Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [280]
The state capital: A measure to move the capital to St. Louis was introduced on January 18, 1870. NYT, 1/20/1870: 1. Pulitzer, who was still imbued with the ideals of the “St. Louis movement,” offered a bill to set aside land in St. Louis for the national capitol: Twenty-Fifth General Assembly House Journal, Adjournment Session, 1870, 72. (Hereafter cited as House Journal.)
Bringing with them: Anthony Ittner to JPII, 6/11/1913, PDA; Kremer, Heartland History, 69; Bruns, Hold Dear, as Always, 14–15.
On January 5: House Journal, 4. Pulitzer was assigned to the Committee on Banks and Corporations.
In Jefferson City: ChTr, 1/15/1870, 4; House Journal, 49.
Pulitzer’s fellow Radical Republicans: Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 170; Tusa, “Power, Priorities, and Political Insurgency,” 133. A Democrat and former state official writing to a friend in the summer of 1869 asked, “What the devil is this generally abnormal condition of things, politically, to result in? My opinion is it can’t stand at what it is.” (B. F. Massey to J. F. Snyder, July 15, 1869, quoted in Barclay, The Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 183.)
Suffrage was the: The legislature had ratified the Fifteenth Amendment during its prior session but had failed to include in its vote the second portion of the amendment; accordingly, the secretary of state had not issued a formal notification to the federal government. Its passage in this session was a foregone conclusion: ChTr, 1/7/1870, 1 and 1/10/1870, 4. See also Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri; and Tusa “Power, Priorities, and Political Insurgency,” 133.
The state’s constitution: Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 186–187.
From the start: Walter Gruelle in StLoDi, 1/6/1870, 2.
On a Sunday: MoRe, 1/26/1869, 2; WP, 1/26/1869, 3.
The new week: Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 3/8/1870, 2.
In Pulitzer’s eyes: WP, January 25, 1870, 3.
Among the arriving: Kargau, German Element, 139; One Hundred Years in Medicine and Surgery in Missouri (St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Star, 1900), 79–80; PD, 4/21/1879, 4; MoDe, 4/24/1869; StLoTi, 2/28/1870, 1; Ittner to JPII 6/13/1913, PDA.
Before boarding the: Theodore Welge to JPII, 6/6/1913, PDA.
The city-county: MoRe, 11/26/1869; William N. Cassella Jr., “City-County Separation: The ‘Great Divorce’ of 1876,” Missouri Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 15, No. 2 (January 1959), 88.
Specifically, Pulitzer’s bill: Saalberg, “The Westliche Post,” 197–198; WP, 9/24/1869. A summary of Pulitzer’s bill appeared in MoRe, 3/11/1870, 2. See also Thomas Eichhorst, “Representative and Reporter,” 49. The critics weren’t entirely wrong. It was a common practice for politicians to steer both official advertising and printing business to papers that favored them.
Although Pulitzer’s bill: MoDe, 1/27/1870, 1; WP, 1/30/1870, 3.
The next morning: WP, 2/28/1870, 3. Pulitzer also described the passage in the Missouri House of the Richland County project, a kind of redistricting scheme to create a new county. “The land wildcatters, lobbyists, and other gentlemen interested in the project held a banquet that same evening to celebrate the House’s passage of the bill, in Schmidt’s new hotel, at which almost all legislators who voted for the project were in attendance, and the champagne, whiskey, and so forth flowed in streams until late in the evening, or better, early in the morning. It is being said that the passage of the bill ‘cost’ $35,000.”
That evening the: The description of the events in Schmidt’s Hotel on January 27, 1870, is drawn from the following newspapers: StLoTi, MoDe, MoRe, and PD, published on 1/28/1870. Other sources are noted separately. See also WP, 1/30/1870, 3; MoDe, 1/31/1870, 3.
Back at the boardinghouse: Ittner to JPII, 6/11/1913, PDA.