Alleyne Ireland

“ Publicity may not be the only thing that is needed, but it is the one thing without which all other agencies will fail. If a newspaper is to be of real service to the public it must have a big circulation, first because its news and its comment must reach the largest possible number of people, second, because circulation means advertising, and advertising means money, and money means independence. If I caught any man on The World suppressing news because one of our advertisers objected to having it printed I would dismiss him immediately ”

“ At the back of his physical reaction was a mental reaction which intensified every shock to his nerves. He complained, and with justice, that, leaving out of consideration an occasional noise which was purely the result of accident, his life was made a burden by the utter indifference of the majority of human beings to the rights of others. What right, he asked, had any one to run a motor boat with a machine so noisy that it destroyed the peace of a whole harbor? Above all, what right had such a person to come miles out to sea and cruise around the yacht, merely to gratify idle curiosity? ”

“ Pulitzer was easily deceived, that when there was no evil intention, for instance, but simply a desire to spare him annoyance, the exercise of a little ingenuity could shield him from anything likely to wound his feelings or excite his anger. As a matter of fact I have never known a man upon whom it would not have been easier to practice a deception. His blindness, so far from being a hindrance to him in reaching the truth, was an aid. ”

“ If such miserable sophisms were to prevail there would never be a good house or a good government in the world.
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces; and that cure is freedom.
The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. ”

“ If you will give the matter a moment's thought you'll see that memory is the highest faculty of the human mind. What becomes of all your reading, all your observation, your experience, study, investigations, discussions—in a rushing crescendo—if you have no memory? ”

“ You mustn't think that because you've written articles for the London Times you are competent to write for The World. It's a very different matter. The American people want something terse, forcible, picturesque, striking, something that will arrest their attention, enlist their sympathy, arouse their indignation, stimulate their imagination, convince their reason, awaken their conscience. Why should I accept you at your own estimate? You don't realize the responsibility I have in this matter. The World isn't like your Times, with its forty or fifty thousand educated readers. ”

“ I found myself counting the black spots on a fish's back, the steps leading up to Monaco on its hill, the number of men and women in the Grand Salon at Monte Carlo, of men with mustaches, of clean-shaven men, of men with beards in the restaurants, of vessels in sight from the terrace, of everything, in fact, which seemed capable of furnishing a sentence or of starting up a discussion.
Once or twice I ran over late at night to Monte Carlo, and occasionally Thwaites and I met after ten o'clock at the Casino of Mentone to play bowls or try our luck at the tables ”

“ When I recall the capaciousness of his understanding, the breadth of his experience, the range of his information, and set them side by side with the cruel limitations imposed upon him by his blindness and by his shattered constitution, I forget the severity of his discipline, I marvel only that his self-control should have served him so well in the tedious business of breaking a new man to his service. ”

“ Joseph Pulitzer, as I knew him twenty-four years after he had been driven from active life by the sudden and final collapse of his health, was a man who could be judged by no common standards, for his feelings, his temper, and his point of view had been warped by years of suffering. ”

“ The World reached a circulation of two hundred thousand copies a day and took its place in the front rank of the American press as a journal of force and ability, and Joseph Pulitzer left New York, a complete nervous wreck, to face in solitude the knowledge that he would never read print again and that within a few years he would be totally blind. ”

“ Ireland, I can do much, I can do everything for a man who will be my friend. I can give him power, I can give him wealth, I can give him reputation, the power, the wealth, the reputation which come to a man who speaks to a million people a day in the columns of a great paper. ”

“ What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on its editorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy, accuracy, accuracy! ”

“ He always drove himself to the last ounce of his endurance, and it was only when his condition indicated an imminent collapse that he would consent to drop everything except light reading, and to spend a few days out at sea without calling anywhere for letters, papers, or cables.
It was during this, our last, cruise in the Mediterranean that I discovered that Mr. Pulitzer was one of the best and most fascinating talkers I had ever heard. Once in a while, when he was feeling cheerful after a good night's rest and a pleasant day's reading, he monopolized the conversation at lunch or dinner. ”

“ What I say is that there are not half a dozen papers in the United States which tamper with the news, which publish what they know to be false. But if I thought that I had done no better than that I would be ashamed to own a paper. It is not enough to refrain from publishing fake news, it is not enough to take ordinary care to avoid the mistakes which arise from the ignorance, the carelessness, the stupidity of one or more of the many men who handle the news before it gets into print ”

“ It is impossible to give any description of this terrible symptom which shall be in any way adequate. Many of us suffer torment through the hideous clamor which appears to be inseparable from modern civilization; but to Mr. Pulitzer even the sudden click of a spoon against a saucer, the gurgle of water poured into a glass, the striking of a match, produced a spasm of suffering. I have seen him turn pale, tremble, break into a cold perspiration at some sound which to most people would have been scarcely audible.
When we were on the yacht every one was compelled to wear rubber-soled shoes. ”

“ Pulitzer was never actually hit by an automobile, and, of course, his blindness saved him from the agony of apprehension which his companion suffered, for he could not see the narrowness of his escape. ”

“ Sometimes even these gentlemen were summoned to New York, to Bar Harbor, to Wiesbaden, or to Mentone, according to circumstances. I have met several of them, and they all agree in saying that the hardest work they ever did in their lives was to keep pace with Mr. Pulitzer while they were running the gauntlet of his judgment.
There are few men highly placed on The World to-day who have not been through such an ordeal. I doubt if any man was ever served by a staff whose individual ability, temper, resources and limitations were so minutely known to their employer. ”

“ Things were evidently run in a rather happy-go-lucky fashion in those early days, since, as he admitted with a reminiscent smile, he was absolutely disqualified for election, being neither an American citizen nor of age.
Mr. Pulitzer's anecdotes about himself always ended in one way. He would break off suddenly and exclaim, "For Heaven's sake, why do you let me run on like this; as soon as a man gets into the habit of talking about his past adventures he might just as well make up his mind that he is growing old and that his intellect is giving way." ”

“ Pulitzer enjoyed more than having a face described to him, whether of a living person or of a portrait, and as our table-talk was often about men and women of distinction or notoriety, dead or living, any one of us might be called upon at any time to portray feature by feature some person whose name had been mentioned. ”

“ I replied. "You advertised for an intelligent man; and this is simply where my intelligence commences to show itself. An intelligent man couldn't live as long as I have in the United States without hearing a good deal about Joseph Pulitzer; and, after all, the country isn't absolutely overrun with blind millionaires."
At the close of the interview I was told that I would be reported upon. In the meantime would I kindly send in a written account of the interview, in the fullest possible detail, as a test of my memory, sense of accuracy, and literary style. ”

“ On the occasions when I formed one of the party I had the opportunity of observing that so far as the quantity and the quality of work were concerned it was an easier task to be one of Mr. Pulitzer's secretaries than to be one of his sons. I have never seen men put to a more severe test of industry, concentration, and memory than were Mr. Ralph and Mr. Joseph, Jr., while they were at Bar Harbor or on the yacht. ”

“ Mann, the German secretary, played the piano in the dining saloon, the doors communicating with the library being left open.
In a direct line the piano cannot have been more than ten feet from the reader's chair; and the strain of reading aloud for an hour against a powerful rendering of the most vigorous compositions of Liszt, Wagner, Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin was a most trying ordeal for voice, brain and nerves. Mr. Pulitzer could apparently enjoy the music and the reading at the same time. ”

“ My own inclination, the child of a weary spirit and of the lassitude of ill health, swayed me in the direction of a quiet retreat in Barbados, that peaceful island of an eternal summer cooled by the northeast trades, where the rush and turmoil of modern life are unknown and where a very modest income more than suffices for all the needs of a simple existence. ”

“ Running aft from the bridge to within forty feet of the stern was an unbroken line of deck houses. Immediately afore the bridge was Mr. Pulitzer's library, a handsome room lined from floor to ceiling with books; abaft of that was the dining saloon, which could accommodate in comfort a dozen people; continuing aft there were, on the port side, the pantry, amidships the enclosed space over the engine room, and on the starboard side a long passage leading to the drawing-room and writing- room used by the secretaries and by members of Mr. Pulitzer's family when they were on the yacht. ”

“ Here there was always more or less of a crowd, and as the paved promenade was narrow, and as very few people had the intelligence to realize that the tall, striking figure leaning on his companion's arm was that of a blind man, and as fewer still had the courtesy to step aside if they did realize it, our walk was a constant dodging in and out among curious gazers interested in staring at the gaunt, impressive invalid with the large black spectacles. ”

“ It would have been bad enough if one's only responsibility had been to keep Mr. Pulitzer from being crushed against the hillside, or being run over; but this was only half the problem. The other half was to keep up a continual stream of conversation—not light, airy nothings, but a solid body of carefully prepared facts—in a tone of voice which should fail to convey to J. P. the slightest indication of your nervousness.
When we walked on the plage at Mentone, the difficulties were of another kind. ”

“ An amusing instance of this occurred on an occasion when Pollard was sea-sick and could not read to J. P. at breakfast. I was hurriedly summoned to take his place. I was dumbfounded, for I had never before been called upon for this task, and Mr. Pulitzer had often held it up to me as the last test of fitness, the charter of your graduation. I had nothing whatever prepared of the kind which J. P. required at that time, and I knew that upon the success of his breakfast might very well depend the general complexion of his whole day. ”

“ Pulitzer had discovered just what he wanted to know—how much I could see in a given time, and how much of it I could remember with a fair degree of accuracy. It was simply the game of the jewels which Lurgan Sahib played with Kim, against a different background but with much the same object.
In the foregoing description of Mr. Pulitzer's daily life it has been made abundantly clear that his secretaries were worked to the limit of their endurance. It remains to add that Mr. Pulitzer never made a demand upon us which was greater than the demand he made upon himself. ”

“ Not only was there a marked difference at all times between one side and the other, due partly to the contrast between the two eyes and partly to a loss of flexibility in the muscles of the right side, but almost from moment to moment the general appearance of the face moved between a lively, genial animation, a cruel and wolf-like scowl, and a heavy and hopeless dejection. No face was capable of showing greater tenderness; none could assume a more forbidding expression of anger and contempt. ”

“ The life at Cap Martin was sufficiently arduous, even for those who had after long experience with J. P. learned to get through the day with some economy of effort. To me, new to the work, constantly under the double pressure of Mr. Pulitzer's cross-examinations and of the task of supplying, however inefficiently, the place of a secretary who was away on sick leave, the whole thing was a nightmare. ”

“ Pulitzer generally lunched and dined with the staff in the dining saloon, unless he felt more than usually ill or nervous, when he had his meals served in the library, one or at most two of us keeping him company.
When he sat with us he occupied the head of the table. At his side stood the butler, who never attended to any one but his master. A stranger at the table, if he were not actually sitting next to J. P., might very well have failed to notice that his host was blind, so far as any indication of blindness was afforded by the way he ate. ”

“ While we were at Wiesbaden we seldom spent much time at the dinner table, as J. P. usually took his choice between walking in the garden of the Kurhaus and listening to the orchestra and going to the opera. One night we motored over to Frankfort to hear Der Rosenkavalier, but the excursion was a dismal failure. We had to go over a stretch of very bad road, and with J. P. shaken into a state of extreme nervousness the very modern strains of the opera failed to please. ”

“ He has little reason, in our opinion, to envy any of those who are still engaged in a pursuit from which, at most, they can only expect that, by relinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures, by passing nights without sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauty of nature, they may attain that laborious, that invidious, that closely watched slavery which is mocked with the name of power. ”

“ Pulitzer by name, for he was a notable personage in the place and was well known by sight.
When accosted in this manner, Mr. Pulitzer always showed signs of extreme nervousness. He would stamp his foot, raise the clenched fist of his disengaged arm menacingly, and cry, "My God! What's this? What's this? Tell him to go away. I won't tolerate this intrusion. Tell him I'll have him arrested."
More than once I had to push a man off the promenade and make faces at him embodying all that was possible by such means in the way of threats to do him bodily injury. ”