Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [92]
The Post and Dispatch ran its share of these stories. Readers learned about heinous killings by a man in Kentucky in A CRIME UNPARALLELED IN WILD AND REVENGEFUL BRUTALITY and got the details of how the rope broke in an executioner’s attempt to hang another murderer in THE HORRIBLE CRIME FOR WHICH THE BLACK RASCAL DIED.
Pulitzer had a more ambitious and less imitative scheme for building circulation. He wanted to make news from his own news coverage. A perfect opportunity presented itself in February. Two members of the police commission, on which Pulitzer had once served, were said to have ties to city gambling operations. The state senate dispatched a committee to look quietly into the matter. On Monday morning, February 17, the committee members gathered in one of the parlors of the Laclede Hotel, dismissed everyone else from the room except their secretary, and stationed two policemen at the door. Witnesses were admitted one at a time and were sworn not to reveal anything about the conduct of the hearing. Certain that they had outfoxed the press, the senators began their work.
Pulitzer was not easily put off when he wanted a story. He conferred with his city editor, and they decided to approach a doctor whose offices in the hotel included a waiting room that had a sealed door connecting with the parlor in which the senators were to meet. By holding an ear to the door, a reporter might be able to hear the proceedings. The doctor consented to the plan. When the secret hearings began, a reporter for the Post and Dispatch who was familiar with the senators’ voices was stationed at the door, while the remainder of the press wandered through the hotel’s hallways, clueless about the proceedings. All day Pulitzer’s reporter listened, using his hands to cup his ear against the door. Unable to take notes in this awkward, cramped position, he memorized important portions and later dictated them to the city editor.
On Tuesday, the committee resumed its secret work. As its day’s work drew to an end, the early edition of the Post and Dispatch appeared on the street. “The Veil Is Rent and the Doors of the Star Chamber Fall from Their Fastening,” cried the newsboys, reading from the article headlined: A POST AND DISPATCH REPORTER DEFIES LOCKS AND BARS, BRICKS AND MORTAR. When one of the newsboys entered the lobby of the Laclede Hotel, a witness at the hearing grabbed a copy of the paper and incredulously read the first few lines. In seconds, the boy was cleaned out of his supply of papers. A note was sent up to the committee. One of the senators came from the closed chamber, got a copy of the newspaper, and retreated back into the room. Reading the account, the senator soon learned—as the paper proudly reported later—“that the cat was really out of the bag, that the dog was really dead, and that the jig was really up.”
The incensed senators summoned Pulitzer’s city editor, but he refused to divulge how the paper had obtained its scoop. A policeman was dispatched to examine the doctor’s office adjoining the hearing room. Completing his investigation, he told the committee that the door between the rooms, although blocked to traffic, was not necessarily closed to sound. Next, a man was stationed behind the door with sheets of paper to see if one could record what was being said from the other room. When he returned with notes, the senators glumly learned that indeed it was possible and actually quite easy.
For days, the Post and Dispatch crowed about its scoop. It reprinted commentary from other papers, published articles about how its coverage had stunned the senators, and made sure no one forgot. “The piece of work,” Pulitzer said, “was complete on—so complete, so surprising, so overwhelming, that it commanded