Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [163]
To enter the Pulitzer Building, one walked through a churchlike three-story vault made of Corsehill stone from Scotland, above which stood a quartet of bronze female torchbearers, representing art, literature, science, and invention. Fast-moving elevators ferried passengers up and down fifteen stories. The first ten floors, coupled vertically with tall, Palladian windows, and banded horizontally by a stone ledge, contained offices leased to insurance salesmen, stockbrokers, and lawyers. The remaining floors, stacked above this hive of commerce, were distinguished by concave corners and four sculptured black copper figures representing the four races—Caucasian, Indian, Mongolian, Negro—and standing as if supporting a large pediment.
The World itself began here, on the twelfth floor. A room with a ceiling eighteen feet high housed 210 compositors, who set the morning and evening editions entirely by hand. It was the largest operation of its kind anywhere and required thirty-two tons of lead. The men stood at forty long, raised tables with bins with lead type. Moving with lightning speed, the compositors pulled and dropped each letter of each word into composing sticks that were locked into a form the size of a newspaper page. On a raised platform at the center of the hall, thirty proofreaders worked reviewing printed samples of the composed stories and advertisements.
Above it all, positioned like a throne room, Pulitzer’s editorial command post occupied a tower. The largest office, facing east on the second floor of the domed structure, was reserved for Pulitzer. With frescoed ceilings, walls wainscoted with leather, and three floor-to-ceiling windows, the room looked out over the city, the Statue of Liberty in the harbor, and the Watchung Mountains in New Jersey—a privileged view lost on an almost blind publisher. Next door to Pulitzer’s office three interconnected offices housed his staff of editorial writers.
Capped with an 850,000-pound gilded dome, the four-story editorial enclave perched on top of the Pulitzer Building reached higher into the sky than even the Statue of Liberty’s raised torch. When the sun struck the dome, it reflected a shimmering light that could be seen forty miles out at sea. The first sight of the New World for immigrants entering New York was not a building of commerce, banking, or industry. Rather, it was a temple of America’s new mass media.
Kate and Hosmer persuaded Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, the nation’s leading neurologist, to see Joseph. Mitchell’s medical reputation stemmed from his work with soldiers in the Civil War who suffered injuries to their nerves. His book Injuries of Nerves and Their Consequence, based on his experiences, was the most widely used reference for physicians in the United States and Europe. He had also pioneered research examining the relationship between eyestrain and headaches. He seemed the perfect physician for Joseph.
Unfortunately, Mitchell turned out to be yet another in a long series of disappointments. The “Weir Mitchell treatment” consisting of prolonged bed rest with optimum feeding and massages had been prescribed for Pulitzer so often that he was let down when the inventor himself prescribed it. On the other hand, hearing this advice from Mitchell was like reaching the end of a long road. If Mitchell could offer no other solution, there was no recourse.
As he struggled with his near-blindness, Pulitzer entered a kind of netherworld. He did not fit into the sighted world, but neither was he blind—at least not yet. Although he clung to a hope that he could regain his vision, there was little doubt of his fate. To become blind during his era was like being sentenced to a dark internal exile. There were no blind politicians, business leaders, or generals. Helen Keller was still only eight years old. It was assumed that the loss of vision meant the end of a productive life. In fact, newspapers were filled with stories of men who could not face the prospect: “DEATH PREFERRED TO