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but decided its income was worth the headaches. Pulitzer knew he needed lieutenants. Finding the right ones was the problem. There was no lack of applicants. “It is approaching somewhat of a craze now in the newspaper circles of the metropolis to get on the World,” reported The Journalist. But Pulitzer had a string of bad luck. He hired one business manager away from the Herald, but the manager proceeded to discount advertising sold to big retailers, against Pulitzer’s wishes. The next hire turned out to have pocketed some of the advertising revenue at his previous job. Frustrated, Pulitzer telegraphed to James Scott, publisher of the Chicago Herald, for help. “I have always found it easier to get good writers than good reliable men for the business office,” Scott wrote back. “The business end of the World is an immense responsibility and no man of ordinary newspaper experience would be the equal to its management.”

The news management of the paper was safely in Cockerill’s hands. But he was an exception—Pulitzer had such immense trust in Cockerill that he considered him his equal. For other positions of importance, even if Pulitzer managed to find a suitable man, he was ill suited to delegating work. He never really surrendered the responsibility, and he spent enormous amounts of time instructing, informing, and interfering with the person assigned to handle the work.

His election to Congress and the public’s perception that Cleveland owed the presidency to Pulitzer compounded his misery by bringing an onslaught of demands for patronage jobs. Friends and strangers plied him with requests to become postmaster in Colorado, territorial governor of New Mexico, consul to Hawaii, or American minister to Berlin. The parade of supplicants thwarted the civil service commissioner’s attempts to meet with Pulitzer on legitimate government business. “I called at your office yesterday,” wrote the frustrated official, “but there was such a queue of persons at the desk that I could not wait my turn to send up my card without which formality access to you was denied me.” The new Congress would not convene until the end of the year, but already Pulitzer regretted accepting the nomination. After years of wanting to be an elected politician, he found that the appeal of office was fading.

In early February 1885 Pulitzer traveled to Washington to see what awaited him when he assumed office. The Missouri delegation welcomed him and took him to the floor of the House of Representatives, where a debate droned on. After sitting for about an hour, Pulitzer went up to Representative James Burnes of Missouri and asked, “Have I got to stay in this place two years?”

Politics seemed even less attractive when Pulitzer returned to New York. Cleveland was staying on the tenth floor of the Victoria Hotel. Job seekers, well-wishers, party officials, and cranks swarmed into the hotel. The police kept them in line while Cleveland’s secretary screened calling cards. Pulitzer arrived at the hotel around noon. He scampered up a private staircase to the tenth floor and gave his card to the secretary, who disappeared into the presidential chambers. When he returned, he said that Pulitzer would have to wait a minute. “I am not accustomed to waiting,” Pulitzer snapped, and then bounded down the staircase before the secretary could recover from the angry outburst. Later that evening, Pulitzer was persuaded to return to the hotel to meet Cleveland, and his bruised feelings were further assuaged when he was invited to dine with the president-elect and a small group a couple of nights later.

Pulitzer expected a revolution from Cleveland. In the World, he argued that the president should accept no gifts, tolerate no nepotism, tax luxuries, and impose a tariff to protect labor. More important, Pulitzer wanted a political quail hunt. Cleveland needed to flush out all the Republicans in appointed offices, gain access to their supposedly secret records, and expose the skullduggery of past years. Democrats should be the ones to staff the government, Pulitzer said. “A