Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [86]
During the confusion at the end of the auction, Pulitzer slipped away unnoticed. But a reporter caught up with him as he stepped into the elevator at his hotel and pressed him for an interview. “I would grant your rather sudden request with the greatest of pleasure,” Pulitzer said, “if it were not for the unfortunate fact that I have been engaged all day, and now am going to see my wife for the first time since breakfast this morning, and I know you wouldn’t detain even a humble individual like myself from the bosom of his family for so long a period. Even if the imperious necessities of metropolitan journalism…”
“But, Mr. Pulitzer, only a question,” broke in the reporter. “You have bought the Dispatch, I understand, and I would like you…”
Now it was Pulitzer’s turn to interrupt. “My dear fellow, without presuming to criticize your intelligence or acumen, which I would hardly dare to question, are you not assuming too much? I own the Dispatch—I?”
The cat-and-mouse game continued as Pulitzer feigned ignorance, pretended to be unacquainted with Arnold, and conceded only that it was “possible” though not “probable” that he had bought the Dispatch. The reporter gave up. “No one better understands the use of language for the purpose for which Talleyrand said it was given—to conceal one’s thoughts—than Mr. Pulitzer,” wrote the frustrated reporter. “He parries the question like a skillful fencer, and it is as hard to pin him to a point as it is an eel.”
The following day, all the newspapers reported that Pulitzer was the new owner, but he had yet to confirm his purchase publicly. “The all-absorbing question this morning in newspaper circles was, had Mr. Joseph Pulitzer really bought the Evening Dispatch?” asked Dillon at the Evening Post. Gossip had it that Pulitzer intended to merge the Dispatch with another paper. “There are so many rumors afloat about evening journalism in St. Louis that we should not be surprised, as the result of all of them, to hear the newsboys crying out ‘the Dispatch-Journal-Post-Star,’” wrote Mack at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The rumor of a merger worried Dillon. A combination of the Dispatch and Star could destroy his Evening Post. He wanted to know Pulitzer’s plans without disclosing his own fears. He sent one of his reporters off to find Pulitzer and see what could be learned.
Locating Pulitzer was not easy. At the Dispatch’s office, the reporter found two or three employees sitting around, idly passing the time with the paper’s attorney. Pulitzer was expected, they said. By nine-thirty he had not arrived. Impatient, the reporter left. He spotted his quarry on the street, across from the offices of the Westliche Post. That was, however, the extent of his good luck. Pulitzer was still uncooperative. “I do not know that I am the owner of the Dispatch,” he said. “I do not know that I have authorized anybody to say that I bought it or that I intend to buy it.”
Frustrated, the reporter walked to the city collector’s office, where Arnold, who had placed the winning bid, was employed. He spoke with Rosenblatt, Arnold’s boss.
“Did you buy the paper for Mr. Pulitzer?”
“The Dispatch was purchased for Mr. Joseph Pulitzer,” replied Rosenblatt.
“This, of course,” the reporter said, “looked like a positive thing, but why on earth was Mr. Pulitzer playing the sphinx?”
The answer was not hard to fathom. His dodges were designed to fan public interest. He had been similarly dishonest with the St. Louis press corps when the sale of the Westliche Post was rumored, and he had also done this when he bought the Staats-Zeitung. In this present instance, his evasions served to increase the mystery surrounding his actions. The more he could get the St. Louis press to talk about the sale of the paper, the more papers he would sell.
Finally, at noon, Pulitzer walked into the Dispatch’s office in the company of the lawyer William Patrick, who had once used Pulitzer as an errand boy. The auctioneer, who had been cooling his