Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [176]
The three men went out to the steps of the clubhouse, where Pulitzer submitted to a short interview, enjoying a chance to express his frustration with President Cleveland. “Men of all political views voted for him, believing that above all issues would stand the one great and overpowering fact of good government,” said Pulitzer. “He has disappointed their expectations and failed in every hope.”
Good government, Pulitzer predicted, would be the decisive issue in the 1896 election. “The great issue before the people at all times is not silver, or gold, or the tariff, though they are all important relatively.” He was wrong. As he talked with the reporter, William Jennings Bryan, an unknown U.S. representative leaving office and barely old enough to run for president, was beginning a national speaking tour on behalf of free silver. In sixteen months, Bryan would remake the American political landscape.
Even when he was at his best, Joseph made their marriage an ordeal for Kate. If he was not consumed by work, he was haunted by sickness, real and imagined. As his worries about work and his fears for his health mounted, so did his notorious temper and impatience. From a practical point of view, the connubial disharmony had been resolved by an almost continuous separation since the onset of his blindness. Joseph wandered the globe in the company of secretaries, doctors, and valets, while Kate led a busy social life in Paris, London, and New York.
One of the few witnesses to their turbulent domestic life was Felix Webber, a Briton who had a short, unhappy tenure as Pulitzer’s secretary. He found Pulitzer an insufferable boss. “He is such an ill-mannered surly brute and keeps throwing in one’s teeth that he is paying one for all one does for him—and he is evidently quite determined to get his money’s worth out of one,” Webber wrote to his sister after taking the post. Bitter and angry, he became the only secretary willing to break the code of silence adhered to by the other men who served as personal aides to Pulitzer.
In December 1894, the Pulitzers’ eldest daughter, Lucille, who was then fourteen, required a small, modest operation on her throat. Unfortunately, the wound did not heal properly, and more work had to be done. Kate was distraught and remained by Lucille’s side throughout the ordeal. Although he was in New York, Joseph did not even consent to visit Lucille while she was recuperating in her room. One night at dinner, Kate asked why he was shunning his daughter. Did he not pity her?
“Pity Lucille!” Joseph shouted back, according to Webber, who recorded the moment. “No! I’m the one to pity—has no one any pity for me! Does no one realize what I suffer! My own house turned into a hospital! Doctors coming at all hours! You rushing upstairs in the middle of meals, without a word of conversation for me—no one pities me, and you ask me to pity Lucille!”
Kate could not bring herself to speak. She was well used to silences, especially at the beginning of the month, when she and Joseph fought over money. This time, however, she gave Webber orders that Joseph not be allowed upstairs. Contrite the following day, Joseph visited Lucille and sent Webber out to buy flowers for his daughter.
When Joseph had left for Jekyll Island a few weeks later, the household breathed a sigh of relief. “Especially Mrs. P. who got up out of bed as soon as he was gone and received lying in a chaise longue in her boudoir in a vieux rose peignoir and a chinchilla fur rug also lined with vieux rose over her