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The newsies demanded that the World and the Journal return to their prewar wholesale price, the same as other newspapers charged. Pulitzer and Hearst refused. On July 18, 1899, a delivery driver for the World in Long Island City stuffed his bundles with free sample copies of the paper and sold them to unsuspecting newsboys. When they figured out what had happened, they demanded their money back. He refused, and the boys tipped his wagon over and ran him off. Word of their action spread and soon all the newsies were on strike. Within a day, customers looking for their afternoon paper found newsboys without newspapers and signs pinned to their jackets such as “Please don’t buy the Evening Journal and World, because the newboys has striked” or “I ain’t a scab.”

The strike exacted an immediate toll on the evening papers. “You could walk a mile without seeing one,” one correspondent wrote home. Pulitzer got word of the strike just as he arrived in Bar Harbor after months in Europe. “Practically all the boys in New York and in many of the adjacent towns have quit selling,” Seitz told his boss. “A call is out for a mass meeting of the boys in front of the Pulitzer Building and we have just been compelled to ask the police for assistance in the matter.” The other newspapers were of no help. Except for the Journal, they were not targets of the boys’ strike and were jubilantly running editorials in support of it.

But enemies with a common foe can find ground for cooperation. Two days after the newsboys began their action, Hearst’s business manager Solomon Carvalho and Seitz got together. “I have just been over to see Carvalho in a long conference in the matter,” Seitz told Pulitzer. “We have determined to hire as many men as possible Monday to man selling points in sufficient force to overwhelm any assault that could be made upon them and to force a representation of the paper on the streets.”

Advertisers abandoned the papers in droves and demanded refunds as the circulation of the Evening Journal and the Evening World collapsed. “It is really a very extraordinary demonstration,” Seitz told Pulitzer. “The people seem to be against us; they are encouraging the boys and tipping them and where they are not doing this, they are refraining from buying the papers for fear of having them snatched from their hands.”

Using homeless men whom Seitz had recruited, many under protection of the police, the evening editions of the Journal and World returned to the streets on Monday and managed to remain for several days, but with far reduced sales. “Our policy of putting men out was not helpful,” Seitz admitted to Pulitzer, “yet it was the only thing that could be done. We had to have representation and the absolute disappearance of the paper was appalling.”

As the strike continued, Seitz kept Pulitzer informed at all times of the paper’s hard-line policy, including the use of police to break up gatherings of the children. When they could, the boys attacked scabs, although, in a chivalrous gesture, they stayed clear of a few newsstands run by women. They did their best to continue their strike. “Ain’t that ten cents worth as much as it is to Hearst and Pulitzer who are millionaires,” Kid Blink, one of their leaders, told the thousands of newsies who came to a rally. But problems soon emerged. Blink was chased by strikers who thought he had been bought off when they spotted him near Park Row wearing new clothes and carrying a roll of bills. Other leaders were similarly accused of accepting bribes, and an increasing number of boys were seen selling the boycotted papers again.

A clever ruse brought an end to the strike. The World and the Journal told their agents and drivers to start permitting the newsboys to return unsold copies for credit. This modest improvement was enough to bring the boys back to work. However, 60 percent of the income would continue to remain with the newspapers. Absorbing the modest cost of some unsold papers was a small price for this victory. Furthermore,