The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (47 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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Hearst’s finances seemed to Pulitzer more vulnerable than his constitution. It was an open secret on Park Row that Hearst had drawn on his family’s wealth to finance his ventures, but no one knew the size of his stake, or the extent of his mother’s patience. Nor was there agreement on the magnitude of the
Journal
’s losses. Everyone, however, had a firm opinion. As the
Journalist
snickered, “The subject which is most vigorously discussed and upon which it is easiest to obtain exact and well vouched for information is the precise financial condition and money making or losing capabilities of the morning
Journal.
”
53
Hearst’s boosters swore the paper was already in the black: “I tell you, sir! The
Journal
is making money, making money hand over fist. A good deal of the dead wood has been lopped off. The salary list has been reduced to reasonable limits and the enormous circulation gives them absolute command over advertisers, and they are stiff in their rates, stiff as nails! They can afford to be, and they are simply coining money.” His detractors saw red ink and conspiracy: “You can calculate it up for yourself easily enough. The
Journal
does not get any prices for its advertising; they have to take what they can get, and they carry very little in comparison to the circulation that they claim. Every paper that they sell is a dead loss; the white paper costs more than they get for the paper at wholesale. Mrs. Hearst is disgusted with the whole thing . . . and if it was not for a big syndicate of silver men, who are back of the paper, it would have to stop publication.”
54
Journal
’s losses. Everyone, however, had a firm opinion. As the
Journalist
snickered, “The subject which is most vigorously discussed and upon which it is easiest to obtain exact and well vouched for information is the precise financial condition and money making or losing capabilities of the morning
Journal.
”
53
Hearst’s boosters swore the paper was already in the black: “I tell you, sir! The
Journal
is making money, making money hand over fist. A good deal of the dead wood has been lopped off. The salary list has been reduced to reasonable limits and the enormous circulation gives them absolute command over advertisers, and they are stiff in their rates, stiff as nails! They can afford to be, and they are simply coining money.” His detractors saw red ink and conspiracy: “You can calculate it up for yourself easily enough. The
Journal
does not get any prices for its advertising; they have to take what they can get, and they carry very little in comparison to the circulation that they claim. Every paper that they sell is a dead loss; the white paper costs more than they get for the paper at wholesale. Mrs. Hearst is disgusted with the whole thing . . . and if it was not for a big syndicate of silver men, who are back of the paper, it would have to stop publication.”
54
Pulitzer did his best to persuade himself that Hearst was losing big and courting disaster. He ordered Don Seitz, Bradford Merrill, and other
World
managers to lunch with past and present
Journal
employees to glean what they could of the paper’s performance. They learned that Phoebe’s cousin and financial adviser, Edward Hardy Clark, had been assigned to monitor Will’s expenses. Bradford Merrill told Pulitzer that Phoebe had sent “expert accountants” over the head of Will and his managers to examine the
Journal
’s books.
55
Another internal
World
memo estimated that Phoebe would not allow her son to spend a penny more than $5 million in New York and that most of that was already gone. Pulitzer’s bean counters pored over Hearst’s newspapers, counting inches of advertising and estimating expenses on wages, printing, paper, marketing, and other aspects of the business in the hope of arriving at a sound approximation of the
Journal
’s bottom line. Nothing they learned dissuaded Pulitzer from his strategy of protecting the
World
’s position as best he could until Hearst was financially gassed. Pulitzer did not think it would take long.
World
managers to lunch with past and present
Journal
employees to glean what they could of the paper’s performance. They learned that Phoebe’s cousin and financial adviser, Edward Hardy Clark, had been assigned to monitor Will’s expenses. Bradford Merrill told Pulitzer that Phoebe had sent “expert accountants” over the head of Will and his managers to examine the
Journal
’s books.
55
Another internal
World
memo estimated that Phoebe would not allow her son to spend a penny more than $5 million in New York and that most of that was already gone. Pulitzer’s bean counters pored over Hearst’s newspapers, counting inches of advertising and estimating expenses on wages, printing, paper, marketing, and other aspects of the business in the hope of arriving at a sound approximation of the
Journal
’s bottom line. Nothing they learned dissuaded Pulitzer from his strategy of protecting the
World
’s position as best he could until Hearst was financially gassed. Pulitzer did not think it would take long.
Protecting the
World
’s position was not a passive exercise. Pulitzer had not reached the top through a lack of challenge. He remained up to his elbows in the newspaper’s operations, monitoring everything from the prices demanded by individual news dealers to the quality of the
World
’s weather reports.
56
He developed an elaborate secret code by which to communicate with his managers about competitive issues, and he tried to hire a spy in the
Journal
’s offices (he was convinced Hearst had one at the
World
). The volume of communications with his executives ran as thick as ever. Some of it was constructive; some of it was distracting, like his instruction to Don Seitz to have someone go “gently, softly, and early in the morning” to Bradford Merrill’s office and erase the stenciled title “Editorial Manager” from his door.
57
Pulitzer was not keen on grandiose titles. He did appreciate the need to rebuild morale at the
World
and asked for recommendations of young men for special recognition and Christmas bonuses.
World
’s position was not a passive exercise. Pulitzer had not reached the top through a lack of challenge. He remained up to his elbows in the newspaper’s operations, monitoring everything from the prices demanded by individual news dealers to the quality of the
World
’s weather reports.
56
He developed an elaborate secret code by which to communicate with his managers about competitive issues, and he tried to hire a spy in the
Journal
’s offices (he was convinced Hearst had one at the
World
). The volume of communications with his executives ran as thick as ever. Some of it was constructive; some of it was distracting, like his instruction to Don Seitz to have someone go “gently, softly, and early in the morning” to Bradford Merrill’s office and erase the stenciled title “Editorial Manager” from his door.
57
Pulitzer was not keen on grandiose titles. He did appreciate the need to rebuild morale at the
World
and asked for recommendations of young men for special recognition and Christmas bonuses.
Some of Pulitzer’s smartest moves were financial. He began to invest again in printing equipment and he made generous offers to good men at the
Journal,
putting more pressure on Hearst by driving up wages. When the United Press collapsed in the spring of 1897, Hearst and other Park Row proprietors who were left without a premium wire service—an essential for any competitive newspaper—applied to join the Associated Press. Pulitzer, a charter member of the AP, approved the other papers but vetoed the
Journal.
Hearst quickly managed to purchase the New York
Morning Advertiser,
a paper with an AP franchise, and merged it with his flagship, creating the
New York Journal and Morning Advertiser.
It was a nimble move and a necessary one if Hearst was to stick to his plan, but hideously expensive at an estimated $300,000. As Pulitzer hoped, Phoebe’s patience was about to crack.
58
Journal,
putting more pressure on Hearst by driving up wages. When the United Press collapsed in the spring of 1897, Hearst and other Park Row proprietors who were left without a premium wire service—an essential for any competitive newspaper—applied to join the Associated Press. Pulitzer, a charter member of the AP, approved the other papers but vetoed the
Journal.
Hearst quickly managed to purchase the New York
Morning Advertiser,
a paper with an AP franchise, and merged it with his flagship, creating the
New York Journal and Morning Advertiser.
It was a nimble move and a necessary one if Hearst was to stick to his plan, but hideously expensive at an estimated $300,000. As Pulitzer hoped, Phoebe’s patience was about to crack.
58
Pulitzer’s flurries of instructions to his executives stopped abruptly in the last week of 1897. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Lucille Irma Pulitzer, was stricken with typhoid. He hired the best care available but Lucille did not survive. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. Pulitzer was devastated. However unusual his family circumstances, he did love his children, and he had fancied Lucille the brightest of his brood, brimming with potential, closer to him in personality than any of her siblings. It wasn’t until early February that Pulitzer returned to his desk to jolt his executives with fresh rounds of correspondence: “The new color [press] is all important and should receive the utmost attention and brains and advertising, to make a hit.”
59
59
The trade press had meanwhile grown concerned that the animosity between the
World
and the
Journal
was making both papers look ridiculous.
The Fourth Estate
admired the yellows for their “marvelous” zeal in newsgathering, “but when two newspapers find their time chiefly occupied in exaggeration of one another’s faults it is then time to consider whether journalism is doing due justice to its high estate.”
60
As if determined to prove
The Fourth Estate
’s point, the papers promptly opened an entirely new front in their war.
World
and the
Journal
was making both papers look ridiculous.
The Fourth Estate
admired the yellows for their “marvelous” zeal in newsgathering, “but when two newspapers find their time chiefly occupied in exaggeration of one another’s faults it is then time to consider whether journalism is doing due justice to its high estate.”
60
As if determined to prove
The Fourth Estate
’s point, the papers promptly opened an entirely new front in their war.
The
World
was drawing crowds to the steps of the Pulitzer Building with an electric bulletin board that displayed the latest baseball scores. The
Journal
erected a better scoreboard, “with figures illustrating the progress of the games between the New York club and its competitors,” and the crowd moved to the
Journal
’s offices. A man who sold billboards offered the
World
an upgrade on the
Journal
’s contraption at a price of $700. The
World
instead asked the police to dismantle the
Journal
’s board on the grounds that it was a public nuisance. Chief of Police Conlin told the
Journal
to halt its bulletins. The
Journal
said it would comply with the chief ’s order only if the
World
shut down its board too. Back and forth it went until attorneys for the
Journal
won an injunction from the state supreme court preventing police from interfering with its baseball bulletins. In the meantime, the
Journal
bought the $700 scoreboard from the novelty salesman and set it up outside its offices. “The fight grows livelier with every issue,” reported
The Fourth Estate,
“and is creating the deepest interest with both the public and the profession.”
61
World
was drawing crowds to the steps of the Pulitzer Building with an electric bulletin board that displayed the latest baseball scores. The
Journal
erected a better scoreboard, “with figures illustrating the progress of the games between the New York club and its competitors,” and the crowd moved to the
Journal
’s offices. A man who sold billboards offered the
World
an upgrade on the
Journal
’s contraption at a price of $700. The
World
instead asked the police to dismantle the
Journal
’s board on the grounds that it was a public nuisance. Chief of Police Conlin told the
Journal
to halt its bulletins. The
Journal
said it would comply with the chief ’s order only if the
World
shut down its board too. Back and forth it went until attorneys for the
Journal
won an injunction from the state supreme court preventing police from interfering with its baseball bulletins. In the meantime, the
Journal
bought the $700 scoreboard from the novelty salesman and set it up outside its offices. “The fight grows livelier with every issue,” reported
The Fourth Estate,
“and is creating the deepest interest with both the public and the profession.”
61
CHAPTER TEN
Taking Chances No Correspondent Ever Took
T
he largest and most important story Hearst would cover in New York surfaced eight months before he purchased the
Journal.
On February 24, 1895, a small band of rebels under the banner of the Cuban Revolutionary Party declared an insurrection against Spanish rule at Baire, near Santiago on the eastern tip of Cuba. News of the uprising bounced quickly from Havana to Madrid to New York, where all of the major dailies gave it coverage, although none took it too seriously at first. Cuba had rebelled on several previous occasions, most notably the Ten Years’ War (1868-78). Some 200,000 combatants died in that conflict before an increase in Spanish troops forced a peace negotiation. In its aftermath, rebel leaders scattered to the Americas and it had become a standing joke on Park Row that the Cuban revolution was now being fought with excited speeches in the cafés of Key West and the cigar factories of Manhattan. So when Spanish officials dismissed the Baire proclamation as a nuisance created by a handful of bandits and horse thieves, New York editorialists were not inclined to argue. That would change, however, inside of a week.
1
he largest and most important story Hearst would cover in New York surfaced eight months before he purchased the
Journal.
On February 24, 1895, a small band of rebels under the banner of the Cuban Revolutionary Party declared an insurrection against Spanish rule at Baire, near Santiago on the eastern tip of Cuba. News of the uprising bounced quickly from Havana to Madrid to New York, where all of the major dailies gave it coverage, although none took it too seriously at first. Cuba had rebelled on several previous occasions, most notably the Ten Years’ War (1868-78). Some 200,000 combatants died in that conflict before an increase in Spanish troops forced a peace negotiation. In its aftermath, rebel leaders scattered to the Americas and it had become a standing joke on Park Row that the Cuban revolution was now being fought with excited speeches in the cafés of Key West and the cigar factories of Manhattan. So when Spanish officials dismissed the Baire proclamation as a nuisance created by a handful of bandits and horse thieves, New York editorialists were not inclined to argue. That would change, however, inside of a week.
1
Gathering up reports of battles between revolutionaries and Spanish soldiers in such diverse locales as Baire, Cienfuegos, and Jaguey Grande, Pulitzer’s
World
was among the first to guess that the uprising was more serious than Spain was admitting. The
Times
was soon wondering why Madrid needed to open new credit facilities to round up a handful of bandits and horse thieves. The
Tribune
doubted that eight thousand Spanish soldiers had been hurriedly dispatched to Cuba “for the benefit they may derive from the sea voyage.”
2
World
was among the first to guess that the uprising was more serious than Spain was admitting. The
Times
was soon wondering why Madrid needed to open new credit facilities to round up a handful of bandits and horse thieves. The
Tribune
doubted that eight thousand Spanish soldiers had been hurriedly dispatched to Cuba “for the benefit they may derive from the sea voyage.”
2
Spain more or less confirmed the magnitude of the revolt in early March 1895 when it extended martial law to a third of Cuba. Then came news from Madrid that the Liberal government of Premier Práxedes Mateo Sagasta had collapsed over its failure to contain the Cuban problem. The new Conservative premier, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, sent Spain’s most famous soldier, General Arsenio Martínez Campos, a veteran of the Ten Years’ War, to crush the revolt. “We should never have thought of sending Grant to put down a railroad strike,” quipped the
World.
3
World.
3
Now confident they were on to a big story, the New York editors began dedicating generous space to the Cuban crisis. From the outset, two important trends emerged in the coverage—one entirely defensible, the other less so.
The defensible part was principled support for the Cuban people in their revolt against Spanish colonial rule. An editorial in the New York
Sun
spoke for the majority when it asked by what right the Spanish monarchy exercised “despotic authority over the people of the radiant island which is so near our own seaboard and is thousands of miles distant from the kingdom of Spain? Why should these people numbering over a million and a half be taxed to the amount of millions each year for the enrichment of Spain. . . . Should their aspirations for liberty under a Republic be crushed generation after generation?”
4
Sun
spoke for the majority when it asked by what right the Spanish monarchy exercised “despotic authority over the people of the radiant island which is so near our own seaboard and is thousands of miles distant from the kingdom of Spain? Why should these people numbering over a million and a half be taxed to the amount of millions each year for the enrichment of Spain. . . . Should their aspirations for liberty under a Republic be crushed generation after generation?”
4
It was no surprise that the progressive Pulitzer shared the
Sun
’s views, but even the conservative press was offended at Spain’s pillaging of its possession. The
Times
accused Spain of treating Cuba as “a lemon to be squeezed” while the
Tribune
compared the island to America under British administration, a popular analogy on Park Row.
5
Of all the major New York dailies, only the
Herald
and the
Evening Post
showed much consideration for Madrid. Both argued that Spain’s internal affairs were of no concern to the United States. None of the papers made much of the fact that a recent hike in the U.S. tariff on sugar imports had hurt Cuba’s economy, unsettled the Cuban people, and advanced the rebellion.
Sun
’s views, but even the conservative press was offended at Spain’s pillaging of its possession. The
Times
accused Spain of treating Cuba as “a lemon to be squeezed” while the
Tribune
compared the island to America under British administration, a popular analogy on Park Row.
5
Of all the major New York dailies, only the
Herald
and the
Evening Post
showed much consideration for Madrid. Both argued that Spain’s internal affairs were of no concern to the United States. None of the papers made much of the fact that a recent hike in the U.S. tariff on sugar imports had hurt Cuba’s economy, unsettled the Cuban people, and advanced the rebellion.
Hearst may not have owned a New York paper during the initial months of the Cuban conflict, but his
San Francisco Examiner
took a lively interest in the story. It, too, expressed sympathy for the Cubans. When, in the summer of 1895, Spain declared its intention to fight the insurgents to the last peseta and the last drop of blood, the
Examiner
was outraged: “This document announces that the whole eastern end of Cuba will be freed from all rebels and their adherents, that it will be war to extermination, that no foes will be allowed to remain to create further disturbances, that Spain will enter the fall campaign with only one object in view—the immediate and absolute subjugation of the island—and that the portion of the rebels will be death.”
6
The paper compared Spain’s intentions to Turkey’s contemporaneous slaughter of Armenian nationalists. The United States, it averred, “cannot permit the creation of another Armenia in this hemisphere.” When Hearst arrived in New York, these same arguments were taken up by the
Journal.
7
San Francisco Examiner
took a lively interest in the story. It, too, expressed sympathy for the Cubans. When, in the summer of 1895, Spain declared its intention to fight the insurgents to the last peseta and the last drop of blood, the
Examiner
was outraged: “This document announces that the whole eastern end of Cuba will be freed from all rebels and their adherents, that it will be war to extermination, that no foes will be allowed to remain to create further disturbances, that Spain will enter the fall campaign with only one object in view—the immediate and absolute subjugation of the island—and that the portion of the rebels will be death.”
6
The paper compared Spain’s intentions to Turkey’s contemporaneous slaughter of Armenian nationalists. The United States, it averred, “cannot permit the creation of another Armenia in this hemisphere.” When Hearst arrived in New York, these same arguments were taken up by the
Journal.
7
The pro-Cuban newspapers all looked to Washington to assist Cuba, but they were cautious in their appeals, acknowledging the time-honored U.S. doctrine of nonintervention in foreign disputes. They dismissed any notion of intervening militarily on behalf of the rebels, or annexing the island, or otherwise expanding America’s sphere of influence in the Caribbean. As Hearst’s
Examiner
wrote, “we are not looking for new territory, especially when it is inhabited by over 1,600,000 Spaniards, Creoles and negroes. We should be glad to see Cuba independent or annexed to Mexico, or even in the enjoyment of an autonomous local government under the sovereignty of Spain. But the present condition of the island is an international scandal, and a reproach to the [United States].”
8
Even the
Tribune,
convinced that the island would some day fall under American protection, agreed that the United States had neither the duty nor the right to force the issue. Washington was instead encouraged to recognize the rebels as belligerents under the law of nations. Belligerent status would grant the insurgents certain rights of land and naval warfare affecting their ability to import arms and men, but the primary attraction was diplomatic. The
Journal
believed that recognition would legitimize the Cuban nation, its provisional government, and its bid for self-determination. It would also move President Cleveland off of his strict respect for Spanish sovereignty in Cuba, which was seen in some quarters as tacit approval of its oppressive rule.
9
Examiner
wrote, “we are not looking for new territory, especially when it is inhabited by over 1,600,000 Spaniards, Creoles and negroes. We should be glad to see Cuba independent or annexed to Mexico, or even in the enjoyment of an autonomous local government under the sovereignty of Spain. But the present condition of the island is an international scandal, and a reproach to the [United States].”
8
Even the
Tribune,
convinced that the island would some day fall under American protection, agreed that the United States had neither the duty nor the right to force the issue. Washington was instead encouraged to recognize the rebels as belligerents under the law of nations. Belligerent status would grant the insurgents certain rights of land and naval warfare affecting their ability to import arms and men, but the primary attraction was diplomatic. The
Journal
believed that recognition would legitimize the Cuban nation, its provisional government, and its bid for self-determination. It would also move President Cleveland off of his strict respect for Spanish sovereignty in Cuba, which was seen in some quarters as tacit approval of its oppressive rule.
9
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