Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [283]
The charge was: It’s not clear to what offense Pulitzer may have pleaded guilty, or if he did plead guilty at all. The court records do not reveal the case’s final disposition. Johnson’s diary is no help, either, recording only the cryptic note, “Settled case $100 fine” (Johnson, Diary, 11/20/1871, WRR, 19), 11/18/1871, WRR, 19. Pulitzer borrowed money to pay for legal fees and the fine from Henry C. Yaeger, a miller in St. Louis. Others—such as Daniel G. Taylor, a former mayor of St. Louis; and Edwin O. Standard, who was lieutenant governor when Pulitzer served in the legislature—may also have loaned money. Why Yaeger was so generous is not really known. But at some point that year or the following year, Pulitzer rendered him a personal favor. Yaeger wanted Governor Brown to pardon a friend. “Joe Pulitzer assisted me in the matter, and the very day the Governor received my letter, I received a telegram that my request had been granted,” Yaeger recalled many years later. (Henry C. Yaeger to Governor David R. Francis, 4/25/1892, Francis Papers, MHS.) Yaeger’s name is misspelled “Yeager” in some records, but clearly the same person is meant.
A seat on: Johnson, Diary, 1/15/1872, WRR, 23. Amazingly, as of 2006, the governor of Missouri still appointed the police commissioners in St. Louis; and even more remarkably, they still earned $1,000 a year for their service.
The conservative Anzeiger: Anzeiger Des Westens, 1/18/1872, translated in MoDe, 1/23/1872, 3; Western Celt quoted in MoDe, 1/18/1872, 2.
The grumbling by the press: MoDe, 1/19/1872, 1. One of the five senators from St. Louis voted against Pulitzer. His identity was not publicly disclosed, because only the delegation’s total vote was leaked to the press, but certainly Pulitzer knew who it was.
CHAPTER 7: POLITICS AND REBELLION
In writing about the 1872 convention there is a danger of adopting Henry Watterson’s view that it was a gathering of cranks with little chance of succeeding against Grant. The reality of politics at the time probably did doom the Liberal Republican effort no matter who it nominated, but to the conventiongoers it was a serious affair, an act of rebellion against what they perceived as crimes against democracy. That said, the convention did generate some wonderfully hilarious coverage. My favorite is a little book called That Convention; Or Five Days a Politician self-published by Fletcher G. Welch and illustrated (profusely) by Frank Beard.
In late January: MoDe, 12/18/1871, 2.
As these: Peterson, Freedom and Franchise, 206; Grand Duke Alexis’s arrival in New York City a few months earlier was covered by Albert Pulitzer, who was then working for the New York Sun.
As Liberal Republican: MoDe, 12/18/1871, 2, and 1/24/1872, 1.
McCullagh was among: Dreiser, Newspaper Days, 107. McCullagh also became the subject of a poem by Eugene Field called “Little Mack.”
On his first: MoDe, 1/25/1872, 1. The microfilm for this edition is almost unreadable. Copies of the original paper at the Library of Congress don’t include this particular date, but a clipping from the edition may be found in the Grosvenor Papers, Columbia University.
That night Pulitzer: Grosvenor’s remark was contained in a letter published in an unidentified newspaper, 2/15/1872, WG-CU, Box II.
Grosvenor ascended the: SeDe, 2/27/1872, 2. Benecke was given a seat on the committee for a permanent organization, and he and Johnson were assigned to the resolutions committee. (People’s Tribune, 1/31/1872, 3.)
Their work complete: MoDe, 1/25/1872, 1.
Grosvenor and Pulitzer were keenly: NYT, 4/24/1872, 1. The New York Times’s effort