Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [64]
In early May 1875, Pulitzer was riding the train to Jefferson City. As he had done five years earlier, he was traveling to the capital as an elected official. This time he was on his way to join sixty-seven other delegates to the constitutional convention in the chambers of the Missouri house of representatives at the capitol. The lobby was filled with spectators eager to see the men who had the task of coming up with a new constitution. The delegates were a fairly homogeneous group; all male, as women did not yet have the right to vote; wealthy, since only a few could afford to spend several weeks away from work; and mostly lawyers. Politically, they represented a backlash against Radical rule. Democrats had complete control of the proceedings. In fact, the convention was almost a Confederate reunion, with more than half of the delegates having served in the Confederacy or having been sympathetic to the cause.
At age twenty-eight, Pulitzer was by far the youngest of the delegates—in fact, about twenty years younger than the average. He certainly stood out. He was the only one to have his photograph taken with a hat on, cocked ever so slightly to his right. It was a slouch hat, a style introduced to the United States by the revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth when he fled Hungary. Along with this hat Pulitzer wore a pince-nez, a mustache, a narrow pointed goatee trimmed in a style known as a Napoleon III, and a royale (a tuft of hair under the lower lip)—if he was seeking to be noticed, he succeeded.
Pulitzer had done his research, and he exuded confidence. His tenure as a reporter and a lawmaker had provided him with considerable parliamentary skills, which he was not reluctant to wield. But his sharp tongue, which had aroused Augustine’s anger in 1870, was also soon heard. This time he took aim at Lewis Gottschalk, a fellow delegate from St. Louis. As the convention got under way, Gottschalk asked that the secretary of state be directed to report to the convention on rumors appearing in the press about supplementary election returns, which, if counted, would reverse the election results calling for the convention. “I believe,” Pulitzer said, “it will be self-evident that the resolution is an insult to the intelligence of this Convention, which is offered by my very learned and honored colleague; and it is certainly an insult to his own intelligence.”
The war of words rapidly escalated. Gottschalk wanted the new constitution to include an acknowledgment that the state of Missouri and its people were part of the American nation. By themselves the words were innocuous, but coming a decade after the end of the Civil War, they were an attack on the delegates’ loyalty to the Union, and they struck a nerve with Pulitzer.
“Well, Mr. Chairman, I stand here as an American representative, and as an American,” said Pulitzer as he took the floor. “You might as well ask a child to state in writing that he or she is the off-spring of the parent,” he continued. “I ask further, Mr. Chairman, I ask the Convention upon what ground, upon what logic other than that of fear, than that of catering to an extravagant and extreme partisan spirit which for a selfish and cowardly purpose…”
“Mr. Chairman,” interrupted Gottschalk. “I call the gentleman to order.”
“I expected it,” said Pulitzer, to the laughter of the delegates.
“I undertake to say that this language is unparliamentary,” said Gottschalk, at which point the chairman joined in. “Mr. Pulitzer will come to order,” he said.
“Well, the truth is never unparliamentary,” rejoined Pulitzer, again eliciting a wave of laughter.
“The Gentleman will confine himself to the proposition before the Committee,” ordered the chairman, trying to bring an end to the dispute, which was threatening to disrupt the work of the delegates. Pulitzer prevailed and the amendment died. Despite the impression of acrimony between Gottschalk and his impertinent young sparring