Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [158]
In a decade, Pulitzer had gone from hiding his last savings of $300 in a trunk to earning more than that amount every hour. With money, the Pulitzers had slipped easily into the society of wealthy American expatriates in Europe. They moved about, from Paris to London to St. Moritz, with an entourage of personal servants and nannies. Kate attended weddings with royalty and wore diamonds said to have once belonged to Marie Antoinette. “And Mrs. Pulitzer has the right to wear them,” said one newspaper. “Thirty years ago her husband was shoveling coal and driving drays, but his indomitable energy and active brain have placed him where he can afford to buy out half a dozen royal families.”
Pulitzer also increased his philanthropy. In May, he anonymously established a scholarship to send twelve New York City high school students, particularly immigrant children, to college. “My special object is to help the poor—the rich can help themselves,” he told the city’s school superintendent. But Pulitzer did not want the money to simply increase the earning power of its recipients. “College education is not needed for that,” he said. “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.” On the other hand, his friend Chauncey Depew predicted that the recipients would end up still being paupers.
In the fall, the Pulitzers returned to Paris, where Joe and Edith, who had spent the summer in the care of Kate’s mother and sister in New London, Connecticut, arrived for a short visit. The children found their father preoccupied with the new building for the World. Work had been under way for four months, and in October the cornerstone was scheduled to be laid in an elaborate ceremony. Pulitzer had already spent $630,000 for the land and was now paying out another $1 million for the construction. Not a dime was borrowed.
Nothing about the project escaped his attention. He examined sketches and descriptions of the sculptures being made for the exterior and lists of all interior furnishings. With his poor eyesight he could discern only the larger drawings, but details were described verbally by Ponsonby. “I want to be sure that no false economy or niggardliness will mar the building inside,” he wrote to Kate’s brother William Davis, who increasingly acted as his emissary. Pulitzer wanted to know if anyone had seen the inside of the new Times building. “You remember the Post contract requires it to be at least as good as that of the Times.”
On October 10, 1889, onlookers jammed the north end of Park Row as crews prepared to lay the cornerstone of the new Pulitzer building. A platform for the ceremony stood at one corner of the construction site. The intersection in front was covered by a large canopy, under which invited dignitaries gathered, including many admiring colleagues such as George Childes of the Philadelphia Ledger and Charles Taylor of the Boston Globe. Noticeably absent was the publisher himself. Pulitzer remained at the baths in Wiesbaden.
The first to emerge from the canopy was Thomas Edison, whose electric dynamo, capable of lighting 8,500 incandescent bulbs, was being installed thirty-five feet under the sidewalk. Next, Governor David Hill made his way through the crowd, pausing to shake the hands of workers, some of whom he called by name. Soon the platform was filled with well-known politicians, businessmen, religious leaders, and publishers.
After a blessing from the Missouri Episcopalian bishop, John Cockerill rose. “I am authorized to pledge a faithful adherence to the principles which have won public confidence for