Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [9]
“Well,” replied his friend, “are you going to America?”
“Yes,” said Pulitzer. “I must go because my mother cannot support us and here there is no work.”
Going to the United States was not an outlandish plan for an ambitious Hungarian youth. Since the end of the revolution of 1848, a Jewish Emigration Society in Pest had popularized the notion, and the massive migration from Europe to the United States had begun. But Pulitzer had no money, so his options were limited. He decided his salvation lay in the path taken by his maternal uncle Wilhelm Berger, with whom he had been close. Berger had joined the Austro-Hungarian army, which was open to Jews. That spring Berger had left Hungary for Mexico to serve under Prince Maximilian, who believed he was destined to become that nation’s emperor. It was not military life that Pulitzer sought, but the escape it offered.
Pulitzer had grown tall—six feet one inch—and had a head of thick wavy chestnut hair, like his late father. A Roman nose, supporting thick glasses, and an angular chin protruded from his pale, smooth-skinned, boyish face. Although he was very thin, with long arms, his body had matured into a manly figure. But his poor eyesight barred his entry into to the Austrian army.
Events in the United States presented him with another opportunity. The American Civil War was in its third year, soldiers were dying at a rate of 13,000 a month, and the government had instituted a draft to meet the insatiable demand for more men. To meet the quota imposed on their city, a group of wealthy Bostonians looked eastward for able bodies. They wagered that there were thousands of young men in Europe who would join the American military provided their passage could be paid. The Bostonians commissioned Julian Allen, a member of a new entrepreneurial class of men finding profit in the draft law’s loopholes, to sail to Europe and launch a recruiting drive. For the plan’s backers, the venture, if successful, could be politically profitable; for Allen, it could be financially profitable.
Allen set up shop in Hamburg, Germany. He printed recruitment circulars and placed advertisements in European newspapers that reached Pest. He promised that those who joined would be paid travel expenses, a bounty of $100 when they reached the United States, and $12 a month while in the service in the military. As each man could fetch $900 or more as a substitute soldier, Allen hoped to make at least $650 on each transaction. The scheme became Pulitzer’s escape route.
In early summer of 1864, Pulitzer began making his way to Hamburg, nearly 600 miles northwest. He stopped in Vienna and met up with a cousin and two friends. They all dined at the famous Zum Lothringer inn, known for its selection of Bavarian beers and favored by many Viennese notables. After dinner, Pulitzer and one of his companions sat on a park bench and talked until dawn until he caught a train from the Nordbahnhof for Hamburg.
There Pulitzer located Allen. He was still recruiting men, but by now his methods were attracting unwanted scrutiny. Complaints were made that the men who accepted Allen’s offer of free passage were being misled into thinking they were headed for laboring jobs in the United States. Still, if Pulitzer heard of the complaints, he wasn’t deterred. Following Allen’s instructions, he traveled to the seaport of Antwerp, 285 miles west of Hamburg, from where the next ship of emigrants was scheduled to depart.
For this voyage, Allen chartered the Garland, a German 548-ton, square-rigged sailing vessel. On July 18, 1864, Pulitzer and 253 other men walked up the gangway. In comparison with any other ship taking on passengers in Antwerp that day, the Garland was an unusual sight. Every passenger was male and of military age. No other ship in the harbor sailing to the New World left without families with children.
Pulitzer was among the last to board.