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In the company of his newly purloined editor from Albert’s paper, Pulitzer went to inspect his new property on the evening of May 10. The paper was housed in a fire-damaged building at the lower end of Park Row. The fabled block housed a dozen or more daily papers. This was the newspapers’ golden age, and Park Row was the richest vein. But in New York, unlike St. Louis, Pulitzer faced competition from sophisticated, well-funded, worldly publications. Aside from Albert’s Morning Journal, there were the immensely profitable New York Herald, run by James Gordon Bennett Jr.; Charles Dana’s Sun, still attracting more than 100,000 readers each day with its compact four-page format; the late Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, now ruled by Whitelaw Reid, a conservative Republican sheet serving the prosperous. If there was a turtle among these hares, it was the sober New York Times, slowly winning a loyal following.

Pulitzer and Hancock entered the World newsroom just as the staff was putting the finishing touches on the next day’s edition. Although Pulitzer’s arrival had been preceded by a memo telling the employees that the new owner wished to retain them in their positions at their current salaries, the nearly 100 reporters, editors, compositors, and printers were anxious to catch a glimpse of this thirty-six-year-old outsider who held their future in his hands. The departure of the existing senior management, fleeing like ship rats, forecast great changes.

Escorting Pulitzer around the newsroom, Hancock urged him to write some sort of pronouncement for the next day’s edition. Taking a pen, Pulitzer hurriedly began. While a newspaper must be independent, he wrote for his first editorial in the paper, “it must not be indifferent or neutral on any question involving public interest.” Then, collating phrases from his stump speeches and from five years of editorial struggles against entrenched interests in St. Louis, Pulitzer pledged that the World would fight against monopolies, organized privilege, corrupt officials, and other threats to democracy. “Its rock of faith must be true Democracy,” he wrote. “Not the Democracy of a political machine. Not the Democracy which seeks to win the spoils of office from a political rival, but the Democracy which guards with jealous care the rights of all alike, and perpetuates the free institutions it first established.

“Performance is better than promises. Exuberant assurances are cheap,” Pulitzer continued, adding a signed announcement of the change of ownership that he had drafted to accompany his editorial. Simply watch the paper and see for yourself, he 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.” Done, Pulitzer handed the sheets to an eighteen-year-old compositor, who would later become one of his editors, and his words were rapidly set into type in time for the press run.

Before leaving for the night, Pulitzer made one alteration to the look of the paper that hinted at his ambitions. He dropped “New York” from the name and restored the nameplate that had been used when the World began in 1860. At its center, framed by the words “The World,” was a printing press with rays of light emanating from it like the sun flanked by the two hemispheres of the globe.

While Joseph made plans for his newspaper, Albert made repairs to his. He had managed to locate a new editor. In fact, the replacement turned out to be an improvement, and the stolen Hancock lasted only a few days under Joseph. Still fuming over the raid, Albert ran into Joseph at Madison Square Garden.

“I congratulate you on your new recruits,” Albert said. “Perhaps you would now like