Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [261]
Roosevelt never let up on his attacks on Pulitzer after losing his court battles. In fact, in a letter to a British friend that summer, Roosevelt compared Pulitzer to Charles Dickens’s Jefferson Brick. Pulitzer, on the other hand, told Cobb that it was time to give Roosevelt his due. “Personally,” Pulitzer said, “I believe that the Panama work is a monumental achievement and that the paper must give Roosevelt the credit for the work and we must draw the biggest kind of line between that phase and the mere incident of his personal attack upon the paper on account of charges it made of corruption specifically and personally which it certainly could not substantiate—never did and never will.”
Of the three men, only Hearst noticed this generous trait in Pulitzer. Though the two had spent years in a competitive struggle that could have ended with one destroying the other, Pulitzer had always restrained his staff’s spitefulness and had urged his editorial writers to recognize Hearst’s strength. In October, when the World published a complimentary article about Hearst, its longtime competitor assumed that the idea had been Pulitzer’s and sent his thanks.
Chapter Thirty-One
SOFTLY, VERY SOFTLY
On October 18, 1911, the Liberty pulled up anchor and sailed from New York. On board were Pulitzer; Herbert and his tutor and nanny; five secretaries; and Pulitzer’s English valet Jabez Dunningham, who had been with him since 1896. They were bound for Jekyll Island but got only as far as Charleston, where the captain anchored the yacht to wait until the course of a West Indian hurricane became clearer. Aside from a bad cold, which had confined him to his home while he was in New York, Pulitzer’s health was as it always had been—a source of endless complaints but not so many as to cause alarm among his companions, or in his new traveling physician.
On the second day in the harbor, Pulitzer complained of severe stomach pains. Since his physician was untested, the staff called Dr. Robert Wilson Jr., a prominent doctor in Charleston. After diagnosing the problem as severe indigestion, he gave Pulitzer a dose of Veronal. Pulitzer rallied and was well enough several days later to lunch on board with Robert Lathan, the editor of the Charleston News & Courier. The two men buoyantly shared their predictions for a Democratic victory in 1912. “I had never seen J.P. in a more genial mood or in higher spirits,” Alleyne Ireland noted.
The following day, however, Pulitzer felt ill again and remained below deck all day and night. In the morning, Thwaites sent a telegram to Kate in New York. Over the years, she had received dozens of similarly alarming messages, many of which she had wisely chosen to ignore. In this case, however, she ordered a private railcar. By four o’clock that afternoon, she was on her way south.
At about three in the morning, as Kate’s train entered the Carolinas, Joseph woke up. He asked Dunningham to send for Ireland. Rapidly putting on a dressing gown, Ireland grabbed a dozen books and headed to Pulitzer’s cabin. “He was evidently suffering a good deal of pain,” Ireland noted, “for he turned from side to side, and once or twice got out of bed and sat in an easy chair.”
Ireland tried reading from several of the books he brought. He had little success engaging Pulitzer until he happened upon the historian Macaulay’s essay on Hallam’s Constitutional History, written when Macaulay was very young. “I read steadily until about five o’clock,” Ireland said, “and J.P. listened attentively, interrupting me from time to time with a direction to go back and read over a passage.” Around five-thirty Pulitzer began to suffer again. The ship’s doctor as well as Dr. Wilson was summoned. Wilson gave Pulitzer Veronal, the sedative he had been taking for six months. Resting more comfortably, Pulitzer dismissed Ireland as the sun began to