Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [159]
Chauncey Depew took the stage next, followed by Governor Hill and the aging Samuel Tilden, for whom Pulitzer had campaigned in 1876. They all heaped praise on the World and on Pulitzer’s accomplishments. With the speeches at an end, Cockerill returned to the podium. He told the audience he had a cable from Pulitzer. The crowd quieted and Cockerill began to read from it. “God grant that this structure be the enduring home of a newspaper forever unsatisfied with merely printing news, forever fighting forms of wrong, forever independent—forever advancing in enlightenment and progress, forever wedded to truly democratic ideas, forever aspiring to be a moral force, forever rising to a higher plan of perfection as a public institution.”
For several minutes Cockerill’s voice carried the words of the absent Pulitzer over the construction site and the audience. When done, the crowd exploded into applause and redoubled its clapping when Cockerill announced that the text had been transcribed onto a parchment and would be placed in the cornerstone.
Then the crowd’s attention turned to a set of stairs leading up to a platform along a brick wall. In place of Pulitzer, four-year-old Joe, dressed in a sailor suit, began to scale the stairs. His legs were almost too short to reach the steps, but holding his uncle William Davis’s hand, he made his way to the top. Once there, he grasped a silver trowel and, using both hands, smoothed the bed of cement that workers had spread on the wall. He backed away, and the cornerstone was moved into place. Little Joe came forward again, tapped the stone twice with his trowel, and declared, “It is well done.”
Inside the cornerstone was a copper box made especially for the event. In it, along with the parchment containing Pulitzer’s remarks, the men had placed photographs, copies of newspapers, a directory of the World’s employees, and a recording made on Edison’s newest invention, the wax-cylinder voice recorder. It held the voices of three of the World’s newspapermen discussing the news events of the year, such as the Johnstown flood and the successes of New York City’s baseball club.
Many of the nation’s newspapers put news of the cornerstone-laying ceremony on their front pages. The New York Times did not—it gave a short write-up on page two—but it was one of the few papers that noticed Pulitzer’s architectural revenge. “The room of Mr. Charles A. Dana in the Sun building overlooks the foundations of the Pulitzer building,” said the Times. “This will not be the case, however, in a few months. Then, like a certain other eminent gentleman, he, too, will sit in the shade.”
Back again in Paris in November, at the house near Parc Monceau, Pulitzer may have regretted his decision to leave Wiesbaden. The house was in turmoil. Ralph and Lucille were being packed off to St. Moritz with tutors and nannies. Little Joseph, back from his trip to New York, Edith, and Constance were noisily playing. The Confederacy’s daughter, Winnie Davis, had just arrived, and her ill health added to the convalescent atmosphere. Like Pulitzer, she suffered from vision problems and other hard-to-diagnose ailments. Doctors hoped a six months’ stay on the Riviera and in German health resorts would help her. Further complicating matters was Winnie’s secret engagement, after a five-year romance, to a Yankee, the disclosure of which was bound to set off a political storm.
Every day the sad group would sit down punctually for lunch at one o’clock and for dinner at seven-thirty. On some days, the World’s new editorial writer George Eggleston, whom Joseph had brought over to Paris on an all-expenses-paid trip, would join them. Kate did her best to function under the circumstances. She took Winnie and ten-year-old Ralph to the Paris Opera. “You should have seen the grandeur of that little fellow in his miniature beaver