Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [166]
Because of his father’s death earlier in the year, Hearst anticipated having the capital to pursue his dream. To his shock, however, he discovered that he had inherited none of his father’s vast fortune. Instead, it went entirely to his mother. If he wanted to buy another paper, he would need to persuade his mother to write the check. It would have to be a large one. In the seven years since Pulitzer had bought the World, buying a New York newspaper had grown costly.
When Hearst reached New York in July, he sought out Cockerill, Pulitzer’s former editor. Cockerill offered Hearst a chance to buy into his new Morning Advertiser, which sold for a penny on the streets. But Hearst didn’t want to acquire a one-cent paper like Cockerill’s, or even Albert Pulitzer’s Morning Journal, which had continued to prosper in the shadow of the World. “I think there is another way to get into New York perhaps even better than through Mr. Cockerill,” Hearst wrote his mother, with whom he was now campaigning to buy a newspaper.
“I dined with Ballard Smith the other night and we talked newspapers till we were black in the face,” he explained. Smith—Pulitzer’s managing editor—told Hearst that he believed his boss was going to give him a share of ownership in the World. It was an unrealistic expectation. Although Pulitzer paid high salaries, gave huge bonuses, and lavished presents on his editors, he had yet to relinquish any portion of ownership in either newspaper. Nonetheless, Smith’s story raised Hearst’s hopes. Maybe, given Pulitzer’s ill health, the World itself could be bought.
Pulitzer’s emergency trip to New York had exacted a toll. The heat and his fretting over the paper’s management had been toxic for everything that ailed him. “There was a partial loss of even the little eyesight that he possessed,” noted an anxious Hosmer. Kate met the returning party in England and they retreated to Paris together. Suffering from what doctors decided was asthma and still unable to sleep through the night, Joseph was packed off to Wiesbaden for another cure. Kate, once again, remained in Paris, attending social events and displaying, as at the British embassy ball, her famous necklace of seven rows of closely set diamonds.
Ponsonby and Hosmer stayed in Wiesbaden with their boss while he underwent a monotonous regimen of baths, massages, walks, and carriage rides. “Many of these days were lightened by literature—reading was the main resource to exclude the devil of worry,” Hosmer said. In the company of Trollope and Scott, the three men whiled away the summer.
In the fall, when Pulitzer finally returned to New York, no unpleasant surprises awaited him. During this exile, he had kept up with the affairs of the World. The paper was healthy, and the council had proved itself capable of replacing Cockerill and Turner—at least temporarily. When Pulitzer gathered his editors, the 1892 presidential election was on his mind. Governor David Hill of New York, elected and reelected in great part thanks to the World, was being touted as a candidate. But he was overshadowed by Grover Cleveland, who had decided to try to regain the White House and was currying favor with Pulitzer. The former president knew firsthand, having experienced Pulitzer’s rejection in 1888, that it was better to run for office with the World on your side.
Pulitzer feared that the Democrats were growing weak in their resolve to support the gold standard, under which paper money could be redeemed for gold. Along with the Republicans, they had long held that giving paper money real value helped keep the economy stable. But in the House elections of 1890, the Democrats had watched members of the Populist Party win nine Congressional seats at their expense on a “free silver” platform, essentially proposing that the U.S. mint produce an unlimited amount of silver coins.
At first glance, monetary policy would seem to be an arcane subject unlikely to