The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (3 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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Senator Hearst’s “model wife” might not have registered the precise moment of his passing, but she knew exactly what to do once he was gone. Phoebe was a formidable woman in her own right. Tiny, dark-haired, and handsome in a severe manner, she was given to lavender gowns, antique lace, tight corsets, and show-stopping rubies and diamonds. She was Washington’s most celebrated hostess, the “philanthropic grande dame” of the capital and its “arbiter of unsullied elegance,” by one newspaper report. Just two years prior to her husband’s death, she had opened their Dupont Circle mansion with a costume ball to commemorate Washington’s birthday. The
Washington Post
deemed it “by far the most brilliant event of its kind” ever held in the city. The flowers alone were rumored to have cost $25,000 (the reporter who wrote the story would have been lucky to earn $25 a week). The party favors included “reticules of flowered silk, amber and tortoise shell combs and clusters of three ostrich tips for the hair. Those of the gentlemen were silver medals cut with colonial cocked hats and shields, pen wipers of white kid embroidered in flowers and tiny buckets of California redwood in the form of pin cushions.”
13
So never mind that the humble senator might have been perfectly content with a quick drop in a pine box. Phoebe’s reputation demanded she give him a glorious send-off.
Washington Post
deemed it “by far the most brilliant event of its kind” ever held in the city. The flowers alone were rumored to have cost $25,000 (the reporter who wrote the story would have been lucky to earn $25 a week). The party favors included “reticules of flowered silk, amber and tortoise shell combs and clusters of three ostrich tips for the hair. Those of the gentlemen were silver medals cut with colonial cocked hats and shields, pen wipers of white kid embroidered in flowers and tiny buckets of California redwood in the form of pin cushions.”
13
So never mind that the humble senator might have been perfectly content with a quick drop in a pine box. Phoebe’s reputation demanded she give him a glorious send-off.
The ceremonies began with George Hearst’s body lying in state for the better part of a week. A memorial service was held in Washington at Saint John’s Episcopal Church, the president and Mrs. Benjamin Harrison in attendance. Afterward, the casket, Phoebe, Will, and a large party of senators, congressmen, friends, and retainers boarded a special train, dyed Titian red, for the week-long ride back west. George’s body was displayed for four more days at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, attracting thousands of mourners, even in hard rains.
The funeral service was Phoebe’s main event. The governor of the state and the city’s mayor were among the honorary pallbearers; the widow’s society friends sat in assigned pews. She transformed the church into a garden, with palms and evergreens crowding every niche, and a pair of seven-foot white flower crosses bracketing the altar. Great streams of blossoms hung from every arch and rafter. It was an exhibition of “gems and treasures of the florist’s art such as have rarely been brought together to do honor to the dead,” gushed the
Examiner.
Will’s daily had made its own contribution to the display.
14
Sitting like a billboard in front of the casket was a blue and white floral representation of the paper’s front page, featuring a portrait of the senator.
Examiner.
Will’s daily had made its own contribution to the display.
14
Sitting like a billboard in front of the casket was a blue and white floral representation of the paper’s front page, featuring a portrait of the senator.
After the service, Phoebe left the church on Will’s arm to lead a slow ten-block procession to Laurel Hill Cemetery. The hearse was drawn by four jet-black horses. “The strains of the dirges and the long roll of the muffled drums were the only sounds above the patter of the rain,” reported the
Examiner
. Fifteen thousand people gathered in the steady drizzle to watch the cortege pass. The crowd at the cemetery gates had to be cleared to permit the family to enter. Sixteen days after his last breath, the senator was finally laid to rest. Pheobe and Will were last to leave the casket.
15
Examiner
. Fifteen thousand people gathered in the steady drizzle to watch the cortege pass. The crowd at the cemetery gates had to be cleared to permit the family to enter. Sixteen days after his last breath, the senator was finally laid to rest. Pheobe and Will were last to leave the casket.
15
If Grace Episcopal had been to Phoebe’s taste, the funeral train’s return east sans casket was nearer to George’s style. An Indiana temperance crusader whose own train happened to be trailing the Hearst party complained that its passengers engaged in a coast-to-coast debauch, fueled by wines donated by California vineyards. The front page of the starchy
New York Times
reported that privately marked cases of wine and hundreds of empties were loaded on and off the train near El Paso, Texas. Witnesses declared that tier upon tier of wine cases were stacked in the dining car and that the Hearst party “did not have a drip of water on their train but drank wine altogether, using orange wine to quench their thirst.”
16
Congress was indignant at the allegations, especially as it was obliged to pick up the tab. The cost of the trip was a record $21,322.55, which led to legislation limiting government spending on congressional funerals to the costs of embalming and transporting the body home (the bill was never enacted).
17
New York Times
reported that privately marked cases of wine and hundreds of empties were loaded on and off the train near El Paso, Texas. Witnesses declared that tier upon tier of wine cases were stacked in the dining car and that the Hearst party “did not have a drip of water on their train but drank wine altogether, using orange wine to quench their thirst.”
16
Congress was indignant at the allegations, especially as it was obliged to pick up the tab. The cost of the trip was a record $21,322.55, which led to legislation limiting government spending on congressional funerals to the costs of embalming and transporting the body home (the bill was never enacted).
17
In the weeks before the senator’s death, newspapers had speculated as to the settlement of the Hearst estate. Valued at between eighteen and twenty million, it included several outstanding mining properties and perhaps a million acres in land. The betting was that Will, as the only child, would be the sole heir. In fact, he was shut out. Everything regarding the ownership, management, and disposition of the assets fell to Phoebe. The senator had written, “I commend my son, William R. Hearst, to my said wife, having full confidence that she will make suitable provisions for him, but in the event of the marriage of my said wife after my death, I hereby give and bequeath to my said son all of my said property that may remain in the possession of my said wife at that date.”
18
18
Will Hearst now had a lot to absorb. Notwithstanding that his father had been away in mining camps for much of his life, there had been a bond between them. Will was his father’s boy in many respects. There was a physical resemblance: the fair hair, the long face, the tall stature and sloped shoulders. Each possessed cool judgment and a powerful mind with a practical bent. Will also had some of George’s gentleness and amiability (although little of his freewheeling charm). They had drawn close as Will had matured, primarily through their shared interests in publishing and politics. Many people, starting with Phoebe, had held the senator’s simple ways against him, but Will had not. He favored competence and accomplishment over manners and appearances, an attitude he had adopted from George. He loved and admired his father, and his bereavement had to have been profound. It would have especially pained him that George had doubted his maturity and financial abilities, and had not seen fit to leave him an independent legacy. He must have cringed to recall his panicked pleas for another “million or a million and a half or two million” with which to fight the
Chronicle.
19
Chronicle.
19
Will appears to have blamed himself for his father’s decision (a verdict echoed by his biographers), yet odds on a full inheritance had always been slim. The senator’s relations with his son were far less important to the disposition of his estate than were his relationship with his wife and the unorthodox terms of their marriage.
DURING THE CIVIL WAR, George Hearst had returned from the far west to visit his ailing mother in the Meramec Valley. He was an overripe but nonetheless eligible bachelor, forty years old and flush with one of his early mining successes. One newspaper described him as a tall, smiling man “with long swinging arms, big feet and hands, a somewhat awkward gait.”
20
Phoebe Apperson was almost half his size and age, a petite, pretty twenty-year-old schoolteacher who could also sew, cook, plant, hoe, and milk. Their age gap was alarming, not least of all because George, as a young man, appears to have been sweet on Phoebe’s mother. Naturally, her parents opposed the match, but Phoebe had read enough of
Harper’s Weekly
to know there were grander and more interesting places to live than rural Missouri. The ceremony was performed by a Presbyterian minister in a private home on June 15, 1862, absent relations from either side.
20
Phoebe Apperson was almost half his size and age, a petite, pretty twenty-year-old schoolteacher who could also sew, cook, plant, hoe, and milk. Their age gap was alarming, not least of all because George, as a young man, appears to have been sweet on Phoebe’s mother. Naturally, her parents opposed the match, but Phoebe had read enough of
Harper’s Weekly
to know there were grander and more interesting places to live than rural Missouri. The ceremony was performed by a Presbyterian minister in a private home on June 15, 1862, absent relations from either side.
More remarkably, the day prior to the ceremony, the couple had signed a prenuptial agreement guaranteeing Phoebe a share of George’s estate for her own separate property, free from his interference and control during her natural life. Judith Robinson, the Hearst family chronicler, has turned up evidence that Phoebe may have been pregnant prior to the wedding, which could explain the unusual proceedings, but Phoebe would have been capable of striking a hard bargain even if she weren’t expecting. William Randolph Hearst’s date of birth is given as April 29, 1863. His birth record was lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
21
21
Through the early years of their marriage, Hearst’s parents lived largely separate lives—George in his mining milieu, his bride in San Francisco, where she engaged in an ambitious program of self-improvement and social advance. Phoebe had a vigorous mind and great curiosity about the world. She studied painting and art, read books, and attended the opera. She hosted luncheons, established a literary salon, and traveled incessantly—west to Hawaii, south to Acapulco, east to Washington, New York, and, ultimately, Europe. She made education the focus of her philanthropic activities and eventually became a leading benefactor and regent of the University of California.
Although the overall tone of the couple’s correspondence is generally one of mutual regard and affection, they never got around to establishing a permanent family home. Neither would make the sacrifice to follow the other. Phoebe had barely left the farm before she was confessing an aversion to “common people.”
22
She disliked mining towns and politics, and she hated horse racing. She became increasingly embarrassed by her tobacco-chewing husband’s dirty shirtfronts and his contempt for polite society. She complained of his neglect of his family and suspected him of keeping company with other women, which was probably the case. By the second decade of their marriage, during which Phoebe traveled extensively, they were sometimes keeping track of one another’s activities through the newspapers.
23
22
She disliked mining towns and politics, and she hated horse racing. She became increasingly embarrassed by her tobacco-chewing husband’s dirty shirtfronts and his contempt for polite society. She complained of his neglect of his family and suspected him of keeping company with other women, which was probably the case. By the second decade of their marriage, during which Phoebe traveled extensively, they were sometimes keeping track of one another’s activities through the newspapers.
23
It is not unfair to say that aside from a shared interest in the welfare and progress of their son, the strongest bond between Phoebe and George Hearst was the family fortune. Money and business are preoccupations in their letters, and from their first days together Phoebe was a champion spender of her husband’s cash. She packed her wardrobes with the finest clothing and jewelry. She once returned from Europe with paintings, statuary, and antiques filling two railway cars. She was constantly moving house or renovating, and her entertainments at home were lavish even by the standards of the Gilded Age. Of course, all of the Hearsts were great spenders, but Phoebe distinguished herself by caring more for being rich: “I’m not a bit proud but I do love the prestige that filthy lucre gives one.”
24
Hypocrisy about money was one of her charms. After having begged George to give her a large diamond as a Christmas gift, she wrote him that her conscience was troubling her “for saying a word about wanting Mrs. Barreda’s beautiful diamonds. I only meant that I should like them very much if we had money and no debts.”
25
24
Hypocrisy about money was one of her charms. After having begged George to give her a large diamond as a Christmas gift, she wrote him that her conscience was troubling her “for saying a word about wanting Mrs. Barreda’s beautiful diamonds. I only meant that I should like them very much if we had money and no debts.”
25
Just how mismatched a couple the Hearsts had become was apparent to all of Washington when George’s election to the Senate threw the two together in the capital. Phoebe bought and renovated her “palace at Dupont Circle,” a thirty-room grand mansion with towers, turrets, and a red-tiled roof. High Victorian in style, it had occasional Oriental touches to break with the ordinary. Walls in the library tower were hung with blue India velvet; a dining room was lined with Venetian leather. The house was packed with Phoebe’s treasures, including an impressive collection of Napoleona and paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Millet, and Van Dyke. Staffing was generous, from the two Chinese chefs to the stable master, who cared for six high-stepping, hackney-bred bay horses lodged in steam-heated stables.
26
The palace was appropriate to the personage Phoebe had become, but her husband was not at home in it. “It is hardly fair to say that Senator Hearst has occupied the house,” snickered one newspaper. He paid the bills but was otherwise “not much of a factor in the domestic organization.” The night his wife opened the home with a dress ball on Washington’s birthday, George led a small party of favored guests to the cellar, where they smoked and drank in peace beside the coal hole. “I can’t see the fun in my wife’s rackets,” he muttered .
27
26
The palace was appropriate to the personage Phoebe had become, but her husband was not at home in it. “It is hardly fair to say that Senator Hearst has occupied the house,” snickered one newspaper. He paid the bills but was otherwise “not much of a factor in the domestic organization.” The night his wife opened the home with a dress ball on Washington’s birthday, George led a small party of favored guests to the cellar, where they smoked and drank in peace beside the coal hole. “I can’t see the fun in my wife’s rackets,” he muttered .
27
Notwithstanding their conflicts and differences, the Hearst marriage endured. George had high regard for Phoebe’s abilities and allowed her to take a keen interest in his businesses, an unusual step for a Victorian husband. He kept her informed of all his commercial operations and invited her to play executive roles, even to interview prospective managers. At his death, Phoebe was due her husband’s estate. She had married it as well as him and, through her participation in George’s affairs, she had contributed to their prosperity. Given her nature, it is inconceivable that she would have let him die without his affairs being arranged to her own satisfaction, and she would never have been happy without full control of the estate. Any doubts as to her managerial capacity were squelched six weeks after the senator’s funeral when she unsentimentally organized an auction of his beloved thoroughbreds. With that out of the way, she directed her firm gaze to her son.
Phoebe had always been capable of generosity toward Will—his yacht,
Vamoose,
for instance, had been her idea. She actually encouraged extravagance in him so long as it was in line with her own standards and social aspirations. But when he developed a cavalier habit of drawing on the family accounts to support the
Examiner
and began living openly with his girlfriend, Phoebe dug in her heels. She had questioned George’s courage when he’d failed to curb what she considered to be Will’s excesses.
28
Now that she controlled the purse strings, she wasn’t about to compound her husband’s errors. She reined in Will’s allowance and ended his unscheduled cash draws from family accounts. She also made him take all his financial requests to her bookkeeper, deepening his humiliation at having being denied an inheritance. For the time being, the acquisition of a New York daily and the launch of a newspaper empire were out of the question.
Vamoose,
for instance, had been her idea. She actually encouraged extravagance in him so long as it was in line with her own standards and social aspirations. But when he developed a cavalier habit of drawing on the family accounts to support the
Examiner
and began living openly with his girlfriend, Phoebe dug in her heels. She had questioned George’s courage when he’d failed to curb what she considered to be Will’s excesses.
28
Now that she controlled the purse strings, she wasn’t about to compound her husband’s errors. She reined in Will’s allowance and ended his unscheduled cash draws from family accounts. She also made him take all his financial requests to her bookkeeper, deepening his humiliation at having being denied an inheritance. For the time being, the acquisition of a New York daily and the launch of a newspaper empire were out of the question.
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