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Along with the summer’s heat came the political conventions. The Republicans selected as their nominee James Blaine, a former House Speaker, U.S. senator from Maine, and secretary of state. It was a poor choice because Blaine had an odor of corruption dating back to suspicious relationships with several major railroads in the 1870s. Many Republicans, particularly the reform-minded ones, were uncomfortable with their party’s choice.

As the convention broke up, a reporter for the World caught up with one of the disgruntled delegates. At age twenty-five, delegate Theodore Roosevelt was a rising political figure in New York. “I am going cattle-ranching in Dakota for the remainder of the summer and part of the fall,” he snapped. The reporter persisted: would he support Blaine? “That question I decline to answer. It is a subject that I do not care to talk about.” But, after some reflection at his ranch, a calmer Roosevelt announced that, yes, he would vote for Blaine.

A Republican who portrayed himself as a reformer but was supporting Blaine was too tempting a target for Pulitzer to ignore. When Roosevelt first attracted notice as a municipal reformer in the legislature, Pulitzer had been favorably impressed, even though the man was a Republican. But he concluded that Roosevelt had gone soft in his pursuit of corruption in return for advancement in his party’s ranks. “It is not surprising that young Mr. Roosevelt should prefer to offend honesty rather than to displease the machine. He is of the finical dancing-master school of reform, whose disciples are the most useful tools of the political managers,” wrote Pulitzer. “We denounced young Mr. Roosevelt as a reform fraud and a Jack-in-the-box politician who disappears whenever his boss applies a gentle pressure to his aspiring head,” he said. “In short, we have discovered that young Mr. Roosevelt is a humbug who only masquerades as a reformer while in reality is one of the most subservient of machine politicians.”

Roosevelt was a victim of Pulitzer’s stubborn, unbending insistence on principle over compromise or expediency. This was an easy stance for the nation’s newest and most prominent newspaper publisher to take. His measure of accomplishment was a blistering editorial that excited partisans and attracted readers. But for an ambitious politician like Roosevelt, success demanded results, and these required both political compromise and electoral success.

Had Pulitzer understood the necessity of compromise, he might have forged an alliance with Roosevelt that would have accelerated the political change they both sought. Instead, the editorial shot across Roosevelt’s bow became the first of many. None of Pulitzer’s attacks would be ignored by Roosevelt, who never forgave or forgot an affront. The two men were so pigheaded that they failed to see their common interest.

Although Blaine had the crucial support of young Theodore Roosevelt in New York, he lacked that of Roscoe Conkling, who still commanded a considerable following. But the former U.S. senator was working as Pulitzer’s attorney, fighting the many libel suits brought against the audacious World; also he was in no mood to forgive Blaine for their decades-long feud in Congress. “I have given up criminal law,” Conkling said when asked if he would endorse Blaine. Instead, he worked secretly with Pulitzer to undermine Blaine by writing a series of critical columns for the World, under the pen name “Stalwart.”

Pulitzer could hardly restrain his optimism about his party’s prospects. He told his readers that Blaine was “the embodiment of corruption in legislation, demagogism in politics and cupidity in affairs.” In 1884, unlike 1880, Pulitzer had no trouble backing a candidate. Two years earlier he had cast his lot with Grover Cleveland, the rotund governor of New York, who had a well-deserved reputation for integrity. Then, however, Pulitzer was speaking only to a modest midwestern audience from his editorial pulpit at the Post-Dispatch. Now he had the