Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [232]
After Paris, the group moved on to Divonne-les-Bains. One night, when they came down from their hotel rooms for dinner, the waiter took them to a table right next to one where J. P. Morgan was sitting alone. As they passed by, Kate bowed slightly, and Morgan jumped up to shake her hand. During dinner, Edith noticed that whenever her mother glanced in Morgan’s direction she would catch his eye and he would smile at her. Small talk soon ensued, and Morgan chatted about his farm in England, which Kate had visited when Morgan’s father was living there. When he rose to leave the dining room, Morgan offered Kate a large box filled with fresh strawberries.
“Isn’t he hideous,” Edith said to her tablemates as Morgan exited the room.
“I don’t think he is repulsive,” replied Kate, unwilling to indulge her daughter in cattiness.
Macarow, her eyes following Morgan out of the room, murmured, “Well, the back of his head isn’t so bad.”
Later that night, before retiring, Edith wrote to her father. “Oh dear, I have never seen such a hideous face,” she said. “It isn’t only the nose—even with a decent nose he’d be ugly—and he had the ugliest little bits of pig’s eyes.”
Kate returned to the United States in order to be there in time for the birth of their first grandchild, Ralph Pulitzer Jr. “I am as happy as when Ralph was born,” Kate wrote to Joseph. “The baby is a darling. Terrible temper just like yours.”
After consecutive failed bids to become president of the United States or mayor of New York City, Hearst rose like a political phoenix in the summer of 1906. He won the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor of New York. The press went wild with excitement, covering what otherwise would have been a dull campaign. Kate, who was in New York, accompanied Ralph and his bride to a rally for Hearst at Madison Square Garden. In the White House, Roosevelt could not tolerate the idea that Hearst, whom he despised almost as much as he hated Pulitzer, might hold the post he himself had held before becoming president. He worked to spread rumors of Hearst’s immoral behavior. When those charges did not gain enough traction, Roosevelt, resurrecting a hurtful charge, instructed his secretary of state to let it be known that the president believed Hearst had been partially responsible for the assassination of McKinley.
Of all of Hearst’s enemies, Pulitzer was the one who remained fair. He issued strict instructions to his staff that his view of Hearst should not color the paper’s coverage of the candidate. “Treat Hearst without a particle of feeling of prejudice, if this is possible,” he wrote. Two years earlier, when Hearst had run for president, Pulitzer had similarly restrained his editorial staff. “Never for a moment fail to admit that Hearst is a very clever politician, and able man,” Pulitzer wrote, ordering that he “should be treated with, at least, that respect which is due to his following.” While continuing to oppose Hearst, Pulitzer privately admitted admiration for his rival’s allegiance to his principles.
Hearst, however, knew none of this. During his campaign, he made Pulitzer a frequent target. Over the course of seven speeches in New York and Brooklyn, Hearst damned the man he had once admired. “When Mr. Pulitzer was building up his paper he had principles, or at least he professed principles,” Hearst said. “When he was appealing for the pennies of the people he proclaimed himself the champion of the people. In his old age, when he has amassed his fortune and has invested it in gas stocks and railroad stocks and other Wall Street securities, he