Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [58]
The treatment the bolters received from the Republican Party had been harsh. The Grant administration and party leaders did everything they could to drive the rebels out like an infestation. “Here at home,” wrote an out-of-state reporter from St. Louis, “the Liberals have received no better treatment. They have been constantly insulted, vilified and persecuted by the Republican leaders during the past four years and will never be forgiven.”
A decision by the Missouri Grange to enter politics created an opportunity for Liberals to forestall their day of reckoning. Originally a social and educational organization for farmers, the National Grange jumped into electoral politics to fight exorbitant railroad freight rates. In July 1874, the Missouri Grange issued a call for a convention to meet in Jefferson City to create a People’s Party that would be above partisan bickering. Newspapers, particularly Republican ones, applauded the idea, believing it might reunite the party under a new umbrella and provide the strength to beat the Democrats.
The idea was quickly embraced by party leaders, who announced that there would be no Republican convention that year. Schurz and Grosvenor jumped at the prospect of repeating their success of 1870 and restarting the reform movement under a new banner. Pulitzer followed along. After all, Schurz was his former mentor and Grosvenor his political partner, the other half of the “political firm of Bill and Joe.”
On September 2, 1874, the new party met in Jefferson City to select its candidates. For governor, the party members settled on William Gentry, a prosperous, affable farmer who had no political experience and was entirely clueless regarding the major reform issues. The choice was an echo of the Cincinnati convention of 1872. The ebullient gathering, clamoring for reform, selected a candidate who pleased few of the ardent reformers. Schurz and Grosvenor supported the convention’s choice. Pulitzer couldn’t. He renounced the selection and abandoned the movement. In an interview in the St. Louis Globe, Pulitzer proclaimed his conversion. He repudiated his mentor and ended the political partnership on which he had risen to the top of a national movement. “The firm of Bill and Joe did not last long,” said the Globe, “but it was a grand firm while it lasted.”
Pulitzer charged that the newspaper’s interview with him was fraudulent yet he did not dispute its contents. The next day he explained his conversion in a long article in the Missouri Republican. Pulitzer said he did not question the honesty of “Farmer Gentry” nor did he impugn his friends’ participation in the convention. But neither Gentry’s honesty nor the good intentions of his fellow reformists could “reconcile me to so palpable a result of politics without principle.”
The concept of politics with principle might seem oxymoronic, given the nature of politics at the time, but Pulitzer was sincere. Unlike those who had risen through ward politics in the chaos of competing parties, interests, and causes, Pulitzer had entered politics with an inordinate amount of idealism. As a young newcomer he had been exhilarated by Schurz’s rebellion against corruption. Whereas his compatriots now sought the spoils of electoral victory, Pulitzer sought principle; where they saw compromise, he saw a betrayal of promise.
For Pulitzer, the convention created not a party of reform, but rather a Trojan horse carrying Grant’s Republicans into power. “To men of thought and principle, both platform and ticket are deaf and dumb,” Pulitzer said. “Selecting candidates upon the whole very much inferior to those of the Democracy, the convention remained still further behind by failing to protest against the real causes of the prostrate condition of the country—the corruption, the lawlessness, the usurpation and profligacy of the national administration.”
Drawn into civic life for idealistic reasons, Pulitzer believed that such compromises were like lying down with the devil. His belief in democracy was a civic religion, and reform was its holiest