The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (83 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
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Of the two- and three-cent papers, the
Herald
alone had a decent war. It endured its share of mistakes and criticisms and it executed a stunning reversal of judgment on the advisability of the conflict, but its traditions of comprehensive and straightforward coverage of international affairs served it well in Cuba. “We may criticize the
Herald
on minor points,” wrote the
Journalist,
“but when a great crisis comes; when we want the news promptly and accurately reported, [it] is always in the front.”
11
Herald
alone had a decent war. It endured its share of mistakes and criticisms and it executed a stunning reversal of judgment on the advisability of the conflict, but its traditions of comprehensive and straightforward coverage of international affairs served it well in Cuba. “We may criticize the
Herald
on minor points,” wrote the
Journalist,
“but when a great crisis comes; when we want the news promptly and accurately reported, [it] is always in the front.”
11
The
World
landed the biggest scoop of the war with its full account of Dewey’s triumph in Manila Bay, and Scovel did some good reporting from the ground in the vicinity of Santiago in advance of the Fifth Army’s arrival, but pretty much everything else went miserably for Pulitzer.
12
His overzealous effort to find the
Journal
guilty of un-American activities in the
Buccaneer
incident backfired, bringing Hearst sympathy and providing him an opportunity to make public his munificent offer to grant the war effort a yacht and a fully funded regiment.
13
It also triggered Brisbane’s great prank, the unmasking of Reflipe Thenuz, one of the great embarrassments of Pulitzer’s career. The so-called slur on the Boys of the Seventy-First, Scovel’s crashing of the Santiago ceremony, and the paper’s dismissal of its star correspondent did nothing to assuage the harsh impressions of the trades that the
World
was “hopeless, vile beyond redemption.”
14
At one point during the fighing, Pulitzer lost complete faith in himself and his staff and offered the Chicago newspaperman Melville Stone free run of the
World
at $50,000 a year. Stone, knowing Pulitzer’s capriciousness, declined.
15
World
landed the biggest scoop of the war with its full account of Dewey’s triumph in Manila Bay, and Scovel did some good reporting from the ground in the vicinity of Santiago in advance of the Fifth Army’s arrival, but pretty much everything else went miserably for Pulitzer.
12
His overzealous effort to find the
Journal
guilty of un-American activities in the
Buccaneer
incident backfired, bringing Hearst sympathy and providing him an opportunity to make public his munificent offer to grant the war effort a yacht and a fully funded regiment.
13
It also triggered Brisbane’s great prank, the unmasking of Reflipe Thenuz, one of the great embarrassments of Pulitzer’s career. The so-called slur on the Boys of the Seventy-First, Scovel’s crashing of the Santiago ceremony, and the paper’s dismissal of its star correspondent did nothing to assuage the harsh impressions of the trades that the
World
was “hopeless, vile beyond redemption.”
14
At one point during the fighing, Pulitzer lost complete faith in himself and his staff and offered the Chicago newspaperman Melville Stone free run of the
World
at $50,000 a year. Stone, knowing Pulitzer’s capriciousness, declined.
15
The excitement of war did bring out the garish hues of the yellow papers, hardening opposition to both Pulitzer and Hearst in some quarters. One outraged critic wrote in the
Journalist,
“For ‘offensive partisanship’ and ‘pernicious activity,’ there has been nothing in human experience so far as I can call to mind to exceed the course of a certain portion of the New York press in the last six months.”
16
Yet all of the trade papers noticed that the flaws of the yellow press were also abundantly evident in the “respectable” dailies. One theory was that the better sheets had been dragged down market by “the morbid, craving, sensation loving public,” while another held that they had been infected by a one-cent journalism toxin: “The taint of the yellow sheet has seemed to reach all.”
17
These reviews notwithstanding, many critics continued to rate the
Journal
an excellent all-around newspaper and credited it with forcing its Park Row rivals to raise their games.
18
Journalist,
“For ‘offensive partisanship’ and ‘pernicious activity,’ there has been nothing in human experience so far as I can call to mind to exceed the course of a certain portion of the New York press in the last six months.”
16
Yet all of the trade papers noticed that the flaws of the yellow press were also abundantly evident in the “respectable” dailies. One theory was that the better sheets had been dragged down market by “the morbid, craving, sensation loving public,” while another held that they had been infected by a one-cent journalism toxin: “The taint of the yellow sheet has seemed to reach all.”
17
These reviews notwithstanding, many critics continued to rate the
Journal
an excellent all-around newspaper and credited it with forcing its Park Row rivals to raise their games.
18
If one individual gained a lion’s share of acclaim from his journalistic peers in the wake of the war, it was Hearst. His decision to go to Cuba captivated Park Row. His movements were closely followed in the trades and the applause began the moment he embarked. “It must be evident to even Mr. Hearst’s most bitter enemies that he is not lacking in personal courage,” wrote
The Fourth Estate,
“for if there is any one man the Spaniards would like to have in any of their several Morro castles it is the proprietor of the
New York Journal.
He is blamed by them with causing the war which has proven so disastrous. Then, too, they object to the habit of the
Journal
of printing the news just as fast as it happens, telling of the defeats of the Spanish arms as they come in rapid succession.”
19
As to Hearst’s copy,
The Fourth Estate
judged that he summoned the atmosphere of the battlefield and told truth in a straightforward fashion without the “pat picturing” of competing reports. The whole effect was “enormously attractive.”
20
The Fourth Estate,
“for if there is any one man the Spaniards would like to have in any of their several Morro castles it is the proprietor of the
New York Journal.
He is blamed by them with causing the war which has proven so disastrous. Then, too, they object to the habit of the
Journal
of printing the news just as fast as it happens, telling of the defeats of the Spanish arms as they come in rapid succession.”
19
As to Hearst’s copy,
The Fourth Estate
judged that he summoned the atmosphere of the battlefield and told truth in a straightforward fashion without the “pat picturing” of competing reports. The whole effect was “enormously attractive.”
20
The
Journalist
was amazed that a proprietor would stoop to reportage. It seemed to upset the natural order of things on Park Row. Generally speaking, men who achieve high executive office or an ownership stake in a newspaper not only quit writing for its pages but put as much social distance as possible between themselves and front-line hacks. Hearst had led his journalists by example: “That the editor and proprietor of the
Journal
is willing to share with his subordinates the heats of the day and its toils has been amply demonstrated within the last few weeks, and only a churl would deny him his just mead of praise.”
21
It was not public knowledge that Hearst was only sharing the toils of his men by day, retiring at night to the comforts of the
Sylvia
and his beloved Millicent.
Journalist
was amazed that a proprietor would stoop to reportage. It seemed to upset the natural order of things on Park Row. Generally speaking, men who achieve high executive office or an ownership stake in a newspaper not only quit writing for its pages but put as much social distance as possible between themselves and front-line hacks. Hearst had led his journalists by example: “That the editor and proprietor of the
Journal
is willing to share with his subordinates the heats of the day and its toils has been amply demonstrated within the last few weeks, and only a churl would deny him his just mead of praise.”
21
It was not public knowledge that Hearst was only sharing the toils of his men by day, retiring at night to the comforts of the
Sylvia
and his beloved Millicent.
Hearst made an even stronger impression with his successful printing of a Cuban edition. The trades recognized that the endeavor had no commercial value and that it was at least as much a promotional vehicle as a public service, but they were nonetheless wowed. Publishing an edition in Cuba was an idea that could only have sprung from the mind of a newspaperman who “loved his profession, as an artist does his art; for its own sake and not for what he can make out of it,” according to the
Journalist.
22
In its view, Hearst’s success in New York and the unquestionable appeal of the
Journal
were due to the fact that Hearst was a newspaperman first and “only incidentally a proprietor.” He now stood “in the first rank of American journalism.”
Journalist.
22
In its view, Hearst’s success in New York and the unquestionable appeal of the
Journal
were due to the fact that Hearst was a newspaperman first and “only incidentally a proprietor.” He now stood “in the first rank of American journalism.”
Newspaper Maker
celebrated Hearst as the embodiment of an emerging national spirit.
23
With his singularly American “nerve and pluck,” the relative newcomer had shown the old-timers how to be progressive. “This hustling young millionaire,” the
Newspaper Maker
wrote, “has astonished the newspaper world during the past three years by the magnitude of his enterprises, and although some of his methods are open to question, the dry bones that were rattled among his contemporaries made them put a little more vim in their efforts.”
24
It was Hearst’s accomplishments that
Newspaper Maker
had in mind when at the close of the war it celebrated the “newspaper age” with a rhetoric of transformative change later echoed by enthusiasts of the space age and the digital age:
celebrated Hearst as the embodiment of an emerging national spirit.
23
With his singularly American “nerve and pluck,” the relative newcomer had shown the old-timers how to be progressive. “This hustling young millionaire,” the
Newspaper Maker
wrote, “has astonished the newspaper world during the past three years by the magnitude of his enterprises, and although some of his methods are open to question, the dry bones that were rattled among his contemporaries made them put a little more vim in their efforts.”
24
It was Hearst’s accomplishments that
Newspaper Maker
had in mind when at the close of the war it celebrated the “newspaper age” with a rhetoric of transformative change later echoed by enthusiasts of the space age and the digital age:
Here is the raw event on one side of the earth; and before you can turn around the account and explanation has not only been thought out and written out and filed at the telegraphic office and ticked off to the home office; but it has been assigned its proper page and place and type, it has been set up, cast and printed, it has been delivered to the newsboys and agents and carried by trains to all points of the compass. And this is not done during certain special office hours, but it is done every hour of the four-and-twenty; you have no sooner read the first edition than the second is ready, with the third in sight, and so on all day long. Energy! Where in all fairy-tale is there an enchanter who could achieve anything half so marvelous? Every man who can read, and is not himself at the front in the present crisis, will practically be present at operation and turn of fortune and will be able to tell the veterans when they return home more about what they have been doing than they know themselves. Space and time, as hindrances to knowledge, have ceased to be. . . . It is revolutionary. . . . [I]t is magnificent. The modern newspaper introduces a new age, unlike anything imagined heretofore.
25
Although mixed with fierce criticism, the shower of approbation Hearst received on his return from Cuba shows that the consensus within his profession was that he had, in fact, made a success in Cuba. He had scored in most of the ways it was possible for a newspaperman to score at war: his dispatches brought him critical applause, the
Journal
was hugely influential and more popular than ever with its readers, and the Cuban edition of his paper was a smash. Yet somehow it was not enough.
Journal
was hugely influential and more popular than ever with its readers, and the Cuban edition of his paper was a smash. Yet somehow it was not enough.
THIS WAS HEARST’S REAL PROBLEM. Newspapers had consumed him since he had taken the reins of the
San Francisco Examiner
in 1887. He had studied and mastered the trade and he had dedicated every ounce of his intelligence, imagination, talent, and ambition to his publications. He had arrived in New York in 1895, unbidden and unheralded in the greatest newspaper city in the world, and set for himself the ridiculously high goal of supplanting Pulitzer as king of Park Row, champion of the Democratic Party, and popular voice of the great American people. He had met that challenge. He had followed Dana’s instruction to use his high position for good, pushing the boundaries of editorial influence and activism far beyond what some thought advisable and most thought possible—to the point where some serious observers began to think newspapers really did command the public agenda, that they were indeed the greatest force in civilization. Hearst had done all this happily, at the expense of his youth and a good part of his fortune, at risk to his health and reputation. Yet at the very pinnacle of his achievement in New York he had slammed face-first into the hard limits of his profession. The role of the press, however grand his aspirations for it, was essentially one of observation and criticism.
San Francisco Examiner
in 1887. He had studied and mastered the trade and he had dedicated every ounce of his intelligence, imagination, talent, and ambition to his publications. He had arrived in New York in 1895, unbidden and unheralded in the greatest newspaper city in the world, and set for himself the ridiculously high goal of supplanting Pulitzer as king of Park Row, champion of the Democratic Party, and popular voice of the great American people. He had met that challenge. He had followed Dana’s instruction to use his high position for good, pushing the boundaries of editorial influence and activism far beyond what some thought advisable and most thought possible—to the point where some serious observers began to think newspapers really did command the public agenda, that they were indeed the greatest force in civilization. Hearst had done all this happily, at the expense of his youth and a good part of his fortune, at risk to his health and reputation. Yet at the very pinnacle of his achievement in New York he had slammed face-first into the hard limits of his profession. The role of the press, however grand his aspirations for it, was essentially one of observation and criticism.
At some level, Hearst had believed all that was said about the high purpose and unprecedented capacities of newspapers, that they did “control the nation because they REPRESENT THE PEOPLE,” and that, as the biggest editor on Park Row, he just might deserve the title of “uncrowned king of an educated democracy.” But nothing was calibrated to crush these conceits so decisively as a shooting war. When the boots hit the ground and the big guns boomed, all eyes shifted to the commander-in-chief, his admirals and generals, their decisions and their arms. The publisher and his newspaper, notwithstanding their unprecedented resources, their unmatched audacity and ambition, their evangelical promotion of “The Journalism That Acts,” were left shouting from ringside. Wielding influence, in the end, was something quite different from wielding power. Roosevelt would articulate the difference between the roles a dozen years later in a famous speech at the Sorbonne: “It is not the critic who counts. . . . The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
In fairness, Hearst got his hands dirty. He sweated and struggled as much as anyone in his chosen line. He had not been found wanting in courage or ability, but at the critical moment, he was not in command of anything he did not own or lease, he was merely witness to those who did control the nation, and that was not enough for Hearst. He never expressed disappointment with his profession or disavowed his faith in the power of the press. He would continue in the months and years ahead to exhort his editors to practise the journalism of action in pursuit of social improvements, but without comment or explanation, he now pointed his life in a different direction.
26
He began to remove himself from the
Journal
’s daily operations and to concentrate his efforts on expanding his publishing empire and finding a place in the political arena. His mood brightened considerably.
26
He began to remove himself from the
Journal
’s daily operations and to concentrate his efforts on expanding his publishing empire and finding a place in the political arena. His mood brightened considerably.
As part of his transition, Hearst made his first serious effort to stem his losses at the
Journal.
Whatever progress he had made toward profitability through 1897 had been wiped out by the war. The estimate of $3,000 a day in additional editorial expenditures comes from Brisbane, who was in a position to know. That would have brought the total cost of the
Journal
’s war coverage in the direction of $500,000, a hefty sum even if it was amortized over morning, evening, and Sunday editions, the
Morgen Journal,
the
San Francisco Examiner,
and the Hearst syndicate (some years later the
Journal
would claim to have spent $750,000 on the war).
27
The gossip sheets suggested that Phoebe Hearst was so disturbed by her son’s finances that she had decided to replace him with professional managers; there is no evidence to support the claim, but Phoebe was certainly troubled by the
Journal
’s expenses. Her accountant, Clark, was sweating over the paper’s books and writing reports to Phoebe throughout the summer and had the war dragged on she might indeed have interfered.
28
Journal.
Whatever progress he had made toward profitability through 1897 had been wiped out by the war. The estimate of $3,000 a day in additional editorial expenditures comes from Brisbane, who was in a position to know. That would have brought the total cost of the
Journal
’s war coverage in the direction of $500,000, a hefty sum even if it was amortized over morning, evening, and Sunday editions, the
Morgen Journal,
the
San Francisco Examiner,
and the Hearst syndicate (some years later the
Journal
would claim to have spent $750,000 on the war).
27
The gossip sheets suggested that Phoebe Hearst was so disturbed by her son’s finances that she had decided to replace him with professional managers; there is no evidence to support the claim, but Phoebe was certainly troubled by the
Journal
’s expenses. Her accountant, Clark, was sweating over the paper’s books and writing reports to Phoebe throughout the summer and had the war dragged on she might indeed have interfered.
28
Hearst dialed back his spending in every direction, reducing the color pages in his Sunday edition, discharging as many as a hundred employees and cutting his circulation to a level slightly above the
World
’s
.
29
Given that he had always resisted economizing lest it affect his sales, this suggests not only that he was out of money but that he now considered the
Journal
established and that a new phase of his career was underway. He sued for peace with rival publishers by printing a statement in the
Journal
lamenting the infighting on Park Row and the lack of collaboration among newspapers on items of shared editorial concern—public safety, for instance, and better schools. He pledged the
Journal
to the support of all good measures proposed by other dailies and to working constructively with them in the public interest.
30
Hearst’s efforts to increase market share at their expense were over, and a period of consolidation had begun.
World
’s
.
29
Given that he had always resisted economizing lest it affect his sales, this suggests not only that he was out of money but that he now considered the
Journal
established and that a new phase of his career was underway. He sued for peace with rival publishers by printing a statement in the
Journal
lamenting the infighting on Park Row and the lack of collaboration among newspapers on items of shared editorial concern—public safety, for instance, and better schools. He pledged the
Journal
to the support of all good measures proposed by other dailies and to working constructively with them in the public interest.
30
Hearst’s efforts to increase market share at their expense were over, and a period of consolidation had begun.
In this same spirit, Hearst sent an emissary directly to the Pulitzer camp. S.S. Carvalho met with
World
lieutenant Don Seitz in the late summer of 1898 to begin negotiations toward a Hearst-Pulitzer peace protocol. They settled on mutual cuts to expenditures and the curtailing of certain circulation and advertising practices (including, one presumes, rate reductions) and they also agreed to stop “the unfriendly utterances” between their papers.
31
Seitz took the proposed terms to Pulitzer.
World
lieutenant Don Seitz in the late summer of 1898 to begin negotiations toward a Hearst-Pulitzer peace protocol. They settled on mutual cuts to expenditures and the curtailing of certain circulation and advertising practices (including, one presumes, rate reductions) and they also agreed to stop “the unfriendly utterances” between their papers.
31
Seitz took the proposed terms to Pulitzer.
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