MR. JOSEPH PULITZER.
Editor and Proprietor of the New York World.
He began operations by annexing the pick of the staff of the World. Journalists in the United States sit by no means so tightly in their chairs as they do in this country. The Americans are a restless race. Whether it is that the nomad Redskin left a migratory contagion in the air, or whether the force of gravitation has been suspended on their behalf, or whatever else the cause may be, the fact is indisputable. Whether in politics, in the press, or elsewhere, they shift about with a readiness that seems strangely unnatural to the more stolid Englishman, who is apt to root himself like his native oak. Hence it was possible for Mr. Hearst to begin his campaign in New York by taking away from Mr. Pulitzer several of the brightest and brainiest members of his staff. They left the World to form the staff of the Journal, with regrets no doubt, but without hesitation. For the terms of Mr. Hearst were better than those of Mr. Pulitzer, and they went. Mr. Pulitzer, alarmed by the secession, induced some of them to return by the offer of still better terms than Mr. Hearst, but the young man with the inherited millions outbid the older journalist who had made his own pile, and the Journal started with the cream of the World’s staff. If there be something of Dugald Dalgetty about this sudden transfer of allegiance in English eyes, it was entirely in accordance with the habits and customs of American journalism. A change in proprietors or in editors will be followed by a filing out of all the staff, the members of which no more lament over their fate than gipsies deplore the fall of their tent-poles.
To the men recruited from the Journal, Mr. Hearst added some of the best of his Californian staff, and as he paid the highest salaries going, he had the pick of the pressmen of the continent. He picked as a rule wisely and well. But his first choice and the most valuable member of his staff was himself. No one did more to give the newspaper character and success than the young millionaire, who was to be seen in his shirt-sleeves through the hottest nights in the sultry summer toiling away at proofs and formes until the early hours when he saw his paper to press. Members of his staff who were worked like niggers could not complain when they saw their chief working harder than any of his salaried employees. “A millionaire,” they said, “in his shirt-sleeves! He could not work harder if he were working on space for his daily bread!”
After having formed his staff, Mr. Hearst launched his paper, publishing it at a cent. The New York Herald is published at three cents. The World was published at two cents. Mr. Hearst published morning after morning an eight and a twelve page paper at a price below the cost of production. Mr. Pulitzer, recognising that at last he had found a real rival, reduced the price of the World to a cent. From that day to this the two rivals have wrestled together without ceasing. They both publish morning and afternoon and Sunday editions. They both are profusely illustrated. They both cater directly and avowedly for the million, and the million responds. The weaker of the old-fashioned papers went down beneath the feet of the contending giants as the forests went down under the trampling of St. Tammany and the Devil. But the circulation of the Journal went up steadily, until in two years Mr. Hearst had a Sunday circulation of 400,000 at five cents, while the average daily sales of the morning and evening journals reached 350,000. The circulation of the World was not seriously impaired. The Journal grew not at the expense of its rival so much as at the expense of the other papers which were less up-to-date.
Of course this result was not achieved without prodigious expenditure. Never before were such salaries paid on any newspaper. The secrets of the counting-house are not revealed to the outside world, but Mr. Hearst is said to have half-a-dozen editors and artists, each of whom draws the salary of a Cabinet Minister. Money flowed like water. Nothing was too much to pay for a first-class, exclusive piece of intelligence. Journalists of the old school stood aghast at the Journal’s prices. And, what made the expenditure appear still more outrageous, for a long time there were practically no receipts. Advertisers, even in the United States, are a conservative race. A newspaper appealed in vain for their support. They would come in, but only at low prices. Mr. Hearst said they might stay out; they must come in at his prices or not at all. They took him at his word and stayed out—for a time. But now they are coming in shoals, and the advertisement columns day by day attest the capitulation of the advertiser to the newspaper. The direct cash loss on the first year’s editing of the Journal could hardly be less than £200,000, if, indeed, it did not largely exceed that sum.
People began to wonder what Mr. Hearst was after. He could not be after the dollars—he had more dollars than he could count. He was not known to have any distinctive political aspirations. He was spoken of sometimes as the Socialist millionaire, but he never professed any belief in Socialism as a dogma of his creed. Was it only to beat the World? Who could say. The Journal plunged heavily and got hit badly by its advocacy of Bryanism and Free Silver, but Mr. Hearst was no fanatic of silver. He was not a fanatic at all. He was a man as modest in private life as his paper was blatant in print. His editorials were searched in vain to discover any consistent or inconsistent creed. The Journal was like Broadway in print. Broadway at high noon, with cars swinging backwards and forwards along the tracks, and the myriad, multitudes streaming this way and that—life everywhere, but one common governing purpose or direction nowhere.
But after a time there was gradually evolved from this feverish chaos of sensationalism some trace of a great conception. Mr. Croker, who, although not glib of tongue, is shrewd of wit and keen of eye, discerned its drift, and set himself to ridicule and belittle what he called “government by newspaper.” Then the Journal itself, taking heart of grace from a series of successes, boldly printed at the head of its editorial columns:—
THE “JOURNAL’S” MOTTO:
“While Others Talk, the ‘Journal’ Acts.”
This appeared immediately after the announcement of the release of the fair heroine Evangelina Cisneros from her Cuban gaol by the enterprise of a Journal reporter. It was followed by an editorial entitled “The Journalism that Does Things.” This article expresses so succinctly the aims and objects of a paper which has played so conspicuous a part in the recent history of New York that I have no hesitation in quoting it here:—