Magyar Hírek, 1986 (39. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1986-10-11 / 20. szám
JOSEPH PULITZER UaigLlfcli fegte___________________________________________ .(1847-1911) Joseph Pulitzer, the newspaperman and owner of newspapers, the founder of the Pulitzer prize, was born in Hungary. In Makó, the town of his birth, the seventy-fifth anniversary of his death on the 29th of October 1911 was remembered this year. The first of the series of events were held on the 30th of May, when a volume of studies published by the Makó museum about the Hungarian origin of Joseph Pulitzer was presented in the presence of Nicolas M. Salgo, the Ambassador of the United States to Hungary, and of József Pálfy, President of the National Federation of Hungarian Journalists. 'Pile facts concerning Pulitzer’s background are not clear. A number of biographies and several encyclopaedias contain errors. He was said to have been born in Budapest, or Miskolc, and that his mother was “an Austrian-German Catholic”. Facts about his brothers and sisters and other family circumstances have also been gappy. Unfortunately Pulitzer never wrote his memoirs. Recent research proved, however, that Joseph Pulitzer was born on the 10th of April 1847 in the Great Main market-town of Makó, into a Jewish family of traders. His father’s family had some from Moravia in the early part of the 1 8th century., the name referred to a place-name there. The family had several branches in Hungary in the 18th and 19th centuries particularly in County Pest and in the Southern regions of the country. The first Jews to settle in the market town of Makó arrived there, in the middle of the 18th century. Within a few decades a fairly large Jewish community came into being. Joseph’s grandfat her, Mihály Pulitzer was born at Makó and became a respected produce merchant. His son, Fülöp, was born also at Makó, and married there in 1838. His wife — Joseph’s mother — , Elisa Berger, was born in Pest to a Jewish trading family. Fülöp Pulitzer was first a partner in his father’s business, but later he set up on his own and within roughly fifteen years he became leading produce dealer. He had extensive connections throughout the Austrian Empire. According to the Lands Register after 1843 his house stood opposite the County Hall. That was where Joseph was born, one of eight siblings of whom only three reached adulthood . Lajos, Albert and Anna. The others died in infancy. The Pulitzers moved to Pest in the spring of 1855. Fülöp opened his business in the vicinity of Új vásártér, the New Market, and soon began to prosper. But then his son Lajos, who was to be his father’s business partner and eventual successor, suddenly died and Fülöp Pulitzer himself also became seriously ill. As a result the business began to decline rapidly. When the head of the family died of tuberculosis in 1858, at the age of 47, Joseph was just eleven years old, and his brother and sister were even younger. The orphaned and indebted family’ faced difficult times. All they were left was a modest shop selling flour. Young Joseph became a pupil of the noted Pest commercial school of Antal Hampel. But the idea of becoming a merchant did not attract him. He did everything he could to become a soldier, but no European army accepted him because of his constitutional weakness and poor eye-sight. Finally an agent enlisting recruits for the army of the Unio in the Civil War found him suitable for service in the. summer of 1864 in Hamburg . So he sailed to America, where his younger brother Albert followed him within a few years. A self made man .Joseph 1’ulitzer, aged seventeen, embarked on an immigrant ship to see the New World with empty pockets. Soon after his ship anchored in Boston, he was enlisted in the First Cavalry Regi-A portrait of Joseph Pulitzer from the turn of the century ment of New York. His unit mostly consisted of Germans, and some sources suggest that it took part in fighting in the Shenandoah Valley. He is known to have struck a sergeant. Only’ the interference of a certain Captain Ramsey, with whom he used to play chess regularly’, saved him from the severe punishment meted out by a Court Martial. When the war ended he was discharged with a bitter nine months behind him completely disillusioned, enjoy’ing a pension of 13 a month. He went to St Louis. When he arrived there in October 1865 he had no money even to cross the Mississipi. The young man had to work as a stoker for a few round trips to pay for his fare to the other shore. Then he eked out a living doing various odd jobs. He groomed mules, he worked on the docks and a river boat, he was a building labourer, and he drove a cab. He continued to educate himself in his spare time. He then received an offer that seemed to be advantageous. An entrepreneur offered him a job at a Louisiana sugarcane plantation for a fee of five dollars. But the ship, which he took there, rid itself of its passengers in some artful way, and they had to walk back to St Louis. Pulitzer sent a story in the name of the defrauded passengers about the circumstances to Westliche Post, a German language newspaper, which published it. They liked him at the paper, and gave him an opportunity to publish his satirically toned writings from time to time. This is how his journalistic career began. He got to know the editor better as a regular v'isitor of the Mercantile Library. Carl Schulz subsequently exerted a lasting influence on Pulitzer. Following his encouragement he began to study’ law and qualified in 1868, but he had no clients. Then a new opportunity occurred. He filled a vacancy at Westliche Post. Scandals and successes Schulz’s election as a Senator for the State of Missouri awakened Pulitzer’s interest in politics, As a journalist he had the opportunity to look into the work of the legislative body of Jefferson City. That was the first time he spotted corruption against which he subsequently raised his voice. His unexpected nomination by the Republican Party for a vacant constituency was one of the high points of Pulitzer’s life. He succeeded in winning the seat even though he was only 22. His first action in the legislative body was to submit a draft to change the judicial system of the state. The episode, in the sourse of which he—in the heat of argument with a corrupt public figure — wounded his adversary with a gun, was in connection with this action too. He got away with a fine. When his mandate expired he returned to St Louis and continued his political activities parallel with his journalistic work. He was twenty-five years old, when he became co-owner of the paper for a while by purchasing shares. He went on an extended tour of Europe in 1873, and visited Hungary as well. Later he became the Washington political correspondent of the New York Sun. Having purchased the assets of the St Louis paper Ei'ening Dispatch for S 2,500 at auction in 1878. he again became a newspaper owner. Within a few days the publishers of the other local evening paper, the Evening Post joined forces with him Three months later the St Louis Post — Dispatch was published as a result of this fusion, and that event marked the birth of Pulitzer’s first important newspapers. He attracted attention by becoming a denouncer of corruption and an advocate of social and economic reform. He openly attacked the cultural wasteland of the city, its slow development, and demanded curbs on the monopolies He became the sole owner of the paper in No-, vember 1879, but soon an incident interfered with its prosperity. Cocker ill, the editor of the Post- Dispatch, slandered a wellknown lawyer in the heat of a political dispute in the paper. The offended party personally attacked the editor in his office, who shot him dead in self-defence. This happened in 1882, and the incident severely cut the popularity of the paper, and its owner, although Pulitzer was blameless in the matter. He felt that St Louis was no longer a suitable field for him. In the spring of 1883 maintaining his ownership of the paper, he moved the centre of his operations to New York, where his younger brother was a journalist. He again bought an ailing newspaper, the New York World for the sum of $ 346.000. He signed up his old St Louis editor, and trained a new staff of journalists. The paper doubled its circulation in only four months. In 1887, when he started the evening edition of the paper under the title of Evening World the cumulative circulation of the two newspapers far outpaced that of any other New York paper. Pulitzer stuck to three features to win over the public: 1. Light, easy-to-read style, 2. Interesting, sensational stories within the limits of good taste, and press campaigns to stir up the public, 3. Exposure of social problems, educating the public to be critically demanding. Pulitzer noticed, for instance, the effect on American life on the migrants who arrived in ever-increasing numbers. Representing the interests of migrants he made successful moves towards educating them to become readers, to familiarize them with the institutions of their new home. The country industrialised fast but practically nobody cared about social problems. Realising that, Pulitzer listed a number of demands in the May 17 1883 issue of The World. The ten-clause 30
