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Not being among the speakers, Pulitzer reserved his thoughts for the World’s editorial page. In his inimitable style, decorated with Old World flourishes, he wrote, “The statue represents, upon a standpoint at last firmly held, the results of centuries of struggle against oppression, ignorance, bigotry and might unsupported by right. It breathes a sense of relief that so much has been won.”

Among those who did speak at the ceremonies was Chauncey Depew. He and Pulitzer had recently become friends, and theirs was the first of several friendships Pulitzer made among New York’s elite that could challenge his ability to run a newspaper championing the common man. Not only was Depew a Republican; he was president of the New York Central, the rail line controlled by Vanderbilt and the World’s most frequent target in its war against monopolies. But Depew had more savvy than most of the World’s targets. He recognized that the new medium Pulitzer commanded was, at its core, a business. He and Pulitzer were both captains of industry. The difference was just that Pulitzer made his money tearing apart the other.

As one of the figures in the famous “Belshazzar” cartoon that had irreparably damaged Blaine’s presidential campaign, Depew had felt the World’s sting. But he believed more was to be gained by being friends with Pulitzer than by being his enemy. A year earlier, Depew had disarmed Pulitzer with a dinner toast in which he recounted their first meeting. Depew said that Pulitzer warned him that the paper would include him in its attacks on New York Central, monopolies, and Vanderbilt. But, Depew said, Pulitzer then added, “‘When Mr. Vanderbilt finds that you are attacked, he is a gentleman and broad-minded enough to compensate you and will grant to you both significant promotion and a large increase in salary.’

“Well, gentlemen,” Depew told the dinner crowd, “I have only to say that Mr. Pulitzer’s experiment has been eminently successful. He has made his newspaper a recognized power and a notable organ of public opinion; its fortunes are made and so are his, and in regard to myself, all he predicted has come true, both in promotion and in enlargement of income.”

With the Statue of Liberty now part of New York’s landscape, as he had promised, Pulitzer turned his attention to the mayoral election. Although he apparently had three choices—the Democrats’ Abram Hewitt, the United Labor Party’s Henry George, and the Republicans’ Theodore Roosevelt—in fact he had only two. He still considered the twenty-eight-year-old Roosevelt a traitor to the cause of reform. The World would have to choose between Hewitt and George.

Hewitt was a competent, honest, experienced politician; George was only famous as the author of Progress and Poverty, a wildly popular book that advocated the abolition of most taxes, the abolition of monopolies, and the creation of numerous social programs. If it were up to Pulitzer’s working-class readers, the endorsement would have gone to George. But the World did not belong to them. Davidson pleaded with Pulitzer to support George. “He will be treated fairly,” Pulitzer replied, saying he would meet George. “But I can’t promise anything until all the candidates are known. Then I shall do whatever I think is best for the City.”

In the end, Hewitt won the World’s editorial support, but in this election, unlike that of 1884, Pulitzer consented to restrain the news side from attacking Hewitt’s opponents. Though the World criticized George in its editorials, it gave him a fair break. “You are doing excellently well by George, better than if you openly supported him,” wrote Davidson. “His candidacy will, in any case, do much good in making people think and forcing the parties to put forward reputable candidates.”

On Election Day, Pulitzer’s candidate carried the day. Roosevelt came in a distant third. It was a stinging defeat. “I do not disguise from myself that this is the end of my political career,” he told a close friend. Although Pulitzer was not to blame for the loss,