Pulitzer versus the U.S. Government (Part 2)

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So this is part two of our Pulitzer stories. It's not as necessary to have listened to the first part as it often is if we're doing a two parter. Uh. In that first part, we covered his early life, a rather shocking event that happened in St. Louis that led him to move to New York, and his rivalry with Hurst. Uh So those are all important parts of his story, and I encourage you to hear it. But if you didn't hear it and you don't want to go back I actually think you're gonna be fine today. All you really need to know is that by the time we're picking up this story, which is in the early nineteen hundreds, Pulitzer was already a very well established newsman. His papers were known throughout certainly the US, I would say, other parts of the world. His rivalry with Hers its kind of already been established. Uh. And so we're just kind of picking up with him being probably one of the most famous people in the news industry. So early twentieth century where we're picking up. Joseph Pulitzer was advocating for the US to have a school of journalism. In nineteen o four, he wrote, quote, our republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public, spirited press with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it can preserve that public virtue, without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demigogic press will produce in time of people as base as itself. The power to mold the future of the republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future j rations. So it's clear that he had a strong sense of the influence the press could wield, and he thought that we needed to ensure journalists were taught how to hold power to account. But of course he himself had always used his platform as a publisher to slant coverage as he saw fit to align with his own political leanings. Yeah, that whole thing makes it sound like he's like, I want an unbiased press so that they can write really good biased articles or not for my one sure. Yeah, but because of that bias late in his life, Pulitzer found himself on the receiving end of an indictment from the federal government. And that's because The World published what was positioned as an expose of a payment from the US government to the New Panama Canal Company, a payment that was problematic according to the report. So we should also mention as we get into this story, because it is big that New York World was not the only paper to cover the story, and it was not the only one to speculate about the specifics of this deal. But Pulitzer's staff was relentless, and it once again all began with politics, specifically, this started with commentary on the campaign of William Howard Taft to President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to be his successor to the office. Roosevelt had campaigned heavily for Taft, and Pulitzer's papers coverage, which came out a month before the election in October, alleged that members of both Roosevelt's and Taft's families were making a large amount of money in the Panama Canal deal. The story started when William Nelson Cromwell, an attorney who worked for the president's chief advisor, filed a legal complaint that he was being blackmailed because of his involvement with the Panama Canal within the US sale. But when The New York World found out about the filing, a report was a signed to find out more. That reporter asked around and found nothing, and then the matter was dropped until Cromwell's press agents, Jonas Whitley, showed up in the World's offices claiming that the article that was about to go to print was false. What Yeah, there was no article about to go to print, And the paper staff told Whitley that they had not been able to verify anything and they were not running a story. This all gets a little convoluted, so come with us on this journey. Whitley, unprompted, then expounded on the nature of Cromwell's complaints to the World's editor. So that story, which Whitley essentially copy edited as it was taken down, so he was directly telling the stenographer taking notes what to put in it ran in the World on October three, and it read in part quote that the Democratic National Committee was considering the advisability of making a public statement that William nell In Cromwell in connection with Mr Bunal Varia, a French speculator, had formed a syndicate at the time when it was quite evident that the United States would take over the rights of the French bondholders in the Deliceps Canal, and that this syndicate included, among others, Charles P. Taft, brother of William H. Taft, and Douglas Robinson, brother in law of President Roosevelt. Other men more prominent in the New York world of finance were also mentioned. According to the story, these financiers invested their money because of a full knowledge of the intention of the government to acquire the French property at a price of about forty million dollars, and thus, because of alleged information from high government sources, were enabled to reap a rich profit. End quote that whole thing was a quote in the paper. So this was basically saying that the French holders of the Panama Canal Company, which had been struggling financially, had sold it quietly to a number of American investors, and then those investors sold it to the US government. Those investors or people connected directly to Roosevelt and Taft, and the whole thing was, according to the blackmailer orchestrated by William Nelson Cromwell, an attorney who had worked for the president's chief advisor. So of course this would have been shady and was reported to show that Taft was corrupt and unfit to be president. Yeah, it's a little bit hard to follow, but that that's the main takeaway that it was trying to kind of smear Taft. So we also need to note that entire Panama Canal deal and situation is really complex and it went through a lot of shifts in negotiations for decades before this deal actually happened, and issues with its complexities did not end there. They even reached into the twentieth century, and we're part of Jimmy Carters campaign and presidency. But all of that is outside the scope of this episode. We're really trying to just focus on the press coverage. What you do need to know is that that initial company that was working on connecting the Atlantic and Pacific through Panama was headed by Ferdinand Delis Epps, and when he was found guilty of misappropriating funds for the project and his company was having problems, a second company, company, Nuvel Canal de Panama or New Panama, Canal company was formed, and that company is the one we're talking about that made that sale, and it's going to come up more in a moment. Cromwell's PR agent had also told the paper, after relaying the details of this blackmail attempt, that Mr Cromwell would like to make a direct statement. He did this by phone and approved when the dictated statement was read back to him. The statement was a denial of any wrongdoing on his part. The story would have never made the papers had Cromwell nuts heard all of this up, and Soudent really spiraled. Even though that initial legal complaint of blackmail he filed never went anywhere, he also never seemed to pursue it. There are still some questions about why Cromwell did any of this. Charles P. Taft was vehement in his denial that he had anything to do with the Panama Canal deal. Douglas Robinson refused to speak to the press. The New York World actually hired a member of British Parliament who was a lawyer to look into any details of the sale that they could find. On the European side of the story. That lawyer went to Paris, but he found nothing and he wrote a report back to the world that read quote, I have never known in my lengthy experience of company matters, any public corporation, much less one of such vast importance, having so completely disappeared and removed all traces of its existence as the New Panama Canal Company, this company, having purchased the assets of La Company Universal du Canal Interrosia Unique de Panama, the old or Della Ceps Panama Canal Company, brought off the deal with the American government. So thorough has been its obliteration that only the United States Government can now give information respecting the new company's transactions and the identity of the individuals who created it to effectuate this deal, and who, for reasons best known to themselves, wiped it off the face of the earth. When the deal was carried through the stock the British lawyer reported had originally been registered. That would have meant that any transactions would have had to have been tracked, But then it was converted to bearer stock, which meant that no such records had to be maintained. It was like at that point privately owned, and you can sell anything to somebody else without having to report it. The company had been liquidated, but with no names attached to it to ascertain who had eieved any of the money. In addition to the monetary benefit from the sale, the World reported in a follow up article that Cromwell had also managed to influence the signing of a concession which granted California based Union Oil a monopoly in the canal zone that allowed the oil company to build a pipeline that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. That pipeline, per the World's account, was to run from the city of Panama to the city of Cologne on the Atlantic side. Union Oil was a subsidiary of Standard Oil, so the whole thing meant that Standard would just be unchallenged in the canal and according to the World Quote, there have been rumors that at least one member of the Standard Oil group of capitalists was in the American syndicate, which is reported to have made a huge sum through the sale to the United States in nineteen o four for forty million dollars of the property of the French Panama Canal Company to William Nelson Cromwell. There were allegations of multiple wrongdoings that were recounted and reiterated across multiple articles. Yeah, we have like Americans secretly sold this property to the US government and made a ton of money on it, and those same Americans owned a portion of these oil companies that were also getting deals to have a monopoly in the area. Other papers picked up these stories that were running and reported on the reporting of the world, taking those reports as true, and then other papers picked those stories up. This became like a weird game of journalism telephone, as one paper would quote another paper as a source. They were all hinging on the idea that the world had reported the story. So, for example, the Indianapolis News ran a story on October two under the headline Panama Secrets that reported quote the Chicago Journal said us that it is well known that somebody bought the stock of the defunct French Panama Canal Company for twelve million dollars or less and sold it to the United States government for forty million dollars. And the Chicago paper declares further that it is not known to anybody outside the gang of speculators that reaped a rich harvest by playing on the patriotism of the American people. How much of that twenty eight million dollars went into the pockets of President Roosevelt's intimate friends who promoted the deal. We will get into how all this bad press impacted the election and the people involved right after a quick sponsor break. So you may or may not be surprised to learn that Taft won the election despite all of those damning articles in Pulitzer's papers and those of other publishers. And while initially Theodore Roosevelt had sort of a nord things because of the world's known democratic leanings, when Republican aligned paper started to run the same stories, he got really angry, and he started speaking out against newspapers that had run these stories and said that they quote habitually and as a matter of business practice, every mandacity known to man, and that they were far more dangerous to the country than corrupt politicians. He also asserted that the US paid the French government, and how that money was dispersed after that was not something that the US government would have knowledge of. The New York World responded to Roosevelt's statement that there were discrepancies in the way details of the sale had been relayed. Cromwell had stated that the money was paid by the US government to JP Morgan and Company, not to the French government. There were other details in Cromwell's account that did not align with Roosevelt's claims as well, and the world called for quote the Congress of the United States to make immediately a full and impartial investigation of the entire Panama Canal scandal. Theodore Roosevelt, who at this point was still president for a couple more months, sent his response to the World's claims directly to Congress on December, and that was published in papers nationwide. And it read quote in view of the constant reiteration of the assertion that there was some corrupt action by or on behalf of the United States Government in connection with the acquisition of the title of the French company of the Panama Canal, and of the repetition of the story that a syndicate of American citizens owned either one or both of the Panama companies, I deem it wise to submit to the Congress all the information I have on the subject. These stories were skurless and libelius, and character and false in every essential particular. It is idle to say that the known character of Mr Pulitzer and his newspaper are such that the statements in the paper will be believed by no eddy. Unfortunately, thousands of persons are ill informed in this respect and believe the statements they see in print, even though they appear in a newspaper published by Mr Pulitzer. These stories need no investigation whatever they are in fact holy and inform partly a libel upon the United States government. The real offender is Mr Joseph Pulitzer, Editor and proprietor of the World. While the criminal offense of which Mr Pulitzer has been guilty is in the form of a libel upon individuals, the great injury done is in blackening the good name of the American people. It should not be left to a private citizen to sue Mr Pulitzer for libel. He should be prosecuted for libel by the governmental authorities. And that is exactly what happened. The U. S. Attorney General, Charles J. Bonaparte, began criminal proceedings against The Indiana News and The New York World, and the d C Grand Jury handed out indictments on February sevent nineteen o nine. Pulitzer's Umbrella Company Press publishing Company, Pulitzer himself and editors Caleb M. Van Ham and Robert H. Lyman were all named, as well as staffers from the Indianapolis News and the paper itself. United States District Judge Anderson ruled against the government, and he made some interesting remarks in his ruling. He stated that, quote, the circumstances surrounding the revolution in Panama were unusual and peculiar. The people were interested in the construction of the canal. It was a matter of great public concern. It was much discussed. He mentions that after a route through Nicaragua had been recommended by an appointed committee, suddenly Panama was favored. And he went on quote, up to the time of that change, as I gathered from the evidence, the lowest sum that had been suggested at which the property of the Panama Canal Company could be procured was something over one hundred million dollars. Then rather suddenly it became known that it could be procured for forty million dollars. There were a number of people who thought there was something not just exactly right about that transaction, and I will say for myself that I have a curiosity to know what the real truth was. But then Judge Anderson quoted the sixth Amendment quote in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state or district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law. Basically, because the World operated in New York, seeking an indictment in the District of Columbia had been the wrong move. Roosevelt attorneys had sought indictments for criminal libel from the federal jury in New York Southern District against Press Publishing Company in one of the editors, on the basis that the World had sought to quote stirrup disorder among the people. Meanwhile, the World's attorneys sought out records in France and in Panama to try to show that the reporting that was being done was based in trying to discern the facts of the deal and whether corruption was involved, but they largely ran into the same kind of problems that their British investigator had. The French government was pretty uncooperative and it could not, it said, compel anyone to give statements or testimony unless they actively wanted to. But ultimately none of these problems of never finding out exactly what happened mattered because it once again came down to issues of jurisdiction and interpretation of the law. The judge who ruled on the matter disposed of the case. That was how he put it. He stated that territorial jurisdiction was merely a convenience. The bigger issue is revealed in this section of his statement quote. Now, it may be, as it has in the past, been thought that under some circumstances, the crime of libel might be considered to impair the authority and interfere with the efficiency of the government of the United States. But so far as I know or am informed by counsel, this thought has not found expression in any national statute now in force. In other words, there's no federal libel law. So the suit was brought on faulty grounds. This was a moment that a lot of newspapers celebrated because it felt like a big freedom of the press thing, But there was still some fight left on the matter. In October, the ruling was appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court. Roosevelt and Taft might have believed that they would finally get the justice they sought, but the headline on January third, nineteen eleven, in the New York Times was Supreme Court ends Panama libel suit. In the opening paragraph stated quote by unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of the United States today decided that the federal government could not maintain the so called Panama Canal libel suit against the Press Publishing Company of New York in the Federal courts of New York. In so holding, the Court affirmed the decision of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, which had quashed the famous indictment. That same article included a statement from the World which was quote, there is no federal libel law to muzzle American newspapers. Freedom of the press does not exist at the whim or pleasure of the President of the United States. It is at the mercy of no steward of the public welfare. The great constitutional issue involved in the Roosevelt libel proceeding against the World is settled for all time. And another statement Pulitzer said, quote the decision of the Supreme Court is so sweeping that no other president will be tempted to follow the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt, no matter how greedy he may be for power, no matter how resentful of opposition. Here's the thing. While Pulitzer was a central figure to all of these proceedings, he wasn't present for any of it, really truly not present. He had not been in the world building, and he was on his yacht. He had released a press statement at the start of all of this hubbub saying exactly that quote. So far as I am personally concerned, I was at sea during the whole of October, and in fact, practically for two years, I have been yachting on account of my health. Mr. Roosevelt knows this perfectly well. He knows I am a chronic invalid and mostly abroad yachting on account of my health. As an aside, the nature of his health issues seems to be kind of all lumped under the umbrella of nervous disorders, which was so often invoked in the late nineteen in early twentieth centuries. Pulitzer was obviously prone to working to the point of exhaustion, and he was definitely prone to depression. He did lose his sight, and he reportedly had developed an extreme sensitivity to sound but specifics beyond that what made him refer to himself as an invalid are a little bit tricky to pin down. Doctor after doctor seemed to just see him and then prescribe him things like rest, massages, quiet time, et cetera. When Pulitzer had questioned the editors that the world about the stories, he had learned that they had run them, making these claims against Roosevelt and Taft based on no evidence, just the accounts of people whose stories could not be verified. He had known the pieces were running, but he didn't realize they had no authentication. He was mortified privately, but publicly he stood by his paper and its words and worked on the ultimately successful defense. That part just kind of blows my mind, where he's like, you did what well, I guess we have to defend it now. Uh. We are going to talk a bit more about Pulitzer's nervous disorder as it was called, and the way an imp acted his life. But first we're going to hear from the sponsors who keep stuff you missed in history class going. One of the things that came up a lot in my research on Charles Chapin and pretty much any time i've read about Pulitzer is that you know any of the people that worked for for Pulitzer. We're often getting telegrams from him that came from all over the world, and this kind of makes it seem like Joseph Pulitzer might have been enjoying his wealth and doing fabulous things, but the reality was a lot less glamorous. He was essentially spending a lot of money traveling from one place to another in search of anything that could help his eyesight or his health. After he and Kate had bought an estate in Bar Harbor, Maine, Pulitzer had a special addition made to the house, which was heavily sound proofed so that he could have some sort of relief. That was a thing. Structure was nicknamed the Tower of Silence, and he spent so much time on the water because it was quieter than any place he found on land. He always had secretaries with him, whether he was at his New York mansion, in his Bar Harbor summer home, or on his yacht to take dictation at any hour of the day or night, as he managed his publishing empire from afar. But this all mostly seems like a really anxiety ridden and lonely way to live. On October eleventh, nineteen eleven, Pulitzer set sail aboard his yacht with his youngest son, Herbert, and a compliment of staff. They were headed for Jekyl Island, Georgia, but as the boat approached Charleston, South Carolina, the captain decided that he had to drop anchor. There was a hurricane brewing farther south. They were hoping it would clear quickly so they could continue on the rest of their journey. On the second day they were anchored off the South Carolina coast, Pulletzer began to have sharp stomach pain. He was traveling with a you doctor who hadn't really gotten to know him all that well yet, so a doctor from Charleston, doctor Robert Wilson, Jr. Was contacted and asked to come out to the yacht, and Wilson determined that the cause of the distress was indigestion, and he gave Pulitzer a barbiturate to help him rest. The next several days, Pulitzer felt much better, and he reportedly seemed happier than anyone had seen him in a long time. But then he once again started experiencing terrible pain. Kate was summoned from New York because the staff was so worried that had happened before, but this time she became concerned enough that she immediately booked a seat on a train that was headed south. One of the things pullets Are often asked if his secretaries and other staff was that they read to him when he wasn't feeling well. It was how he often drifted off to sleep, and after having one of his staff read to him from a book on constitutional history, Pultzer suddenly found himself in serious pain again. Or Wilson was once again summoned and once again gave him a sedative after he had settled in. After that, another secretary started to read a biography of King Louis the eleven to him in German. As the reader got underway, Pulitzer said something he often said to his readers, Liza gonf Liza, that translates to softly, very softly. Those were the last words pullets Are spoke. He died on October twenty, nineteen eleven, at the age of sixty four. His cause of death was reported as acute angina. While his papers often ran salacious and sensationalized stories. Pulitzer's name today is associated with quality and achievement in journalism, and that's because in his will Pulitzer left a lot of his fortune to secure his personal legacy. He left an endowment to found the Columbia University School of Journalism. This is actually something he had started working on with school officials years prior. In his will, he wrote, quote, I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, Regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people. I desire to assist in attracting to this profession young men of character and ability, also to help those already engaged in the profession to acquire the highest moral and intellectual training. There are now special schools for instruction for lawyers, physicians, clergyman, military and naval officers, engineers, architects, and artists, but none for the instruction of journalists. That all other professions and not journalism, should have the advantage of special training seems to me contrary to reason, and to that end he had given Columbia one million dollars already, and then he left an additional one million that his executors would give the school after it had been up and running successfully for three years. He also allocated money to be used to establish the Pulitzer Prizes. These were and still are tied to Columbia University. The school manages the Pulitzer Prizes and Pulitzer's will He established the following prize categories quote first annually for the best and most suggestive paper on the future development and improvement of the School of Journalism, or for any one idea that will promise great improvement in the operation of the school. One thousand dollars. Second annually for the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by any American newspaper during the year. A gold medal costing five hundred dollars. Third annually for the best history of the services rendered to the public by the American press during the preceding year, one thousand dollars. Fourth, five annual traveling scholarships of fifteen hundred dollars each. For clarity, just in case you had not already figured it out, in this instance, he's using disinterested to mean unbiased. Today we think of it in a very different way, but that was the intent. Three of those UH scholarships he mentioned in point four were to go to journalism school graduates determined to be the most deserving, with the intention that they would use that money to go to Europe and study quote, the social, political, and moral conditions of the people and the character and principles of the European press. One of the remaining annual scholarships was to go to a music student to study in Europe, and the other to an art student to study in Europe. There were additional annual awards guidelines in the will for six more categories. Five hundred dollars quote for the best editorial article written during the year, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in the right direction. One thousand quote for the American novel published during the year, which shall best present the whole atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood. There was another thousand quote for the original American play performed in New York, which shall best represent the educational value and power of the stage and raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners. There was two thousand dollars for the best book on US history, and one thousand for quote the best American biography teaching patriotic and unselfish services to the people, illustrated by an eminent example, excluding as too obvious the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I love that. He was like, we don't need any more Washington or Lincoln biographies, guys, and yet we still get them, still get them. The list of Pulitzer prices that exist now is quite different. Current journalism categories include public service, breaking news reporting, investigative reporting, explanatory boarding, local reporting, national reporting, international reporting, feature writing, commentary, criticism, editorial writing, illustrated reporting and commentary, breaking news, photography, feature photography, and audio reporting. And under the umbrella of letters, drama, and music. There are Pulitzers for fiction, drama, history, biography, poetry, general nonfiction, and music, as well as a provision for special citations and awards. Over the years, other categories have come and gone, like telegraphic reporting and explanatory journalism, which now is explanatory reporting. Pulitz are also set up a scholarship fund in memory of his daughter, Lucille for the women at Barnard College. The Columbia School of Journalism was founded in nineteen twelve, the year after Pulitzer's death, and the Pulitzer Prizes awarded their first set of honors in nineteen seventeen. Do you also have some listener mail? Yes, this is from a listener who I'm not going to name. They have an unusual spelling of their name, and it's so unusual that they're easy to find, and they would like to maintain anonymity. But their name in itself is unusual enough in the U S that I worry that people would try to do subouts of letters and figure it out. Uh. So we are not naming this person, but just know who you are. Uh. They write, Hi, Tracy and Holly. I have listened to your podcast for years and it has kept me company early mornings while I have been alone working as a baker. It's nice to have other people around it four am, even if you are not really there. The company is wonderful. I am emailing finally, have been meaning to for a while because I was listening to an older episode about the Great Vowel shift in the history of English. My name came up again. Not going to say the name, so we're skipping this next portion. They write, I'm also a quilter who loves cats and nature's also clearly a baker. So I have delighted in all your podcasts on these wonderful subjects and cannot get enough of your history of flowers as well. I have also failed to mention that my father was a history teacher, and now I am able to one up him with certain facts and anecdotes I have learned from your podcast. I cannot express enough how much your podcast means to me. It's been wonderful learning more and more about history, not just to one up my father, but because I truly love how much there is and always will be to learn. Thank you for all the wonderful episodes. Can't wait to listen to all there are to come. I wanted to read this specifically because it captures the thing that I have come to love so much doing this this show, which is that there are moments, I think where both of us have had that thing of like I don't know what I'm going to talk about next, but then the second you start paging through a book, you suddenly go, oh, here are ten ideas, because there is so much history to talk about forever. We will never run out because we're always making more. So thank you. That's always also a good reminder to me personally, Thank you so much our baking friend. I love anybody who bakes, so I really was excited about this one. 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