Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [307]
Kate and the children: ChTr, 2/21/1900, 4; NYC Fire Department Chief and Police Chief Clerk letters to DCS, 3/5/1900, JP-CU.
As Pulitzer’s fifty-third birthday: NYT, 4/13/1900, 9; 1899 Expenditures, in January 1–7, 1900, Folder, JP-CU, Box 10.
Kate had not yet: Dr. McLane to JP, 5/7/1900, JP-CU; JAS to JP, 5/7/1900, JP-CU.
At the World: JP telegram, 1/5/1900, JP-LC.
Since January: JN to JP, 4/2/1900, JP-CU; Berger, The Story of the New York Times, 127; ChTr, 10/17/1902, 12.
Phillips was also: DGP to JP, 4/5/1900, JP-CU; BM to JP, 4/5/1900, WP-CU; JAS to JP, 4/14/1900, JP-CU. When Phillips returned, he got into a fight with Pulitzer over the cost of the trip.
After more than a decade: Transcript of JP talk, 1900 Folder, WP-CU, Box 14.
The telegrams tested: ABi to AB, 2/29/1901, JP-CU.
People in competitive: The only known surviving copy of the codebook once belonged to H. A. Jenks, JP-CU. Here is a sample of a coded telegram, followed by the decoded version. Coded: “Would unhesitatingly give atlas of angers aroma for arm on second art agony especially if I were anxious to get rid of management of amour.” Decoded: “Would unhesitatingly give approval of Knapp’s proposition for arbitration on second-class security especially if I were anxious to get rid of management of Post-Dispatch.” JP to AB, 2/22/1899, JP-CU.
This 5,000-entry book: Sometimes Pulitzer’s choice of codes must have raised an eyebrow or two. One must wonder what a telegraph operator in the 1890s made of a message that spoke of “vagina” ($27,500 in advertising for a week) or “vaginal” ($28,000). Pulitzer organized his lexicon by letter groupings. Codes for cash balances, for instance, were all words that began with H. “Ha” stood for $1,000; “hypocrite” meant $400,000. For his private bank balance, Pulitzer used a term that many people looking at their own checkbooks could relate to: “hysterics.” The complex code was rendered even more cumbersome by the addition of codes within coded messages. When Pulitzer sought to have checks sent out in his name, his requests were supposed to include one of five names from a list of cities found in the annual World Almanac. Without the name, no payment was authorized.
To stay out of trouble: The memo dated 2/23/1910, is bound in Jenks’s codebook, JP-CU.
For himself, Pulitzer: In 2005, when the Pulitzer family announced the intention of selling the Post-Dispatch, a group of employees made a last-ditch effort to purchase it. They named their attempt the “Andes Project”: Guild Reporter, 2/11/2005, 1.
In late June 1900: NYT, 6/26/1900, 6; RP to JP, 6/15/1900, JP-CU.
Like most of: Ralph did not want Butes to bring the matter up with his father. “I judge that the paper is worrying him considerably and I hate to talk money with him, as you know”: RP to AB, 8/1899, JP-CU.
Ralph’s fifteen-year-old brother: JPII to JP, 3/12/1901, JP-CU.
It was not until: Pfaff, Joseph Pulitzer II, 32. Seven years later, Joseph Jr. was present when his father received an appeal from a worker who had been fired after his parents refused to let him come to work on Rosh Hashanah. “I appeal to you, being that you are a Jew (otherwise, I would not appeal),” wrote Isaac Feigenbaum. Joseph Jr. told Seitz that his father said, “If this chap really has a sincere religious conviction, that fact should be considered. He leaves the matter with you.” (Feigenbaum to JP, 9/27/1907, JP-LC.)
Pulitzer supervised the children’s: JP to DCS, 10/30/1900, JP-LC.
Pulitzer had even: DWP, 33; JP to KP, 11/24–29/1901, dictation in notebook, JP-CU, Box 16, Folder 5.
Pulitzer took less interest: JP to KP, 12/4/1900, JP-CU. Pulitzer’s attitude toward his daughters was typical of fathers at the time. At his death, he left his daughters each a fraction of his estate but no interest in any of the newspapers.
Joseph endlessly expressed: JP to KP, 1/14/1897, JP-CU; Adam Politzer to JP, 10/19/1900, JP-CU.
As her time: DGP to JP, 11/22/1900, WP-CU. The passage to which Phillips