Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [89]
Dillon agreed to give Pulitzer free rein because financially he was bringing the most to the table. Although his Dispatch had fewer readers and was encumbered by a $15,000 lien from an unpaid mortgage, Pulitzer agreed to fund an expansion of the combined newspapers. Under the terms of the deal, he promised to lend up to $10,000 at 5 percent interest. No mention was made of where Pulitzer, who was down to his last reserves, would obtain such a sum.
The next day, Pulitzer abandoned the Dispatch’s headquarters and its staff. Only one employee was invited to come with Pulitzer, and he refused. Wearing a soft hat and a blue chinchilla overcoat, Pulitzer moved what little was worth keeping to the offices of the Evening Post on Pine Street, just blocks from where he had lived when he was a reporter for the Westliche Post. The following day, the new Post and Dispatch appeared.
The new paper was physically unchanged by the merger. It remained four pages long, except on Saturdays, when it promised that it might be as long as ten pages. The details of the merger were to be kept secret but were described as “decreed by immutable destiny” in an editorial that bore all the marks of Pulitzer’s hand. The editorial promised that the combination of an almost dead newspaper with another less than a year old would create a publication that would be “one of the best established among the newspapers of the country.”
Pulitzer’s dominance of the combined papers was in evidence all across the editorial page. He declared the paper’s political independence. “The Post and Dispatch will serve no party but the people; will be no organ of ‘Republicanism,’ but the organ of truth; will follow no caucuses but its own convictions; will not support the ‘Administration,’ but criticize it; will oppose all frauds and shams wherever and whatever they are; will advocate principles and ideas rather than prejudices and partisanship.”
The declaration was disingenuous. The merger agreement specified that the Post and Dispatch “would be independent with a Democratic leaning.” A careful reading of Pulitzer’s announcement made the preference clear. The Democrats remained the chosen tribe. But the declaration was the first pronouncement of what would become a tenet of Pulitzerian journalism. In his hands, independent journalism was a political tool. By building journalistic credibility with readers, a newspaper could build independent political power. For Pulitzer, journalism was another route to power.
Anyone who knew Pulitzer knew that power was something he did not readily share. McCullagh, at the Globe-Democrat, foresaw trouble for his protégé. To succeed, Dillon would have to tone down “the crude products of Pulitzer’s fiery and untamed brain,” said McCullagh. This was such a tall order that should he succeed, McCullagh added, Dillon could retire to harness zebras in the wild.
Chapter Thirteen
SUCCESS
Before the Post and Dispatch was a month old, Pulitzer announced that larger quarters and faster presses were needed to meet the surging demand for it. This was sheer chutzpah. St. Louisans weren’t exactly rushing into the streets to buy the paper. True, circulation neared 4,000. But Dillon and Pulitzer had merged their subscription lists. The actual number of new subscribers was low—hardly a groundswell straining the capacity of the Globe-Democrat’s presses, which printed the Post and Dispatch. In fact, Pulitzer’s plan seemed economically suicidal.
In the following weeks, money slipped rapidly from Dillon and Pulitzer’s hands. They leased a building at 111 North Fifth Street that had once been the home of the Evening Dispatch. Crews moved in to make needed repairs and alterations. Pulitzer and Dillon ordered one of Richard M. Hoe & Company’s newest and speediest four-cylinder presses, capable of printing the paper’s entire press run in less than an hour. To old hands in the St. Louis press corps, the expense was unjustified. So far, except for Pulitzer’s friends in politics and journalism, few people were paying any attention to the Post and Dispatch.