Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [83]
In Paris, Kate visited the city’s fabled couturiers and Joseph indulged her expensive tastes. She also experienced, perhaps for the first time, Joseph’s quick anger. As a joke she told him she had purchased a cook-stove. He believed her and erupted in anger at her presumed foolishness. But his temper was also short-lived. Kate left Paris pregnant.
The two-month honeymoon came to a close on September 4, when the Pulitzers returned to New York on board the Russia, a modest, aging ship of the Cunard Line. The passage presented one of those singular moments in history when two figures whose names will become closely linked pass by each other unknowingly. In New York, among the passengers preparing to board the ship for its return to Europe was fifteen-year-old William Randolph Hearst, accompanied by his mother.
The Pulitzers’ European sojourn became a little more costly when customs officials peered into Kate’s two trunks. Her Paris dresses caught their attention. One appeared not to have been worn. In the past, clothing bought overseas that had “actual use” was exempt from import duties. But stricter instructions now required that agents assess duty on almost any garment bought overseas unless the passenger was actually wearing it when disembarking. The agents were just about to let Kate’s dress pass when one of them spotted a Treasury inspector looking their way. They stopped the Pulitzers and told Joseph he would have to pay a duty on the dress. He protested, and a superior was summoned who, in turn, called an appraiser over to join the debate. After an hour of listening to Pulitzer’s pleas, the officials who had gathered around the trunks remained unmoved. Unless he paid the $60 duty in gold coins, they said, his luggage would be confiscated. Pulitzer paid.
Because Pulitzer hated President Hayes, he viewed the episode as a personal affront and an example of the administration’s corruption. He dispatched a tempestuous letter to Charles Dana’s New York Sun, which had already reported the incident (though misidentifying Pulitzer as a former lieutenant governor). “Immediately next to me were two parties, each with probably five times the number of trunks and boxes,” Pulitzer wrote. “Not one of those was opened at all—everything was passed smoothly and quickly. Why? Perhaps because at least one of the parties slipped a piece of paper into the hand of his inspector, which probably partook the character of legal tender.”
At the Sun, Pulitzer met with Dana. The aging editor still held Pulitzer in high regard and agreed to publish his reflections on politics in England, France, and Germany. The resulting six pieces, which ran in the Sun’s September and October editions, not only contained astute observations but also displayed the thinking of a writer who had now developed a mature political philosophy. In comparison with the rush-to-judgment style of Pulitzer’s articles in the Westliche Post, or even his recent dispatches for the Sun during the Hayes-Tilden electoral dispute, the articles—essays, really—were dispassionate analyses.
After dissecting German, French, and British society and politics, Pulitzer reserved his last essay for an ode to his adopted land. He constructed an imaginary conversation between an American and a European in which the latter pointed out the many imperfections of democracy in the United States. Was not the selection of Hayes as president a violation of the nation’s constitutional practices? the European asked. True, replied the American, but Hayes, unlike a European monarch, will hold office for only four years. Not one to give up easily, the European continued his faultfinding and pointed to American women who sought to marry noblemen. Surely, he said, this proves that Americans look to Europe as a model. No, replied the American, it shows only the mercenary qualities of our women.
The most singular moment in Pulitzer’s imaginary dialogue occurred when the European challenged the premise of universal male suffrage,