Joseph Pulitzer

  General Notes:

Creator of the "Pulitzer Prize"


Obituary from the 10-29-1911 New York Times:

The New York Times
October 30, 1911

Joseph Pulitzer Dies Suddenly

Owner of the New York World Succumbs to Heart Disease
on His Yacht at Charleston

His Last Words in German

"Leise, Ganz Leise," (Softly, Quite Softly,) He Said to His
Reading Secretary

Wife Summoned in Time

She and Youngest Son at His Bedside--Body Will Be
Brought Here for Interment

Special to The New York Times

HARLESTON, S.C., Oct. 29.--Joseph Pulitzer, proprietor of The
New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, died aboard his yacht,
the Liberty, in Charleston Harbor at 1:40 o'clock this afternoon. The
immediate cause of Mr. Pulitzer's death was heart disease. Although he had
been in poor health for some time, there was no suspicion on the part of those
accompanying him that his condition was serious.

The change for the worse came at about 2 o'clock this morning, when he
suffered an attack of severe pain. By daylight he appeared to be better and
fell asleep soon after 10:30. He awoke at 1 o'clock and complained of pain in
his heart. Soon he fell into a faint and expired at 1:40 o'clock.

Mrs. Pulitzer, who had been sent for, arrived from New York today, and
reached the yacht shortly before her husband died. At his bedside also when
the end came was his youngest son, Herbert, who has been cruising with his
father.

Mr. Pulitzer's body will be taken north at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon on a
special Pullman car. The funeral will be held at Woodlawn Cemetery in New
York probably toward the end of this week.

Mr. Pulitzer's son, Joseph, Jr., is now on his way from St. Louis with his wife,
and one of his daughters will come from Florida. Ralph Pulitzer, the eldest
son, is on the way to Charleston, and will meet the train en route.

Up to an hour and a half before his death Mr. Pulitzer's mind remained
perfectly clear. His German secretary had been reading to him an account of
the reign of Louis the Eleventh of France, in whose career Mr. Pulitzer had
always taken the liveliest interest. As the secretary neared the end of his
chapter and came to the death of the French King, Mr. Pulitzer said to him:

"Leise, ganz leise, ganz leise." (softly, quite softly.)

These were the last words he spoke.

Some members of Mr. Pulitzer's party will go north to-morrow on the train
with Mrs. Pulitzer, Herbert Pulitzer, and the body of the dead journalist. The
other members of the party will remain on the yacht which will probably sail
for New York to-morrow.

Mr. Pulitzer's yacht has been in Charleston Harbor for six days. She was on
the way to Jekyl Island, near Brunswick, Ga., where Mr. Pulitzer had a
Winter home. On account of the threatening weather and the reported West
Indian hurricane, however, she put into Charleston.

Mr. Pulitzer was attended in his last illness by Dr. Robert Wilson of
Charleston and Dr. Guthman, Mr. Pulitzer's physician.

Mr. Pulitzer, accompanied by his younger son, Herbert, left New York
aboard his yacht on Oct. 18, intending to take a leisurely voyage to Jekyl
Island.

Aside from a heavy cold which had prevented him from taking his daily drives
in Central Park, Mr. Pulitzer was in his usual health when he left this city. He
was taken ill on Friday, and the yacht put into Charleston. His illness proving
serious a telegram was sent to his wife who left New York for Charleston
yesterday.

Mr. Pulitzer's Career Remarkable Rise from Poverty to Wealth and
Power

Joseph Pulitzer's career was a striking example of the opportunities that have
been found in the United States for advancement from penury and
friendlessness to wealth and power. Few who have come here to find their
fortunes have been more handicapped at the start. He was without funds, had
no acquaintances in this country, did not know the language, and suffered
from defective vision which harassed him all his life, and made sad his last
years, when he was compelled practically to retire from active work. Few
have had struggles more severe, yet at 31, thirteen years after landing at
Castle Garden, he was the owner of a daily newspaper and on the road to
riches.

Mr. Pulitzer's influence on the development of modern American journalism
has been large. In the first issue of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch he gave
expression to those ideals as follows:

The Post and Dispatch will serve no party but the people; will be no organ of
Republicanism, but the organ of truth, will follow no caucuses but its own
convictions; will not support the Administration, but criticise it; will oppose all
frauds and shams wherever and whatever they are; will advocate principles
and ideas rather than prejudices and partisanship.

In assuming proprietorship of The New York World, Mr. Pulitzer said:

There is room in this great and growing city for a journal that is not only cheap
but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but truly
democratic--dedicated to the cause of the people rather than that of purse
potentates--devoted more to the news of the New than the Old World; that
will expose all fraud and sham; fight all public evils and abuses; that will serve
and battle for the people with earnest sincerity.

Arrived Here Penniless

Joseph Pulitzer was born in Budapest in 1847. His father was a business man,
supposedly of means, but when he died, while Joseph was still a boy, it was
found that the estate was very small. In order that he might not be a burden on
his mother, Joseph determined to enter the army. He applied to his uncle, who
was a Colonel in the Austrian Army, but when he was examined as to
physical fitness he was rejected because of the defect in one of his eyes. He
went to Germany and sought to enter th Prussian Army, but was again
rejected for the same reason. He tried to enlist in France and England with the
same result.

The civil war was in progress in this country, and he decided to come here. It
exhausted his resources to pay his passage, and he landed at Castle Garden in
1864 practically penniless. He knew nobody in this country and could speak
only a dozen words of English. Within a few days, however, he met a
fellow-countryman who had just enlisted in a German cavalry regiment then
being raised in this city. Men were badly needed in the Union Army, and the
requirements as to sharpness of vision were not as strict as in time of peace.
The young Austrian was enrolled and served to the end of the war in the
Lincoln Cavalry, as the regiment was called, part of the time under Sheridan.

When he was mustered out at its close in New York City he was still ignorant
of English, as his soldier companions had all been of foreign birth and spoke
their native languages. Another Austrian who had been his close companion
suggested that they go West to seek their fortunes. They went to a railroad
ticket office, threw down all the money they had between them, and asked for
passage as far West as their capital would take them. It was thus by chance
that Mr. Pulitzer went to St. Louis. Their tickets were only to East St. Louis,
Ill., across the river from the Missouri city. There was no bridge in those days,
but Pulitzer made himself acquainted with the fireman on a ferryboat, and
offered to do his firing if he would take him across. He not only got across by
this means, but was continued at work as a fireman until he became a
stevedore on the wharves of St. Louis.

After alternating as stevedore and as fireman on boats plying between St.
Louis and New Orleans for some time he had enough money saved to start in
business as a boss stevedore in St. Louis. This was his first enterprise, and it
was not a success. Its failure left him again penniless, and with his strength
diminished. He applied to an employment agency for lighter work, and got a
place as a coachman in a private family. Here again his defective vision
proved a handicap, and after two weeks he was discharged because his
employer feared he would run into something.

Pulitzer vainly sought employment in every direction. There was a cholera
epidemic in St. Louis and the undertakers were in need of help to bury the
hundreds who died. He eagerly took up this work and was soon digging
trenches on Arsenal Island. He went from one humble employment to another
until a St. Louis politician, noting his ignorance of American ways, induced
him to take a post that no well-informed person would have undertaken. In
the reconstruction days, after the close of the war, Missouri was largely in the
hands of bushwhackers and guerrillas. In order to have the charter of the St.
Louis & San Francisco Railroad recorded in each county of the State it was
necessary that the papers should be personally filed with the clerk of every
county, and it was expected that the man engaged in the task would almost
certainly lose his life. Pulitzer realized nothing of this and started off joyously
on a horse provided for him. He completed the task and returned to St. Louis
still in ignorance of the risk he had run.

This experience marked the turning point in his early struggles. It gave him a
knowledge which no other man then possessed of the land conditions of every
county in the State, and real estate men found his services invaluable. Even
during his earlier vicissitudes he had been a voracious reader and eager
student and had already begun to study law. This he went ahead with rapidly,
and in 1868, four years after he landed at Castle Garden, he was admitted to
the bar. He practiced for a short time, but the profession was too slow for
him. He was bursting with ambition and energy and found it impossible to
confine himself to the tedious routine of a young attorney. He looked about
for some manner of life in which he could bring all his suppressed energies into
immediate play. He found it in journalism.

Enters Journalism and Politics

He became a reporter for the Westliche Post, a German paper edited by Carl
Schurz. His first appearance in this capacity was recently described by one
who had been at the time a reporter on an English paper as follows:

I remember his appearance distinctly, because he apparently had dashed out
of the office upon receiving the first intimation of whatever was happening,
without stopping to put on his coat or collar. In one hand he held a pad of
paper and in the other a pencil. He did not wait for inquiries, but announced
that he was the reporter for The Westliche Post, and then he began to ask
questions of everybody in sight. I remember to have remarked to my
companions that for a beginner he was exasperatingly inquisitive. The manner
in which he went to work to dig out the facts, however, showed that he was a
born reporter.

Mr. Pulitzer's chief ambition at that time seemed to be to root out public
abuses and expose evildoers. In work of this kind he was particularly
indefatigable and absolutely fearless.

This was 1868, and before the year was over he had risen to city editor and
later to managing editor. Still later he became part owner of the paper. In the
meantime he had begun taking an active part in National and local politics. In
1869 he was elected to the Missouri Legislature, though but twenty-two years
old, and only five years after he had landed here penniless and ignorant of the
language. In 1872 he was a delegate to the Cincinnati Convention that
nominated Horace Greeley as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency.
In 1874 he sold his interest in the paper and went abroad to complete his
education, but soon returned to this country. That same year he was a
member of the Missouri Constitutional Convention.

During the bitter contest that followed the Tilden-Hayes campaign Mr.
Pulitzer served The New York Sun at Washington as special correspondent
and editorial writer. His articles were of vitriolic brilliancy and appeared over
his own name, a departure that was rare in those days. He continued this
work until 1878, when he again visited Europe.

On his return in the Fall of that year he went to St. Louis, where The Evening
Dispatch was to be sold at auction after a precarious existence of several
years. Mr. Pulitzer bought it for $2,500. When he entered the office the next
morning as proprietor of his own newspaper he was unable to find as much as
a bushel of coal or a roll of white paper. More complete ruin and decay were
never seen in a newspaper office. By impressing into service everybody within
reach he managed to get out an issue of 1,000 copies. He set to work at once
with characteristic energy to improve the situation. At that time the journalistic
field in the West was occupied almost exclusively by morning papers. There
were two other afternoon papers in St. Louis, The Post and The Star. Within
forty-eight hours he had absorbed the Post, and the first number of The
Post-Dispatch, which afterward became an enormous success, was issued.

During this period his political activities continued. In 1880 he was a delegate
to the Democratic National Convention, and in 1884 he was elected to
Congress from a New York district. The duties of this position so interfered
with his journalistic affairs that he resigned after a few months' service.

Buys The New York World

It was just at this time, in fact, that he bought the New York World from Jay
Gould. The World had never made a striking success. It had been started in
June, 1880, as a penny paper of absolutely blameless features, eschewing in
its make-up intelligence of scandals, divorces, and even dramatic news. Its
backing was ample, but it failed to make money. Mr. Pulitzer bought this
moribund paper and took possession May 10, 1883. Enormous difficulties
confronted him from the start.

By the adoption of methods similar to those he had employed in St. Louis,
however, Mr. Pulitzer soon had The World on a paying basis. Of these
beginnings The World itself recently said:

He was unable to expend large sums of money in the gathering of news, for
the very excellent reason that he did not have it to spend. He did instill life and
energy into every department of the paper on the very first day of his
proprietorship, and in no part was the change in the character of matter
printed more noticeable than in the news columns. But it is a fact, patent to
any one who will turn over the files for that year, that the first impetus given to
the new World came from the editorial page. To this Mr. Pulitzer gave his
personal and almost undivided attention, and by this agency first impressed
upon the public mind the fact that a new, vigorous, and potent moral force
had sprung up in the community.

Of late years Mr. Pulitzer's health had not been of the best, his old eye trouble
making impracticable the prolonged devotion to work that characterized his
early career. He had been obliged to spend much of his time abroad or at his
country seat at Bar Harbor. But his hand was felt directing the destinies of
The World, no matter in what corner of the globe he happened to be.

Mr. Pulitzer had one of the most expensive households in America. He had a
home in East Seventy-third Street, a fine estate at Bar Harbor, and another
country place on Jekyl Island, off the Georgia coast. Also he usually had two
or three places abroad under lease, and a 1,500-ton steam yacht that added
$100,000 a year to his expenditures.

His blindness made it necessary for him to have a large personal staff. No
man kept more closely in touch with what was going on in the world, and all
the information had to come to him by word of mouth. He could not read; he
could not distinguish the faces of those about him. He could only listen and
think.

Of his homes he liked Bar Harbor best, and often remained there long after
the Winter snow was on the ground.

In Summer he rose early, and if the weather was fine he breakfasted on his
own private veranda with his physician and companion, who told him the
important events in the day's news. Then came an exhausting business session
with his private secretary, which usually lasted two hours. Then, becoming
weary and needing the air and sunshine, he went out to drive or to ride in an
electric launch, ever bidding the boatman to head into the breeze.

Then he was ready to work with his newspaper secretary, who had been
going over the newspapers since early morning, digesting not only The World,
but its contemporaries. Sometimes he had a visitor from the office, maybe the
chief editorial writer or the managing editor or a reporter.

This session usually lasted about two hours, and then Mr. Pulitzer was ready
for luncheon with the family.

In his entourage was usually a professional pianist, usually a German. After
two hours of music Mr. Pulitzer had one of his staff read to him, usually a
novel, until he was ready to sleep.

When in New York he rode through Central Park early in the morning, but
the hours were even more crowded with work. He completely tired out every
one of his men who was associated with him. Also, he kept them busy when
they were away from him. His own capacity for work was so enormous that
he thought the tasks that would be play for him were equally easy for others.

Since attaining affluence Mr. Pulitzer had given considerable sums to
philanthropy, chiefly in the cause of education. To the City of New York he
gave a dozen or more free scholarships of $250 each for poor pupils anxious
to gain a college education. In making this annual gift Mr. Pulitzer said:

My especial object is to help the poor; the rich can help themselves. I believe
in self- made men. But it is not the aim of this plan to help people for ordinary
money-making purposes. College education is not needed for that. There are
nobler purposes in life, and my hope is not that these scholarships will make
better butchers, bakers, brokers and bank cashiers, but that they will help to
make teachers, scholars, physicians, authors, journalists, Judges, lawyers, and
statesmen. They certainly ought to increase, not diminish, the number of those
who, under our free institutions, rise from the humblest to the highest
positions. I have not entered upon this scheme without careful thought. It was
a dream of youth. It is the conviction of experience.

Subsequently Mr. Pulitzer gave to Columbia University an endowment of
$1,000,000 for the establishment of a school of journalism, which it has been
understood would be utilized after his death.

After he had become wealthy he often referred to his early struggles in
conversation with his intimates. One night while strolling about the city with
Col. John A. Cockerill, one of The World's editors, he pointed to a bench in
Madison Square on which a poor, decayed specimen of humanity was
stretched.

"That," he said, "is where I also slept many a night. I had no bed when I first
came to this city; I had no roof over my head. Every pleasant night until I
found employment I slept upon that bench, and my summons to breakfast was
frequently the rap of a policeman's club."

"What did you do about rainy nights?" asked Cockerill.

"Come with me," was the answer. Mr. Pulitzer took his companion nearly two
miles further down Broadway, and, turning into Park Place, showed him a
number of truck which were placed there every evening on account of the
insufficiency of stable room in that locality. These vehicles were long and
broad and roomy, and, while the bed of cobblestones beneath them was not
altogether soft, yet it was drier than that furnished by an uncovered bench.
Pointing beneath one of these, Mr. Pulitzer said: "Under such a wagon as that
and on that spot I slept on rainy nights."

Mr. Pulitzer was married in 1877 to Miss Kate Davis of Washington, a niece
of Jefferson Davis. He leaves five children, Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Ralph,
Herbert, Constance, and Edith.

Ralph Pulitzer married Miss Frederica Vanderbilt Webb, daughter of W.
Seward Webb, in 1905. Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., was married last year. His wife
was Miss Eleanor Wickham of St. Louis. Mr. Pulitzer's daughters are both
unmarried.




Taken from the Bibliography Directory of the United States Congress:

PULITZER, Joseph, a Representative from New York; born in Makdo, near Budapest, Hungary, April 10, 1847; received his early training from a private tutor; immigrated to the United States in 1864; enlisted as a private in the Union Army at the age of seventeen in the First Regiment, New York (Lincoln) Cavalry, in Kingston, N.Y., September 30, 1864; mustered out in Alexandria, Va., June 5, 1865; resumed civil life in St. Louis, Mo.; studied law and was admitted to practice by the supreme court of Missouri; entered journalism in 1867 as a reporter on the St. Louis Westliche Post and became managing editor and part proprietor; elected to the Missouri legislature in 1869; delegate to the Reform Republican Convention at Cincinnati in 1872; member of the State constitutional convention in 1874; founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch December 10, 1878, and continued to own and publish it until his death; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1880; moved to New York City in the Spring of 1883 and bought the New York World; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth Congress and served from March 4, 1885, until April 10, 1886, when he resigned; died aboard his yacht in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., October 29, 1911; interment in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City.

Joseph married Katherine "Kate" Davis in 1877. (Katherine "Kate" Davis was born in 1858 and died in 1927.)