Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [49]
Brown returned to his seat, and the results from the first round of balloting were announced. Adams led with 205 votes, Greeley had 147, and the other five candidates divided the remainder. The math was ominous for Adams and Trumbull. If Brown’s votes went to Greeley, the New York publisher would equal or outdistance Adams.
Watterson, who had been absent during the morning, arrived in the hall and found Pulitzer, who filled him in on what had just occurred. He struggled to explain why Schurz had stuck to his pledge of neutrality when he assumed the convention chair. Like many delegates, Pulitzer was convinced that Schurz had the power to direct the convention. “A word from him at that crisis would have completely routed Blair and squelched Brown,” Pulitzer told Watterson. “It was simply not in him to speak it.”
The contest narrowed to Adams and Greeley. On the second ballot, to the relief of Adams’s supporters, Brown’s endorsement of Greeley was not as strong as they had feared. Their man still had the lead, though only slightly. As the balloting continued, Adams inched toward the nomination. On the fifth ballot, delegate-rich Illinois decided to throw its lot in with Adams. As the sixth ballot began, everyone assumed it would be the last. But Illinois made a tactical mistake. It decided to pass. Instead Indiana, which had swung to Greeley, announced its change of heart, setting off chaos in the hall. It looked as if Greeley might win, after all. The chair could hardly restore order.
When Illinois finally reported its vote, Adams was back in the lead, but the tide had turned in Greeley’s favor, washing away any chance Adams had of winning. In many conventions, a candidate whose fortune rises quickly becomes unstoppable. States changed their votes, and the convention surged in Greeley’s favor. He became the nominee. Pulitzer’s man, Brown, was immediately rewarded with the vice presidential nomination, and then it was over.
Despite all of Schurz’s work in bringing the rebellion to this point, the delegates he inspired had selected an aging editor with no electoral experience and a running mate whom Schurz regarded as his opponent. For Pulitzer, his first national convention taught him that outcomes were hard to control and even hard to predict. Schurz and Pulitzer retreated to the house of Judge John Stallo, who was an Ohioan and a Hegelian and, like Schurz, had raised a regiment of Germans during the Civil War. There the men drank and ate until evening. The convention had turned into a wake. “Reformers hoist by their own petard,” said Watterson.
This was a disconcerting moment for Pulitzer. Schurz was distraught by the convention’s outcome. Brown, to whom Pulitzer owed his patronage post, was elated by his selection for the national ticket. But in winning his prize, Brown had wrecked Schurz’s plans for the convention. This left Pulitzer at a crossroads. He couldn’t oppose Brown, but to actively support him would be a blow against the man who had given him his start in politics.
Back in St. Louis, Pulitzer made his choice. He, along with Grosvenor, joined the Greeley-Brown campaign while Schurz retreated to Washington to nurse his political wounds. Schurz said he didn’t care if his reputation was hurt by his silence; such damage paled in comparison with “the disappointment caused by the loss of so great an opportunity as we had.”
Much of the German community was dismayed by the selection of Greeley, but Pulitzer gave his support unhesitatingly. He took on the job of secretary of the Liberal state executive committee in addition to continuing his work as city editor of the Westliche Post. Conveniently, the committee’s offices shared the same Chestnut Street building that housed the paper.
Greeley’s favorable attitude toward temperance was both an economic and a cultural affront to Germans. Pulitzer urged Whitelaw Reid at the New York Tribune to persuade his boss to