Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [164]
On October 16, 1890, a startling announcement greeted readers of the World. “Yielding to the advice of his physicians, Mr. Joseph Pulitzer has withdrawn entirely from the editorship of the World.” Control of the newspaper would be turned over to an executive board comprised of editors who had long been in his service.
News of Pulitzer’s abdication spread rapidly. From Bangor, Maine, to Chillicothe, Missouri, and Galveston, Texas, small-town editors who aspired to be the Pulitzers of their communities marked the moment. But it was a neighboring newspaper on Park Row that gave Pulitzer his most gratifying acknowledgment. As if a champion boxer had withdrawn from the ring, the competing New York Herald found words of praise. “We droop our colors to him,” said Bennett’s editorial. “We have not always agreed with the spirit which had made his ideas a journalistic success, and we cannot refrain from regretting that he did not encourage us in the new departure which he made, instead of merely astonishing us, frightening us, and, we may add—now that it is past—perhaps a little bit disgusting us.”
“But,” Bennett concluded, “le Roi est mort, vive the Roi! The New York World is dead, long live the World!”
Barely two months later, on December 10, the tallest building on earth was ready for its grand opening. Its owner, however, was not. Pulitzer could not bring himself to attend a public event at which he would be led around like the invalid he was getting to be. It would be too humiliating. Instead, he and Kate, along with Hosmer and Ponsonby, reboarded the Teutonic, which sailed out of sight of the gold-domed Pulitzer Building only hours before thousands congregated for the ceremonies.
On Park Row, the power and prestige of the World were on display. Nine governors and three governors-elect, as well as countless mayors, congressmen, judges, editors, and publishers vied for a chance to have their words mark the occasion. The huge crowd pressed up against the entrance of the building. The sea of visitors inside was so thick that movement from room to room or floor to floor was almost impossible. Even the dignitaries could not get a ride in the F.T. Ellithorpe Improved Air-Cushion with Self-Closing Elevator Door lift.
The final price tag of the building topped $2 million, and not a cent had been borrowed. A PEOPLE’S PALACE WITHOUT A CENT OF DEBT OR MORTGAGE, proclaimed the World, which printed a copy of a certificate from the county recorder showing Pulitzer’s unencumbered ownership. As a tribute to their publisher, the employees of the World commissioned and paid for a twenty-one-inch bas-relief of the building, made of silver melted from the coins of customers who bought copies of the paper.
After reaching England on December 16, Pulitzer and his party made their way to Paris, where they remained until arrangements to charter a British yacht with crew for a Mediterranean cruise were concluded. In early January 1891, the group went south to Menton and boarded the 200-foot, two-year-old steamship Semiramis. At the last minute, Kate decided that she could not endure a long sea voyage and begged off.
For almost four months, Pulitzer and his companions lazily circled the Mediterranean. He adhered rigidly to Dr. Mitchell’s instructions and avoided all irritation, even remaining out of touch with his editors. “All those days on the yacht, conversation was an abundant resource to lighten the steps of time,” said Hosmer. So were books. Ponsonby and Hosmer took turns reading aloud from George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss and William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, as well as works by the Victorian novelist Hall Caine.
When the men left the yacht at Nice and returned to Paris, Pulitzer felt better