Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [231]
In April, Joseph called Chapin. “I am sailing for Europe in the morning, and I am sending Joe down to work under you,” he said. “Treat him exactly as you would any other beginner and don’t hesitate to discipline him should he need it. There is to be no partiality shown because he is my son.” Under Chapin’s tutelage, Joe worked assiduously at improving the writing and reporting skills he had learned at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. But he could not resist behaving like the owner’s son. He began to take leave from work and was soon absent for an entire week without permission.
When he returned, Chapin fired him on the spot. “The office gasped with astonishment when it got noised about that I discharged ‘Prince Joe,’ as they called him,” recalled Chapin, “but Joe good-naturedly treated it as a joke and took the night train to Bar Harbor, where he fitted out his yacht and sailed in all the regattas that summer, or until his father returned from Europe and sent him out to St. Louis.”
His father’s continued harshness inflicted great pain on Joe. Only a few months earlier, during a carriage ride and in front of Ralph, Joseph had dressed Joe down as “utterly worthless, ignorant, and incompetent.” But in St. Louis, far from his father, Joe found the home he needed at the Post-Dispatch. He eventually developed into the most successful editor and publisher among the Pulitzers’ children. Despite having named Joe after himself, Joseph would always remain to his death blind to Joe’s innate journalistic talents, which matched his own. Temperament separated the two men. Later in the year, after one of their periodic dustups, Joe wisely grasped their distinctness but unwisely shared it with his father. “One of the strange differences between us two, to my mind, is the fact that you have never come near learning how to enjoy life, whereas, I, I fear, have learned the lesson only too well.”
After Joe was banished to St. Louis, one of Pulitzer’s last remaining connections to his own years there ended. At age seventy-seven, Carl Schurz died. The German-American had inspired Pulitzer to enter politics and—although, curiously, he never mentioned Pulitzer in his memoirs—had remained fond of him, even after their harsh political confrontations in the 1870s. Shortly before his death, Schurz showed a visitor a photograph of Pulitzer that he kept on his desk. Pulitzer instructed Butes to send a wreath with his card, and instructed Kate to represent him at the memorial service. “You would have been proud of your chief,” she said, after detailing the many tributes paid to Schurz.
Kate, her companion Maud Alice Macarow, and Edith spent the summer in Europe, as Kate was under doctor’s orders to rest at Divonne-les-Bains. Her departure was marred by another quarrel with Joseph. After a prolonged silence, Kate wrote, “Now, don’t worry. Understand I have learned to make all allowances for the tricks your nerves play on you and stop being cross with me for it does you no good and does much harm.”
In London, Kate returned to Sargent’s studio to have tea with the artist. In a pained voice, he told her, “I did not do you all justice in your portrait—you are much better looking than I painted you.” It was a compliment that she immediately shared with Joseph, sparking momentary jealousy. But, Kate graciously added, “he spoke nicely of you, said you had such a splendid forehead and were a wonderful type for an artist.”
From London, the group went to Paris. Between stops at the salons of her favorite couturiers, on whom she dropped $15,000 that year, Kate toured the sculptor Auguste Rodin’s studio. Stephen MacKenna, the World’s Paris bureau chief, was a good friend of Rodin and arranged the visit. Rodin, who had begun his career as a controversial artist, had