Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [277]
A decade after Pulitzer’s death, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editor William A. Kelsoe sought out a few St. Louisans who were still alive and who might have remembered such a game. “I have found no one who can locate positively the saloon or restaurant in which that historic game was played,” Kelsoe said. Two or three old-timers told Kelsoe they thought it might have been played in the Rheinische Weinhalle. Others mentioned Wagner’s Restaurant, a meeting place popular with both German and non-German politicians, businessmen, and lawyers. Even if there was no single match, it could well have been that Pulitzer’s chess skills, which had served him in Civil War camps, helped him gain attention at the Mercantile Library and other gathering places (AI, 171–172). The inclusion of Schurz’s name in the anecdote suggests that if the chess game was actually played, it occurred in 1867, when Schurz had joined the Westliche Post. It is the same year Pulitzer began working for the newspaper: Kelsoe to Seitz, undated, PDA.
“I could not”: DCS-JP, 58.
Preetorius and Willich: Saalberg, “The Westliche Post of St. Louis,” 195.
It wasn’t long: DCS-JP, 58–60. In fact, reporters for English-language newspapers referred to German reporters derogatorily as “Schnorrers,” a humorous Yiddish term for a type of beggar who, in contrast to an ordinary beggar, disguises his purpose, has pretensions at being a gentleman, and acts indignant when offered the assistance he seeks.
If Pulitzer believed: MoRe, 10/30/1911.
While Pulitzer honed: APM, 26.
Reaching the United States: Built in 1865, the 2,695-ton Allemannia was capable of a speed of twelve knots: APM, 27–31.
Although the reunion: The Chicago Tribune reported that “the city is full of men out of employ, most of them young men from the East, who have white hands and want some clerical work to do” (ChTr, 4/23/1867, 2); APM, 36.
Settled at last: APM, 33, 39.
For Joseph the: According to his friend Anthony Ittner, Pulitzer regarded Anna Preetorius as “one of the most kind-hearted, agreeable accompanied ladies that it was his good fortune to have ever met” (Anthony Ittner to JPII, June 11, 1913, PD). Edward Preetorius recalled that when he was a baby, Pulitzer “was a frequent and welcomed visitor at my parents’ house and they have told me of the numerous kindnesses [Pulitzer] visited upon me” (Edward Preetorius to JP, March 4, 1903, JP-CU).
Pulitzer was comfortable: Snider, St. Louis Movement, 167.
Pulitzer attended a few: Ibid., 118; The significance of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy in the history of American philosophy has been widely described. Perry, The St. Louis Movement in Philosophy, 10; James A. Good, “‘A World-Historical Idea’: The St. Louis Hegelians and the Civil War,” Journal of American Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1 (December 2000), 447–464; Snider, St. Louis Movement, 32.
A nomadic philosopher: Record Book of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, MHS.
In contrast to: Knight, Memorials of Thomas Davidson, 107–108. See also Fagan, “Thomas Davidson: Dramatist of the Life of Learning.” It’s not clear when and how Pulitzer met Davidson. Considering Pulitzer’s avowed pursuit of education, he may well have attended one of Davidson’s popular meetings.
The Scot’s charms: Thomas Davidson to Kate Bindernagel, 8/10/1870, TD. The eight-year engagement came to an end when Davidson was in St. Louis. Davidson never did marry. After his death, his friend William James offered an explanation. He said Davidson told him that he had been tempted twice to marry but he demurred because of his first relationship. “‘When two persons have known each other as we did,’ he said, ‘neither can ever fully belong to a stranger, so it wouldn’t do! It wouldn’t do! It wouldn’t do!’ He repeated as we lay on the hillside in a tone so musically tender that it chimes in my ears still, as I write down his confession” (Knight, Memorials of Thomas Davidson, 118). See also The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography,