Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [197]
The typewriters were still and the copy boys quiet as the men and women turned toward a platform at the end of the room, normally the city editor’s perch, where Seitz; Merrill; William Van Benthuysen, the Sunday editor; and other managers stood. Never before had the reporters seen a meeting like this one. Each man took a turn speaking about the excesses of the past two years, confessing his own failings as if at an addiction meeting. “The great mistakes which have been made—I speak with modesty, because I have made a number of them myself—have been caused by an excess of zeal,” said Merrill.
“There is and has been for two years, as you know, a fierce competition,” Seitz told the group. “This has developed a tendency to rush things. It has not been to the advantage of any newspaper so doing. The World feels that it is time for the staff to learn definitely and finally that it must be a normal newspaper.”
“Sensational? Yes, when the news is sensational,” added Van Benthuysen. “But the demand is this, that every story which is sensational in itself must also be truthful.”
In St. Louis, Pulitzer’s old competitor Charles Knapp, who published the Missouri Republican, now renamed the Republic, decided to make a bid to dominate the city’s newspaper market. Ever since Pulitzer had left the city, Knapp had longed for a chance to merge with the Post-Dispatch as his competitor, the Missouri Democrat, had done with the Globe. At first, Pulitzer had been uninterested in selling his paper. But Knapp figured that the well-known headaches arising from Jones’s tenure at the Post-Dispatch and the losses incurred by the World might have changed Pulitzer’s mind. His initial contact confirmed his hunch, and Knapp left for the East.
Pulitzer assigned the business manager, Norris, to meet with Knapp in Washington. After days of discussion, with some sessions lasting eleven hours, they had made little headway. Pulitzer was no help. He sent Norris new demands each time the two negotiators made any progress. Pulitzer was of two minds. He said he was not averse to disposing of the Post-Dispatch, but he couldn’t go through with it when he was faced with the reality of such a proposition. Pulitzer sent Norris bewildering instructions. “You should drop it and not waste your time but concentrate on the World which needs you badly enough. But if Knapp should come back with something reasonable, you will communicate it. In fact, you will communicate to me anyhow what he says.”
With Pulitzer blowing hot and cold, Knapp made a final effort. He went to Jekyll Island to meet Pulitzer directly. His timing was poor. Pulitzer was in a testy mood from frayed nerves and sleeplessness. A morning together and a lunch brought the two men no closer to an agreement than before. Knapp gave up and left.
Kate was also buffeted by Joseph’s stormy temper. She made the mistake of writing him about a problem in New York involving a household servant. “Mr. P. wishes not to be bothered on this matter any further,” Butes wrote back. “He read eight letters on the subject yesterday besides your own—which is an outrageous waste of time.
“He is sorry you have not been able to come down here,” Butes continued. “And he asked you will not telegraph him as the expectation of telegrams keeps him in a very nervous condition. It is especially desirable that he should not get messages about sickness in the family unless really serious. They depress him and, of course, are unnecessary as he can be of no possible help.”
By May 1899, when Pulitzer left for England in the company of his old partner Dillon and his son Ralph, he