Joseph Pulitzer and I came together familiarly at the Liberal Republican Convention, which met at Cincinnati in 1872--the convocation of cranks, as it was called--and nominated Horace Greeley for President. He was a delegate from Missouri. Subsequent events threw us much together. He began his English newspaper experience after a kind of apprenticeship on a German daily with Stilson Hutchins, another interesting character of those days. It was from Stilson Hutchins that I learned something of Pulitzer"s origin and beginnings, for he never spoke much of himself.
According to this story he was the offspring of a runaway marriage between a subaltern officer in the Austrian service and a Hungarian lady of n.o.ble birth. In some way he had got across the Atlantic, and being in Boston, a wizened youth not speaking a word of English, he was spirited on board a warship. Watching his chance of escape he leaped overboard in the darkness of night, though it was the dead of winter, and swam ash.o.r.e. He was found unconscious on the beach by some charitable persons, who cared for him. Thence he tramped it to St. Louis, where he heard there was a German colony, and found work on a coal barge.
It was here that the journalistic instinct dawned upon him. He began to carry river news items to the Westliche Post, which presently took him on its staff of regular reporters.
The rest was easy. He learned to speak and write English, was transferred to the paper of which Hutchins was the head, and before he was five-and-twenty became a local figure.
When he turned up in New York with an offer to purchase the World we met as old friends. During the interval between 1872 and 1883 we had had a runabout in Europe and I was able to render him a.s.sistance in the purchase proceeding he was having with Gould. When this was completed he said to me: "You are at entire leisure; you are worse than that, you are wasting your time about the clubs and watering places, doing no good for yourself, or anybody else. I must first devote myself to the reorganization of the business end of it. Here is a blank check. Fill it for whatever amount you please and it will be honored. I want you to go upstairs and organize my editorial force for me."
Indignantly I replied: "Go to the devil--you have not money enough--there is not money enough in the universe--to buy an hour of my season"s loaf."
A year later I found him occupying with his family a splendid mansion up the Hudson, with a great stable of carriages and horses, living like a country gentleman, going to the World office about time for luncheon and coming away in the early afternoon. I pa.s.sed a week-end with him. To me it seemed the precursor of ruin. His second payment was yet to be made.
Had I been in his place I would have been taking my meals in an adjacent hotel, sleeping on a cot in one of the editorial rooms and working fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. To me it seemed dollars to doughnuts that he would break down and go to smash. But he did not--another case of destiny.
I was abiding with my family at Monte Carlo, when in his floating palace, the Liberty, he came into the harbor of Mentone. Then he bought a sh.o.r.e palace at Cap Martin. That season, and the next two or three seasons, we made voyages together from one end to the other of the Mediterranean, visiting the islands, especially Corsica and Elba, shrines of Napoleon whom he greatly admired.
He was a model host. He had surrounded himself with every luxury, including some agreeable retainers, and lived like a prince aboard. His blindness had already overtaken him. Other physical ailments a.s.sailed him. But no word of complaint escaped his lips and he rarely failed to sit at the head of his table. It was both splendid and pitiful.
Absolute authority made Pulitzer a tyrant. He regarded his newspaper ownership as an autocracy. There was nothing gentle in his domination, nor, I might say, generous either. He seriously lacked the sense of humor, and even among his familiars could never take a joke. His love of money was by no means inordinate. He spent it freely though not wastefully or joyously, for the possession of it rather flattered his vanity than made occasion for pleasure. Ability of varying kinds and degrees he had, a veritable genius for journalism and a real capacity for affection. He held his friends at good account and liked to have them about him. During the early days of his success he was disposed to overindulgence, not to say conviviality. He was fond of Rhine wines and an excellent judge of them, keeping a varied a.s.sortment always at hand.
Once, upon the Liberty, he observed that I preferred a certain vintage.
"You like this wine?" he said inquiringly. I a.s.sented, and he said, "I have a lot of it at home, and when I get back I will send you some." I had quite forgotten when, many months after, there came to me a crate containing enough to last me a life-time.
He had a retentive memory and rarely forgot anything. I could recall many pleasurable incidents of our prolonged and varied intimacy. We were one day wandering about the Montmartre region of Paris when we came into a hole-in-the-wall where they were playing a piece called "Les Brigands." It was melodrama to the very marrow of the bones of the Apaches that gathered and glared about. In those days, the "indemnity"
paid and the "military occupation" withdrawn, everything French pre-figured hatred of the German, and be sure "Les Brigands" made the most of this; each "brigand" a beer-guzzling Teuton; each hero a dare-devil Gaul; and, when Joan the Maid, heroine, sent Goetz von Berlichingen, the Vandal Chieftain, sprawling in the saw-dust, there was no end to the enthusiasm.
"We are all "brigands"," said Pulitzer as we came away, "differing according to individual character, to race and pursuit. Now, if I were writing that play, I should represent the villain as a tyrannous City Editor, meanly executing the orders of a n.i.g.g.ardly proprietor."
"And the heroine?" I said.
"She should be a beautiful and rich young lady," he replied, "who buys the newspaper and marries the cub--rescuing genius from poverty and persecution."
He was not then the owner of the World. He had not created the Post-Dispatch, or even met the beautiful woman who became his wife. He was a youngster of five or six and twenty, revisiting the scenes of his boyhood on the beautiful blue Danube, and taking in Paris for a lark.
III
I first met General Grant in my own house. I had often been invited to his house. As far back as 1870 John Russell Young, a friend from boyhood, came with an invitation to pa.s.s the week-end as the President"s guest at Long Branch. Many of my friends had cottages there. Of afternoons and evenings they played an infinitesimal game of draw poker.
"John," my answer was, "I don"t dare to do so. I know that I shall fall in love with General Grant. We are living in rough times--particularly in rough party times. We have a rough presidential campaign ahead of us.
If I go down to the seash.o.r.e and go in swimming and play penny-ante with General Grant I shall not be able to do my duty."
It was thus that after the general had gone out of office and made the famous journey round the world, and had come to visit relatives in Kentucky, that he accepted a dinner invitation from me, and I had a number of his friends to meet him.
Among these were Dr. Richardson, his early schoolmaster when the Grant family lived at Maysville, and Walter Haldeman, my business partner, a Maysville boy, who had been his schoolmate at the Richardson Academy, and General Cerro Gordo Williams, then one of Kentucky"s Senators in Congress, and erst his comrade and chum when both were lieutenants in the Mexican War. The bars were down, the windows were shut and there was no end of hearty hilarity. Dr. Richardson had been mentioned by Mr. Haldeman as "the only man that ever licked Grant," and the general promptly retorted "he never licked me," when the good old doctor said, "No, Ulysses, I never did--nor Walter, either--for you two were the best boys in school."
I said "General Grant, why not give up this beastly politics, buy a blue-gra.s.s farm, and settle down to horse-raising and tobacco growing in Kentucky?" And, quick as a flash--for both he and the company perceived that it was "a leading question"--he replied, "Before I can buy a farm in Kentucky I shall have to sell a farm in Missouri," which left nothing further to be said.
There was some sparring between him and General Williams over their youthful adventures. Finally General Williams, one of the readiest and most amusing of talkers, returned one of General Grant"s sallies with, "Anyhow, I know of a man whose life you took unknown to yourself." Then he told of a race he and Grant had outside of Galapa in 1846. "Don"t you remember," he said, "that riding ahead of me you came upon a Mexican loaded with a lot of milk cans piled above his head and that you knocked him over as you swept by him?"
"Yes," said Grant, "I believed if I stopped or questioned or even deflected it would lose me the race. I have not thought of it since. But now that you mention it I recall it distinctly."
"Well," Williams continued, "you killed him. Your horse"s hoof struck him. When, seeing I was beaten, I rode back, his head was split wide open. I did not tell you at the time because I knew it would cause you pain, and a dead greaser more or less made no difference."
Later on General Grant took desk room in Victor Newcomb"s private office in New York. There I saw much of him, and we became good friends. He was the most interesting of men. Soldierlike--monosyllabic--in his official and business dealings he threw aside all formality and reserve in his social intercourse, delightfully reminiscential, indeed a capital story teller. I do not wonder that he had constant and disinterested friends who loved him sincerely.
IV
It has always been my opinion that if Chester A. Arthur had been named by the Republicans as their candidate in 1884 they would have carried the election, spite of what Mr. Blaine, who defeated Arthur in the convention, had said and thought about the nomination of General Sherman. Arthur, like Grant, belonged to the category of lovable men in public life.
There was a gallant captain in the army who had slapped his colonel in the face on parade. Morally, as man to man, he had the right of it. But military law is inexorable. The verdict was dismissal from the service.
I went with the poor fellow"s wife and her sister to see General Hanc.o.c.k at Governor"s Island. It was a most affecting meeting--the general, tears rolling down his cheeks, taking them into his arms, and, when he could speak, saying: "I can do nothing but hold up the action of the court till Monday. Your recourse is the President and a pardon; I will recommend it, but"--putting his hand upon my shoulder--"here is the man to get the pardon if the President can be brought to see the case as most of us see it."
At once I went over to Washington, taking Stephen French with me. When we entered the President"s apartment in the White House he advanced smiling to greet us, saying: "I know what you boys are after; you mean--"
"Yes, Mr. President," I answered, "we do, and if ever--"
"I have thought over it, sworn over it, and prayed over it," he said, "and I am going to pardon him!"
V
Another ill.u.s.trative incident happened during the Arthur Administration.
The dismissal of Gen. Fitz-John Porter from the army had been the subject of more or less acrimonious controversy. During nearly two decades this had raged in army circles. At length the friends of Porter, led by Curtin and Sloc.u.m, succeeded in pa.s.sing a relief measure through Congress. They were in ecstasies. That there might be a presidential objection had not crossed their minds.
Senator McDonald, of Indiana, a near friend of General Porter, and a man of rare worldly wisdom, knew better. Without consulting them he came to me.
"You are personally close to the President," said he, "and you must know that if this bill gets to the White House he will veto it. With the Republican National Convention directly ahead he is bound to veto it. It must not be allowed to get to him; and you are the man to stop it. They will listen to you and will not listen to me."
First of all, I went to the White House.
"Mr. President," I said, "I want you to authorize me to tell Curtin and Sloc.u.m not to send the Fitz-John Porter bill to you."
"Why?" he answered.
"Because," said I, "you will have to veto it; and, with the Frelinghuysens wild for it, as well as others of your nearest friends, I am sure you don"t want to be obliged to do that. With your word to me I can stop it, and have it for the present at least held up."
His answer was, "Go ahead."
Then I went to the Capitol. Curtin and Sloc.u.m were in a state of mind.
It was hard to make them understand or believe what I told them.