Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [38]
On March 10, members of the St. Louis delegation met with Pulitzer in the Senate chambers to consider his proposal languishing in legislative limbo. For two hours, the men argued. Finally, the group put the plan to a vote. Pulitzer’s bill survived by a one-vote margin. Next, opponents tried to water down the bill. Again, he survived the attack by one vote. Seeking to broaden support, Pulitzer’s supporters persuaded him to amend the proposal slightly by delaying the election for the new county court to the fall. Next they decided to rush the new version of the bill through the Senate and prepare for a fight in the House, where the county’s strongest defenders lay in waiting.
The plan almost worked. A week later, Ittner brought the moderated version up for consideration in the House. Together, he and Pulitzer argued strenuously for the bill, claiming that it would eliminate the scandalous fee-based salaries and clean up the corrupt county government, even once again bringing up the court’s extravagance on Augustine’s “well of fools.” But it was to no avail. Though the final tally was 56 to 36 in favor of the bill, the rules required a majority of the entire House, not just those present. Pulitzer’s measure fell 23 votes short.
As the first day of spring approached, the session’s end neared. The weather hardly seemed springlike. Late winter snow and deep cold gripped Jefferson City, and, to his misfortune, Pulitzer, along with his roommate, fell prey to a gang of coat thieves who swept through the capital, raiding the rooms of legislators careless enough to leave their doors unlocked. Pulitzer and Ittner were thus among three legislators who “made their appearance shivering” on March 12, “one of the coldest and dreariest of the session.”
On March 24 the session drew to a close. The train to St. Louis carried back to the city a very different man from the one who had arrived in the state capital that winter. Although none of his bills had become law, and although the county court retained the upper hand, Pulitzer’s legislative efforts had turned him into a well-known figure, made him new political allies, and placed him in an emerging Liberal Republican movement poised to take center stage.
Chapter Six
LEFT BEHIND
In March 1870, when the lawmakers went back to their farms, law offices, or places of business, Pulitzer returned to the Westliche Post. But instead of being merely a reporter covering political ward meetings, he was now a player in Missouri politics. No longer was the Westliche Post identified solely as the paper belonging to Schurz and Preetorius; it was now also the newspaper where Pulitzer worked.
The shooting of Augustine had given Pulitzer considerable notoriety, which in his quixotic struggle against the county court was not necessarily a bad thing. But it also created a serious legal problem. After all, he had shot someone, perhaps with the intent to kill. So far, thanks to the legal skills of his friend Johnson, the day of reckoning had been postponed. But at some point, Pulitzer would have to face a trial.
The prospect of mounting a decent legal defense improved. Theodore Welge, the lime merchant who did business with Augustine, decided to come forward. Although he considered himself a friend of Augustine’s, Welge admired Pulitzer for his efforts against political corruption. “I made up my mind, come what will, that I would call on Mr. Pulitzer and tell him what Augustine told me he was going up to Jefferson City for,” Welge said. So he made his way to Pulitzer’s boardinghouse on Third Street.
At first, the landlady informed Welge that Pulitzer could not be disturbed. “I told her to go back and say to him, that a party wanted