Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [24]
Pulitzer fell in line like a foot soldier. Taking orders from Schurz provided him with an apprenticeship in American immigrant politics. In the three years he had been in St. Louis, Pulitzer had worked hard to develop friendships with men whom he perceived to be on a path to power or success. Now he was with one who had both. Remarkably, Schurz was also among the very first American political figures Pulitzer had learned about when he arrived in the United States. It was Schurz, after all, who had created the First Lincoln Cavalry, in which Pulitzer served.
Schurz placed the Westliche Post and himself in the service of the 1868 Republican presidential campaign, using the newspaper to persuade Germans in St. Louis that General Ulysses Grant was their man—and using his oratorical skills to persuade Germans in other states. For Schurz, journalism was one weapon on the political battlefield. His speeches were another. None of this was lost on Pulitzer, who had now spent two years working at the paper. “He was my chief,” said Pulitzer. “We often traveled together, yet in all that time I never saw him pass an idle moment, either in the office or on the road, or anywhere else.”
Pulitzer not only assumed the Republican faith of his boss but followed Schurz’s model. “Pulitzer,” said Johnson, “as soon as he was fairly in harness as a reporter, became active in politics.” He joined his neighborhood’s Republican organization; and by August 1868 he was rewarded for his efforts by being selected as the secretary of the Radical club of the Fifth Ward. Pulitzer’s ambition did not go unnoticed. “There never seemed to be any doubt in his mind,” said Preetorius, “that he would succeed in something.”
In November, with the election won, Missouri Republicans turned their attention to selecting their next U.S. senator. Even though Schurz had barely arrived in the state, he set his sights on winning the seat. Republicans in St. Louis, heavily German, were intent on regaining control of the party from Senator Charles Drake, whom they despised.
The contest gave Pulitzer a front-row seat at a battle of Reconstruction politics. One of his friends, William M. Grosvenor, editor of the Missouri Democrat, was among a group of three leaders backing Schurz who also included Gratz Brown (a former U.S. senator) and Preetorius. They considered Schurz an ideal candidate for the Senate. He had no political battle scars from Missouri, and thus few enemies; he was a Republican whose support of the party went back to Lincoln’s first presidential campaign; and he had the support of the considerable German population.
A New Englander of uncommon talent, Grosvenor was a big, fleshy man with olive skin and a mane of hair, a bushy beard, and heavy eyebrows that gave him the fierce look of a lion. Although one worked for a German paper and the other for an English paper, Pulitzer and Grosvenor found they shared a reformist agenda. They both wanted to restore the vote to disenfranchised Democrats and compete openly in elections. They thought it was their job as journalists to bring this about.
In early January 1869, Pulitzer accompanied Preetorius and Schurz to Jefferson City, the state capital, as the legislature met and prepared to select Missouri’s next senator. Schurz told the Republican caucus what it wanted to hear, that he supported President Grant and the Fifteenth Amendment, giving black citizens the right to vote. But he added that the time had also come to lift voting restrictions on disenfranchised white citizens. The appeal triggered an attack from Drake, the architect of the plan to keep Democrats from the voting booth. Drake could hardly contain his temper, and he became especially provoked when Schurz continually interrupted his speech to take issue with his various accusations. Then Drake made a fatal mistake. He broadened his assault on Schurz to include all German immigrants and questioned their loyalty.
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