Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [19]
Prosperous and growing, the Westliche Post was casting about for a new reporter. For Pulitzer the timing was fortunate. Not only did Pulitzer know Preetorius, but in recent months the elder man, as president of the German Immigration Aid Society, had observed his diligence. Louis Willich, the paper’s city editor, also knew Pulitzer. As secretary of the society, Pulitzer had frequently passed on information and stories from the most recent German immigrants arriving in St. Louis. Willich had been impressed with Pulitzer’s news sense. He was offered the job.
“I could not believe it,” Pulitzer recalled. “I, the unknown, the luckless, almost a boy of the streets, selected for such a responsibility. It all seemed like a dream.”
Preetorius and Willich were not disappointed. It took Pulitzer no time to confirm they had made the right decision in taking a chance on the twenty-year-old. What he lacked in experience he more than made up for with raw, resolute effort. “His time for work seemed to be all the time,” said Preetorius. “I never called on him at any hour that he did not immediately respond.”
It wasn’t long, either, before Pulitzer caught the attention of his new colleagues. On a muggy, hot summer day a pack of reporters gathered behind the city’s post office to badger an official for a story. “Suddenly,” said one of the men, “there appeared among us the new reporter, of whom we had heard but not yet seen.” He was hard to miss. Having rushed from the office, Pulitzer was without his collar and jacket but he did have his pad of paper in one hand and his pencil in the other. Within an instant, he informed the crowd of reporters that he was with the Westliche Post, as if this might impress them, and began to ask questions. “For a beginner he was exasperatingly inquisitive,” said the reporter who recorded the moment. “He was so industrious, indeed, that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work.”
If Pulitzer believed his new job would be glamorous, or at least easier than the numerous jobs he had held so far, the delusion was quickly shattered. The working day never ended. There was only one other reporter on the paper, so the duty of finding and reporting all the local news rested on the two men. Also, Pulitzer was unwilling to put forward anything but his best effort. “We would get one of his stories into type,” said the compositor who handset all the type, “and when Pulitzer got the proof read there would hardly be a word left as he wrote it in the first place.”
While Pulitzer honed his new craft that summer, his sixteen-year-old brother in Pest was preparing to join him in the United States. Albert’s motivation was political, not pecuniary. His family-bred republican ardor, combined with a fanciful imagination, had led him to believe he could divest Europe of its emperors, kings, and other potentates. “Obviously, I said to myself, if I could do so wonderful a thing I should attain the very summit of human glory. But how could I accomplish so difficult, so gigantic, apparently almost so impossible a task?” He devised a plan to cross the Atlantic, rouse the American people, and return with an army to dethrone the sovereigns of Europe.
Reaching the United States was an expensive undertaking. The Civil War was over, so there were no American benefactors willing to pay for the passage. Not surprisingly, Grandfather Mihály called Albert’s idea a “ridiculous project” and refused to provide any financial support. “My poor mother, seeing that a refusal would not stop me, as I was too unalterably bent upon the realization of my scheme, cried a good deal, but finally yielded a reluctant consent,” Albert said. Elize accompanied her son to Hamburg and purchased him a ticket on the Allemannia. Hanging a $20 gold piece around his neck, hidden in a tiny cotton bag under his shirt, she consigned