Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [72]
Although he was much Dana’s junior, Pulitzer had a lot in common with him politically. The Grant administration had caused them both to abandon the Republican camp. But, unlike Schurz, Dana was willing to support a Democrat. Tilden had been a favorite of Dana’s since his fight against the Tweed Ring, and the Sun had contributed heavily to his election as governor of New York. Now Dana hoped his paper would help put his man in the White House.
After a while, Dana brought Pulitzer out of his office and introduced him to his editor and heir apparent, Edward P. Mitchell. The paper was in a frenzy over the election, but the topic foremost on Pulitzer’s mind was his own desire to get a perch in New York journalism. He had tried and failed to buy the New York Belletristisches Journal. Only months before, while walking with a friend in Washington, he had confessed that he still couldn’t shake off his ambition to run a New York paper. Now he shared his idea with Mitchell and Dana.
Pulitzer told the men he wanted to launch a German edition of the Sun to compete with the New York Staats-Zeitung, a prominent German paper. The plan he put forward was that the Sun would own and publish the new paper but that he would edit it, translate for it, and add his own material. Dana, however, was uninterested, and Pulitzer left, no closer to breaking into Park Row.
On election night, the nation’s telegraph lines transmitted the results to New York, where the parties had their headquarters. As predicted, Hayes carried most of New England, but his margins were weaker than those of Grant four years earlier. Tilden carried New York and New Jersey, both states that Grant had won. In the Midwest, Tilden won Indiana, Missouri, and a solid swatch of states to the south. It looked as though the electoral count, though close, would be in the Democrats’ favor for the first time since before the Civil War. The popular vote was unquestionably for the Democrat: Tilden had 51 percent of it, and Hayes 48 percent.
But as the night went on, Oregon and three states in the South refused to fall into the Democratic column. The southern states were South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana—coincidentally, the last remaining Confederate states in which Grant still kept federal troops. As officials squabbled over the results, the electoral votes from the four disputed states were not tallied. In the morning, Tilden had 184 electoral votes, one short of the majority needed to win. Hayes had 165.
The nation’s partisan press roared to life, each newspaper declaring its man the winner and refusing to concede. Pulitzer quickly joined the fray. Writing in the St. Louis Times, he bravely proclaimed that the “hopes of Republicans about the result of the election are as groundless as the fears of the Democrats. Mr. Tilden is elected.” Whether he was putting on a brave face, believing that this was tactically smart, or was unable to concede that his side might have lost, Pulitzer continued to claim Tilden had won.
“I do not share the grave apprehensions of nearly all my Democratic friends,” he said a week later. In every scenario that he could dream up, such as the election’s being thrown into the House or the Senate’s certifying the contested states, the result would still give the presidency to the Democrats. “For these reasons I don’t think there’s much ground for serious alarm about the final results,” he said. If it were to come out differently, Grant and the Republicans “would be the rebels fighting against their country.”
In New York, Dana refused to doubt that the election was anything but a victory for Tilden. But it became clear that the outcome would be resolved by Congress. For the second time in a decade, Dana hired Pulitzer to write for the paper. He asked him to go to Washington and cover the disputed election. It was a choice