again and that within a few years he 
 would be totally blind. 
 
 Joseph Pulitzer, as I knew him twenty-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 45 
 
 four years after he had been driven from 
 active life by the sudden and final collapse 
 of his health, was a man who could be judged 
 by no common standards, for his feelings, 
 his temper, and his point of view had been 
 warped by years of suffering. 
 
 Had his spirit been broken by his trials, 
 had his intellectual power weakened under 
 the load of his affliction, had his burning in- 
 terest in affairs cooled to a point where he 
 could have been content to turn his back 
 upon life's conflict, he might have found 
 some happiness, or at least some measure of 
 repose akin to that with which age consoles 
 us for the loss of youth. But his greatest 
 misfortune was that all the active forces of 
 his personahty survived to the last in their 
 full vigor, inflicting upon him the curse of 
 an impatience which nothing could appease, 
 of a discontent which knew no amelioration. 
 
 JMy first meeting with Mr. Pulitzer is in- 
 delibly fixed in my memory. As we entered 
 the dining-room the butler motioned to me 
 to take a seat on ]Mr. Pulitzer's right hand, 
 and as I did so I glanced up and down the
 
 46 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 table to find myself in the presence of half- 
 a-dozen gentlemen in evening dress, who 
 bowed in a very friendly manner as Mr. 
 Pulitzer said, with a broad sweep of his 
 hand, "Gentlemen, this is Mr. AUeyne Ire- 
 land; you will be able to inform him later 
 of my fads and crotchets; well, don't be un- 
 generous with me, don't paint the devil as 
 black as he is." 
 
 This was spoken in a tone of banter, and 
 was cut short by a curious, prolonged 
 chuckle, which differed from laughter in the 
 feeling it produced in the hearer that the 
 mirth did not spring from the open, obvious 
 humor of the situation, but from some 
 whimsical thought which was the more rel- 
 ished because its nature was concealed from 
 us. I felt that, instead of my host's amuse- 
 ment having been produced by his peculiar 
 introduction, he had made his eccentric ad- 
 dress merely as an excuse to chuclde over 
 some notion which had formed itself in his 
 mind from material entirely foreign to his 
 immediate surroundings. 
 
 I mention this because I found later that
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 47 
 
 one of Mr. Pulitzer's most embarrassing 
 peculiarities was the sudden revelation from 
 time to time of a mental state entirely at 
 odds with the occupation of the moment. 
 In the middle of an account of a play, when 
 I was doing my best to reproduce some 
 scene from memory, with appropriate 
 changes of voice to represent the different 
 characters, Mr. Pulitzer would suddenly 
 break in, "Did we ever get a reply to that 
 letter about Laurier's speech on reciprocity? 
 No? Well, all right, go on, go on." 
 
 Or it might be when I was reading from 
 the daily papers an account of a murder or 
 a railroad wreck that Mr. Pulitzer would 
 break out into a peal of his peculiar chuck- 
 ling laughter. I would imjnediately stop 
 reading, when he would pat me on the arm, 
 and say, "Go on, boy, go on, don't mind 
 me. I wasn't laughing at you. I was think- 
 ing of something else. What was it? Oh, 
 a railroad wreck, well, don't stop, go on 
 reading." 
 
 As soon as we were seated Mr. Puhtzer 
 turned to me and began to question me about
 
 48 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 my reading. Had I read any recent fiction? 
 No? Well, what had I read within the past 
 month? 
 
 I named several books which I had been 
 re-reading — Macaulay's Essays, Meredith 
 Townsend's Asia and Europe, and Lowes 
 Dickinson's Modern Symposium. 
 
 "Well, tell me something about Asia and 
 Europe," he said. 
 
 I left my dinner untasted, and for a 
 quarter of an hour held forth on the life of 
 Mohammed, on the courage of the Arabians, 
 on the charm of Asia for Asiatics, and on 
 other matters taken from Mr. Townsend's 
 fascinating book. Suddenly Mr. Pulitzer 
 interrupted me. 
 
 "My God! You don't mean to tell me 
 that anyone is interested in that sort of rub- 
 bish. Everybody knows about Mohammed, 
 and about the bravery of the Arabs, and, for 
 God's sake, why shouldn't Asia be attractive 
 to the Asiatics! Try something else. Do 
 you remember any plays?" 
 
 Yes, I remembered several pretty well. 
 Shaw's Ccesar and Cleopatra for instance.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 49 
 
 "Go on, then, try and tell me about that." 
 
 JNIy prospects of getting any dinner faded 
 away as I began my new effort. Fortu- 
 natelj^ I knew the play very well, and re- 
 membered a number of passages almost 
 word for w^ord. I soon saw that ISlr. Pulit- 
 zer was interested and pleased, not with the 
 play as anything new to him, for he prob- 
 ably knew it better than I did, but with my 
 presentation of it, because it showed some 
 ability to compress narrative without de- 
 stroying its character and also gave some 
 proof of a good memory. 
 
 When I reached the scene in wliich Caesar 
 replies to Britannus's protest against the 
 recognition of Cleopatra's marriage to her 
 brother, Ptolemy, by saying, "Pardon him, 
 Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks 
 that the customs of his tribe are the laws of 
 nature," Mr. Pulitzer burst into an uncon- 
 trollable fit of laughter. 
 
 I was about to continue, and try to make 
 good better, when Mr. Pulitzer raised his 
 hands above his head in remonstrance. 
 
 "Stop! Stop! For God's sake! You're
 
 50 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 hurting me," very much as a person with a 
 cracked lip begs for mercy when you are in 
 the middle of your most humorous story. 
 
 I found out later that, in order to keep 
 in Mr. Pulitzer's good graces, it was as 
 necessary to avoid being too funny as it was 
 to avoid being too dull, for, while the latter 
 fault hurt his intellectual sensitiveness, the 
 former involved, through the excessive 
 laughter it produced, a degree of involun- 
 tary exertion which, in his disordered physi- 
 cal condition, caused him acute pain. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer's constant use of the excla- 
 mations "My God!" and "For God's sake!" 
 had no relation whatever to swearing, as 
 the term is usually understood; they were 
 employed exactly as a French lady employs 
 the exclamation Mon Dieu! or a German 
 the expression Ach^ du liebe Gott! As 
 a matter of fact, although Mr. Pulitzer was 
 a man of strong and, at times, violent emo- 
 tions, and, from his deplorable nervous 
 state, excessively irritable, I do not think 
 that in the eight months I was with him, 
 during the greater part of which time he
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 51 
 
 was not under any restraining influence, 
 such as might be exerted by the presence of 
 ladies, I heard him use any oath except oc- 
 casionally a "damn," which appealed to him, 
 I think, as a suitable if not a necessary quali- 
 fication of the word "fool." For JVIr. Pulit- 
 zer there were no fools except damned fools. 
 After the excitement about Ccesar and 
 Cleopatra had subsided, Mr. Pulitzer asked 
 me if I had a good memory. I hesitated 
 before replying, because I had seen enough 
 of Mr. Pulitzer in an hour to realize that 
 a constant exercise of caution would be 
 necessary if I wished to avoid offending his 
 prejudices or wounding his susceptibilities; 
 and whereas on the one hand I did not wish 
 to set a standard for myself which I would 
 find it impossible to live up to, on the other 
 hand I was anxious to avoid giving any de- 
 scription of my abilities which would be fol- 
 lowed later by a polite intimation from the 
 major-domo that Mr. Pulitzer had enjoyed 
 my visit immensely but that I was not just 
 the man for the place.
 
 52 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 So I compromised and said that I had a 
 fairly good memory. 
 
 "Well, everybody thinks he's got a good 
 memory," replied Mr. Pulitzer. 
 
 "I only claimed a fairly good one," I pro- 
 tested. 
 
 "Oh! that's just an affectation; as a mat- 
 ter of fact you think you've got a splendid 
 memory, don't you? Now, be frank about 
 it; I love people to be frank with me." 
 
 My valor got the better of my discretion, 
 and I replied that if he really wished me to 
 be frank I was willing to admit that I had 
 no particular desire to lay claim to a good 
 memory, for I was inclined to accept the 
 view which I had once heard expressed by 
 a very wise man of my acquaintance that 
 the human mind was not intended to re- 
 member with but to think with, and that 
 one of the greatest benefits which had been 
 conferred on mankind by the discovery of 
 printing was that thousands of things could 
 be recorded for reference which former gen- 
 erations had been compelled to learn by rote. 
 
 "Your wise friend," he cried, "was a
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 53 
 
 damned fool! If you will give the matter 
 a moment's thought you'll see that memory 
 is the highest facultj^ of the human mind. 
 What becomes of all your reading, all your 
 observation, your experience, study, investi- 
 gations, discussions — in a rushing crescendo 
 — if you have no memory?" 
 
 "I might reply," I said, "by asking what 
 use it is to lumber up your mind with a mass 
 of information of which you are only going 
 to make an occasional use when you can 
 have it filed away in encyclopedias and other 
 works of reference, and in card indexes, in- 
 stantly available when you want it." 
 
 I spoke in a light and rather humorous 
 tone in order to take the edge off my dissent 
 from his opinion, reflecting that even be- 
 tween friends and equals a demand for 
 frankness is most safely to be regarded as 
 a danger signal to impulsiveness ; but it was 
 too late, I had evidently overstepped the 
 mark, for Mr. Pulitzer turned abruptly 
 from me without replying, and began to 
 talk to the gentleman on his left. 
 
 This had the twofold advantage of giving
 
 54 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 me time to reconsider my strategy, and to 
 eat some dinner, which one of the footmen, 
 evidently the kind with a memory for for- 
 mer experiences, had set on one side and 
 kept warm against the moment when I would 
 be free to enjoy it. 
 
 As I ate I listened to the conversation. 
 It made my heart sink. The gentleman to 
 whom ]Mr. Pulitzer had transferred his at- 
 tentions w^as a Scotchman, Mr. William Ro- 
 maine Paterson. I discovered later that he 
 was the nearest possible approach to a walk- 
 ing encyclopedia. His range of informa- 
 tion was — well, I am tempted to say, in- 
 famous. He appeared to have an exhaus- 
 tive knowledge of French, German, Itahan, 
 and English literature, of European his- 
 tory in its most complicated ramifications, 
 and of general biography in such a meas- 
 ure that, in regard to people as well known 
 as Goethe, Voltaire, Kossuth, Napoleon, 
 Garibaldi, Bismarck, and a score of others, 
 he could fix a precise day on which any 
 event or conversation had taken place, and 
 recall it in its minutest details.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 55 
 
 It was not simply from the standpoint of 
 my own ignorance that Paterson's store of 
 knowledge assmned such vast proportions, 
 for it was seldom opened except in the pres- 
 ence of Mr. Pulitzer, in whom were com- 
 bined a tenacious memory, a profound ac- 
 quaintance with the subjects which Pater- 
 son had taken for his province, an analytic 
 mind, and a zest for contradiction. Every- 
 thing Paterson said was immediately 
 pounced upon by a vigorous, astute, and 
 well-informed critic who derived peculiar 
 satisfaction from the rare instances in which 
 he could detect him in an inaccuracy. 
 
 The conversation between Mr. Pulitzer 
 and Paterson, or, rather, Paterson's fre- 
 quently interrupted monologue, lasted until 
 we had all finished dinner, and the butler 
 had lighted Mr. Pulitzer's cigar. In the 
 middle of an eloquent passage from Pater- 
 son, Mr. Pulitzer rose, turned abruptly to- 
 ward me, held out liis hand, and said, "I'm 
 very glad to have met you, Mr. Ireland ; you 
 have entertained me very much. Please 
 come here to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and
 
 56 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 I'll take you out for a drive. Good-night.'* 
 He took Paterson's arm and left the room. 
 
 The door, like all the doors in Mr. Pulit- 
 zer's various residences, shut automatically 
 and silently ; and after one of the secretaries 
 had drawn a heavy velvet curtain across the 
 doorway, so that not the faintest sound could 
 escape from the room, I was chaffed good- 
 naturedly about my debut as a candidate. 
 To my great surprise I was congratulated 
 on having done very well. 
 
 "You made a great hit," said one, "with 
 your account of Shaw's play." 
 
 "I nearly burst out laughing," said an- 
 other, "when you gave your views about 
 memory. I think you're dead right about 
 it; but J. P. — Mr. Pulitzer was always re- 
 ferred to as J. P. — is crazy about people 
 having good memories, so if you've really 
 got a good memory you'd better let him find 
 it out." 
 
 I was told that, so far as we were con- 
 cerned, the day's work, or at least that por- 
 tion of it which involved being with J. P., 
 was to be considered over as soon as he re-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 57 
 
 tired to the library after dinner. His object 
 then was to be left alone with one secretary, 
 who read to him until about ten o'clock, when 
 the major-domo came and took him to liis 
 rooms for the night. As a i-ule, J. P. made 
 no further demand on the bodily presence 
 of his secretaries after he had gone to bed, 
 but occasionally, when he could not sleep, 
 one of them would be called, perhaps at three 
 in the morning, to read to him. 
 
 This meant in practice that, when we were 
 ashore, one, or more usually two of us, would 
 remain in the house in case of emergency. 
 This did not by any means imply that we 
 were always free from work after ten 
 o'clock at night, in fact the very opposite 
 was true, for it was J. P.'s custom to 
 say, during dinner, that on the following 
 day he would ride, drive, or walk with such 
 a one or such a one, naming him; and the 
 victim — a term frequently used with a good 
 deal of surprisingly frank enjoyment by 
 J. P. himself — had often to work well into 
 the night preparing material for conversa- 
 tion.
 
 58 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 I saw something of what this preparation 
 meant before I left the villa after my first 
 meeting with J, P. Two of the secretaries 
 said they would go over to Monte Carlo, 
 and they asked me to go with them; but I 
 declined, preferring to remain behind for 
 a chat with one of the secretaries, Mr. Nor- 
 man G. Thwaites, an Englishman, who was 
 secretary in a more technical sense than any 
 of the rest of us, for he was a shorthand 
 wi-iter and did most of J. P.'s correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 After the others had gone he showed me 
 a table in the entrance hall of the villa, on 
 which was a big pile of mail just arrived 
 from London. It included a great num- 
 ber of newspapers and weeklies, several cop- 
 ies of each. There were The Times, The 
 Daily Telegraph, The Baihj Mail, The 
 Morning Post, The Daily News, The West- 
 minster Gazette, Truths The Spectator, The 
 Saturday Review, The Nation, The Out- 
 look, and some other London publications, 
 as well as the Paris editions of the New 
 York Herald and The Daily Mail,
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 59 
 
 Thwaites selected a copy of each and then 
 led the way to his bedroom, a large room on 
 the top floor, from which we could see across 
 the bay the brilliant lights of Monte Carlo. 
 
 He then explained to me that he had been 
 selected to read to J. P. whilst the latter 
 had his breakfast and his after-breakfast 
 cigar the next morning. In order to do this 
 satisfactorily he had to go over the papers 
 and read carefully whatever he could find 
 that was suited to J. P.'s taste at that par- 
 ticular time of the day. During the break- 
 fast hour J. P. would not have anything 
 read to him which was of an exciting nature. 
 This preference excluded political news, 
 crime, disaster, and war correspondence, and 
 left practically nothing but book reviews, 
 criticisms of plays, operas, and art exhibi- 
 tions, and publishers' announcements. 
 
 The principal sources of information on 
 these topics were the literary supplement of 
 the London Times, the Literary Digest, and 
 the literary, dramatic, and musical columns 
 of the Athenceum, The Spectator, and the 
 Saturday Review,
 
 60 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 These had to be "prepared," to use J. P.'s 
 phrase, which meant that they were read 
 over rapidly once and then gone over again 
 with some concentration so that the more 
 important articles could be marked for ac- 
 tual reading, the other portions being dealt 
 with conversationally, everything being 
 boiled down to its essence before it reached 
 Mr. Pulitzer's ear. 
 
 As it was getting late, and as I knew 
 that Thwaites would be on tap early in the 
 morning, for .J. P. usually breakfasted be- 
 fore nine, and the "victim" was supposed 
 to have had his own breakfast by eight, I 
 left the villa and went back to the yacht. 
 
 As he said good-night, Thwaites gave me 
 a copy of Tlie Daily Telegraph and advised 
 me to read it carefully, as J. P. might ask 
 me for the day's news during the drive we 
 were to take the following morning. 
 
 Before going to sleep I glanced through 
 The Daily Telegraph and came across an 
 article which gave me an idea for establish- 
 ing my reputation for memory. It was a 
 note about the death duties which had been
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 61 
 
 collected in England during 1910, and it 
 gave a list of about twenty estates on which 
 large sums had been paid. The list included 
 the names of the deceased and also the 
 amounts on which probate duty had been 
 paid. I decided to commit these names and 
 figures to memory and to take an occasion 
 the next day to reel them off to J. P. 
 
 Punctually at eleven o'clock I presented 
 myself at the villa to find, to my dismay, 
 J. P. seated in his automobile in a tower- 
 ing rage. What sort of consideration had 
 I for liim to keep him waiting for half an 
 hour ! 
 
 I protested that eleven o'clock was the 
 hour of the appointment. I was absolutely 
 wrong, he said, half-past-ten was the time, 
 and he remembered perfectly naming that 
 hour, because he wanted a long drive and 
 he had an engagement with Mr. Paterson 
 at noon. 
 
 *'I'm awfully sorry," I began, "if I mis- 
 understood you, but really . . ." 
 
 He dismissed the matter abruptly by say- 
 ing, "For God's sake, don't argue about it.
 
 62 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 Get in and sit next to me so that I can hear 
 you talk." 
 
 As soon as we had got clear of the village, 
 and were spinning along at a good rate on 
 the Corniche road, which circles the Bay of 
 IMonaco, high on the mountain side, Mr. 
 Pulitzer began to put me through my paces. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Ireland," he began, "you will 
 understand that if any arrangement is to 
 be concluded between us I must explore your 
 brain, your character, your tastes, your sym- 
 pathies, your prejudices, your temper; I 
 must find out if you have tact, patience, a 
 sense of humor, the gift of condensing in- 
 formation, and, above all, a respect, a love, 
 a passion for accuracy." 
 
 I began to speak, but he interrupted me 
 before I had got six words out of my mouth. 
 
 "Wait! Wait!" he cried, "let me finish 
 what I have to say. You'll find this busi- 
 ness of being a candidate a very trying and 
 disagreeable one ; well, it's damned disagree- 
 able to me, too. What I need is rest, repose, 
 quiet, routine, understanding, sympathy, 
 friendship, yes, my God! the friendship of
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 63 
 
 those around me. Mr. Ireland, I can do 
 much, I can do everything for a man who 
 will be my friend. I can give him power, 
 I can give him wealth, I can give him repu- 
 tation, the power, the wealth, the reputation 
 which come to a man who speaks to a million 
 people a day in the columns of a great paper. 
 But how am I to do this? I am blind, I'm 
 an invalid; how am I to know whom I can 
 trust? I don't mean in money matters; 
 money's nothing to me; it can do nothing 
 for me ; I mean morally, intellectually. I've 
 had scores of people pass through my hands 
 in the last fifteen years — Englishmen, 
 Scotchmen, Irishmen, Welshmen, Germans, 
 Frenclmien, Americans, men of so-called 
 high family, men of humble birth, men from 
 a dozen universities, self-taught men, young 
 men, old men, and, my God! what have I 
 found? Arrogance, stupidity, ingratitude, 
 loose thinking, conceit, ignorance, laziness, 
 indifference; absence of tact, discretion, 
 courtesy, manners, consideration, sympathy, 
 devotion; no knowledge, no wisdom, no in- 
 telligence, no observation, no memory, no
 
 64 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 insight, no understanding. My God! I can 
 hardly believe my own experience when I 
 think of it." 
 
 Set down in cold print, this outburst loses 
 almost every trace of its intense^ dramatic 
 character. Mr. Pulitzer spoke as though he 
 were declaiming a part in a highly emotional 
 play. At times he turned toward me, his 
 clenched fists raised above his shoulders, at 
 times he threw back his head, flung his out- 
 stretched hands at arms' length in front of 
 him, as though he were appealing to the 
 earth, to the sea, to the air, to the remote 
 canopy of the sky to hear his denunciation 
 of man's inefficiency; at times he paused, 
 laid a hand on my arm, and fixed liis eye 
 upon me as if he expected the darkness to 
 yield him some image of my thought. It 
 w^as almost impossible to believe at such a 
 moment that he was totallj^ blind, that he 
 could not distinguish night from day. 
 
 "Mind!" he continued, raising a caution- 
 ary finger, "I'm not making any criticism 
 of my present staff ; j^ou may consider your- 
 self veiy lucky if I find you to have a quar-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 65 
 
 ter of the good qualities which any one of 
 them has ; and let me tell you that while you 
 are with me you will do well to observe these 
 gentlemen and to try and model yourself on 
 them. 
 
 "However, all that doesn't matter so much 
 in your case, because there's no question of 
 your becoming one of my personal staff. 
 I haven't any vacancy at present, and I don't 
 foresee any. What I want you for is some- 
 thing quite different." 
 
 Imagine my amazement. No vacancy on 
 the staff! What about the advertisement I 
 had answered? What about all the inter- 
 views and correspondence, in which a com- 
 panionship had been the only thing dis- 
 cussed? What could the totally different 
 thing be of which Mr. Pulitzer spoke? 
 
 In the midst of my confusion Mr. Pulitzer 
 said, "Look out of the window and tell me 
 what you see. Remember that I am blind, 
 and try and make me get a mental picture of 
 everything — everything, you understand ; 
 never think that anything is too small or 
 insignificant to be of interest to me; you
 
 66 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 can't tell what may interest me; always de- 
 scribe everything with the greatest minute- 
 ness, every cloud in the sky, every shadow 
 on the hillside, every tree, every house, every 
 dress, every wrinkle on a face, everything, 
 everything!" 
 
 I did my best, and he appeared to be 
 pleased; but before I had half exhausted 
 the details of the magnificent scene above 
 and below us he stopped me suddenly with 
 a request that I should tell him exactly what 
 had occurred from the time I had answered 
 his advertisement up to the moment of my 
 arrival at the villa. 
 
 This demand placed me in rather an awk- 
 ward predicament, for I had to try and 
 reconcile the fact that the advertisement it- 
 self as well as all my conversations with his 
 agents and with his son had been directed 
 toward the idea of a companionship, with 
 his positive assertion that there was no va- 
 cancy on his personal staff and that he 
 wanted me for another, and an undisclosed 
 purpose. Here was a very clear opportu-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 67 
 
 nity for destroying my reputation, either for 
 tact or for accuracy. 
 
 There was, of course, only one thing to 
 do, and that was to tell liim exactly what 
 had taken place. This I did, and at the end 
 of my recital he said, "It's simply amazing 
 how anyone can get a matter tangled up the 
 way you have. There was never a question 
 of your becoming one of my companions. 
 What I want is a man to go out to the 
 Philippines and write a series of vigorous 
 articles showing the bungle we've made of 
 that business, and paving the way for an 
 agitation in favor of giving the Islands 
 their independence. There'll be a chance of 
 getting that done if we elect a Democratic 
 President in 1912." 
 
 "Well, sir," I replied, "if the bungle has 
 been as bad as you think I certainly ought 
 to be able to do the work to your satisfac- 
 tion. I'm pretty familiar with the condi- 
 tions of tropical life, I've written a good 
 deal on the subject, I've been in the Philip- 
 pines and have published a book and a num- 
 ber of articles about them, and, although
 
 68 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 T don't take as gloomy a view as you do 
 about the administration out there, I found 
 a good deal to criticize, and if I go out I 
 can certainly describe the conditions as they 
 are now, and your editorial writers can put 
 my articles to whatever use they may wish." 
 "You're going too fast," he said, "and 
 you're altogether too cock-sure of your abili- 
 ties. You mustn't think that because j^'ou've 
 written articles for the London Times you 
 are competent to write for The World. It's 
 a very different matter. The American peo- 
 ple want something terse, forcible, pic- 
 turesque, striking, something that will arrest 
 their attention, enlist their sympathy, arouse 
 their indignation, stimulate their imagina- 
 tion, convince their reason, awaken their 
 conscience. Why should I accept you at 
 your ovn\ estimate? You don't realize the 
 responsibility I have in this matter. The 
 World isn't like your Times, with its forty 
 or fifty thousand educated readers. It's read 
 by, well, say a million people a day ; and it's 
 my duty to see that they get the truth; but 
 that's not enough, I've got to put it before
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 69 
 
 them briefly so that they will read it, clearly 
 so that they will understand it, forcibly so 
 that they will appreciate it, picturesquely 
 so that they w^ill remember it, and, above 
 all, accurately so that they may be wisely 
 guided by its light. And you come to me, 
 and before you've been here a day you ask 
 me to entrust you with an important mission 
 which concerns the integrity of my paper, 
 the conscience of my readers, the policy of 
 my country, no, my God! you're too cock- 
 sure of yourself." 
 
 By this time Mr. Pulitzer had worked 
 himself up into a state of painful excite- 
 ment. His forehead was damp with per- 
 spiration, he clasped and unclasped his 
 hands, his voice became louder and higher- 
 pitched from moment to moment ; but when 
 he suddenly stopped speaking he calmed 
 down instantly. 
 
 "You shouldn't let me talk so much," he 
 said, without, however, suggesting any 
 means by which I could stop him. "What 
 time is it? Are we nearly home? Well, Mr. 
 Ireland, I'll let you off for the afternoon;
 
 70 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 go and enjoy yourself and forget all about 
 me." Then, as the auto drew up at the door 
 of the villa, "Come up to dinner about seven 
 and try to be amusing. You did very well 
 last night. I hope you can keep it up. It's 
 most important that anyone who is to live 
 with me should have a sense of humor. I'd 
 be glad to keep a man and pay him a hand- 
 some salary if he would make me laugh once 
 a day. Well, good-by till to-night."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Life at Cap Martin 
 
 THERE was no lack of humor in Mr. 
 Pulitzer's suggestion that I should 
 go and enjoy myself and forget him. I 
 went down to the yacht, had lunch in soli- 
 tary state, and then, selecting a comfortable 
 chair in the smoking-room, settled down to 
 think things over. 
 
 It soon became clear to me that J. P. was 
 a man of a character so completely outside 
 the range of my experience that any skill 
 of judgment I might have acquired through 
 contact with many men of many races would 
 avail me little in my intercourse with him. 
 
 That he was arbitrary, self-centered, and 
 exacting mattered little to me ; it was a com- 
 bination of qualities which rumor had led 
 me to expect in him, and with which I had 
 
 71
 
 72 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 become familiar in my acquaintance with 
 men of wide authority and outstanding abil- 
 ity. What disturbed me was that his blind- 
 ness, his ill health, and his suffering had 
 united to these traits an intense excitability 
 and a morbid nervousness. 
 
 My first impulse was to attribute his 
 capriciousness to a weakening of his brain 
 power; but I could not reconcile this view 
 with the vigor of his thought, with the clear- 
 ness of his expression, with the amplitude 
 of his knowledge, with the scope of his mem- 
 ory as they had been disclosed the previous 
 night in his conversation with Paterson. 
 No, the fact w^as that I had not found the 
 key to his motives, the cipher running 
 tlirough the artificial confusion of his ac- 
 tions. 
 
 I could not foresee the issue of the ad- 
 venture. In the meantime, however, the 
 yacht was a comfortable home, the Cote 
 d'Azur was a new field of observation, J. P. 
 and his secretaries were extremely interest- 
 ing, the honorarium was accumulating stead- 
 ily, and in the background Barbados still
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 73 
 
 slept in the sunshine, an emerald in a sapph- 
 ire sea. 
 
 During the afternoon I had a visit from 
 Jabez E. Dunningham, the major-domo. I 
 pay tribute to him here as one of the most 
 remarkable men I have ever met, an opinion 
 which I formed after months of daily inter- 
 course with him. He was an Englishman, 
 and he had spent nearly twenty years with 
 Mr. Pulitzer, traveling with him everywhere, 
 hardly ever separated from him for more 
 than a few hours, and he was more closely in 
 his confidence than anyone outside the 
 family. 
 
 He was capable and efficient in the high- 
 est degree. His duties ranged from those 
 of a nurse to those of a diplomat. He pro- 
 duced, at a moment's notice, as a conjuror 
 produces rabbits and goldfish, the latest hot- 
 water bottle from a village pharmacy in 
 Elba, special trains from haughty and re- 
 luctant officials of State railways, bales of 
 newspapers mysteriously collected from 
 clubs, hotels, or consulates in remote and 
 microscopic ports, fruits and vegetables out
 
 74 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 of season, rooms, suites, floors of hotels at 
 the height of the rush in the most crowded 
 resorts, or a dozen cabins in a steamer. 
 
 He could open telegraph stations and post 
 offices when they were closed to the native 
 nobility, convert the eager curiosity of port 
 officials into a trance-like indifference, or 
 monopolize the services of a whole adminis- 
 tration, if the comfort, convenience, or 
 caprice of his master demanded it. 
 
 More than this; if, any of these things 
 having been done, they should appear un- 
 desirable to Mr. Pulitzer, Dunningham 
 could undo them wdth the same magician- 
 like ease as had marked their achievement. 
 A wave of Mr. Pulitzer's hand was trans- 
 lated into action by Dunningham, and the 
 whole of his arrangements disappeared as 
 completely as if they had never existed. The 
 slate was wiped clean, ready in an instant 
 to receive the new message from Mr. Pulit- 
 zer's will. 
 
 Dunningham had come to offer me ad- 
 vice. I must not be disturbed by the ap- 
 parent eccentricity of Mr. Pulitzer's con-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 75 
 
 duct; it was merely part of Mr. Pulitzer's 
 fixed policy to make things as complicated 
 and difficult as possible for a candidate. By 
 adopting this plan he was able to discover 
 very quickly whether there was any possi- 
 bility that a new man would suit him. If 
 the candidate showed impatience or bad 
 temper he could be got rid of at once; if 
 he showed tact and good humor he would 
 graduate into another series of tests, and 
 so on, step by step, until the period of his 
 trjang out was ended and he became one of 
 the staflT. 
 
 A man of my intelligence would, of 
 course, appreciate the advantages of such a 
 method, even from the standpoint of the 
 candidate, for once a candidate had passed 
 the testing stage he would find his relations 
 with Mr. Pulitzer much pleasanter and his 
 work less exacting, whereas if he found at 
 the outset that the conditions were not pleas- 
 ing to him he could retire without having 
 wasted much time. 
 
 One thing I must bear in mind, namely, 
 that each day which passed without Mr.
 
 76 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 Pulitzer having decided against a candidate 
 increased the candidate's chances. If a man 
 was to be rejected it was usually done inside 
 of a week from his first appearance on the 
 scene. 
 
 And, by the way, had I ever noticed how 
 people were apt to think that blind people 
 were deaf? A most curious thing; really 
 nothing in it. Take Mr. Pulitzer, for ex- 
 ample, so far from his being deaf he had 
 the most exquisite sense of hearing, in fact 
 he heard better when people spoke below 
 rather than above their ordinary tone. 
 
 Thus, Dunningham, anxious, in his mas- 
 ter's interest, to allay my nervousness, which 
 reacted disagreeably on Mr. Pulitzer, and 
 to make me lower my voice. 
 
 I went up to the villa during the after- 
 noon to look at the house and, if possible, 
 to have a talk with some of the secretaries. 
 
 The villa lay on the Western slope of Cap 
 JNIartin, a few hundred yards from the Villa 
 Cyrnos, occupied by the Empress Eugenie. 
 Seen from the road there was nothing strik- 
 ing in its appearance, but seen from the
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 77 
 
 other side it was delightful, recalling the 
 drop scene of a theater. Situated on a steep 
 slope, emhowered in trees, its broad stone 
 veranda overhung a series of ornamental 
 terraces decorated with palms, flowers, stat- 
 uary, and fountains ; and where these ended 
 a jumble of rocks and stunted pines fell 
 away abruptly to the blue water of the bay. 
 
 The house was large and well designed, 
 but very simple in its furniture and decora- 
 tions. The upper rooms on the Western 
 side commanded a superb view of the Bay 
 of Monaco, and of the rugged hillsides 
 above La Turbie, crowned with a vague out- 
 line of fortifications against the sky. 
 
 In a room at the top of the house I found 
 one of the secretaries, an Englishman, Mr. 
 George Craven, formerly in the Indian 
 Civil Service in Rajputana. He was en- 
 gaged in auditing the accounts of the yacht, 
 but he readily fell in with my suggestion 
 that we should take a stroll. 
 
 "Right-ho!" he said. "I'm sick of these 
 beastly accounts. But we must find out 
 what J. P.'s doing first."
 
 78 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 It appeared that J. P. had motored over 
 to Monte Carlo to hear a concert, and that 
 he wasn't expected back for an hour or more. 
 As we stopped in the entrance hall to get 
 our hats I struck a match on the sole of my 
 shoe, intending to Ught a cigarette. 
 
 "By Jove! Don't do that, for Heaven's 
 sake," said Craven, "or there'll be a fright- 
 ful row when J. P. comes in. He can't 
 stand cigarette smoke, and he's got a sense 
 of smell as keen as a setter's." 
 
 We went into the garden and followed a 
 narrow path which led down to the water- 
 side. We talked about J. P. As a matter 
 of fact, J. P. was the principal topic of 
 conversation whenever two of his secretaries 
 found themselves together. 
 
 Craven, however, had only been with J. P. 
 for a few weeks, having been one of the 
 batch sifted out of the six hundi'ed who 
 had answered the Times advertisement. He 
 was almost as much in the dark as I was 
 in regard to the real J. P. that existed 
 somewhere behind the mask which was al-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 79 
 
 ways held out in front of every emotion, 
 every thought, every intention. 
 
 The life was difficult, he found, and ex- 
 tremely laborious. "V\Tien it suited his book 
 J. P. could be one of the most fascinating 
 and entertaining of men, but when it didn't, 
 well, he wasn't. The truth was that you 
 could never tell what he really thought at 
 any moment; it made you feel as though 
 you were blind and not he ; you found your- 
 self groping around all the time for a good 
 lead and coming unexpectedly up against a 
 stone wall. 
 
 "I've been with him a couple of months," 
 he said, "and I haven't the slightest idea 
 whether he thinks me a good sort or a silly 
 ass, and I don't suppose I ever shall know. 
 Bv Jove, there he is now!" as we heard the 
 crunch of tires on the drive. "Excuse me if 
 I make a run for it; he may want me any 
 minute. See you later." 
 
 At dinner that night Mr. Pulitzer de- 
 voted his whole attention to laying bare the 
 vast areas of ignorance on the map of my 
 information. He carried me from country
 
 80 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 to country, from century to century, 
 through history, art, literature, biography, 
 economics, music, the drama, and current 
 poHtics. Whenever he hit upon some small 
 spot where my investigations had lingered 
 and where my memory served me he left it 
 immediately, with the remark, "Well, I 
 don't care about that; that doesn't amount 
 to anything, anyhow." 
 
 It was worse than useless to make any 
 pretense of knowing things, for if you said 
 you knew a play, for instance, J. P. would 
 say, "Good! Now begin at the second scene 
 of the third act, where the curtain rises on 
 the two conspirators in the coiu-tyard of the 
 hotel; just carry it along from there" — and 
 if j^ou didn't know it thoroughly you were 
 soon in difficulties. 
 
 His method was nicely adjusted to his 
 needs, for he was concerned most of the 
 time to get entertainment as well as infor- 
 mation; and he was, therefore, amused by 
 exposing your ignorance when he was not 
 informed by uncovering your knowledge. 
 Indeed, nothing put him in such good humor
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 81 
 
 as to discover a cleft in your intellectual 
 armor, provided that you really possessed 
 some talent, faculty, or resource which was 
 useful to him. 
 
 My dinner, considered as a dinner, was as 
 great a failure as my conversation, consid- 
 ered as an exhibition of learning. I got no 
 more than a hasty mouthful now and again, 
 and got that only through a device often 
 resorted to by the secretaries under such cir- 
 cumstances, but which seldom met with much 
 success. 
 
 J. P. himself had to eat, and from time 
 to time the butler, who always stood behind 
 J. P.'s chair, and attended to him only, 
 would take advantage of an instant's pause 
 in the conversation to say, "Your fish is get- 
 ting cold, sir." 
 
 This would divert J. P.'s attention from 
 his victim long enough to allow one of the 
 other men to break in with a remark de- 
 signed to draw J. P.'s fire. It worked once 
 in a while, but as a rule it had no effect 
 whatever beyond making J. P. hurry 
 through the course so that he could renew
 
 82 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 his attack at the point where he had sus- 
 pended it. 
 
 On the particular occasion I am describ- 
 ing I was fortunate enough toward the end 
 of dinner to regain some of the ground I 
 had lost in my disorderly flight across the 
 field of scholarship. One of the secretaries 
 seized an opportunity to refer to the British 
 death duties. I had intended to arrange 
 for the introduction of this topic, but had 
 forgotten to do so. It was just sheer good 
 luck, and I made signs to the gentleman to 
 keep it up. He did so, and the moment he 
 ceased speaking I took up the tale. It was 
 a good subject, for J. P. was interested in 
 the question of death duties. 
 
 After a preliminary flourish I began to 
 reel ofl* the figures I had committed to mem- 
 ory the previous night. Before I had got 
 very far Mr. Pulitzer cried. 
 
 "Stop! Are you reading those figures?" 
 
 "No," I replied. "I read them over last 
 night in the Daily Telegraph/* 
 
 "My God! Are you giving them from 
 memory? Haven't you got a note of them
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 83 
 
 in your hand? Hasn't he? Hasn't he? 
 . . ." appealing to the table. 
 
 Reassured on this point he said, "Well, 
 go on, go on. This interests me." 
 
 As soon as I had finished he turned to 
 Craven and said, "Go and get that paper, 
 and find the article." 
 
 When Craven returned with it, he con- 
 tinued, "Now, Mr. Ireland, go over those 
 figures again; and you, Mr. Craven, check 
 them off and see if they're correct. Now, 
 play fair, no tricks!" 
 
 I had made two mistakes, which were re- 
 ported as soon as they were spoken. At 
 the end Mr. Pulitzer said: 
 
 "Well, you see, you hadn't got them 
 right, after all. But that's not so bad. 
 With a memory like that you might have 
 known something by now if you'd only had 
 the diligence to read." 
 
 My second score was made just at the 
 end of dinner, or rather when dinner had 
 been finished some time and J. P. was lin- 
 gering at table over his cigar. The question 
 of humor came up, and someone remarked
 
 84 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 how curious it was that one of the favorite 
 amusements of the American humorist 
 should be to make fun of the Enghsliman 
 for his lacii of humor — "Laugh, and all the 
 world laughs with you, except the English- 
 man," and so on. The usual defenses were 
 made — Hood, Thackeray, Gilbert, Calver- 
 ley, etc. — and then Punch was referred to. 
 
 This gave me the chance of repeating, 
 more or less accurately, a paragraph which 
 appeared in Punch some years ago, and 
 which I always recite when that delightful 
 periodical is slandered in my hearing. It 
 ran something after this fashion: 
 
 "One of our esteemed contemporaries is 
 very much worked up in its mind about 
 Mr. Balfour's foreign policy, which it com- 
 pares to that of the camel, which, when pur- 
 sued, buries its head in the sand. We quite 
 agree with our esteemed contemporary about 
 Mr. Balfour's foreign policy, but we fear 
 it is getting its metaphors mixed. Surely it 
 is not thinking of the camel which, when 
 pursued, buries its head in the sand, but of
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 85 
 
 the ostrich which, when pursued, runs its eye 
 through a needle." 
 
 It was a lucky hit. No one had heard it 
 before, and our party broke up with Mr. 
 Pulitzer in high good humor. 
 
 So the days passed. I saw a great deal of 
 ]Mr. Pulitzer and went through many agon- 
 izing hours of cross-examination; but grad- 
 ually matters came round to the point where 
 we discussed the possibility of my becoming 
 a member of his personal staff. He thought 
 that there was some hope that, if he put me 
 through a rigorous training, I might suit 
 him, but before it could even be settled that 
 such an attempt should be made many things 
 would have to be cleared up. 
 
 In the first place, I would understand 
 what extreme caution was necessary for him 
 in making a selection. There was not only 
 the question of whether I could make myself 
 useful to him, and the question of whether 
 I could be trusted in a relationship of such 
 a confidential nature, there remained the 
 very important question of whether I was a 
 fit person to associate with the lady mem-
 
 86 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 bers of his family, M'ho spent some portion 
 of each year with him. 
 
 This matter was discussed very frankly, 
 and was then shelved pending a reference 
 to a number of people in England and 
 America at whose homes I had been a guest, 
 and where the household included ladies. 
 
 At the end of a week the yacht was sent 
 to Marseilles to coal in preparation for a 
 cruise, and I went to stay at an hotel near 
 the villa. It was a change for the worse. 
 
 By the time the yacht returned I had had 
 some opportunity of observing the routine 
 of life at the villa. After breakfast Mr. 
 Pulitzer went for a drive, accompanied by 
 one, or occasionally by two, of the secre- 
 taries. During this drive he received a 
 rough summary of the morning's news, the 
 papers having been gone over and marked 
 either the night before or while he was hav- 
 ing his breakfast. 
 
 As he seldom let us know in advance 
 which of us he would call upon for the first 
 presentation of the news, and as he was 
 liable to change his mind at the last minute
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 87 
 
 when he had named somebody the previous 
 night, we had all of us to go through the 
 papers \^'ith great care, so that we might be 
 prepared if we were called upon. 
 
 On returning from his drive Mr. Pulitzer 
 would either sit in the library and dictate 
 letters and cablegrams, or he would have the 
 news gone over in detail, or, if the state of 
 his health forbade the mental exertion in- 
 volved in the intense concentration with 
 which he absorbed what was read to him 
 from the papers, he would go for a ride, 
 accompanied by a groom and by one of the 
 secretaries. When he went to Europe he 
 usually sent over in advance some horses 
 from his own stable, as he was very fond 
 of riding and could not trust himself on a 
 strange horse. 
 
 After the ride, lunch, at which the conver- 
 sation generally took a more serious turn 
 than at dinner, for at night Mr. Pulitzer 
 disliked any discussion of matters which 
 were likely to arouse his interest very much 
 or to stir his emotions, for he found it diffi- 
 cult to get his mind calmed down so that
 
 88 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 he could sleep. Even in regard to lunch we 
 were sometimes warned in advance, either 
 by Dunningham or by the secretary who 
 had left him just before lunch was served, 
 that Mr. Pulitzer wished the conversation 
 to be light and uncontroversial. 
 
 Immediately after lunch Mr. Pulitzer re- 
 tired to his bedroom with Herr Friederich 
 Mann, the German secretary, and was read 
 to, chiefly German plays, until he fell asleep, 
 or until he had had an hour or so of rest. 
 
 By four o'clock he was ready to go out 
 again, riding, if he had not had a ride in 
 the morning, or driving, with an occasional 
 walk for perhaps half-an-hour, the auto- 
 mobile always remaining within call. As a 
 rule he spent an hour before dinner listen- 
 ing to someone read, a novel, a biography, 
 or what not, according to his mood. 
 
 At dinner the conversation usually ran 
 along the lines of what was being read to 
 him by the various secretaries or of such 
 topics in the day's news as were of an un- 
 exciting nature. The meal varied greatly 
 in length. If J. P. was feeling tired, or
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 89 
 
 out of sorts, he eat his dinner quickly and 
 left us, taking somebody along to read to 
 him until he was ready to go to bed. But, 
 if he was in good form, and an interesting 
 topic was started, or if he was in a remi- 
 niscent mood and wanted to talk, dinner 
 would last from half -past-seven to nine, or 
 even later. 
 
 I shall deal in another place with the dif- 
 ferent phases of the conversation and read- 
 ing which formed so large a part of our 
 duties, but I may refer here to various in- 
 cidents of our routine and to some things 
 by which our routine was occasionally dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer was very fond of walking. 
 His usual practice was to leave the villa in 
 the automobile and drive either down to the 
 plage at Mentone or up the hill to a point 
 about midway between Cap Martin and the 
 Tower of Augustus. When he reached the 
 spot he had selected he took the arm of a 
 secretary and promenaded backward and 
 forward over a distance of five hundred
 
 V 
 
 90 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 yards, until he felt tired, when the auto- 
 mobile was signaled and we drove home. 
 
 Each of his favorite spots for walking 
 had its peculiar disadvantages for his com- 
 panion. Speaking for myself I can say that 
 I dreaded these walks more than any other 
 of my duties. 
 
 If we went on the hillside I had to keep 
 the most alert and unrelaxing lookout for 
 automobiles. They came dashing round the 
 sharp curves with a roar and a scream, and 
 these distracting noises always made Mr. 
 Pulitzer stop dead still as though he were 
 rooted to the ground. 
 
 I understand that Mr. Pulitzer was never 
 actually hit by an automobile, and, of course, 
 his blindness saved him from tlie agony of 
 apprehension which his companion suffered, 
 for he could not see the narrovmess of his 
 escape. But I was out with him one day on 
 the Upper Corniche road when two automo- 
 biles going in opposite directions at reck- 
 less speed came upon us at a sharp turn, 
 and I may frankly confess that I was never 
 so frightened in my life. Had we been
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 91 
 
 alone I am certain we would have been 
 killed, but fortunately Mann was with us, 
 and it was on his arm that J. P. was lean- 
 ing at the critical moment. Mann, who had 
 the advantage of long experience, acted in- 
 stantly with the utmost presence of mind. 
 He made a quick sign to me to look out for 
 myself, and then pushed ^Ir. Pulitzer al- 
 most off his feet up against the high cliff 
 which rose above the inner edge of the road. 
 
 The machines were out of sight before 
 we could realize that we were safe. I ex- 
 pected an explosion from J. P. Nothing of 
 the kind! He acted then, as I always saw 
 him act when there was any actual danger 
 or real trouble of any kind, with perfect 
 calmness and self-possession. 
 
 The intolerable nerv^ous strain of these 
 walks on the hillside was accompanied by 
 a mental strain almost as distressing. It 
 would have been bad enough if one's only 
 responsibility had been to keep Mr. Pulitzer 
 from being crushed against the hillside, or 
 being run over; but this was only half the 
 problem. The other half was to keep up a
 
 92 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 continual stream of conversation — not light, 
 airy nothings, but a solid body of carefully 
 prepared facts — in a tone of voice which 
 should fail to convey to J. P. the slightest 
 indication of your nervousness. 
 
 When we walked on the plage at Men- 
 tone, the difficulties were of another kind. 
 Here there was always more or less of a 
 crowd, and as the paved promenade was 
 narrow, and as very few people had the in- 
 telligence to realize that the tall, striking 
 figure leaning on his companion's arm was 
 that of a blind man, and as fewer still had 
 the courtesy to step aside if they did realize 
 it, our walk was a constant dodging in and 
 out among curious gazers interested in star- 
 ing at the gaunt, impressive invalid with 
 the large black spectacles. 
 
 Conversation was, of course, extremely 
 difficult under such circumstances; and oc- 
 casionally things were made worse by some 
 stranger stopping squarely in front of us 
 and addressing Mr. Pulitzer by name, for 
 he was a notable personage in the place and 
 was well known by sight.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 93 
 
 When accosted in this manner, Mr. Pulit- 
 zer always showed signs of extreme ner- 
 vousness. He would stamp his foot, raise 
 the clenched fist of his disengaged arm 
 menacingly, and cry, "My God! What's 
 this? What's this? Tell him to go away. 
 I won't tolerate this intrusion. Tell him I'll 
 have him arrested." 
 
 More than once I had to push a man off 
 the promenade and make faces at him em- 
 bodying all that was possible by such means 
 in the way of threats to do him bodily in- 
 jury. It was impossible to argue with these 
 impudent intruders, because anything like 
 an altercation on a public road would have 
 meant two or three days of misery for Mr. 
 Pulitzer, in consequence of the excitement 
 and apprehension he would suif er in such 
 an affair. It was always with a feeling of 
 intense relief that I saw J. P. safely back 
 at the villa after our walks. 
 
 Although Mr. Pulitzer's intellectual in- 
 terests covered almost every phase of human 
 life, there was nothing from which he de- 
 rived more pleasure than from music. Once,
 
 94 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 or perhaps twice a week, he motored over 
 to Monte Carlo, or even as far as Nice, to 
 attend a concert. On such occasions he al- 
 ways took at least two companions with him, 
 so that he never sat next to a stranger. 
 
 He preferred a box for his party, but, 
 failing that, the seats were always secured 
 on the broad cross-aisle, so that he would not 
 have to rise when anyone wished to pass in 
 front of him. He liked to arrive a few 
 minutes before the concert commenced, and 
 one of us would read the program to him. 
 He had an excellent memory for music, and 
 his taste was broad enough to embrace al- 
 most everything good from Bach to Wag- 
 ner. He was a keen critic of a performance, 
 and in the intervals between the pieces he 
 criticized the playing from the standpoint 
 of his musical experience. 
 
 One movement was played too loud, an- 
 other too fast ; in one the brass had drowned 
 a delightful passage for the violas, which 
 he had heard and admired the year before 
 in Vienna; in another the brasses had been
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 AT MONTE CARLO, I91I
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 95 
 
 subdued to a point where the theme lost its 
 distinction. 
 
 It was his habit to beat time with one 
 hand and to sway his head gently backward 
 and forward when he heard a slow, familiar 
 melody. When something very stirring was 
 played, the Rakoczy March, for instance, 
 or the overture to Die Meister singer ^ he 
 would mark the down beat with his clenched 
 fist, and throw his head back as if he were 
 going to shout. 
 
 I was tempted at first to believe that, in 
 the concert room, when one of his favorite 
 pieces was being played, and his hand rose 
 and fell in exact accord with the conductor's 
 baton, or when, with his head in the air and 
 his mouth half open, he thumped his knee 
 at the beginning of each bar, he was ab- 
 sorbed in the music to the exclusion of all 
 his worries, perplexities, and suff'ering. 
 
 But, after he had once or twice turned to 
 me in a flash as the last note of a symphony 
 lingered before the outburst of applause and 
 asked, "Did you remember to tell Dunning- 
 ham to have dinner served a quarter of an
 
 96 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 hour later this evening?" or "Did Thwaites 
 say anything to you about when he expected 
 those cables from New York?" — I learned 
 that even at such times J. P. never lost the 
 thread of his existence, never freed himself 
 from the slavery of his affairs. 
 
 Twice during the ten days immediately 
 preceding our long promised cruise in the 
 Mediterranean we made short trips on the 
 yacht. We went to bed some nights with 
 all our plans apparently settled for a week 
 ahead. At eight o'clock the next morning 
 Dunningham would bring J. P. down to 
 breakfast and then announce that every- 
 body was to be on board the yacht by mid- 
 day, as J. P. had slept badly and felt 
 the need of sea air and the complete quiet 
 wliich could be had only on board the 
 Liberty. 
 
 There would be a great packing of 
 trunks, not only those devoted to the per- 
 sonal belongings of the staff, but trunks 
 for newspaper files, encyclopedias, maga- 
 zines, novels, histories, correspondence, and 
 so on.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 97 
 
 The chef and his assistants, the butler and 
 his assistants, the major domo, and the sec- 
 retaries would leave the villa in a string of 
 carriages, followed by cartloads of baggage, 
 and install themselves on the yacht. 
 
 Or the cause of our sudden departure 
 might be that Mr. Pulitzer was feeling 
 nervous and out of sorts and was expecting 
 important letters or cables which were sure 
 to excite him and make him worse. On such 
 occasions Dunningham, who was one of the 
 few people who had any influence whatever 
 over Mr. Pulitzer, would urge an instant 
 flight on the yacht as the only means of 
 safeguarding J. P.'s health. He knew that 
 if we stayed ashore no power on earth could 
 prevent Mr. Pulitzer from reading his 
 cables and letters when they arrived. Once 
 out at sea we were completely cut off from 
 communication with the shore, for we had 
 no wireless apparatus, and Mr. Pulitzer 
 would settle down and get some rest. 
 
 More than once, however, I saw all the 
 preparations made for a short cruise, every- 
 body on board, the captain on the bridge.
 
 98 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the table laid for lunch, a man stationed at 
 the stem to report the automobile as soon 
 as it came in sight, and at the last moment 
 a messenger arrive countermanding every- 
 thing and ordering everybody back to the 
 villa as fast as they could go. 
 
 These sudden changes were sometimes re- 
 versed. We would arrive at Mentone in the 
 morning. J. P. would announce his inten- 
 tion of spending a week there. With this 
 apparently settled, J. P. goes ashore for a 
 ride, the procession makes its way to the 
 villa, the trunks are unpacked, the chef be- 
 gins to ply his art, the captain of the yacht 
 goes ahead with such washing do^vn and 
 painting as are needed, the chief engineer 
 seizes the chance of making some small en- 
 gine-room repairs — no ordinary ship's work 
 of any kind was allowed when J. P. was on 
 board, the slightest noise or the faintest odor 
 of paint being strictly forbidden — and later 
 in the day the news comes that Mr. Pulitzer 
 will be aboard again in two hours and will 
 expect everything to be ready to make an 
 immediate start.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 99 
 
 These short cruises might last only for a 
 night, or they might extend to a day or two. 
 Our custom was to steam straight out to sea 
 and then patrol the coast backward and 
 forward between Bordighera and Cannes, 
 without losing sight of land. 
 
 The life at Cap Martin was sufficiently 
 arduous, even for those who had after long 
 experience with J. P. learned to get through 
 the day with some economy of effort. To 
 me, new to the work, constantly under the 
 double pressure of Mr. Pulitzer's cross-ex- 
 aminations and of the task of supplying, 
 however inefficiently, the place of a secretary 
 who was away on sick leave, the whole thing 
 was a nightmare. I was in a dazed condi- 
 tion; everything impressed itself upon me 
 with the vividness of a dream, and eluded 
 my attempts at analysis, just as the delusive 
 order of our sleeping visions breaks up into 
 topsyturvydom as soon as we try to recon- 
 struct it in the light of day. 
 
 I spent in all about a month at Cap Mar- 
 tin, staying sometimes on the yacht and 
 sometunes at an hotel, and during that time
 
 100 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 I worked practically every day from eight 
 in the morning until ten or eleven at night. 
 I use the word "work" to include the hours 
 spent with ^Ir. Pulitzer as well as those de- 
 voted to preparing material for him. In- 
 deed, the time given to meals and to drives 
 and walks with J. P. was much more ex- 
 hausting than that spent in reading and in 
 making notes. 
 
 The only recreation I had during this 
 period was one day on leave at Nice and half 
 a day at Monaco; hut there was very little 
 enjoyment to be got out of these visits, be- 
 cause I was under orders to bring back mi- 
 nute descriptions of Nice and of the Insti- 
 tute of Marine Biology at Monaco. 
 
 Engaged on such missions, the passers-by, 
 the houses, the shops, the fishes and marine 
 vegetables in their tanks, the blue sky over- 
 head, the blue sea at my feet assumed a new 
 aspect to me. They were no longer parts 
 of my own observation, to be remembered 
 or forgotten as chance determined, they be- 
 longed to some one else, to the blind man in
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 101 
 
 whose service I was pledged to a vicarious 
 absorption of "material." 
 
 I found myself counting the black spots 
 on a fish's back, the steps leading up to 
 Monaco on its hill, the number of men and 
 women in the Grand Salon at Monte Carlo, 
 of men with mustaches, of clean-shaven men, 
 of men with beards in the restaurants, of 
 vessels in sight from the terrace, of every- 
 thing, in fact, which seemed capable of fur- 
 nishing a sentence or of starting up a dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 Once or twice I ran over late at night to 
 Monte Carlo, and occasionally Thwaites 
 and I met after ten o'clock at the Casino of 
 Mentone to play bowls or try our luck at 
 the tables ; but the spirit of J. P. never failed 
 to attend upon these dismal efforts at amuse- 
 ment. If I heard an epigram, vdtnessed 
 an interesting incident, or observed any curi- 
 ous sight, out came my note book and pencil 
 and the matter was dedicated to the service 
 of the morrow's duties. 
 
 Finally, after several false starts, we all
 
 102 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 found ourselves on the yacht with the pros- 
 pect of spending most of our time aboard 
 until Mr. Pulitzer sailed for liis annual visit 
 to America.
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 Yachting in the Mediterranean 
 
 TAKEN at its face value a month in 
 the Mediterranean, on board one of 
 the finest yachts afloat, with visits to Corsica, 
 Elba, Nice, Cannes, Naples, Genoa, Syra- 
 cuse, and the Pirseus, should give promise 
 of a picturesque and entertaining record of 
 sight-seeing, the kind of journal in which 
 the views of Baedeker and of your local cab 
 driver are blended, in order that the aroma 
 of foreign travel may be wafted to the nos- 
 trils of your fresh-water cousins. 
 
 What my narrative lacks of this flavor 
 of luxurious vagrancy must be supplied by 
 the peculiar interest of a cruise which vio- 
 lated eveiy tradition of the annals of yacht- 
 ing, and created precedents which in all hu- 
 
 103
 
 104 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 man probability will never be followed so 
 long as iron floats on water. 
 
 It was part of Mr. Pulitzer's scheme of 
 nautical life to shroud all his movements in 
 mystery. One result of this was that when 
 we were on the yacht we never knew where 
 we were going until we got there. The 
 compass-course at any moment betrayed 
 nothing of Mr. Pulitzer's intentions, for 
 we might turn in at night with the ship head- 
 ing straight for Naples and wake up in the 
 morning to find ourselves three miles south 
 of the Genoa lighthouse. 
 
 Apart from Mr. Pulitzer's fancy, our er- 
 ratic maneuvers were affected by our need 
 to make good weather out of whatever wind 
 we encountered, on the one hand because 
 J. P., though an excellent sailor, disliked the 
 rolling produced by a beam sea, since it in- 
 terfered with his walking on deck, and on 
 the other hand, because several of the secre- 
 taries suffered from sea-sickness the mo- 
 ment we were off an even keel. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer was not a man prone to be 
 placated by excuses; but he had come to
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER AND ONE OF HIS SECRETARIES 
 ON THE DECK OF THE " LIBERTY "
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 105 
 
 realize that neither a sense of duty nor the 
 hope of reward, neither fear nor courage, 
 can make an agreeable companion out of a 
 man who is seasick. So, unless there was an 
 important reason why we should reach port, 
 we always made a head- wind of anything 
 stronger than a light breeze, and followed 
 the weather round the compass until it was 
 fair for our destination. 
 
 As soon as we left Mentone Mr. Pulitzer 
 began the process of education which was 
 designed to fit me for his service. 
 
 "When you were in New York," he asked, 
 "what papers did you read?" 
 
 "The Sun and TJie Times in the morning 
 and The Evening Sun and The Evening 
 Post at night," I replied. 
 
 "My God ! Didn't you read The World?" 
 "Notliing but the editorial page." 
 "Why not? What's the matter with it?" 
 I exj)lained that I was not interested in 
 crime and disaster, to which The World de- 
 voted so much space, that I wanted more 
 foreign news than The World found room 
 for, and that I was offended by the big
 
 106 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 headlines, which compelled me to know 
 things I didn't want to know. 
 
 "Go on," he said; "your views are not of 
 any importance, but they're entertaining." 
 
 "Well," I continued, "I think The World 
 was excellently described a few years ago 
 in Life. There was a poem entitled, 'New 
 York Newspaper Directory, Revised,' in 
 which a verse was devoted to each of the big 
 New York papers. I believe I can remem- 
 ber the one about The World, if you care 
 to hear it, for I cut the poem out and have 
 kept it among my clippings." 
 
 "Certainly, go ahead." 
 
 I recited: 
 
 "A dual personality is this, 
 Part yellow dog, part patriot and sage ; 
 When 't comes to facts the rule is hit or miss. 
 While none can beat its editorial page. 
 Wise counsel here, wild yarns the other side, 
 Page six its Jckyll and page one its Hyde; 
 At the same time conservative and rash. 
 The World supplies us good advice and trash." 
 
 "That's clever," said Mr. Pulitzer, "but 
 it's absolute nonsense, except about the edi-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 107 
 
 torial page. Have you got the clipping 
 with you? I would like to hear what that 
 smart young man has got to say about the 
 other papers." 
 
 I went to my cabin, got the poem, and 
 read the whole of it to him — witty charac- 
 terizations of The Evening Post, The Sun, 
 The Journal, The Tribune, The Times and 
 The Herald, As soon as I had finished 
 reading, Mr. Pulitzer said: 
 
 "The man who wrote those verses had his 
 prejudices, but he was clever. I'm glad you 
 read them to me; always read me anything 
 of that kind, anything that is bright and 
 satirical. Now, I'm going to give you a 
 lecture about newspapers, because I want 
 you to understand my point of view. It 
 does not matter whether you agree with it 
 or not, but you have got to understand it if 
 you are going to be of any use to me. But 
 before I begin, you tell me what your 
 ideas are about running a newspaper for 
 American readers." 
 
 I pleaded that I had never given the mat- 
 ter much thought, and that I had little to
 
 108 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 guide me, except my own preferences and 
 the memory of an occasional discussion here 
 and there at a club or in the smoking room 
 of a Pullman. He insisted, however, and 
 so I launched forth upon a discourse in re- 
 gard to the functions, duties and responsi- 
 bilities of an American newspaper, as I im- 
 agined they would appear to the average 
 American reader. 
 
 The cliief duty of a managing editor, I 
 said, w^as to give his readers an interesting 
 paper, and as an angler baits his hook, not 
 with what he likes, but with what the fish 
 hke, so the style of the newspaper should 
 be adjusted to what the managing editor 
 judged to be the public appetite. 
 
 A sub-stratum of truth should run 
 through the news columns ; but since a mil- 
 lion-dollar fire is more exciting than a half- 
 milhon-doUar fire, since a thousand deaths 
 in an earthquake are more exciting than a 
 hundi'cd, no nice scrupulosity need be ob- 
 served in checking the insurance inspector's 
 figures or in counting the dead. What the 
 pubhc wanted was a good "stor^^" and pro-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 109 
 
 vided it got that there would be httle dispo- 
 sition in any quarter to censure an arithmet- 
 ical generosity which had been invoked in the 
 service of the public's well-known demands. 
 
 So far as politics were concerned, it 
 seemed to me that any newspaper could af- 
 ford the strongest support to its views while 
 printing the truth and nothing but the truth, 
 if it exercised some discretion as to print- 
 ing the whole truth. The editorial, I 
 added, might be regarded as a habit rather 
 than as a guiding force. People no longer 
 looked to the editorial columns for the for- 
 mation of their opinions. They formed 
 their judgment from a large stock of facts, 
 near- facts and nowhere near- facts, and then 
 bought a paper for the purpose of comfort- 
 able reassurance. I had no doubt that a 
 newspaper run to suit my own taste — a com- 
 bination of TJie World's editorial page with 
 The Evening Post's news and make-up — 
 would lack the influence with which circula- 
 tion alone can endow a paper, and would end 
 in a bankruptcy highly creditable to its 
 stockholders.
 
 110 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 This somewhat cynical outburst brought 
 down upon me an overwhelming torrent of 
 protest from Mr. Pulitzer. 
 
 "My God!" he cried, "I would not have 
 beheved it possible that any one could show 
 such a complete ignorance of American 
 character, of the high sense of duty wliich 
 in the main animates American joumahsm, 
 of the foundations of integrity on which al- 
 most every successful paper in the United 
 States has been founded. You do not know 
 what it costs me to try and keep Tlie World 
 up to a high standard of accuracy — the 
 money, the time, the thought, the praise, the 
 blame, the constant watchfulness. 
 
 "I do not say that The World never makes 
 a mistake in its news column ; I wish I could 
 say it. What I say is that there are not half 
 a dozen papers in the United States which 
 tamper with the news, which publish what 
 they know to be false. But if I thought 
 that I had done no better than that I would 
 be ashamed to own a paper. It is not 
 enough to refrain from publishing fake 
 news, it is not enough to take ordinary care
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 111 
 
 to avoid the mistakes which arise from the 
 ignorance, the carelessness, the stupidity of 
 one or more of the many men who handle 
 the news before it gets into print ; you have 
 got to do much more than that; you have 
 got to make every one connected with the 
 paper — your editors, your reporters, your 
 correspondents, j^our rewrite men, your 
 proof-readers — believe that accuracy is to a 
 newspaper what virtue is to a woman. 
 
 "When you go to New York ask any of 
 the men in the dome to show you my instruc- 
 tions to them, my letters written from day 
 to day, my cables ; and you will see that ac- 
 curacy, accuracy, accuracy, is the first, the 
 most urgent, the most constant demand I 
 have made on them. 
 
 "I do not say that The World is the only 
 paper which takes extraordinary pains to 
 be accurate; on the contrary, I think that 
 almost every paper in America tries to be 
 accurate. I will go further than that. 
 There is not a paper of any importance pub- 
 lished in French, German or Enghsh, 
 whether it is printed in Europe or in Amer-
 
 112 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 ica, which I have not studied for weeks or 
 months, and some of them I have read 
 steadily for a quarter of a century; and I 
 tell you this, Mr. Ireland, after years of 
 experience, after having comparisons made 
 by the hundred, from time to time, of dif- 
 ferent versions of the same event, that the 
 press of America as a whole has a higher 
 standard of accuracy than the European 
 press as a whole. I will go further than 
 that. I will say that line for line the Ameri- 
 can newspapers actually attain a higher 
 standard of news accuracy than the Euro- 
 pean newspapers ; and I will go further than 
 that and say that although there are in 
 Europe a few newspapers, and they are 
 chiefly English, which are as accurate as the 
 best newspapers in America, there are no 
 newspapers in America which are so ha- 
 bitually, so criminally stuffed with fake 
 news as the worst of the European papers." 
 Mr. Pulitzer paused and asked me if 
 there was a glass of water on the table — we 
 WTre seated in his libraiy — and after I had 
 handed it to him and he had drained it nearly
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 113 
 
 to the bottom at one gulp, he resumed his 
 lecture. I give it in considerable detail, be- 
 cause it was the longest speech he ever ad- 
 dressed to me, because he subsequently made 
 me write it out from memory and then read 
 it to him, and because it was one of the few 
 occasions during my intercourse with him on 
 which I w^as persuaded beyond a doubt that 
 he spoke with perfect frankness, without 
 allowing his words to be influenced by any 
 outside considerations. 
 
 "As a matter of fact," Ke continued, "the 
 criticisms you hear about tKe American press 
 are founded on a dislike for our headlines 
 and for the prominence we give to crime, to 
 corruption in office, and to sensational topics 
 generally; the charge of inaccuracy is just 
 thrown in to make it look worse. I do not 
 believe that one person in a thousand who 
 attacks the American press for being inac- 
 curate has ever taken the trouble to investi- 
 gate the facts. 
 
 "Now about this matter of sensational- 
 ism : a newspaper should be scrupulously ac- 
 curate, it should be clean, it should avoid
 
 114 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 everyihing salacious or suggestive, every- 
 thing that could offend good taste or lower 
 the moral tone of its readers; but within 
 these limits it is the duty of a newspaper to 
 print the news. When I speak of good 
 taste and of good moral tone I do not mean 
 the kind of good taste which is offended by 
 every reference to the unpleasant things of 
 life, I do not mean the kind of morality 
 which refuses to recognize the existence of 
 immorality — that type of moral hypocrite 
 has done more to check the moral progress 
 of humanity than all the immoral people put 
 together — what I mean is the kind of good 
 taste which demands that frankness should 
 be linked with decencj^ the kind of moral 
 tone which is braced and not relaxed when 
 it is brought face to face with vice. 
 
 "Some people try and make you believe 
 that a newspaper should not devote its space 
 to long and dramatic accounts of murders, 
 railroad wrecks, fires, lynchings, political 
 corruption, embezzlements, frauds, graft, 
 divorces, what you will. I tell you they are 
 wrong, and I believe that if they thought
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 115 
 
 the thing out they would see that they are 
 wrong, 
 
 "We are a democracy, and there is only 
 one way to get a democracy on its feet in 
 the matter of its individual, its social, its 
 municipal, its State, its National conduct, 
 and that is by keeping the public informed 
 about what is going on. There is not a 
 crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a 
 trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a 
 vice which does not live by secrecy. Get 
 these things out in the open, describe them, 
 attack them, ridicule them in the press, and 
 sooner or later public opinion will sweep 
 them away, 
 
 "Publicity may not be the only thing that 
 is needed, but it is the one thing without 
 which all other agencies will fail. If a news- 
 paper is to be of real service to the public 
 it must have a big circulation, first because 
 its news and its comment must reach the 
 largest possible number of people, second, 
 because circulation means advertising, and 
 advertising means money, and money means 
 independence. If I caught any man on The
 
 116 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 World suppressing" news because one of our 
 advertisers objected to having it printed I 
 would dismiss him immediately; I wouldn't 
 care who he was. 
 
 "What a newspaper needs in its news, in 
 its headlines, and on its editorial page is 
 terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, 
 originality, good literary style, clever con- 
 densation, and accuracy, accuracy, accu- 
 racy!'* 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer made this confession of faith 
 with the warmth generated by an unshaka- 
 ble faith. He spoke, as he always spoke 
 when he was excited, with vigor, emphasis 
 and ample gesture. When he came to an 
 end and asked for another glass of water I 
 found notliing to say. It would have been 
 as impertinent of me to agree with him as to 
 differ from him. 
 
 After all, I had to remember that he had 
 taken over The World when its circulation 
 was less than 15,000 copies a day; that he 
 had been for thirty years and still was its 
 dominating spirit and the final authority on 
 every matter concerning its policy, its style.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 117 
 
 and its contents ; that he had seen its morn- 
 ing circulation go up to well over 350,000 
 copies a day ; that at times he had taken his 
 stand holdly against popular clamor, as 
 when he kept up for months a bitter attack 
 against the American action in the Venezue- 
 lan boundary dispute, and at times had in- 
 curred the hostility of powerful moneyed in- 
 terests, as when he forced the Cleveland ad- 
 ministration to sell to the public on com- 
 petitive bids a fifty-million-dollar bond is- 
 sue which it had arranged to sell privately 
 to a great banking house at much less than 
 its market value. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of newspapers 
 I may describe the method by which Mr. 
 Pulitzer kej)t in touch with the news and put 
 himself in the position to maintain a critical 
 supervision over The World. 
 
 An elaborate organization was employed 
 for this purpose. I will explain it as it 
 worked when we were on the yacht, but the 
 system was maintained at all times, whether 
 we were cruising, or were at Cap Martin, at 
 Bar Harbor, at Wiesbaden, or elsewhere.
 
 118 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 merely a few minor details being changed 
 to meet local conditions. 
 
 In the Pulitzer Building, Park Row, New 
 York, there were collected each day several 
 copies of each of the morning papers, in- 
 cluding The World, and some of the even- 
 ing papers. These were mailed daily to Mr. 
 Pulitzer according to cabled instructions as 
 to our whereabouts. In addition to this a 
 gentleman connected with The World, who 
 had long experience of Mr. Pulitzer's re- 
 quirements, cut from all the New York 
 papers and from a number of other papers 
 from every part of the United States every 
 article that he considered Mr. PuHtzer ought 
 to see, whether because of its subject, its 
 tenor, or its style. These cHppings were 
 mailed by the hundred on almost every fast 
 steamer sailing for Europe. In order that 
 there might be the greatest economy of time 
 in reading them, the essential matter in each 
 clipping was marked. 
 
 So far as The World was concerned a 
 copy of each issue was sent, with the names
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 119 
 
 ^ . . 
 
 of the ^vriters written across each editorial, 
 
 big news story, or special article. 
 
 As we went from port to port we got the 
 principal French, German, Austrian and 
 Italian papers, and The World bureau in 
 London kept us supplied with the English 
 dailies and weeklies. 
 
 Whenever we picked up a batch of Amer- 
 ican papers, each of the secretaries got a set 
 and immediately began to read it. My own 
 method of reading was adopted after much 
 advice from Mr. Pulitzer and after consul- 
 tation with the more experienced members 
 of the staff, and I do not suppose it dif- 
 fered materially from that followed by the 
 others. 
 
 I read The World first, going over the 
 "big" stories carefully and with enough con- 
 centration to give me a very fair idea of the 
 facts. Then I read the articles in the other 
 papers covering the same ground, noting 
 any important differences in the various ac- 
 counts. This task resolved itself in practice 
 into mastering in considerable detail about 
 half a dozen articles — a political situation, a
 
 120 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 murder, a railroad wreck, a fire, a strike, an 
 important address by a college president, for 
 example — and getting a clear impression of 
 the treatment of each item in each paper. 
 
 With this done, and with a few notes 
 scribbled on a card to help my memory, I 
 turned to the editorial pages, reading each 
 editorial with the closest attention, and mak- 
 ing more notes. 
 
 The final reading of the news served to 
 give me from ten to twenty small topics of 
 what Mr. Pulitzer called "hviman interest," 
 to be used as subjects of conversation as oc- 
 casion demanded. As a rule, I cut these 
 items out of the paper and put them in the 
 left-hand pocket of my coat, for when we 
 walked together J. P. always took my right 
 arm, and my left hand was therefore free to 
 dip into my reservoir of cuttings whenever 
 conversation flagged and I needed a new 
 subject. 
 
 The cuttings covered eveiy imaginable 
 topic — small cases in the magistrates' courts, 
 eccentric entertainments at Newport, the 
 deaths of centenarians, dinners to visiting
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 121 
 
 authors in Xew York, accounts of perform- 
 ing animals, infant prodigies, new inven- 
 tions, additions to the MetropoHtan Mu- 
 seum, announcements of new plays, anec- 
 dotes about prominent men and women, in- 
 stances of foolish extravagance among the 
 rich, and so on. 
 
 Sometliing of the kind was done by each 
 of us, so that when Mr. Pulitzer appeared 
 on deck after breakfast we all had something 
 ready for liim. The first man called usually 
 had the easiest time, for JNIr. Pulitzer's 
 mind was fresh and keen for ncAvs after a 
 night's rest. The men who went to him later 
 in the morning suffered from two disad- 
 vantages, one that they did not know what 
 news or how much of it J. P. had already 
 received, the other that as the day advanced 
 INIr. Pulitzer often grew tired, and his at- 
 tention then became difficult to hold. 
 
 I remember that on one occasion when he 
 had complained of feeling utterly tired out 
 mentally I asked him if he would like me 
 to stop talking. "No, no," he replied at 
 once; "never stop talking or reading, I
 
 122 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 must have something to occupy my mind all 
 the time, however exhausted I am." 
 
 Tliis peculiarity of being unable to get 
 any repose by the road of silent abstraction 
 must have been a source of acute suffering 
 to him. It is difficult to imagine a more ter- 
 rible condition of mind than that in which 
 the constant flogging of a tired brain is the 
 only anodyne for its morbid irritability. 
 
 My own experience of a morning on the 
 yacht, when Mr. Pulitzer's nerves had been 
 soothed by a good night's sleep, was that he 
 walked up and down the long promenade 
 deck and got from me a brief summary of 
 the news. 
 
 From time to time he pulled out his watch 
 and, holding it toward me, asked what 
 o'clock it was. He was always most particu- 
 lar to know exactly how long he had walked. 
 We had arguments on many occasions as to 
 the exact moment at which we had com- 
 menced our promenade, and we would go 
 carefully over the facts — Mr. Craven had 
 been walking with him from 9.30 to 10.05, 
 then Dunningham had been in the library
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 123 
 
 with him for fifteen minutes, then Mr. 
 Thwaites had walked with him for ten min- 
 utes, taking notes for a letter to be written 
 to the managing editor of The World; 
 well, that made it 10.30 when I joined him; 
 but fifteen minutes had to be taken out of 
 the hour for the time he'd spent in the li- 
 brary, that made three-quarters of an hour 
 he'd been actually walking, well, we'd walk 
 for another fifteen minutes and round out 
 the hour. 
 
 Often when the appointed moment came 
 to stop walking Mr. Pulitzer felt able to go 
 on, and he would then either say frankly, 
 "Let's have fifteen minutes more^" or 
 he would achieve the same end by reopening 
 the discussion as to just how long he had 
 walked, and keep on walking until he began 
 to feel tired, when he would say: "I dare say 
 you are quite right, well, now we will sit 
 down and go over the papers." 
 
 The question of where Mr. Pulitzer was 
 to sit on deck was not a simple one to de- 
 cide. He always wanted as much air as he 
 could get; but as he suffered a good deal of
 
 124 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 pain in his right eye, the one which had been 
 operated on, and as this was either started 
 or made worse by exjjosure to wind, a spot 
 had to be found which had just the right 
 amount of air current. Five minutes might 
 show, however, that there was a Httle too 
 much wind, when we would move to a more 
 sheltered spot, or he might think we'd been 
 too cautious and that he could sit in a breez- 
 ier spot, or, after we had found the ideal 
 place, the wind might change, and then we 
 had to move again. 
 
 Settled in a large cane armchair vdtb a 
 leather seat, a heavy rug over his knees if the 
 weather was at all chilly, Mr. Pulitzer took 
 up the serious consideration of the news 
 wliich had been hghtly skimmed over during 
 his walk. 
 
 An item was selected, and the account in 
 The World was read aloud. Then followed 
 the discussion of it from the standpoint of 
 its presentation in the various papers. On 
 Avhat page was it printed in The World, in 
 what column, how much space did it fill, how 
 much was devoted to headhnes, what was the
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 LISTENING TO THE MORNING's NEWS 
 
 ON THE " LIBERTY "
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 125 
 
 size of tlie type, was the type varied in parts 
 to give emphasis to the more striking fea- 
 tures of the story, what were the cross-heads 
 in the body of the article, were any boxes 
 used, if so, what was put in them, what 
 about the illustrations ? And so on for each 
 important item in each paper. 
 
 One of the by-products of this reading of 
 the j)apers was a stream of cables, letters and 
 memoranda to various members of The 
 World staff in New York. None of these 
 were ever sent through me, but it was a com- 
 mon thing for J. P. to say: "Have you got 
 your v^Titing pad with you? Just make a 
 note: Indianapolis story excellent, insuf- 
 ficient details lynching, who wrote City Hall 
 story? and give it to Thwaites and teU him 
 to remind me of it this afternoon." 
 
 INIr. Pulitzer would take the matter up 
 with Thwaites, and would send such praise, 
 blame, reward, criticism, or suggestion as 
 the occasion demanded. 
 
 From time to time I was called upon to 
 make a report on the day's papers, a task 
 which usually fell to some more experienced
 
 126 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 member of the staff. My reports always 
 covered the Sunday issues. They included 
 an analysis of The Sun, The Herald, The 
 American, The Times, The Tribune and 
 The World, showing the number of columns 
 of advertising, of news, and of special arti- 
 cles, a classification of the telegrams accord- 
 ing to geographical distribution — how much 
 from France, from Germany, from Eng- 
 land, from the Western States, from the 
 Southern States, and so on; a classification 
 of the special articles on the basis of their 
 topics — ^medicine, sport, fashions, humor, ad- 
 venture, children's interests, women's inter- 
 ests. 
 
 This was by no means the only check 
 which Mr. Pulitzer kept upon The World 
 and its contemporaries. He received regu- 
 larly from New York a statistical return 
 showing, for The World and its two princi- 
 pal competitors, the monthly and yearly fig- 
 ures for circulation and advertising ; and the 
 advertising return showed not only the 
 amount of space occupied by advertising in 
 each paper, but also the number of adver-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 127 
 
 tisements each month under various heads, 
 such as display advertising, want ads., real 
 estate, dry goods, amusements, hotels, trans- 
 portation, to let ads., summer resorts, and 
 whatever other classes of advertising might 
 appear. 
 
 Whatever Mr. Pulitzer wished to do in 
 the way of business, whether it concerned the 
 direction of the policy of The World, or the 
 dictating of an editorial, or the handling of 
 correspondence, was almost always done in 
 the morning, and by lunch time he was ready 
 to turn his attention to something light or 
 amusing, or to serious subjects not con- 
 nected with current events. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer generally lunched and dined 
 with the staff in the dining saloon, unless he 
 felt more than usually ill or nervous, when 
 he had his meals served in the library, one 
 or at most two of us keeping him company. 
 
 When he sat with us he occupied the head 
 of the table. At his side stood the butler, 
 who never attended to any one but his mas- 
 ter. A stranger at the table, if he were not 
 actually sitting next to J. P., might very
 
 128 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 well have failed to notice that his host was 
 blind, so far as any indication of blindness 
 was afforded by the way he ate. His food 
 was, of course, cut up at a side table, but it 
 was placed before him on an ordinary plate, 
 without any raised edge or other device to 
 save it from being pushed on to the table- 
 cloth. 
 
 As soon as he was seated J. P. put his 
 fingers lightly on the table in front of him 
 and fixed the exact position of his plate, 
 fork, spoon, water glass and wine glass. 
 While he was doing this he generally spoke 
 a few words to one or another of us, and as 
 he always turned his face in the direction of 
 the person he was addressing, the delicate 
 movements of his hands, even if they were 
 observed, were only those of a man with his 
 sight under similar circumstances. 
 
 Sitting next to him, however, his bhnd- 
 ness soon became apparent. As he began to 
 eat he simply impaled each portion of food 
 on his fork, but after he had got halfway 
 through a course and the remaining morsels 
 were scattered here and there on his plate,
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 129 
 
 he explored the surface with the utmost nice- 
 ness of touch until he felt a slight resistance. 
 He had then located a morsel, but in order 
 that he might avoid an accident in transfer- 
 ring it to his mouth he felt the object care- 
 fully all over with almost imperceptible 
 touches of his fork, and, having found the 
 tliickest or firmest part of it secured it 
 safely. 
 
 At times, if he became particularly inter- 
 ested in the conversation, he put his fork 
 down, and when he picked it up again he was 
 in difficulties for a moment or two, having 
 lost track of the food remaining on his plate. 
 On these occasions the ever-watchful butler 
 would either place the food with a fork in 
 the track of J. P.'s systematic exploration, 
 or guide Mr. Pulitzer's hand to the right 
 spot. 
 
 Like many people in broken health Mr. 
 Pulitzer had a very variable appetite. Some- 
 times nothing could tempt his palate, some- 
 times he ate voraciously ; but at all times the 
 greatest care had to be exercised in regard 
 to his diet. Not only did he suffer con-
 
 130 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 stantly from acute dyspepsia, but also from 
 diabetes, which varied in sympathy with his 
 general state of health. 
 
 He took very little alcohol, and that only 
 in the form of light wines, such as claret or 
 hock, seldom more than a single small glass 
 at lunch and at dinner. Whenever he found 
 a vintage which specially appealed to him 
 he would tell the butler to send a case or 
 two to some old friend in America, to some 
 member of his family or to one of the staff 
 of The World. 
 
 After lunch Mr. Puhtzer always retired 
 to his cabin for a siesta. I use the word 
 siesta, but as a matter of fact it is quite in- 
 adequate to describe the peculiar function 
 for which I have chosen it as a label. What 
 took place on these occasions was this : Mr. 
 Pulitzer lay down on his bed, sometimes in 
 pyjamas, but more often with only his coat 
 and boots removed, and one of the secre- 
 taries, usually the German secretary, sat 
 down in an armchair at the bedside with a 
 pile of books at his elbow. 
 
 At a word from Mr. Pulitzer the secre-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 131 
 
 taiy began to read in a clear, incisive voice 
 some historical work, novel or play. After 
 a few minutes Mr. Pulitzer would say 
 "Softly," and the secretary's voice was low- 
 ered until, though it was still audible, it as- 
 sumed a monotonous and soothing quality. 
 After a while the order came, "Quite softly." 
 At this point the reader ceased to form his 
 words and commenced to murmur indis- 
 tinctly, giving an effect such as might be 
 produced by a person reading aloud in an 
 adjoining room, but with the connecting 
 door closed. 
 
 If, after ten minutes of this murmuring, 
 J. P. remained motionless it was to be as- 
 sumed that he was asleep; and the secre- 
 tary's duty was to go on murmuring until 
 Mr. Pulitzer awoke and told him to stop or 
 to commence actual reading again. This 
 murmuring might last for two hoiu*s, and 
 it was a very difficult art to acquire, for at 
 the slightest change in the pitch of the voice, 
 at a sneeze, or a cough, Mr. Puhtzer would 
 wake with a start, and an unpleasant quar- 
 ter of an hour followed.
 
 132 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 This murmuring was not, however, with- 
 out its consolations to the murmurer, for as 
 soon as the actual reading stopped he could 
 take up a novel or magazine and, leaving his 
 vocal organs to carry on the work, concen- 
 trate his mind upon the preparation of ma- 
 terial against some future session. 
 
 The siesta over, the afternoon was taken 
 up with much the same kind of work as had 
 filled the morning. By six o'clock Mr. 
 Pulitzer was ready to sit in the hbrary for 
 an hour before he dressed for dinner. This 
 time was generally devoted to novels, plays 
 and light literature of various kinds. J. P. 
 often assured me that no man had ever been 
 able to read a novel or a play to him satisfac- 
 torily without having first gone over it care- 
 fully at least twice; and on more than one 
 occasion I was furnished with veiy good evi- 
 dence that even this double preparation was 
 not always a guarantee of success. 
 
 There appeared to be two ways of getting 
 Mr. Pulitzer interested in a novel or play. 
 One, and this, I believe, was the most suc- 
 cessful, was to draw a striking picture of
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 133 
 
 the scene where the climax is reached — the 
 wife crouching in the corner, the husband 
 revolver in hand, the Tertium Quid calmly 
 offering to read the documents which prove 
 that he and not the gentleman with the re- 
 volver is really the husband of the lady — and 
 then to go back to the beginning and explain 
 how it all came about. 
 
 The other method was to set forth the ap- 
 pearance and disposition of each of the 
 characters in the story, so that they assumed 
 reality in Mr. Pulitzer's mind, then to con- 
 dense the narrative up to about page two 
 hundred and sixty, and then begin to read 
 from the book. If in the course of the next 
 three minutes you were not asked in a tone 
 of utter weariness, "My God! Is there 
 much more of this?" there was a reasonable 
 chance that you might be allowed to read 
 from the print a fifth or possibly a fourth 
 of what you had not summarized. 
 
 Dinner on the yacht passed in much the 
 same way as lunch, except that serious sub- 
 jects and especially politics were taboo. 
 
 The meal hours were really the most try-
 
 134 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 ing experiences of the day. Each of us went 
 to the table with several topics of conversa- 
 tion carefully prepared, with our pockets 
 full of newspaper cuttings, notes and even 
 small reference books for dates and biog- 
 raphies. 
 
 But there was seldom any conversation in 
 the proper sense; that is to say, we were 
 hardly ever able to start a subject going and 
 pass it from one to the other with a running 
 comment or amplification, partly because 
 any expression of opinion, except when he, 
 J. P., asked for it, usually bored him to ex- 
 tinction, and partly because the first state- 
 ment of any striking fact generally inspired 
 Mr. Pulitzer to undertake a searching cross- 
 examination of the speaker into every detail 
 of the matter brought forward, and in re- 
 gard to everj'^ ramification of the subject. 
 
 I may relate an amusing instance of tliis : 
 A gentleman who had been on the staff, but 
 had been absent through illness, joined us at 
 JMentone for a cruise in the Eastern Medi- 
 terranean. At dinner the first night out he 
 incautiously mentioned that during the two
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 135 
 
 months of his convalescence he had taken the 
 opportunity of reading the whole of Shake- 
 speare's plays. 
 
 Too late he realized his mistake. Mr. 
 Piihtzer took the matter up, and for the next 
 horn- and a half we hstened to the unfor- 
 tunate ex-invalid while he gave a list of the 
 principal characters in each of the historical 
 plays, in each of the tragedies, and in each 
 of the comedies, followed by an outline of 
 each plot, a description of a scene here and 
 there, and an occasional quotation from the 
 text. 
 
 At the end of this heroic exploit, which 
 was helped out now and then by a note from 
 one of the rest of us, scribbled hastily on a 
 card and handed silently to the victim, Mr. 
 Pulitzer merely said, "Well, go on, go on, 
 didn't you read the sonnets?" But this was 
 too much for our gravity, and in a ripple 
 of laughter the sitting was brought to a 
 close. 
 
 The trouble with the meals, however, was 
 not only that we were all kept at a very high 
 strain of alertness and attention, singularly*
 
 136 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 inconducive to the enjoyment of food or to 
 the sober business of digestion, but that 
 they were of such interminable length. The 
 plain fact was that by utilizing almost every 
 moment between eight o'clock in the morn- 
 ing and nine o'clock at night we could for- 
 tify ourselves with enough material to fill 
 in the hour or two spent with Mr. Pulitzer, 
 hours during which we had to supply an in- 
 cessant stream of information, or run 
 through a carefully condensed novel or play. 
 
 Under such circumstances an hour for 
 lunch or dinner had to be accepted as an un- 
 fortunate necessity; but when it came, as it 
 often did, to an hour and a half or two hours, 
 the encroachment on our time became a seri- 
 ous matter. 
 
 At about nine o'clock Mr. Pulitzer went 
 to the library. One of the secretaries accom- 
 panied him and read aloud until, on the 
 stroke of ten, Dunningham came and an- 
 nounced that it was bedtime. 
 
 An extraordinary, and in some respects a 
 most annoying feature of this final task of 
 the day, viewed from the secretary's stand-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 137 
 
 point, was that from nine to ten, almost with- 
 out cessation, Mr. Mann, the German sec- 
 retary, played the piano in the dining sa- 
 loon, the doors communicating with the 11- 
 braiy being left open. 
 
 In a direct line the piano cannot have been 
 more than ten feet from the reader's chair; 
 and the strain of reading aloud for an hour 
 against a powerful rendering of the most 
 vigorous compositions of Liszt, Wagner, 
 Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin was a most 
 trying ordeal for voice, brain and nerves. 
 Mr. Pulitzer could apparently enjoy the 
 music and the reading at the same time. 
 Often, when something was played of which 
 he knew the air, he would follow the notes 
 by means of a sort of subdued whistle, beat- 
 ing time with his hand ; but this did not take 
 his mind off the reading, and if you allowed 
 your attention to wander for a moment and 
 failed to read with proper emphasis he would 
 say: "Please read that last passage over 
 again, and do try and read it distinctly." 
 
 Such was the routine of life on the yacht. 
 It was little affected by our occasional visits
 
 138 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 to Naples, Ajaccio and other ports. Some 
 one always landed to inquire for mail and to 
 procure newspapers, one or two of us got 
 shore leave for a few hours, but so far as I 
 was concerned, being still in strict training 
 and under close observation, my rare land- 
 ings were made only for the purpose of hav- 
 ing my observation and memory tested. 
 
 I brought back minute descriptions of 
 Napoleon's birthplace at Ajaccio, of his 
 villa in Elba, of the tapestries, pictures and 
 statues in the National Museum at Naples, 
 of the Acropolis, of the monument of Lysi- 
 crates, of the Greek Theater and of the Ro- 
 man Amphitheater at Syracuse, and of 
 whatever else I was directed to observe. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer had had these things de- 
 scribed to him a score of times. He knew 
 which block of seats in the Greek theater 
 at Neapolis bore the inscription of Nereis, 
 daughter-in-law of King Heiro the Second; 
 he knew up what stairs and through what 
 rooms and passages you had to go to see 
 the marble bath in Napoleon's villa near 
 Portof erraio ; he knew from precisely what
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 139 
 
 part of the Acropolis the yacht was visible 
 when it was at anchor at the Piraeus; he knew 
 the actual place of the more important pic- 
 tures on the walls of each room of the Naples 
 Museum — such a one to the right, such a one 
 to the left as you entered — he knew practi- 
 cally everything, but specially he knew the 
 thing you had forgotten. 
 
 My exhibitions of memory always ended, 
 as they were no doubt intended to end, in a 
 confession of ignorance. If I described five 
 pictures, Mr. Pulitzer said: "Go on"; when 
 I had described ten, he said: "Go on"; when 
 I had described fifteen he said: "Go on"; 
 and this was kept up until I could go on no 
 more. At this point Mr. Pulitzer had dis- 
 covered just what he wanted to know — how 
 much I could see in a given time, and how 
 much of it I could remember with a fair de- 
 gree of accuracy. It was simply the game 
 of the jewels which Lurgan Sahib played 
 with Kim, against a different background 
 but with much the same object. 
 
 In the foregoing description of Mr. 
 Pulitzer's daily life it has been made abun-
 
 140 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 dantly clear that his secretaries were worked 
 to the Hmit of their endurance. It remains 
 to add that Mr. Puhtzer never made a de- 
 mand upon us which was greater than the 
 demand he made upon himself. 
 
 He was a tremendous worker; and in re- 
 ceiving our reports no vital fact ever es- 
 caped him. If we missed one he imme- 
 diately "sensed" it, and his untiring cross- 
 examination clung to the trail until he un- 
 earthed it. 
 
 We had youth, health and numbers on our 
 side, yet this man, aged by suffering, tor- 
 mented by ill-health, loaded with responsi- 
 bility, kept pace with our united labors, and 
 in the final analysis gave more than he re- 
 ceived. 
 
 We brought a thousand offerings to his 
 judgment; many of them he rejected with 
 an impatient cry of "Next! Next! For 
 God's sake!" But if any subject, whether 
 from its intrinsic importance or from its 
 style, reached the standard of his discrimi- 
 nation he took it up, enlarged upon it, il- 
 luminated it, until what had come to him as
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 141 
 
 crude material for conversation assumed a 
 new form, everything unessential rejected, 
 everything essential disclosed in the clear 
 and vigorous English which was the vehicle 
 of his lucid thought. 
 
 When I recall the capaciousness of his un- 
 derstanding, the breadth of his experience, 
 the range of his information, and set them 
 side by side with the cruel limitations im- 
 posed upon him by his blindness and by his 
 shattered constitution, I forget the severity 
 of his discipline, I marvel only that his self- 
 control should have served him so well in 
 the tedious business of breaking a new man 
 to his service.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Getting to Know Mr. Pulitzer 
 
 AS time passed, my relations with Mr. 
 Pulitzer became more agreeable. He 
 had given me fair warning that the first few 
 weeks of my trial would be more or less un- 
 pleasant; a month at Cap Martin and a 
 month on the yacht had amply verified his 
 prediction. 
 
 But this period of probation, laborious 
 and nerve-racking as it was, enabled me to 
 appreciate how important it was for J. P. 
 to put to a severe test of ability, tact and 
 good temper any one whom he intended to 
 attach to his personal staff. 
 
 His total blindness placed him completely 
 in the hands of those around him, and, in 
 order that he might enjoy that sense of per- 
 fect security without which his life would 
 
 142
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 143 
 
 have been intolerable, it was necessary that 
 he should be able to repose absolute confi- 
 dence in the loyalty and intelligence of his 
 companions. 
 
 It was not with reference to his blindness 
 alone that the qualifications of his secretaries 
 were measured. Indeed, to the loss of his 
 sight he had become, in some measure, rec- 
 onciled; what really dominated every other 
 consideration was the need of being able to 
 meet the peculiar conditions which had arisen 
 through the complete breakdown of his nerv- 
 ous system. 
 
 I have spoken of his extreme sensitiveness 
 to noise. It is impossible to give any de- 
 scription of this terrible symptom which 
 shall be in any way adequate. Many of us 
 suffer torment through the hideous clamor 
 which appears to be inseparable from mod- 
 ern civilization ; but to Mr. Pulitzer even the 
 sudden click of a spoon against a saucer, the 
 gurgle of water poured into a glass, the 
 striking of a match, produced a spasm of 
 sufi*ering. I have seen him turn pale, trem- 
 ble, break into a cold perspiration at some
 
 144 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 sound which to most people would have been 
 scarcely audible. 
 
 When we were on the yacht every one was 
 compelled to wear rubber-soled shoes. When 
 Mr. Pulitzer was asleep that portion of the 
 deck which was over his bedroom was roped 
 off so that no one could walk over his head ; 
 and each door which gave access to the rooms 
 above his cabin was provided with a brass 
 plate on wliich was cut the legend: "This 
 door must not be opened when Mr. Pulitzer 
 is asleep." 
 
 With every resource at his command 
 which ingenuity could suggest and money 
 procure, the one great unsolved problem of 
 his later years was to obtain absolute quiet- 
 ness at all times. At his magnificent house 
 in New York, at his beautiful country home 
 at Bar Harbor he had spent tens of thou- 
 sands of dollars in a vain effort to procure 
 the one luxury which he prized above all 
 others. On the yacht the conditions in this 
 respect were as nearly perfect as possible; 
 but some noise was inseparable from the 
 ship's work — letting go the anchor, heaving
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 145 
 
 it up again, blowing the foghorn, and so on 
 — though most of the ordinary noises had 
 been eHminated. 
 
 As an instance of the constant care which 
 was taken to save JMr. PuHtzer from noise 
 I remember that for some days ahnonds 
 were served with our dessert at dinner, but 
 that they suddenly ceased to form part of 
 our menu. Being fond of almonds, I asked 
 the chief steward why they had stopped 
 serving them. After a little hesitation he 
 said that it had been done at the suggestion 
 of the butler, who had noticed that I broke 
 the almonds in half before I ate them and 
 that the noise made by their snapping was 
 very disagreeable to ]\Ir. Pulitzer. 
 
 With the best intentions in the world, our 
 meals were now and then disturbed by noise. 
 A knife suddenly slipped with a loud click 
 against a plate, a waiter dropped a spoon 
 on a silver tray, or some one knocked over a 
 glass. We were all in such a state of nerv- 
 ous tension that whenever one of these little 
 accidents occurred we jumped in our chairs
 
 146 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 as though a pistol had been fired, and looked 
 at J. P. with horrified expectancy. 
 
 There could be no doubt whatever as to 
 the effect these noises had upon him. He 
 winced as a dog winces when you crack a 
 whip over him; the only question was 
 whether by a powerful effort he could re- 
 gain his composure or whether his suffering 
 would overcome his self-restraint to the ex- 
 tent of making him gloomy or querulous 
 during the rest of the meal. 
 
 The effect by no means ceased when we 
 rose from table. If by bad luck two or three 
 noises occurred at dinner — and our excessive 
 anxiety in the matter was sometimes our un- 
 doing — Mr. Pulitzer was so upset that he 
 would pass a sleepless night. This in its 
 turn meant a day during which his tortured 
 body made itself master of his mind, and 
 plunged him into a state of profound de- 
 jection. 
 
 Like most people who suffer acutely from 
 noise Mr. Pulitzer was very differently af- 
 fected by different kinds of noise. To any 
 noise which was necessary, such as that
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 147 
 
 caused by letting go the anchor, he could 
 make himself indifferent; but very few 
 noises were included in this category. 
 
 What caused him the most acute suffering 
 was a noise which, while it inflicted pain 
 upon him, neither gave pleasure to any one 
 else nor achieved a useful purpose. Loud 
 talking, whisthng, slamming doors, care- 
 lessness in handling things, the barking of 
 dogs, the "kick" of motor boats, these were 
 the noises which made his existence miser- 
 able. 
 
 At the back of his physical reaction was a 
 mental reaction which intensified every shock 
 to his nerves. He complained, and with 
 justice, that, leaving out of consideration an 
 occasional noise which was purely the result 
 of accident, his life was made a burden by 
 the utter indifference of the majority of hu- 
 man beings to the rights of others. What 
 right, he asked, had any one to run a motor 
 boat with a machine so noisy that it de- 
 stroyed the peace of a whole harbor? 
 Above all, what right had such a person to
 
 148 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 come miles out to sea and ci-uise around the 
 yacht, merely to gratify idle curiosity? 
 
 He applied the same test to people who 
 shout at one another in the streets, who whis- 
 tle at the top of their lungs, or leave doors to 
 slam in the faces of those behind them. 
 
 His resentment against these practices 
 was made the more bitter by the knowl- 
 edge that he was absolutely helpless in the 
 matter whenever he came within hearing dis- 
 tance of an ill-bred person. 
 
 There was yet another element in this 
 which added to his misery. He said to me 
 once, when we had been driven off the plage 
 at Mentone by two American tourists of the 
 worst type, who at a hundred yards' distance 
 from each other were yelling their views as 
 to which hotel they proposed to meet at for 
 lunch, "I can never forget that when I was 
 a young man in the full vigor of my health 
 I used to regard other people's complaints 
 about noise as being merely an affectation. 
 I would even make a noise deliberately in 
 order to annoy any one who forced the ab- 
 sui'd pretense upon my notice. Well, Mr.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 149 
 
 Ireland, I swear my punishment has been 
 heavy enough." 
 
 To revert, however, to Mr. Pulitzer's de- 
 pendence on those around him, it must be re- 
 membered that nothing could reach him ex- 
 cept through the medium of speech. The 
 state of his bank account, the condition of 
 his investments, the reports about The 
 World, his business correspondence, the 
 daily news in which he was so deeply inter- 
 ested, everything upon w^hich he based liis 
 relation with the affairs of life he had to ac- 
 cept at second hand. 
 
 It might be supposed that under these cir- 
 cumstances ]Mr. Pulitzer was easily deceived, 
 that when there was no evil intention, for in- 
 stance, but simply a desire to spare him an- 
 noyance, the exercise of a little ingenuity 
 could shield him from anything likely to 
 wound his feelings or excite his anger. As 
 a matter of fact I have never known a man 
 upon whom it would not have been easier to 
 practice a deception. His blindness, so far 
 from being a hindrance to him in reaching 
 the truth, was an aid.
 
 150 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 Two instances will serve to illustrate the 
 point. Suppose that I found in the morn- 
 ing paper an article which I thought would 
 stir J. P. up and spoil his day : when I was 
 called to read to him I had no means of 
 knowing whether the man whom I replaced 
 had taken the same view as myself and had 
 skipped the article or whether he had, delib- 
 erately or inadvertently, read it to him. The 
 same argument applied to the man who was 
 to follow me. If I read the article to him I 
 might find out later that my predecessor 
 had omitted it, or, if I omitted it, that my 
 successor had read it. 
 
 In either event one of us would be in the 
 wrong; and it was impossible to tell in ad- 
 vance whether the man who read it would be 
 blamed for lack of discretion or praised for 
 his good judgment, as everything depended 
 upon the exact mood in which Mr. Pulitzer 
 happened to be. 
 
 It was an awkward dilemma for the sec- 
 retary, for, if he did not read it and another 
 man did, Mr. Pulitzer might very well in- 
 terpret the first man's caution as an effort
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 151 
 
 to hoodwink him, or the second man's bold- 
 ness as an exhibition of indifference to his 
 feehngs, or, what was more Hkely still, fas- 
 ten one fault upon one man and the other 
 upon the other. 
 
 The same problem presented itself from a 
 different direction. Often, Mr. Pulitzer 
 would take out of his pocket a bundle of 
 papers — newspaper clippings, letters, statis- 
 tical reports, and memoranda of various 
 kinds. Handing them to his companion he 
 would say: 
 
 "Look through these and see if there is a 
 letter with the London post mark, and a 
 sheet of blue paper with some figures on 
 it." 
 
 You could never tell what was behind 
 these inquiries. Sometimes he was content 
 to know that the papers were there, some- 
 times he asked you to read them, and as he 
 might very well have them read to him by 
 several people during the day he had a per- 
 fect check on all printed or written matter 
 once it was in his hands. 
 
 In addition to all this his exquisite sense
 
 152 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 of hearing enabled him to detect the sHght- 
 est variation in your tone of voice. If you 
 hesitated or betrayed the least uneasiness 
 his suspicions were at once aroused and he 
 took steps to verify from other sources any 
 statement you made under such cu'cum- 
 stances. 
 
 It will be readily understood that with 
 his keen and analytic mind INIr. Pulitzer 
 very soon discovered exactly w^hat kind of 
 work was best suited to the capacities of 
 each of his secretaries. Thus to JNIr. Pater- 
 son was assigned the reading of history and 
 biography, to Mr. Pollard, a Harvard man 
 and the only American on the personal staff 
 during my time, novels and plays in French 
 and English, to Herr ^lann German lit- 
 erature of all kinds. Thwaites was chiefly 
 occupied with !Mr. Pulitzer's correspondence, 
 and Craven with the yacht accounts, though 
 they, as well as myself, had roving commis- 
 sions covering the periodical literature of 
 France, Germany, England, and America. 
 
 This division of our reading was by no 
 means rigid; it represented JNIr. Pulitzer's
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 153 
 
 view of our respective spheres of greatest 
 utility ; but it was often disturbed by one or 
 another of us going on sick leave or falling 
 a victim to the weather when we were at sea. 
 
 Subject to such chances Pollard always 
 read to Mr. Pulitzer during his breakfast 
 hour, and Mann during his siesta^ while the 
 reading after dinner was pretty evenly di- 
 vided between Pollard, Paterson, and my- 
 self. 
 
 If JNIr. Pulitzer once got it into his head 
 that a particular man was better than any 
 one else for a particular class of work noth- 
 ing could reconcile him to that man's ab- 
 sence when such work was to be done. 
 
 An amusing instance of this occurred on 
 an occasion when Pollard was sea-sick and 
 could not read to J. P. at breakfast. I was 
 hurriedly summoned to take his place. I 
 was dumbfounded, for I had never before 
 been called upon for this task, and Mr. 
 Pulitzer had often held it up to me as the 
 last test of fitness, the charter of your grad- 
 uation. I had nothing whatever prepared 
 of the kind which J. P. required at that
 
 154 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 time, and I knew that upon the success of 
 his breakfast might very well depend the 
 general complexion of his whole day. 
 
 In desperation I rushed into Pollard's 
 cabin, and its unhappy occupant, with a 
 generosity which even seasickness could not 
 chill, gave me a bundle of Spectators, Athe- 
 naeums, and Literary Digests, with pencil 
 marks in the margins indicating exactly 
 what he had intended to read in the ordinary 
 course of things. I breathed a sigh of re- 
 lief and hastened to the library, where I 
 found J. P. very nervous and out of sorts 
 after a bad night. 
 
 He immediately began to deplore Pol- 
 lard's absence, on the ground that it was 
 impossible for anyone to know what to read 
 to liim at breakfast without years of experi- 
 ence and training. I said nothing, feeling 
 secure with Pollard's prepared "breakfast 
 food," as we called it, in front of me. I 
 awaited only his signal to begin reading, 
 confident that I could win laurels for myself 
 without robbing Pollard, whose wreath was 
 firmly fixed on his brow.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 155 
 
 Alas for my hopes! My very first sen- 
 tence destroyed my chances, for I had the 
 misfortune to begin reading something 
 which he had ah-eady heard. Notliing an- 
 noyed him more than tliis; and we all made 
 a habit of writing "Dead" across any article 
 in a periodical as soon as J. P. had had it, 
 so that we could keep off each other's trails. 
 I am willing to believe that this was the first 
 and only time that Pollard ever forgot to 
 kill an article after he had read it, but it 
 was enough, in the deplorable state of Mr. 
 Pulitzer's nerves that morning, to inflict a 
 wound upon my reputation as a breakfast- 
 time reader which months did not suffice to 
 heal. 
 
 With such a bad start Mr. Pulitzer im- 
 mediately concluded that I was useless, and 
 he worked himself up into such a state about 
 it that passage after passage, carefully 
 marked by Pollard, was greeted with, 
 
 "Stop! Stop! For God's sake!" or, 
 
 "Next! Next!" or, 
 
 "My God! Is there much more of that?" 
 or.
 
 156 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 "Well, ^Ir. Ireland, isn't there anything 
 interesting in all those papers?" 
 
 I bore up manfully against this until he 
 made the one remark I could not stand. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Ireland," he said, his voice 
 taking on a tone of gentle reproach, "I 
 know you've done your best, but it is very 
 bad. If you don't beheve me, just take those 
 papers to ^Ir. Pollard when he feels better; 
 don't disturb him now when he's ill; and 
 show him what you read to me. Now, just 
 for fun, I'd like you to do that. He will 
 tell you that there is not a single line which 
 you have read that he would have read had 
 he been in your place. I hope I haven't 
 been too severe with you ; but I hold up my 
 hands and swear that Mr. Pollard wouldn't 
 have read me a line of that rubbish." 
 
 This was too much! Carefully control- 
 ling my voice so that no trace of malice 
 should be detected in it, I replied : 
 
 "I took these papers off* Mr. Pollard's 
 table a moment before I came to you, and 
 the parts I have read are the parts he had
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 157 
 
 marked, with the intention of reading them 
 to you himself." 
 
 I thought I had J. P. cornered. It was 
 before I learned that there was no such 
 thing as cornering J. P. 
 
 Leaning toward me, and putting a hand 
 on my shoulder, he said: 
 
 "Now, boy, don't be put out about this. 
 I do believe, honestly, that you did your 
 best; but you should not make excuses. 
 When you are wrong, admit it, and try and 
 benefit by my advice. You will find a very 
 natural explanation of your mistake. Per- 
 haps the passages Mr. Pollard marked were 
 the ones he did not intend to read to me, or 
 perhaps you took the wrong set of papers; 
 some perfectly natural explanation I am 
 sure." 
 
 That night at dinner, when I was still 
 smarting under the sense of injustice born 
 of my morning's experience, J. P. gave me 
 an opening which I could not allow to pass 
 unused. 
 
 Turning to me during a pause in the con- 
 versation, he asked:
 
 158 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 "And what have you been doing this 
 afternoon, Mr. Ireland?" 
 
 A happy inspiration flashed across my 
 mind, and I repHed: 
 
 "I've been making a rough draft of a 
 play, sir." 
 
 "Well, my God! I didn't know you 
 wrote plays." 
 
 "Very seldom, at any rate; but I had an 
 idea this morning that I couldn't resist." 
 
 "What is it to be called?" inquired J. P. 
 
 " 'The Importance of being Pollard,' " I 
 answered, whereupon J. P. and everyone 
 else at the table had a good laugh. They 
 had all been through a breakfast with J. P. 
 when Pollard was away, and could sympa- 
 thize with my feelings. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer was very sensible of the diffi- 
 culties which lay in everybody's path at the 
 times when lack of sleep or a prolonged at- 
 tack of pain had made him excessively ir- 
 ritable; and when he had recovered from 
 one of these periods of strain, and was con- 
 scious of having been rough in his manner, 
 he often took occasion to make amends.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 159 
 
 Sometimes he would do this when we were 
 at table, adopting a humorous tone as he 
 said, "I'm afraid so-and-so will never for- 
 give me for the way I treated him this after- 
 noon; but I want to say that he really read 
 me an excellent story and read it very well, 
 and that I am grateful to him. I was feel- 
 ing wretchedly ill and had a frightful head- 
 ache, and if I said anything that hurt his 
 feelings I apologize." 
 
 Once, during my weeks of probation, 
 when J. P. felt that he had carried his test 
 of my good temper beyond reason, he 
 stopped suddenly in our walk, laid a hand 
 on my shoulder, and asked: 
 
 "What do you feel when I am unreason- 
 able with you? Do you feel angry? Do 
 you bear malice?" 
 
 "Not at all," I replied. "I suppose my 
 feeling is very much like that of a nurse for 
 a patient. I realize that you are suffering 
 and that you are not to be held responsible 
 for what you do at such times." 
 
 "I thank you for that, JNIr. Ireland," he 
 replied. "You never said anything which
 
 160 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 pleased me more. Never forget that I am 
 blind, and that I am in pain most of the 
 time." 
 
 A matter which I had reason to notice at 
 a very early stage of my acquaintance with 
 Mr. Pulitzer was that when he was in a bad 
 mood it was the worst possible policy to offer 
 no resistance to his pressure. It was part 
 of his nature to go forward in any direction 
 until he encountered an obstacle. When he 
 reached one he paused before making up his 
 mind whether he would go through it or 
 round it. The further he went the more 
 interested he became, his purpose always 
 being to discover a boundary, whether of 
 your knowledge, of your patience, of your 
 memory, or of your nervous endurance. 
 
 He never respected a man who did not at 
 some point stand up and resist him. After 
 the line had once been drawn at that point, 
 and his curiosity had been gratified, he was 
 always careful not to approach it too 
 closely; and it was only on the rare occa- 
 sions when he was in exceptionally bad con-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 161 
 
 dition that any clash occurred after the first 
 one had been settled. 
 
 I put off my own little fight for a long 
 time, partly because I was very much af- 
 fected by the sight of his wretchedness, and 
 partly because I did not at first realize how 
 necessary it was for him to find out just 
 how far my self-control could be depended 
 upon. As soon as this became clear to me 
 I determined to seize the first favorable op- 
 portunity which presented itself of getting 
 into my intrencliments and firing a blank 
 cartridge or two. 
 
 It was after I had been with him about 
 a month that my chance came. I had no- 
 ticed that his manner toward me was slowly 
 but steadily growing more hostile, and I 
 had been expecting daily to receive my dis- 
 missal from the courteous hands of Dun- 
 ningham, or to find myself unable to go 
 further with the ordeal. 
 
 Finally, I consulted Dunningham, and 
 was informed by him, to my great surprise, 
 that I was doing very well and that Mr. 
 Pulitzer was pleased with me. This infor-
 
 162 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 mation cleared the ground in front of me, 
 and that afternoon when I was called to 
 walk with Mr. Pulitzer I decided to put out 
 a danger signal if I was hard pressed. 
 
 Eveiything favored such a course. J. P. 
 had enjoyed a good siesta and was feeling 
 unusuall}^ well; if, therefore, he was very 
 disagreeable I would know that it was from 
 design and not from an attack of nerves. 
 Furthermore, he selected a subject of con- 
 versation in regard to which I was as well, 
 if not better, informed than he was — a ques- 
 tion relating to British Colonial policy. 
 
 The moment I began to speak I saw that 
 his object was to drive me to the wall. He 
 flatly contradicted me again and again, in- 
 sinuated that I had never met certain states- 
 men whose words I repeated, and, finally, 
 after I had concluded my arguments in sup- 
 port of the view I was advancing, he said in 
 an angry tone, assumed for the occasion, of 
 course: 
 
 "Mr. Ireland, I am really distressed that 
 we should have had this discussion. I had 
 hoped that, with years of training and ad-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 163 
 
 vice, I might have been able to make some- 
 thing out of you; but any man who could 
 seriously hold the opinion you have ex- 
 pressed, and could attempt to justify it with 
 the mass of inaccuracies and absurdities that 
 you have given me, is simply a damned 
 fool." 
 
 "I am sorry you said that, Mr. Pulitzer," 
 I replied in a very serious voice. 
 
 "Why, for God's sake, you don't mind 
 my calling you a damned fool, do you?" 
 
 "Not in the least, sir. But when you call 
 me a damned fool you shatter an ideal I held 
 about you." 
 
 "What's that? An ideal about me? What 
 do you mean?" 
 
 "Well, sir, years before I met you I had 
 heard that if there was one thing above all 
 others w^hich distinguished you from all 
 other journalists it was that you had the 
 keenest nose for news of any man living." 
 
 "What has that to do with my calling you 
 a damned fool?" 
 
 "Simply this, that the fact that I'm a
 
 164 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 damned fool hasn't been news to me any 
 time dm-ing the past twenty years." 
 
 He saw the point at once, laughed heart- 
 ily and, putting an arm round my shoulders, 
 as was his habit with all of us when he 
 wished to show a friendly feeling or take 
 the edge off a severe rebuke, said: 
 
 "Now, boy, you're making fun of me, 
 and you must not make fun of a poor old 
 blind man. Now, then, I take it all back; 
 I shouldn't have called you a damned fool." 
 
 It was from this moment that my rela- 
 tions with Mr. Pulitzer began, to improve. 
 
 A few days after the incident which I 
 have just related we di'opped anchor in the 
 Bay of Naples, and Mr. Pulitzer announced 
 his intention of sailing for New York by a 
 White Star boat the following afternoon. 
 He asked me to go with him ; and I accepted 
 this invitation as the sign that my period of 
 probation was over. 
 
 Everything was prepared for our de- 
 parture. Dunningham worked indefatiga- 
 bly. He went aboard the White Star boat, 
 arranged for the accommodation of our
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 165 
 
 party, had partitions knocked down so that 
 Mr. Pulitzer could have a private dining- 
 room and a library, and convoyed aboard 
 twenty or thirty trunks and cases contain- 
 ing books, mineral waters, wines, cigars, 
 fruit, special articles of diet, clothes, fur 
 coats, rugs, etc., for J. P. 
 
 We all packed our belongings, tele- 
 graphed to our friends, sent ashore for the 
 latest issues of the magazines, and sat 
 around in deck chairs waiting for the word 
 to follow our things aboard the liner. 
 
 After half an hour of suspense Dunning- 
 ham came out of the library, where he had 
 been in consultation with J. P., and as he 
 advanced toward us we rose and made our 
 way to the gangway, where one of the 
 launches was swinging to her painter. 
 
 Dunningham, smiling and imperturbable 
 as ever, raised his hand and said, "No, gen- 
 tlemen, Mr. Pulitzer has changed his mind ; 
 we are not going to America. We remain 
 on the yacht and sail this afternoon for 
 Athens." 
 
 He disappeared over the side, and an hour
 
 166 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 or two later returned with the chef and the 
 butler and one of the saloon stewards, who 
 had gone aboard the liner to make things 
 ready, and some tons of baggage. 
 
 We sailed just as the White Star boat 
 cleared the end of the mole. When she 
 passed us, within a hundred yards, she 
 dipped her flag. I was walking with Mr. 
 Pulitzer at the time and mentioned the ex- 
 change of salutes. He was silent for a few 
 minutes. Then he asked, "Has she passed 
 us?" "Yes," I rephed, "she's half-a-mile 
 ahead of us now." "Have you got your pad 
 with you? Just make a note to ask Thwaites 
 to cable to New York from the next port 
 we call at and tell someone to send two hun- 
 dred of the best Havana cigars to the cap- 
 tain. That man has some sense. Most cap- 
 tains would have blown their damned whistle 
 when they dipped their flag. Have a note 
 written to the captain telling him that I ap- 
 preciated his consideration." 
 
 Our voyage to Athens and thence, through 
 the Corinth Canal, back to Mentone, was 
 free from incident. J. P. discussed the pos-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 167 
 
 sibility of going to Constantinople or to 
 Venice, but our cabled inquiries about the 
 weather brought discouraging replies de- 
 scribing an unusually cold season, and these 
 projects were abandoned. 
 
 About this time Mr. Pulitzer's health 
 showed a marked improvement, which was 
 reflected in the most agreeable manner in 
 the general conditions of life on the yacht. 
 He had been worried for some weeks about 
 Ills plans for going to New York, and this 
 had interfered with his sleep, had increased 
 his nervousness and aggravated every symp- 
 tom of his physical weakness. With this 
 matter finally disposed of he could look for- 
 ward to a peaceful cruise, during which he 
 would be able to catch up with his careful 
 reading of the marked file of The World, 
 and thus remove a weight from his mind. 
 
 He detested having work accumulate on 
 his hands, but when his health was worse 
 than usual this was unavoidable. He al- 
 ways drove himself to the last ounce of his 
 endurance, and it was only when his condi- 
 tion indicated an imminent collapse that he
 
 168 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 would consent to drop everything except 
 light reading, and to spend a few days out 
 at sea without calhng anywhere for letters, 
 papers, or cables. 
 
 It was during this, our last, cruise in the 
 Mediterranean that I discovered that Mr. 
 Pulitzer was one of the best and most fas- 
 cinating talkers I had ever heard. Once in 
 a while, when he was feeling cheerful after 
 a good night's rest and a pleasant day's 
 reading, he monopolized the conversation at 
 lunch or dinner. He was generally more 
 willing to talk when we took our meals at a 
 large round table on deck, for he loved the 
 sea breeze and was soothed by it. 
 
 When he talked he simply compelled your 
 attention. I often felt that, if he had not 
 made his career otherwise, he might have 
 been one of the world's greatest actors, or 
 one of its most popular orators. In flexi- 
 biUty of tone, in variety of gesture, in the 
 change of his facial expression he was the 
 peer of anyone I have seen on the stage. 
 
 To an extraordinary flow of language he 
 added a range of information and a vivid-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 169 
 
 ness of expression truly astonishing. His 
 favorite themes were poUtics and the lives 
 of great men. To his monologues on the 
 former subject he brought a ripe wisdom, 
 based upon the most extensive reading and 
 the shrewdest observation, and quickened by 
 the keenest enthusiasm. He was by no 
 means a political bigot ; and there was not a 
 political experiment, from the democracy of 
 the Greeks to the referendum in Switzer- 
 land, with the details of which he was not 
 perfectly familiar. Although he was a con- 
 vinced believer in the Republican form of 
 government, having, as he expressed it, "no 
 use for the King business," he was fully 
 alive to the peculiar dangers and difficulties 
 with which modern progress has confronted 
 popular institutions. 
 
 When the publication of some work 
 like Rosebery's Chatham or Monypenny's 
 Disraeli afforded an occasion, Mr. Pulitzer 
 would spend an hour before we left the 
 table in giving us a picture of some exciting 
 crisis in English politics, the high lights 
 picked out in pregnant phrases of charac-
 
 170 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 terization, in brilliant ejDitome of the facts, 
 in spontaneous epigram, and illustrative 
 anecdote. Whether he spoke of the Hol- 
 land House circle, of the genius of Crom- 
 well, of Napoleon's campaigns, or sought 
 to point a moral from the lives of Bis- 
 marck, Metternich, Louis XI, or Kossuth, 
 every sentence was marked by the same pen- 
 etrating analysis, the same facihty of ex- 
 pression, the same clearness of thought. 
 
 On rare occasions he talked of his early 
 days, telling us in a charming, simple, and 
 unaffected manner of the tragic and humor- 
 ous episodes with which his youth had been 
 crowded. Of the former I recall a striking 
 descrij^tion of a period during which he 
 filled two positions in St. Louis, one involv- 
 ing eight hours' work during the day, the 
 other eight hours during the night. Four 
 of the remaining eight were devoted to 
 studying English. 
 
 His first connection with journalism arose 
 out of an experience which he related with 
 a wealth of detail which showed how deeply 
 it had been burned into his memory.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 171 
 
 When he arrived in St. Louis he soon 
 found himself at the end of his resources, 
 and was faced with the absolute impossibil- 
 ity of securing work in that city. In com- 
 pany with forty other men he applied at 
 the office of a general agent who had ad- 
 vertised for hands to go down the Missis- 
 sippi and take up well-paid posts on a 
 Louisiana sugar plantation. The agent de- 
 manded a fee of five dollars from each ap- 
 plicant, and, by pooling their resources, the 
 members of this wretched band managed to 
 meet the charge. The same night they were 
 taken on board a steamer which immediately 
 started down river. At three o'clock in the 
 morning they were landed on the river bank 
 about forty miles below St. Louis, at a spot 
 where there was neither house, road, nor 
 clearing. Before the marooned party had 
 time to realize its phght the steamer had 
 disappeared. 
 
 A council of war was held, and it was 
 decided that they should tramp back to St. 
 Louis, and put a summary termination to 
 the agent's career by storaiing his office and
 
 172 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 murdering him. Whether or not this reek- 
 less program would have been carried out 
 it is impossible to say, for when, three 
 days later, the ragged army arrived in the 
 city, worn out Mith fatigue and half dead 
 from hunger, the agent had decamped. 
 
 A reporter happened to pick up the story, 
 and by mere chance met Pulitzer and in- 
 duced him to write out in German the tale 
 of his experiences. This account created 
 such an impression on the mind of the editor 
 through whose hands it passed that Pulitzer 
 was offered, and accepted, with the greatest 
 misgivings, as he solemnly assured us, a 
 position as reporter on the Westliclie Post. 
 
 The event proved that there had been no 
 grounds for J. P.'s modest doubts. After 
 he had been some time on the paper, things 
 went so badly that two reporters had to be 
 got rid of. The editor kept Pulitzer on the 
 staff, because he felt that if anyone was 
 destined to force him out of the editorial 
 chair it was not a young, uneducated for- 
 eigner, who could hardlj'^ mumble half-a- 
 dozen words of English. The editor was
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 AT THE AGE OF TWENTY'THREE
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 173 
 
 mistaken. Within a few years J. P. not 
 only supplanted him but became half-pro- 
 prietor of the paper. 
 
 Another interesting anecdote of his early 
 days, which he told with great relish, re- 
 lated to his experience as a fireman on a 
 Mississippi ferryboat. His limited knowl- 
 edge of English was regarded by the captain 
 as a personal affront, and that fire-eating 
 old-timer made it his particular business to 
 let young Pulitzer feel the weight of his 
 authority. At last the overwork and the 
 constant bullying drove J. P. into revolt, 
 and he left the boat after a violent quarrel 
 with the captain. 
 
 Whenever J. P. reached this point in the 
 story, and I heard him tell it several times, 
 his face lighted up with amusement, and 
 he had to stop until he had enjoyed a good 
 laugh. 
 
 "Well, my God!" he would conclude, 
 "about two years later, when I had learned 
 English and studied some law and been 
 made a notary public, this very same captain 
 walked into my office in St. Louis one day
 
 174 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 to have some documents sealed. As soon as 
 he saw me he stopped short, as if he had 
 seen a ghost, and said, *'Say, ain't you the 
 damned cuss that I fired off my boat?" 
 
 "I told him yes, I was. He was the most 
 surprised man I ever saw, but after he had 
 sworn himself hoarse he faced the facts and 
 gave me his business." 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer always declared that the 
 proudest day of his life, the occasion on 
 which his vanity was most tickled, was when 
 he was elected to the Missouri Legislature. 
 Things were evidently run in a rather 
 happy-go-lucky fashion in those early days, 
 since, as he admitted with a reminiscent 
 smile, he was absolutely disqualified for elec- 
 tion, being neither an American citizen nor 
 of age. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer's anecdotes about himself al- 
 ways ended in one way. He would break 
 off suddenly and exclaim, "For Heaven's 
 sake, why do you let me run on like this; 
 as soon as a man gets into the habit of talk- 
 ing about his past adventures he might just
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 175 
 
 as well make up his mind that he is grow- 
 ing old and that his intellect is giving way." 
 It was this strong disinclination for per- 
 sonal reminiscence which prevented Mr. 
 Pulitzer, despite many urgent appeals, from 
 writing his autobiography. It is a thousand 
 pities that he adhered to this resolution, for 
 his career, as well in point of interest as in 
 achievement and picturesqueness, would 
 have stood the test of comparison with that 
 of any man whose life-story has been pre- 
 served in literature. 

 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Wiesbaden and an Atlantic Voyage 
 
 AT last the time came when we had to 
 leave the yacht and make a pilgrim- 
 age to Wiesbaden, in order that Mr. Pulit- 
 zer might submit to a cure before sailing for 
 New York. 
 
 The first stage of our journey took us 
 from Genoa to Milan. Here we stayed for 
 five hours so that J. P. could have his lunch 
 and his siesta comfortably at an hotel. Pat- 
 erson had been sent ahead two or three days 
 in advance to look over the hotels and to 
 select the one which promised to be least 
 noisy. On our arrival in Milan J. P. was 
 taken to an automobile, and in ten minutes 
 he was in his rooms. 
 
 Simple as these arrangements appear 
 from the bald statement of what actually 
 
 176
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 177 
 
 happened they really involved a great deal 
 of care and forethought. It was not enough 
 that Paterson should visit half-a-dozen 
 hotels and make his choice from a cursory 
 inspection. After his choice had been nar- 
 rowed down by a process of elimination he 
 had to spend several hours in each of two 
 or three hotels, in the room intended for 
 J. P., so that he could detect any of the 
 hundred noises which might make the room 
 uninliabitable to its prospective tenant. 
 
 The room might be too near the elevator, 
 it might be too near a servants' staircase, it 
 might overlook a courtyard where carpets 
 were beaten, or a street with heavy traffic, it 
 might be within earshot of a dining-room 
 where an orchestra played or a smoking- 
 room with the possibility of loud talking, it 
 might open off a passage which gave access 
 to some much frequented reception-room. 
 
 Most of these points could be determined 
 by merely observing the location of the 
 room. But other things were to be consid- 
 ered. Did the windows rattle, did the floor 
 creak, did the doors open and shut quietly,
 
 178 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 was the ventilation good, were there noisy 
 guests in the adjoining rooms? 
 
 Tliis last difficulty was, I understand, 
 usually overcome by Mr. Pulitzer engaging, 
 in addition to his own room, a room on either 
 side of it, three rooms facing it, the room 
 above it and the room beneath it. 
 
 Even the question of the drive from the 
 station to the hotel had to be thought out. 
 A trial trip was made in an automobile. If 
 the route followed a car line or passed any 
 spot likely to be noisy, such as a market 
 place or a school playground, or if it led 
 over a roughly paved road on which the car 
 would jolt, another route had to be selected, 
 which, as far as possible, dodged the unfa- 
 vorable conditions. 
 
 Our carefully arranged journey passed 
 without incident. We had a private car 
 from Milan to Frankfort and another for 
 the short run to Wiesbaden, where we ar- 
 rived in time for lunch on the day after our 
 departure from Genoa. Everything had 
 been prepared for our reception by some 
 one who had made similar aiTangements on
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER IN 1906, 
 TAKEN ON THE TRAIN BETWEEN LONDON AND DOVER
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 179 
 
 former occasions. We occupied the whole 
 of a villa belonging to one of the large 
 hotels, and situated less than a hundred 
 yards from it. 
 
 In the main our life was modeled upon 
 that at the Cap Martin villa; but part of 
 Mr. Pulitzer's morning was devoted to 
 baths, massage, and the drinking of waters. 
 Our meals were taken, as a rule, either in a 
 private dining-room at the hotel or in the 
 big restaurant of the Kurhaus; but when 
 Mr. Pulitzer was feeling more than usually- 
 tired the table was laid in the dining-room 
 of the villa. 
 / Our dinners at the Kurhaus were a wel- 
 come change from our ordinary meals with 
 their set routine of literary discussions. Mr. 
 Pulitzer was immensely interested in peo- 
 ple; but it was impossible for him to meet 
 them, except on rare occasions, because the 
 excitement was bad for his health. When- 
 ever he dined in a crowded restaurant, how- 
 ever, our time was fully occupied in describ- 
 ing with the utmost minuteness the men, 
 women, and children around us.
 
 180 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 The Kurhaus was an excellent place for 
 the exercise of our descriptive powers. In 
 addition to the ordinary crowd of pleasure- 
 seekers and health-hunters there were, dur- 
 ing a great part of our visit, a large num- 
 ber of military men, for the Kaiser spent a 
 week at Wiesbaden that year and reviewed 
 some troops, and this involved careful 
 preparation in advance by a host of court 
 officials and high army officers. 
 
 Under these circumstances the dining- 
 room of the Kurhaus presented a scene full 
 of color and animation. Sometimes J. P. 
 said to one of us: "Look around for a few 
 minutes and pick out the most interesting- 
 looking man and woman in the room, ex- 
 amine them carefully, try and catch the tone 
 of their voices, and when you are ready de- 
 scribe them to me." Or he might say: "I 
 hear a curious, sharp, incisive voice some- 
 where over there on my right. There it is 
 now — don't you hear it? — s s s s s, every s 
 like a hiss. Describe that man to me; tell 
 me what kind of people he's talking to; tell 
 me what you think his profession is." Or
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 181 
 
 it might be: "There are some gabbling 
 women over there. Describe them to me. 
 How are they dressed, are they painted, are 
 they wearing jewels, how old are they?" 
 
 In whatever form the request was made 
 its fulfilment meant a description covering 
 everything which could be detected by the 
 eye or surmised from any available clew. 
 
 Describing people to J. P. was by no 
 means an easy task. It was no use saying 
 that a man had a medium-sized nose, that he 
 was of average height, and that his hair was 
 rather dark. Ever3i;hing had to be given 
 in feet and inches and in definite colors. 
 You had to exercise your utmost powers to 
 describe the exact cast of the features, the 
 peculiar texture and growth of the hair, the 
 expression of the eyes, and every little trick 
 of gait or gesture. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer was very sceptical of every- 
 body's faculty of description. He made us 
 describe people, and specially his own chil- 
 dren and others whom he knew well, again 
 and again, and his unwillingness to accept 
 any description as being good rested no
 
 182 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 doubt upon the wide divergence between the 
 different descriptions he received of the 
 same person. 
 
 There were few things which Mr. Pulitzer 
 enjoj'^ed more than having a face described 
 to him, whether of a hving person or of a 
 portrait, and as our table-talk was often 
 about men and women of distinction or no- 
 toriety, dead or living, any one of us might 
 be called upon at any time to portray fea- 
 ture by feature some person whose name had 
 been mentioned. 
 
 By providing ourselves with illustrated 
 catalogues of the Royal Academy exhibi- 
 tions and of the National Portrait Gallery, 
 and by cutting out the portraits with which 
 the modern publisher so lavishly decorates 
 his announcements, we generally managed, 
 by pulling together, to cover the ground 
 pretty well. I have sat through a meal dur- 
 ing which one or another of us furnished a 
 microscopic description of the faces of War- 
 ren Hastings, Lord Clive, President Wil- 
 son, the present King and Queen of Eng- 
 land, the late John W. Gates, Ignace Pade-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 183 
 
 rewski, and an odd dozen current murderers, 
 embezzlers, divorce habitues, and candidates 
 for political office. 
 
 The delicate enjoyment of this game was 
 not reached, however, until, at the following 
 meal, one of us, who had been absent at the 
 original delineation, was asked to cover some 
 of the ground that had been gone over a few 
 hours earher. Mr. Pulitzer would say: "Is 
 Mr. So-and-So here? Well, now, just for 
 fun, let us see what he has to say about the 
 appearance of some of the people we spoke 
 about at lunch." 
 
 The result was almost always an astonish- 
 ing disclosure of the inability of intelligent 
 people to observe closely, to describe accur- 
 ately, and to reach any agreement as to the 
 significance of what they have seen. It was 
 bad enough when the latest witness had be- 
 fore him the actual pictures on which the 
 first description had been based; even then 
 crooked noses became straight, large mouths 
 small, disdain was turned to affability and 
 ingenuousness to guile; but where this guide
 
 184 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 was lacking the descriptions were often 
 ludicrously discrepant. 
 
 While we were at Wiesbaden we seldom 
 spent much time at the dinner table, as J. P. 
 usually took his choice between walking in 
 the garden of the Kurhaus and listening to 
 the orchestra and going to the opera. One 
 night we motored over to Frankfort to hear 
 Der Rosenkavalier, but the excursion was 
 a dismal failure. We had to go over a 
 stretch of very bad road, and with J. P. 
 shaken into a state of extreme nervousness 
 the very modern strains of the opera failed 
 to please. 
 
 At the end of the second act J. P., who 
 had been growing more and more dismal as 
 the music bumped along its disjointed 
 course, either in vain search or in careful 
 avoidance of anything resembling a pleasant 
 sound, turned to me and said: "My God I 
 I can't stand any more of this. Will you 
 please go and find the automobile and bring 
 it round to the main entrance. I want to sfo 
 home." 
 
 I saw a great deal of Mr. Pulitzer while
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 185 
 
 we were at Wiesbaden, owing to the cir- 
 cumstance that Paterson was called to Eng- 
 land on urgent private affairs and Pollard 
 was away on leave. The absence of these 
 two men was as much regretted by the staff 
 as it was by J. P. himself. Paterson was, 
 from his extraordinary erudition, seldom at 
 a loss for a topic of conversation which 
 would rivet J. P.'s attention, and Pollard, 
 -wiio had been a number of years with J. P., 
 was not only, on his own subjects, the con- 
 versational peer of Paterson, but was in ad- 
 dition, from his soothing voice and manner 
 and from his long and careful study of J. 
 P., invaluable as a mental and nervous seda- 
 tive. 
 
 It was at Wiesbaden that I first began to 
 read books regularly to J. P. I read him 
 portions of the biographies of Parnell, of 
 Sir William Howard Russell, of President 
 Polk (very little of this), of Napoleon, of 
 Martin Luther, and at least a third of 
 Macaulay's Essays. 
 
 He was a great admirer of Lord Macau- 
 lay's writings and read them constantly, as
 
 186 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 he found in them most of the quahties 
 which he admired — great descriptive power, 
 pohtical acumen, satire, neatness of plirase, 
 apt comparisons and analogies, and shrewd 
 analysis of character. Many passages he 
 made me read over and over again at dif- 
 ferent times. I reproduce a few of his fa- 
 vorite paragraphs for the purpose of show- 
 ing what appealed to his taste. 
 
 From the Essay on Sir William Temple, 
 the following lines referring to the Right 
 Hon. Thomas Peregrine Coui*tenay, who, 
 after his retirement from public life, wrote 
 the Memoirs of Temj)le and stated in his 
 preface that experience had taught him the 
 superiority of literature to politics for de- 
 veloping the kindUer feelings and conducing 
 to an agreeable life: 
 
 He has little reason, in our opinion, to envy 
 any of those who are still engaged in a pursuit 
 from which, at most, they can only expect that, 
 by relinquishing liberal studies and social pleas- 
 ures, by passing nights without sleep and sum- 
 mers witliout one glimpse of the beauty of nature, 
 they may attain that laborious, that invidious,
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 187 
 
 that closely watched slavery which is mocked 
 with the name of power. 
 
 More often than any others I read him 
 the following passages from the Essay on 
 Milton: 
 
 The final and permanent fruits of liberty are 
 wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its immediate 
 effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting 
 errors, scepticism on points the most clear, dog- 
 matism on points the most mysterious. It is just 
 at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. 
 They pull down the scaffolding from the half-fin- 
 ished edifice: they point to the flying dust, the 
 falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the frightful 
 irregularity of the whole appearance; and then 
 ask in scorn where the promised splendor and com- 
 fort is to be found. If such miserable sophisms 
 were to prevail there would never be a good house 
 or a good government in the world. 
 
 There is only one cure for the evils which newly 
 acquired freedom produces ; and that cure is free- 
 dom. 
 
 The blaze of truth and liberty may at first 
 dazzle and bewilder nations which have become 
 half blind in the house of bondage. But let them 
 gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In 
 a few years men learn to reason. The extreme 
 violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theories cor- 
 rect each other. The scattered elements of truth
 
 188 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. And at 
 length a system of justice and order is educed 
 out of the chaos. 
 
 If men are to wait for liberty till they become 
 wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait 
 forever. 
 
 I was surprised one day on returning to 
 the villa after a walk in the Kurhaus gar- 
 dens with J. P. to find an addition to our 
 company in the person of the second gentle- 
 man who had examined me in London at the 
 time I had applied for the post of secretary 
 to Mr. Pulitzer. 
 
 This gentleman occupied what I imagine 
 must have been the only post of its kind in 
 the world. He was, in addition to whatever 
 other duties he performed, Mr. Pulitzer's 
 villa-seeker. 
 
 It was Mr. Pulitzer's custom to talk a 
 good deal about his future plans, not those 
 for the immediate future, in regard to which 
 he was usually very reticent, but those for 
 the follo^ving year, or for a vague "some- 
 day" when many things were to be done 
 which as yet were nothing more than the
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 189 
 
 toys with which his imagination dehghted 
 to play. 
 
 As he always spent a great part of the 
 year in Europe, a residence had to be found 
 for him, it might be in Vienna, or London, 
 or Berlin, or Mentone, or in any other place 
 which emerged as a possibility out of the 
 long discussions of the next year's itinerary. 
 
 Whenever the arguments in favor of any 
 place had so far prevailed that a visit there 
 had been accepted in principle as one of our 
 future movements it became the duty of the 
 villa-seeker to go to the locality, to gather a 
 mass of information about its climate, its 
 amenities, its resident and floating popula- 
 tion, its accessibility by sea and land, the 
 opportunities for hearing good music, and 
 to report in the minutest detail upon all 
 available houses which appeared likely to 
 suit Mr. Pulitzer's needs. 
 
 These reports were accompanied by maps, 
 plans, and photographs, and they were con- 
 sidered by J. P. with the utmost care. Par- 
 ticular attention was paid to the streets and 
 to the country roads in the neighborhood.
 
 190 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 as it was necessary to have facilities for mo- 
 toring, for riding, and for walking. 
 
 The next step was to secure a villa, and 
 after that had been done the alterations had 
 to be undertaken which would make it hab- 
 itable for J. P. These might be of a com- 
 paratively simple nature, a matter of fitting 
 silencers to the doors and putting up double 
 windows to keep out the noise; but they 
 might extend much further and involve 
 more or less elaborate changes in the in- 
 terior aiTangements. Even after all this 
 had been done a sudden shift of plans might 
 send the villa-seeker scurrying across 
 Europe to begin the whole process over 
 again in order to be prepared for new devel- 
 opments. 
 
 At the time I left London to join J. P. 
 at Mentone I had stipulated that, if I should 
 chance to be selected to fill the vacant post, 
 I should not be called upon to take up my 
 duties until I had returned to London and 
 spent a fortnight there in clearing up my 
 private affairs. 
 
 After we had been a few weeks at Wies-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 191 
 
 baden it became absolutely necessary for me 
 to go to London for that purpose; and this 
 led to a struggle with J. P. which nearly 
 brought our relations to an end. 
 
 As soon as I broached the subject of a 
 fortnight's leave of absence J. P. set his 
 face firmly against the proposal. This was 
 due not so much to any feeling on his part 
 that my absence would be an inconvenience 
 to him, for both Paterson and Pollard had 
 returned to duty, but to an almost uncon- 
 querable repugnance he had to any one ex- 
 cept himself initiating any plan which would 
 in the slightest degree affect his arrange- 
 ments. His sensitiveness on this point was 
 so delicate that it was impossible, for in- 
 stance, for any of us to accept an invitation 
 to lunch or dine with friends who might 
 happen to be in our neighborhood, or to ask 
 for half a day off for any purpose v/hatever. 
 
 I do not mean to say that we never got 
 away for a meal or that we were never free 
 for a few hours; as a matter of fact, J. P. 
 was by no means ungenerous in such things 
 once a man had passed the trial stage; but.
 
 192 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 although J. P. might say to you, "Take two 
 days off and amuse yourself," or "Take the 
 evening off, and don't trouble to get back 
 to work until lunch-time to-morrow," it was 
 out of the question for you to say to J. P. : 
 "An old friend of mine is here for the day, 
 would you mind my taking lunch with him?" 
 
 No one, I am sure, ever made a suggestion 
 of that kind to J. P. more than once — the 
 effect upon him was too startling. 
 
 J. P.'s favors in the way of giving time 
 off were always granted subject to a change 
 of mind on his part ; and these changes were 
 often so sudden that it was our custom as 
 soon as leave was given to disappear from 
 the yacht or the villa at the earliest possi- 
 ble moment. But at times even an instant 
 departure was too slow, for it might happen 
 that before you were out of the room J. P. 
 would say: "Just a moment, Mr. So-and-So, 
 you wouldn't mind if I asked you to put off 
 your holiday till to-morrow, would you? I 
 think I would like you to finish that novel 
 this evening; I am really interested to see 
 how it comes out."
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 193 
 
 This, of course, was rather disappointing ; 
 but the great disadvantage of not getting 
 away was that INIr. PuHtzer's memory gen- 
 erally clung very tenaciously to the fact that 
 he had given you leave, and lost the subse- 
 quent act of rescinding it. The effect of 
 this was that for the practical purpose of 
 getting a day off your turn was used up as 
 soon as J. P. granted it, without any refer- 
 ence to whether you actually got it or not; 
 and the phrase, "until to-morrow," was not 
 to be interpreted literally or to be acted upon 
 without a further distinct permission. 
 
 The only "right" any of us had to time 
 off was to our amiual vacation of two weeks, 
 which we had to take whenever J. P. 
 washed. If, for any reason, one of us 
 w^anted leave of absence for a week or so, 
 the matter had to be put into the hands of 
 the discreet and diplomatic Dunningham; 
 and so when the time came when I simply 
 had to go to London it was to Dunningham 
 I went for counsel. 
 
 Judging by the results, his intercession on 
 my behalf was not very successful, for, on
 
 194 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the occasion of our next meeting, J. P. made 
 it clear to me that if I insisted on going to 
 London it would be on pain of his displeas- 
 ure and at the peril of my post. As I look 
 back upon the incident, however, it is quite 
 clear to me that the whole of his arguments 
 and his dark hints were launched merely to 
 test my sense of duty to those persons in 
 London whom I had promised to see. 
 
 A day or two later J. P. told me that as I 
 was going to London I might as well stay 
 there for a month or two before joining him 
 in New York. He outlined a course of 
 study for me, which included lessons in 
 speaking (my voice being harsh and un- 
 pleasant) and visits to all the principal art 
 galleries, theaters and other places of inter- 
 est, with a view to describing everything 
 when I rejoined him. 
 
 On the eve of my departure Dunningham 
 handed me, with Mr. Pulitzer's compliments, 
 an envelope containing a handsome present, 
 in the most acceptable form a present can 
 take. 
 
 It was not until I was in the train, and
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 195 
 
 the train had started, that I was able to 
 realize that I was free. During the journey 
 to London my extraordinary experiences of 
 the past three months detached themselves 
 from the sum of my existence and became 
 cloaked with that haze of unreality which be- 
 longs to desperate illness or to a tragedy 
 looked back upon from days of health and 
 peace. Walking down St. James's Street 
 twenty- four hours after leaving Wiesbaden, 
 J. P. and the yacht and the secretaries in- 
 vaded my memoiy not as things experienced 
 but as things seen in a play or read in a story 
 long ago. 
 
 I lost no time in making myself comf ort-^ 
 able in London. Inquiries directed to the 
 proper quarter soon brought me into touch 
 with a gentleman to whose skill, I was as- 
 sured, no voice, however disagreeable, could 
 fail to respond. I saw my friends, my busi- 
 ness associates, my tailor. I went to see 
 Fanny's First Play three times, the Na- 
 tional Portrait Gallery twice, the National 
 Gallery once, and laid out my plans to see 
 all the places in London (shame forbidding
 
 196 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 me to enumerate them) which every Eng- 
 lishman ought to have seen and which I had 
 not seen. 
 
 This lasted for about two weeks, during 
 which I saw something of Craven, who had 
 left us in Naples to study something or 
 other in London, and who was under orders 
 to hold himself in readiness to go to New 
 York with J. P. We dined at my club one 
 night, and when I returned to my flat I 
 found a telegram from Mr. Tuohy, instruct- 
 ing me to join J. P. in Liverpool the next 
 day in time to sail early in the afternoon on 
 the Cedric, as it had been decided to leave 
 Craven in London for the present. 
 
 The voyage differed but little from our 
 cruises in the yacht. J. P. took liis meals 
 in his o\^^l suite, and as INIrs. Pulitzer and 
 ]Miss Pulitzer were on board they usually 
 dined with him, one of the secretaries mak- 
 ing a fourth at table. 
 
 In the matter of guarding J. P. from 
 noise, extraordinary precautions were taken. 
 Heavy mats were laid outside his cabin, spe- 
 cially made a dozen years before and stored
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 197 
 
 by the ^^Hiite Star people waiting his call; 
 that portion of the deck which surrounded 
 his suite was roped oif so that the passen- 
 gers could not promenade there ; and a close- 
 fitting green baize door shut off the corridor 
 leading to his quarters. His meals were 
 served by his own butler and by one of the 
 yacht stewards; and his daily routine went 
 on as usual. 
 
 During the voyage I was broken in to 
 the task of reading the magazines to J. P. 
 So far as current issues were concerned I 
 had to take the ones he liked best — The At- 
 lantic MontJily, The American Magazine^ 
 The Quarterly Beview, The Edinburgh Re- 
 view, The World's Work, and The North 
 American Review — and thoroughly master 
 their contents. 
 
 While I was engaged on this sufficiently 
 arduous labor I made, on cards, lists of the 
 titles of all the articles and abstracts of all 
 the more important ones. I have by me as I 
 write a number of these lists, and I repro- 
 duce one of them. 
 
 The following hst of articles represents
 
 198 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 what Mr. Pulitzer got from me in a highly 
 condensed form during one hour: "The 
 Alleged Passing of Wagner," "The Decline 
 and Fall of Wagner," "The Mission of 
 Richard Wagner," "The Swiftness of Jus- 
 tice in England and in the United States," 
 "The Public Lands of the United States," 
 "New Zealand and the Woman's Vote," 
 "The Lawyer and the Community," "The 
 Tariff Make-believe," "The Smithsonian 
 Institute," "The Spirit and Letter of Ex- 
 clusion," "The Panama Canal and Ameri- 
 can Shipping," "The Authors and Signers 
 of the Declaration of Independence," "The 
 German Social Democracy," "The Chang- 
 ing Position of American Trade," "The 
 Passing of Polygamy." 
 
 I remember very well the occasion on which 
 I gave him these articles. We were walking 
 on one of the lower promenade decks of the 
 Cedric, and J. P. asked me if I had any 
 magazine articles ready for him. I told him, 
 having the list of articles in my left hand, 
 that I had fifteen ready. He pulled out his 
 watch, and holding it toward me said:
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 199 
 
 "What time is it?" 
 
 "Twelve o'clock," I replied. 
 
 "Very good; that gives us an hour before 
 lunch. Now go on with your articles; I'll 
 allow you four minutes for each of them." 
 
 He did not actually take four minutes for 
 each, for some of them did not interest him 
 after my summary had run for a minute or 
 so, but we just got the fifteen in during the 
 hour. 
 
 After all that was possible had been done 
 in the way of reducing the number of maga- 
 zine articles, by rejecting the unsuitable 
 ones, and their length by careful condensa- 
 tion, we were unable to keep pace with the 
 supply. When a hundred or so magazines 
 had accumulated Mr. Puhtzer had the lists 
 of contents read to him, and from these he 
 selected the articles which he wished to have 
 read; and these arrears were disposed of 
 when an opportunity presented itself. 
 
 At times INIr. Pulitzer did not feel well 
 enough to take this concentrated mental 
 food, and turned for relief to novels, plays 
 and light Hterature; at times, when he was
 
 200 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 feeling unusually well, he occupied himself 
 for several days in succession with matters 
 concerning Tlie World — in dictating edi- 
 torials, letters of criticism, instruction and 
 inquiry, or in considering the endless prob- 
 lems relating to policy, business manage- 
 ment, personnel, and the soaring price of 
 white paper. 
 
 An interesting feature of his activity on 
 behalf of The World was his selection of 
 new writers. Although his supervision of 
 the paper extended to every branch, from 
 advertising to news, from circulation to 
 color-printing, it was upon the editorial page 
 that he concentrated his best energies and 
 his keenest observation. 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that the edi- 
 torial page of The World was to J. P. what 
 a child is to a parent. He had watched it 
 daily for a quarter of a century. During 
 that time, I am told, he had read to him 
 seventy-five per cent, of all the editorials 
 which were printed on it, and had every car- 
 toon described. Those who are interested 
 in the editorial page of The Wgrld should
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 20l 
 
 read Mr. John L. Heaton's admirable His- 
 tory of a Page, published last year. 
 
 J. P.'s theory of editorial writing, which 
 I heard hini propound a dozen times, called 
 for three cardinal qualities — brevity, direct- 
 ness and style — and, as these could not be 
 expected to adorn hasty writing, he em- 
 ployed a large staff of editorial writers and 
 tried to limit each man to an average of half 
 a column a day, unless exceptional circum- 
 stances called for a lengthy treatment of 
 some important question. 
 
 He watched the style of each man with 
 the closest attention, examining the length 
 of the paragraphs, of the sentences, of the 
 words, the variety of the vocabulary, the 
 choice of adjectives and adverbs, the em- 
 ployment of superlatives, the selection of a 
 heading, the nicety of adjustment between 
 the thought to be expressed and the lan- 
 guage employed for its expression. 
 
 If he chanced in the course of his reading 
 to run across any apt phrase in regard to 
 literary style he would get one of us to type 
 a number of copies and send one to each of
 
 202 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the editorial writers on The World. The 
 following were sent from Wiesbaden: 
 
 "Thiers compares a perfect style to glass 
 through which we look without being conscious 
 of its presence between the object and the eye." 
 (From Abraham Hay ward's "Essay on Thiers.") 
 
 "Lessing, Lichtenberger, and Schopenhauer 
 agreed in saying that it is difficult to write well, 
 that no man naturally writes well, and that one 
 must, in order to acquire a style, work strenuously 
 , . t I have tried to write well." (Nietzsche.) 
 
 J. P. was never tired of discussing liter- 
 ary style, of making comparisons between 
 one language and another from the point of 
 view of an exact expression of an idea, or 
 of the different sound of the same idea ex- 
 pressed in different languages. For in- 
 stance, he asked us once during an argument 
 about translations of Shakespeare to com- 
 pare the lines: 
 
 *'You are my true and honorable wife, 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart."
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 203 
 
 with the German: 
 
 "Ihr seid mein echtes, ehrenwertes Weib, 
 So teuer mir, als wie die Purpurtropfen 
 Die um mein trauernd Herz sich drangeo." 
 
 and the opening words of Hamlet's solilo- 
 quy with the German : 
 
 "Sein oder Nichtsein, das ist hier die Frage." 
 
 Of the former pair he greatly preferred 
 the English, of the latter the German. 
 
 Sometimes we discussed at great length 
 the exact English equivalent of some Ger- 
 man or French word. I remember one which 
 he came back to again and again, the word 
 leichtsinnig. We suggested as transla- 
 tions, frivolous, irresponsible, hare-brained, 
 thoughtless, chicken- witted, foolish, crazy; 
 but we never fomid an expression which 
 suited him. 
 
 But I have wandered away from the sub- 
 ject of editorial writers. During the time I 
 was with J. P. he selected two, and his 
 method of selection is of interest in view of
 
 204 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the great importance he attached to the edi- 
 torial page of The World. 
 
 As I have said elsewhere, J. P. got prac- 
 tically all the important articles from every 
 paper of consequence in the United States. 
 If he read an editorial which impressed him, 
 possibly from a Chicago or a San Francisco 
 paper, he put it on one side and told Pollard, 
 who read all this kind of material to him, to 
 watch the clippings from that paper and to 
 pick out any other editorials which he could 
 identify as the work of the same man. Five 
 years with J. P. had made Pollard an ex- 
 pert in penetrating the disguise of the edi- 
 torial "We." 
 
 As soon as a representative collection of 
 the unknown man's writings had been made 
 J. P. instructed some one on The World to 
 find out who the author was and to request 
 that he would supply what he considered to 
 be a fair sample of his work, a dozen or 
 more articles, and a brief biography of him- 
 self. 
 
 If Mr. Pulitzer was satisfied with these 
 an offer would be made to the man to join
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 205 
 
 the staff of The World. Sometimes even 
 these gentlemen were summoned to New 
 York, to Bar Harbor, to Wiesbaden, or to 
 Mentone, according to circmnstances. I have 
 met several of them, and they all agree in 
 saying that the hardest work they ever did 
 in their lives was to keep pace with Mr. 
 Pulitzer while they were running the gaunt- 
 let of his judgment. 
 
 There are few men highly placed on The 
 World to-day who have not been through 
 such an ordeal. I doubt if any man was 
 ever served by a staif whose individual abil- 
 ity, temper, resources and limitations were 
 so minutely known to their employer. He 
 knew them to the last ounce of their endur- 
 ance, to the last word of their knowledge, 
 beyond the last veil which enables even the 
 most intelligent man to harbor, mercifully, 
 a few delusions about himself. 
 
 To those who did not know Mr. Pulitzer 
 it may appear that I exaggerate his powers 
 in this direction. As a matter of fact I be- 
 lieve that it would be impossible to do so. 
 
 When he had his sight he judged men as
 
 206 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 others judge them, and, making full allow- 
 ance for his genius for observation and anal- 
 ysis, he was no doubt influenced to some ex- 
 tent by appearance, manners and associa- 
 tions. But after he became blind and re- 
 tired from contact with all men, except a 
 circle which cannot have exceeded a score in 
 number, his judgment took on a new meas- 
 ure of clearness and perspective. 
 
 As a natural weapon of self-defense he 
 developed a system of searching examina- 
 tion before which no subterfuge could stand. 
 It was minute, persistent, comprehensive 
 and ingenious in the last degree. It might 
 begin to-day, reach an apparent conclusion, 
 and be renewed after a month's silence. In 
 the meantime, while the whole matter was 
 becoming dim in your mind, inquiries had 
 been made in a dozen directions in regard to 
 the points at issue; and when the subject was 
 reopened you were confronted not only with 
 J. P.'s perfect memory of what you had said 
 but with a detailed knowledge of matters 
 which you had passed by as unimportant, or
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 207 
 
 deliberately avoided for any one of a dozen 
 perfectly honest reasons. 
 
 J. P.'s questions covered names, places, 
 dates, motives, the chain of causation, what 
 you said, what you did, what you felt, what 
 you thought, the reasons why you felt, 
 thought, acted as you did, the reasons why 
 your thought and action had not been such- 
 and-such, j^our opinion of your own conduct, 
 in looking back upon the episode, your opin- 
 ion of the thoughts, actions and feelings of 
 everybody else concerned, your conjectures 
 as to their motives, what you would do if 
 you were again faced with the same prob- 
 lem, why you would do it, why you had not 
 done it on the previous occasion. 
 
 Starting at any point in your career Mr. 
 Pulitzer worked backward and forward 
 until all that you had ever thought or done, 
 from your earliest recollection down to the 
 present moment, had been disclosed to him 
 so far as he was interested to know it, and 
 your memory served you. 
 
 This process varied in length according to 
 the nature of the experiences of the person
 
 208 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 subjected to it, and to the precise quality of 
 Mr. Pulitzer's interest in him. In my own 
 case it lasted about three months and was 
 copiously interspersed Tvath written state- 
 ments by myself of facts about myself, 
 opinions by myself about myself, and end- 
 less references to people I had known dur- 
 ing the past twenty-five years. 
 
 Mr. Pulitzer's attitude toward references 
 was the product of vast experience. He 
 complained that scores of men had come to 
 him with references from some of the most 
 distinguished people living, references so 
 glowing that one man should have been 
 ashamed to write them and the other ashamed 
 to receive them, references of such a charac- 
 ter that their happy possessors might, with- 
 out being guilty of inmiodesty, have applied 
 for the Chief Justiceship of the United 
 States, the Viceroyalty of India, the Arch- 
 bishopric of Canterbury, the Presidency of 
 the Royal College of Surgeons, or the Mas- 
 tership of Baliol, but that the great majority 
 of these men had turned out to be ignorant, 
 lazy and stupid to an unbelievable degree.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 209 
 
 When the question of my own references 
 came up I hegged in a humorous way that, 
 having heard J. P.'s views about the value 
 of testimonials, my friends should be spared 
 the useless task of eulogizing me. 
 
 "No, my God!" exclaimed J. P. "None 
 of them shall be spared. What I said about 
 testimonials is all perf ectlj'^ true ; but it only 
 serves to show what sort of person a man 
 must be who can't even get testimonials. 
 No, no ; if a man brings references it j)roves 
 nothing; but if he can't, it proves a great 
 deal." 
 
 Our voyage to New York was marred by 
 but one distressing feature, the behavior of 
 two infants, one of whom cried all day and 
 the other all night. J. P. stood it very well. 
 I think he regarded it as one of the few 
 necessary noises. He suffered from it, of 
 course, but the only remark he ever made to 
 me about it was: 
 
 "I really think that one of the most ex- 
 traordinary things in the world is the amount 
 of noise a child can make. Here we are with 
 a sixty-mile gale blowing and some ten thou-
 
 210 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 sand horse-power engines working inside the 
 ship, and yet that child can make itself heard 
 from one end of the boat to the other. I 
 think there must be two of them; the sound 
 is not quite the same at night. Now, Mr. 
 Ireland, do, just for the fun of it, find out 
 about that. Don't let the mother know — I 
 wouldn't like to hurt her feelings; but ask 
 one of the stewards about it." 
 
 In due course we reached New York. The 
 Liberty, which had crossed directly from 
 Marseilles, met us at quarantine, and Mr. 
 Pulitzer was transferred to her without land- 
 ing. The rest of us joined the yacht the 
 same evening. That night we sailed for Bar 
 Harbor.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Bar Harbor and the Last Cruise 
 
 DURING the forenoon of the follow- 
 ing- day we dropped anchor opposite 
 the water-front of ]Mr. Pulitzer's Bar Har- 
 bor estate. The house was situated right on 
 the rocky foreshore, and was backed by ex- 
 tensive grounds which completely cut it off 
 from the noise of the traffic on the main 
 road. 
 
 By means of a flight of granite steps, 
 leading down from a lawn laid along the 
 whole of the house-front, within containing 
 walls, access was had to a pier to the end of 
 which was attached a floating pontoon af- 
 fording an easy means of boarding the 
 yacht's boats or the launches which were kept 
 at Chatwold for use when the house was oc- 
 cupied. 
 
 211
 
 212 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 Chatwold was a big, rambling place, 
 which had been added to from time to time 
 until it was capable of accommodating about 
 twenty people in addition to J. P., whose 
 quarters were in a large granite structure, 
 specially designed with a view to securing 
 complete quietness. This building was in 
 the form of a tower about forty feet square 
 and four stories high. On the ground floor 
 was a magnificent room, occupying the 
 whole lencrth of the tower and two-thirds of 
 its breadth, which served as a library and 
 dining-room for J. P. On the side facing 
 the sea there was a large verandah where 
 INIr. Pulitzer took his breakfast and where 
 he sat a great deal during the day when he 
 was transacting business or being read to. 
 
 The whole of the basement of the tower 
 was taken up by a swimming pool and dress- 
 ing rooms. The water was pumped in from 
 the sea and could be heated by a system of 
 steam pipes. The upper floors of the tower 
 were given over to bedrooms, for J. P., for 
 the major-domo and for several of the sec- 
 retaries.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 213 
 
 INIost of the servants were housed in a 
 large building some distance from the main 
 residence, and there were separate quarters 
 for the grooms and stablemen, and for the 
 heard gardener and his assistants. 
 
 While we were at Chatwold there was a 
 gathering of the Pulitzer family — INIrs. Jo- 
 seph Pulitzer, a cousin of Jefferson Davis 
 and a belle of Washington in her day, who 
 married ]Mr. Pulitzer years before his suc- 
 cess in life had been made and when the fight 
 for his place in journalism was still in its 
 early stages; Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Pulitzer 
 and their young son, Ralph; Mr. and IMrs. 
 Joseph Puhtzer, Jr., Miss Edith Pulitzer, 
 Miss Constance Pulitzer and Mr. Pulitzer's 
 youngest child, Herbert, a boy of fifteen. 
 
 The presence of the family had little ef- 
 fect upon the routine of Mr. Pulitzer's daily 
 life. He saw as much of his wife and chil- 
 dren as he could; but the intensity of his 
 family emotions was such that they could 
 only be given rein at the price of sleepless 
 nights, savage pain, and desperate weari- 
 ness. His interest in everything concerning
 
 214. JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the family was overwhelming, his curiosity 
 inexhaustible. Everybody had to be de- 
 scribed over and over again, but especially 
 young Master Ralph, a bright and hand- 
 some child, born long after his grandfather 
 had become totally blind, and Master Her- 
 bert, of whose appearance he retained only 
 a memory of the dim impressions he had been 
 able to gather years before when a little 
 sight yet remained to him. 
 
 It was at lunch and at dinner that INIr. 
 Pulitzer saw most of the family. Pie almost 
 always took his meals in the library at a 
 table seating four ; and the party usually in- 
 cluded Mrs. Pulitzer, one of the other ladies 
 or Master Herbert, and a secretary. I was 
 present at a great many of these gatherings, 
 partly because J. P. had gradually acquired 
 a taste for such humor as I was able to con- 
 tribute to the conversation, and partly be- 
 cause he relished a salad-dressing which rep- 
 resented my only accomj)lishment in the gas- 
 tronomic field. 
 
 A feature of the Bar Harbor life which 
 Mr. Pulitzer enjoyed greatly and which he
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 215 
 
 could not indulge In elsewhere were the long 
 trips he made in a big electric launch on the 
 sheltered waters of Frenchman's Bay. 
 When the weather was fine these trips occu- 
 pied two or three hours each day. J. P. sat 
 in an armchair amidships, with two com- 
 panions, very often his two older sons, to 
 read to him or to discuss business affairs. 
 
 On the occasions when I formed one of 
 the party I had the opportunity of observ- 
 ing that so far as the quantity and the qual- 
 ity of work were concerned it was an easier 
 task to be one of JNIr. Pulitzer's secretaries 
 than to be one of his sons. I have never seen 
 men put to a more severe test of industry, 
 concentration, and memory than were Mr. 
 Ralph and Mr. Joseph, Jr., while they were 
 at Bar Harbor or on the yacht. 
 
 It is a pleasure to bear witness to the af- 
 fectionate solicitude, the patience, and the 
 good will with which they met the exacting 
 demands of their father. They realized, of 
 course, as every one who worked for J. P. 
 realized it, that the weight of the burden he 
 placed upon you and the strictness of the
 
 216 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 account to which you were called were the 
 truest measure of his regard. 
 
 Next to politics there was nothing which 
 interested J. P. more than molding and de- 
 veloping the people around liim; and what 
 was no more than a strong interest when it 
 concerned his employees became a passion 
 when it concerned his sons. His activities in 
 this direction ministered alike to his love of 
 power and to his horror of wasted talents; 
 they gratified his ever-present desire to dis- 
 cover the boundaries of human character and 
 intellect, to explore the mazes of human tem- 
 perament and emotion. 
 
 What vou knew and what you were able 
 to do, once you had reached a certain stand- 
 ard, became secondary in his interest to what 
 you could be made to know and what you 
 could be taught to do. He was never con- 
 tent that a man should stand upon his rec- 
 ord; growth and development were the chief 
 aims of his discipline. 
 
 His method was well illustrated in my 
 own case. One of his earliest injunctions to 
 me was that I should never introduce any
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 217 
 
 subject of conversation connected, in how- 
 ever remote a degree, with my travels or 
 with my studies in relation to the govern- 
 ment of tropical dependencies. When, for 
 instance, he happened to need some informa- 
 tion about India or the West Indies, he al- 
 ways directed one of the other men to find it 
 for him. This arrangement had, from his 
 standpoint, the double advantage of making 
 the other man learn something of which he 
 was ignorant, and of leaving me free to 
 work at something of which I was ignorant. 
 Thus J. P. killed two intellectual birds with 
 one stone. 
 
 It was not only in regard to mental ac- 
 complishments, however, that J. P. pursued 
 his plan of educating everybody around 
 him. He insisted, among other things, that 
 I should learn to ride, not because there was 
 any lack of people who could ride with him, 
 but because by means of application I could 
 add a new item to the list of things I could 
 do. After a dozen lessons from a groom I 
 progressed so far that, having acquired the 
 ability to stay more or less in the saddle while
 
 218 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 the horse trotted, INIr. Puhtzer frequently 
 took me riding with him. 
 
 We always rode three abreast — a groom 
 on J. P.'s right and myself on his left; and 
 conversation had to be kept up the whole 
 time. This presented no peculiar difficulties 
 when the horses were walking, but when 
 they trotted I found it no easy task to keep 
 my seat, to preserve the precise distance 
 from J. P. which saved me from touching 
 his stirrup and yet allowed me to speak with- 
 out raising my voice, and to leave enough 
 of my mind unoccupied to remember my ma- 
 terial and to present it without betraying the 
 discomfort of my position. 
 
 During these rides, and especially when 
 w^e were walking our horses along a quiet, 
 shady stretch of road, J. P. sometimes be- 
 came reminiscent. On one of these occa- 
 sions he told me the story of how he lost his 
 sight. As I wrote it down as soon as we got 
 back to the house, I can tell it almost in his 
 own words. 
 
 We had been discussing the possibility of 
 his writing an autobiography, and he said.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER IN I902, 
 RIDING IN CENTRAL PARK WITH A SECRETARY
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 219 
 
 throwing his head back and smihng reflect- 
 ively : 
 
 "Well, I sometimes wish it could be done. 
 It would make an interesting book; but I 
 do not think I shall ever do it. My God! 
 I work from morning to night as it is. 
 When would I get the time?" 
 
 Then suddenly changing his mood: "It 
 won't do any harm for you to make a few 
 notes now and then, and some day, perhaps, 
 we might go through them and see if there 
 is anything worth preserving. Has any one 
 ever told you how I lost my sight? No? 
 Well, it was in November, 1887. The 
 World had been conducting a vigorous cam- 
 paign against municipal corruption in New 
 York — a campaign which ended in the ar- 
 rest of a financier who had bought the votes 
 of aldermen in order to get a street railroad 
 franchise." 
 
 At this point he paused. His jaws set, 
 and his expression became stern, almost 
 fierce, as he added: "The man died in jail 
 of a broken heart, and I . . and I . . . " 
 He took a deep breath and continued as
 
 220 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 though lie were reciting an experience which 
 he had heard related of some stranger. 
 
 "I was, of course, violently attacked; and 
 it was a period of terrible strain for me. 
 What with anxiety and overwork I began 
 to suffer from insomnia, and that soon pro- 
 duced a bad condition of my nerves. One 
 morning I went down to The World and 
 called for the editorials which were ready 
 for me to go over. I always read every line 
 of editorial copy. When I picked up the 
 sheets I was astonished to find that I could 
 hardly see the writing, let alone read it. I 
 thought it was probably due to indigestion 
 or to some other temporary cause, and said 
 nothing about it. The next morning on my 
 way downtown I called in at an oculist's. 
 He examined my eyes and then told me to 
 go home and remain in bed in a darkened 
 room for six weeks. At the end of that 
 time he examined me again, said that I had 
 ruptured a blood vessel in one of my eyes, 
 and ordered me to stop work entirely and to 
 take six months' rest in California. 
 
 "That was the begiiming of the end.
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 221 
 
 Whatever my trouble had been at first, it 
 developed into separation of the retina in 
 both eyes. From the day on which I first 
 consulted the oculist up to the present time, 
 about twenty-four years, I have only been 
 three times in The World building. Most 
 people tliink I'm dead, or living in Europe 
 in complete retirement. Now go on and 
 give me the morning's news. I've had prac- 
 tically nothing, so you can just run over it 
 briefly, item by item." 
 
 On another occasion he told me an amus- 
 ing story of an experience he had had out in 
 Missouri just after the end of the Civil War. 
 He had spent some weeks riding from coun- 
 ty-seat to county-seat securing registration 
 for a deed making title for a railroad. One 
 evening he was nearly drowned through his 
 horse stumbling in the middle of a ford. 
 When he dragged himself up the bank on 
 the other side, drenched to the skin and wor- 
 ried by the prospect of having to catch his 
 mount, which had started off* on a cross- 
 country gallop, he saw an elderly farmer sit-
 
 222 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 ting on a tree stump, and watching him with 
 intense interest and perfect seriousness. 
 
 This man put J. P. up for the night. 
 They got along famously for a while, hut 
 presently all was changed. 
 
 "The first thing he did," said J. P., "was 
 to take me to the farmhouse and hand me a 
 tumbler three parts full of whisky. When I 
 refused this he looked at me as though he 
 thought I was mad. 'Yer mean ter tell me 
 yer don't drink?' he said. (It was one of 
 the rare occasions when I heard Mr. Pulitzer 
 try to imitate any one's pecuUarities of 
 speech.) When I told him no, I didn't, he 
 said nothing, but brought me food. 
 
 "After I had eaten he pulled out a plug 
 of tobacco, bit off a large piece, and offered 
 the plug to me. I thanked him, but declined. 
 It took him some time to get over that, but 
 at last he said: 'Yer mean ter tell me yer 
 don't chew? I said no, I didn't. He 
 dropped the subject, and for an hour or so 
 we talked about the war and the crops and 
 the proposed railroad. 
 
 "That man was a gentleman. He didn't
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 223 
 
 take another drink or another chew of to- 
 bacco all that time. The only sign he gave 
 of his embarrassment was that every now 
 and then during a pause in the conversation 
 he fell to shaking his head in a puzzled sort 
 of way. Finally, before he went to bed, he 
 produced a pipe, filled it, and handed the 
 tobacco to me; but I failed liim again, and 
 he put his own pipe back in his pocket, firm- 
 ly but sorrowfully. 
 
 "Well, my God! it was nearly half an 
 hour before he spoke again, and I was be- 
 ginning to think that I had really wounded 
 his feelings by dechning his hospitable of- 
 fers, when he came over and stood in front 
 of me and looked down on me with an ex- 
 pression of profound pity. I shall never 
 forget his words. 'Young feller,' he said, 
 'you seem to be right smart and able for a 
 furriner, but let me tell you, you'll never 
 make a successful American until yer learn 
 to drink, and chew, and smoke.' " 
 
 Chatwold being within telephone distance 
 of New York, Jo P. was constantly sub- 
 jected to the temptation of ringing up The
 
 224 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 World in order to discuss editorial or busi- 
 ness matters. He yielded too often, and the 
 additional excitement and work incident to 
 these conversations (which were always car- 
 ried on through a third person) were a se- 
 vere strain on his vitality. When he was ab- 
 solutely worn out he would take refuge on 
 the yacht and steam out to sea for the pur- 
 pose of enjoying a few days of comparative 
 rest. 
 
 There is a matter which I may mention in 
 connection with J. P.'s life on the yacht 
 which, trivial as it seems when told at this 
 distance of time, never failed to make a pro- 
 found impression upon me. Of all the try- 
 ing moments which were inseparable from 
 attendance upon a blind man with a will of 
 iron and a nervous system of gossamer, no 
 moment was quite so full of uneasiness as 
 that in which J. P. used the gangway in 
 boarding or in leaving the yacht. 
 
 Take the case of his going ashore. The 
 yacht lies at anchor in a gentle swell; the 
 launch comes up to the gangway; two or 
 three men with boat-hooks occupy them-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 225 
 
 selves in trying to keep it steady. First over 
 the side goes Dunningham, backward, then 
 Mr. Puhtzer facing forward, one hand on 
 the gang-rail, the other on Dunningham's 
 shoulder; then an officer and one of the sec- 
 retaries, close behind J. P. and ready to 
 clutch him if he slipped. 
 
 Dunningham reaches the grating at the 
 foot of the gangway, then J. P., then there 
 is a pause while the latter is placed in the 
 exact position where one step forward will 
 carry him into the launch, where the officer 
 in charge is ready to receive him. 
 
 In the meantime the launch is bobbing up 
 and down, its gunwale at one instant level 
 with the gangway-grating, at another, two 
 or three feet below it. At the precise mo- 
 ment when the launch is almost at the top of 
 its rise Dunningham says: "Now, step, 
 please, Mr. Puhtzer." But J. P. waits just 
 long enough to allow the launch to drop a 
 couple of feet, and then suddenly makes up 
 his mind and tries to step off onto nothing. 
 Dunningham, the officer and the secretary
 
 226 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 seize him as he cries: "My God! What's 
 the matter? You told me to step." 
 
 Then follows a long argument as to what 
 Dunningham had meant precisely when he 
 said "Step!" Tliis whole process might be 
 repeated several times before he actually 
 found himself in the launch. 
 
 The whole thing inspired me with a mor- 
 bid curiosity; and whenever J. P. was going 
 up or down the gangway I always found 
 myself, in common, I may add, with a con- 
 siderable proportion of the ship's company, 
 leaning over the side watcliing this nerve- 
 racking exhibition. 
 
 I have said that it was J. P.'s custom to 
 seek repose on the yacht when he was worn 
 out with overwork ; but it would be more ac- 
 curate to say that rest was the seldom real- 
 ized object of these short cruises, for noth- 
 ing was more difficult for J. P. than to drop 
 his work so long as he had a vestige of 
 strength left with which he could flog his 
 mind into action. 
 
 Starting out with the best intentions, J. 
 P.'s cruises of recuperation were usually cut
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 227 
 
 short by putting in to Portland, or New 
 London, or Marblehead to get newspapers 
 and to send telegrams summoning to the 
 yacht one or another of the higher staiF of 
 The World, 
 
 It was, however, when we anchored, as 
 we often did, off Greenwich, Conn., that J. 
 P. indulged himself to his utmost capacity 
 in conferences with editors and business 
 managers of The World and with one or 
 two outsiders. We would drop anchor in 
 the afternoon, pick up a visitor, cruise in 
 the Sound for a night and a morning, drop 
 anchor again, send the visitor ashore, and 
 pick up another. 
 
 Toward the latter part of September, 
 1911, J. P. left the yacht and moved into 
 his town house in East 73d Street. It was a 
 large and beautifully designed mansion, dif- 
 fering in three particulars from the ordinary 
 run of residences which have been built, fur- 
 nished, and decorated with the utmost good 
 taste and without regard to expense. 
 
 The room in wliich J. P. usually took his 
 meals was a small but beautifully propor-
 
 228 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 tioned retreat so placed that it was com- 
 pletely surrounded bj^ other rooms and had 
 no direct contact with the outside world. It 
 was in its ground plan an irregular octagon, 
 and it drew its light and air from a glass 
 dome. The most striking element in the 
 decorations was a number of slender col- 
 umns of pale-green Irish marble, which rose 
 from the floor to the dome. 
 
 Another unusual feature of the house was 
 a superb church organ, which was built into 
 a large recess halfway up the main stair- 
 case. J. P. was an enthusiastic lover of or- 
 gan music, and heard as much of it as he 
 could during his brief visits to New York. 
 
 Tliere are no doubt other houses which 
 have an octagonal dining-room and a church 
 organ; but no other house, I am sure, has a 
 bedroom like that which Mr. Pulitzer occu- 
 pied. Although it appeared to form part of 
 the house, it did not, in fact, do so. It stood 
 upon its own foundations and was connected 
 with the main structure by some ingenious 
 device which isolated it from all vibrations 
 originating there. It was of the most solid
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 229 
 
 construction, and had but one window, a 
 very large affair, consisting of three case- 
 ments set one inside the other and provided 
 with heavy plate glass panels. Tliis triple 
 wdndow was never opened when Mr. Pulit- 
 zer was in the room, the ventilation being 
 secured by means of fans situated in a long 
 masonrj'- shaft whose interior opening was 
 in the chimney and whose exterior opening 
 was far enough away to forbid the passage 
 of any sound from the street. At inter\^als 
 inside this shaft were placed frames A^dth 
 silk threads drawn across them, for the pur- 
 pose of absorbing any faint vibrations 
 which might find their way in. In this bed- 
 room, with its trij)le window and its heavy 
 double-door closed, J. P. enjoyed as near an 
 approach to perfect quietness as it was pos- 
 sible to attain in New York. 
 
 I saw very little of J. P. when he was in 
 New York. He w^as much occupied with 
 f amity affairs ; he was in constant touch \^dth 
 the staff of The World; and the deep inter- 
 est he took in the prospects of the presiden- 
 tial election of 1912, which was already be-
 
 230 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 ing eagerly discussed, brought an unusual 
 number of visitors to the house. 
 
 The extent of mv intercourse with J. P. 
 at this time was an occasional drive in Cen- 
 tral Park, during which we talked of little 
 else but politics, and on that topic of little 
 else but Mr. Woodrow Wilson's speeches 
 and plans. 
 
 It did not take very long before the hard 
 work and the excitement of the New York 
 life reduced Mr. Pulitzer to a condition in 
 which it was imperative that he should go to 
 sea again and abandon completely his con- 
 tact with the daily events which stimulated 
 rather than nourished his mental powers. 
 
 On October 20, 1911, the LiberUj left 
 New York with J. P., his youngest son, 
 Herbert, and the usual staff. We headed 
 south, with nothing settled as to our plans 
 except that we might spend some time at 
 Mr. Pulitzer's house on Jekyll Island, Ga., 
 and might pass j^art of the winter cruising 
 in the West Indies. 
 
 As soon as we got settled down on board 
 I was delighted to find that J. P. had ap-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 231 
 
 parently satisfied himself in regard to my 
 qualifications and limitations. He aban- 
 doned the searching examinations which had 
 kept me on the rack for nearly eight months, 
 and our relations became much more agree- 
 able. 
 
 Apart from bearing my share in the rou- 
 tine work of dealing with the news of the 
 day and with the current magazine literature 
 my principal duty gradually assumed the 
 form of furnishing humor on demand. 
 
 The easiest part of this task was that of 
 reading humorous books to J. P. When he 
 was in the right mood and would submit to 
 the process, I read to him the greater part 
 of "Dooley," of Artemus Ward, of Max 
 Adler, and portions of W. W. Jacobs, of 
 Lorimer's Letters of a Self-made 3Ierchant 
 to His Son, of Mrs. Anne Warner's Susan 
 Clegg and Her Friend Mrs, JLathrop, and 
 of some of Stockton's delightful stories. 
 My greatest triumph was in inducing him to 
 forget for a while his intense aversion to 
 slang and to listen to the shrewd and genial 
 philosophy of George Ade.
 
 232 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 The work of the official humorist to J. P. 
 was rendered particularly arduous because 
 he carried into the field of humor, absolutely 
 unabated, his passion for facts. To most 
 people a large part of humor consists in the 
 manner of presentation, in the trick of 
 phrase, in the texture of the narrative. To 
 J. P. those things meant little or nothing; 
 what amused him was the situation disclosed, 
 the inherent humor of the action or thought. 
 
 As I have said, it was not difficult to read 
 humorous material to J. P. when he delib- 
 erately resigned himself to it. What was 
 exceedingly difficult was to rise to those fre- 
 quent occasions when, tired, vexed and out 
 of sorts, he suddenly interrupted your sum- 
 mary of a magazine article by saying: 
 "Stop! Stop! For God's sake! I've got a 
 frightful headache. Now tell me some hu- 
 morous stories — make me laugh." 
 
 In order to meet these urgent and embar- 
 rassing demands I ransacked the periodical 
 press of England and America. I procured 
 a year's file of Pearson's Weekly, of Tit
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 233 
 
 Bits and of Life^ and scores of stray copies 
 of Puck, Judge and Answers, 
 
 From these I cut hundreds of short hu- 
 morous paragraphs, which I kept in a box 
 in my cabin. Whenever I was summoned 
 to attend upon J. P. I put a handful of these 
 chppings in my pocket. I am afraid I 
 should make enemies if I were to tell of the 
 thousands of stories I had to read in order 
 to get the hundreds which came within range 
 even of my modest hopes; but I may say 
 that line for line I got more available stories 
 from the "Newspaper Waifs" on the edi- 
 torial page of the New York Evening Post 
 than from any other source. 
 
 Even after I had labored long and hero- 
 ically in the vineyard of professional humor, 
 grape juice, and not wine, was the com- 
 moner product of my efforts. 
 
 It was no unusual experience that after I 
 had told J. P. one of the best tales in my 
 collection he would say: "Well, go on, go 
 on, come to the point. For God's sake, isn't 
 there any end to this story?" 
 
 On October 25, 1911, we put into the har-
 
 234 JOSEPH rULITZER 
 
 bor of Charlestown, S. C. There was the 
 usual business of collecting mail, news- 
 papers, and so on, for J. P., after five days 
 at sea, was eager to pick up the thread of 
 current happenings. 
 
 On the following day Mr. Lathan, editor 
 of the Charleston Courier, lunched on the 
 yacht. He and Mr. Pulitzer had an ani- 
 mated discussion about the possibilities of a 
 Democratic victory in 1912. I had never 
 seen J. P. in a more genial mood or in higher 
 spirits. 
 
 Whether it was due to the excitement of 
 receiving a visitor whose conversation was so 
 stimulating I do not know; but on Friday, 
 October 27, J. P. was feeling so much out 
 of sorts that he did not appear on deck. On 
 Saturday he remained below only because 
 Dunningham, who always kept the closest 
 watch over his health, persuaded him to have 
 a good rest before resuming the ordinary 
 routine. J. P. was anxious to take up some 
 business matters with Thwaites, but Dun- 
 ningham induced him to give up the idea. 
 
 At three o'clock in the morning of Sun-
 
 JOSEPH PULITZER 235 
 
 day, October 29, Dunningham came to my 
 cabin and, without making any explanation, 
 said: 
 
 "Mr. Pulitzer wishes you to come and 
 read to him." 
 
 I put on a dressing gown, gathered up 
 half a dozen books, and in five minutes I 
 was sitting by Mr. Pulitzer's bedside. He 
 was evidently suffering a good deal of pain, 
 for he turned from side to side, and once or 
 twice got out of bed and sat in an easy 
 chair. 
 
 I tried several books, but finally settled 
 down to read Macaulay's Essay on Hallam. 
 I read steadily until about five o'clock, and 
 J. P. listened attentively, interrupting me 
 from time to time with a direction to go back 
 and read over a passage. 
 
 About half -past five he began to suffer 
 severely, and he sent for the yacht's doctor, 
 who did what was possible for him. At a 
 few minutes after six J. P. said: "Now, Mr. 
 Ireland, you'd better go and get some sleep ; 
 we will finish that this afternoon. Good- 
 bye, I'm much obliged to you. Ask Mr.
 
 236 JOSEPH PULITZER 
 
 INIann to come to me. Go, now, and have 
 a good rest, and forget all about me." 
 
 I slept till noon. When I came on deck 
 I found that everything was going on much 
 as usual. One of the secretaries was with 
 J. P. ; the others were at work over the day's 
 papers. 
 
 At lunch we spoke of J. P. One man said 
 that he seemed a little worse than usual, an- 
 other that he had seen him much worse a 
 score of times. 
 
 Suddenly the massive door at the forward 
 end of the saloon opened. I turned in my 
 seat and saw framed in the doorway the tow- 
 ering figure of the head butler. I faced his 
 impassive glance, and received the full shock 
 of his calm but incredible announcement: 
 "Mr. Puhtzer is dead." 
 
 The End
 
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