The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (31 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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JULIAN HAWTHORNE was the son of the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, and another of Hearst’s prized literary recruits. Educated at Harvard and trained as an engineer, he had been abused by reviewers early in his writing career for possessing none of his father’s genius. In later years, he would serve twenty-four months in an Atlanta penitentiary for orchestrating a Canadian mining swindle. In between, life was good. He was fifty-one years old in 1896, the author of twenty-six novels, and one of New York’s leading men of letters. While not a profound or original thinker, he knew how to hold a reader’s attention. Months before joining the
Journal,
he had beaten more than a thousand contestants to win the
New York Herald
’s novel-writing competition with an entry dashed off in three weeks and submitted under a pseudonym. Before Hearst called, Hawthorne had never reported for dailies, but after getting a taste of life in the
Journal
stable, he would never seriously return to fiction. Newspaper work was exciting and remunerative, and whatever fame he brought to the paper as a novelist was compounded by his exposure through the
Journal.
His dispatches frequently ran on the front page, accompanied by a picture byline that revealed fine features and a fabulously bushy mustache.
8
Journal,
he had beaten more than a thousand contestants to win the
New York Herald
’s novel-writing competition with an entry dashed off in three weeks and submitted under a pseudonym. Before Hearst called, Hawthorne had never reported for dailies, but after getting a taste of life in the
Journal
stable, he would never seriously return to fiction. Newspaper work was exciting and remunerative, and whatever fame he brought to the paper as a novelist was compounded by his exposure through the
Journal.
His dispatches frequently ran on the front page, accompanied by a picture byline that revealed fine features and a fabulously bushy mustache.
8
The
Journal
deployed Hawthorne less as a political analyst than as a sketch writer or scene setter. Every day Bryan would make another series of stops along the tracks, and every day Hawthorne would painstakingly record the differences in the towns, their inhabitants, their reception of the candidate, and the content and manner of Bryan’s addresses. Hawthorne did his best to make each encounter sound fresh and to put faces on the crowds. An unabashed admirer of Bryan, he had an annoying tendency to gush at his performances, but he nonetheless studied him as intently as any other reporter, and Hearst would keep him on Bryan’s trail for the duration of the campaign.
Journal
deployed Hawthorne less as a political analyst than as a sketch writer or scene setter. Every day Bryan would make another series of stops along the tracks, and every day Hawthorne would painstakingly record the differences in the towns, their inhabitants, their reception of the candidate, and the content and manner of Bryan’s addresses. Hawthorne did his best to make each encounter sound fresh and to put faces on the crowds. An unabashed admirer of Bryan, he had an annoying tendency to gush at his performances, but he nonetheless studied him as intently as any other reporter, and Hearst would keep him on Bryan’s trail for the duration of the campaign.
Pulitzer relied for his coverage of the Democratic candidate on James Creelman, a young man who may have lacked a Harvard education and a literary pedigree but who stood second to none as a newspaper correspondent.
Creelman was born in Montreal, but his parents split when he was a toddler and his mother moved to New York City. Miserable with his father, Creelman scraped together a handful of coins and at age twelve walked most of the four hundred miles to New York, arriving at the doorstep of his mother’s rooming house “with worn-out shoes and a nickel in his pocket.”
9
He needn’t have troubled himself; he wasn’t much happier with his mother, who demanded he attend school. He refused, preferring to apprentice as a printer for an Episcopalian church newspaper. By age eighteen, he had parlayed that experience into a job as a cub reporter for the
New York Herald.
9
He needn’t have troubled himself; he wasn’t much happier with his mother, who demanded he attend school. He refused, preferring to apprentice as a printer for an Episcopalian church newspaper. By age eighteen, he had parlayed that experience into a job as a cub reporter for the
New York Herald.
Creelman quickly won a reputation for fearlessness in pursuit of stories. He broke his arm after boarding an experimental airship that crashed in a farmer’s field and dragged him for several miles. He was rescued from the East River after testing a newly invented but unperfected diving suit. These sacrifices led to more substantial assignments: he paddled down the Missouri to interview Sitting Bull, and he was shot at by one of the Hatfields while covering their feud with the McCoys in Kentucky.
The
Herald
eventually sent Creelman to London as its special correspondent. He conducted interviews with Pope Leo XIII and Tolstoy, and served for two years (1891-92) as editor of the Paris
Herald,
accomplishments that won him high esteem in journalistic circles. He was still unknown to the great public, however, since the
Herald
’s proprietor, James Gordon Bennett, permitted no bylines. In 1894, Creelman jumped to Pulitzer’s
World,
where he was allowed to sign his name to the end of his stories.
Herald
eventually sent Creelman to London as its special correspondent. He conducted interviews with Pope Leo XIII and Tolstoy, and served for two years (1891-92) as editor of the Paris
Herald,
accomplishments that won him high esteem in journalistic circles. He was still unknown to the great public, however, since the
Herald
’s proprietor, James Gordon Bennett, permitted no bylines. In 1894, Creelman jumped to Pulitzer’s
World,
where he was allowed to sign his name to the end of his stories.
The
World
gained a reporter thirty-four years old and at the top of his game: bold, intelligent, with an almost religious devotion to his craft. Unlike other newspapermen of “special correspondent” status, Creelman had no literary aspirations. He was an American reporter, and so far as he was concerned there was no more exalted calling. His job was to bear witness to the greatest events and personages on the planet. The work, he admitted, was profane, invasive, and frequently dangerous, but it was also of real social purpose. Journalism could foster communication and understanding, and to Creelman’s mind, communication and understanding were salves to all the world’s ills. Assigned to cover the Sino-Japanese War, he visited the hot center of the battle at Pyongyang. He beheld the Chinese fighting in the rain under colorful oilpaper umbrellas and suffering enormous casualties in misguided cavalry offensives. After the Japanese victory, he journeyed to Seoul for an unprecedented interview with the king of Korea:
World
gained a reporter thirty-four years old and at the top of his game: bold, intelligent, with an almost religious devotion to his craft. Unlike other newspapermen of “special correspondent” status, Creelman had no literary aspirations. He was an American reporter, and so far as he was concerned there was no more exalted calling. His job was to bear witness to the greatest events and personages on the planet. The work, he admitted, was profane, invasive, and frequently dangerous, but it was also of real social purpose. Journalism could foster communication and understanding, and to Creelman’s mind, communication and understanding were salves to all the world’s ills. Assigned to cover the Sino-Japanese War, he visited the hot center of the battle at Pyongyang. He beheld the Chinese fighting in the rain under colorful oilpaper umbrellas and suffering enormous casualties in misguided cavalry offensives. After the Japanese victory, he journeyed to Seoul for an unprecedented interview with the king of Korea:
The American public must be allowed to see the inmost throne of the royal palace; American journalism must invade the presence of the hermit monarch—to touch whose person was an offense punishable by death— see his face, question him, and weave his sorrows into some up-to-date political moral. The artificial majesty of kings, after all, counts for little before the leveling processes of the modern newspaper power. It may be intrusive, it may be irreverent, it may be destructive of sentiment; but it gradually breaks down the walls of tradition and prejudice that divide the human race.
10
Pulitzer was lucky to still have Creelman. They had quarrelled in February over the reporter’s desire for more independence in his assignments and in the expression of his opinions. Notwithstanding that he had just lost Goddard and his whole Sunday crew to Hearst, Pulitzer decided that Creelman had “outgrown a subordinate position” and rendered himself destructive to the
World
’s harmony. He accepted Creelman’s resignation but kept him on retainer, a “special assignment” that would save the
World
’s campaign.
11
World
’s harmony. He accepted Creelman’s resignation but kept him on retainer, a “special assignment” that would save the
World
’s campaign.
11
Creelman spent the spring of 1896 in Cuba, reporting on the Spanish government’s increasingly brutal efforts to suppress rebellion on the island, before covering the party conventions and the presidential campaign. During his six weeks on the Bryan tour, Creelman sketched the scenes along Bryan’s trail more evocatively than the novelist Hawthorne: “The next stopping place was Charleston, the scene of one of Lincoln’s never-to-be-forgotten debates with Douglas. Here was another crowd of 10,000. Mr. Bryan’s wife stepped from the car to a great roofed platform on wheels, which was pushed through the immense multitude, rocking and dipping among its surging faces like a ship in a storm. It rained, and as the gray drizzle descended hundreds of umbrellas moved above the multitude like gleaming black turtles.”
12
12
Creelman also gave considerable thought to what made Bryan tick, hoping to lift the lid on Bryan’s “simplicity and apparent innocence.” As he sat with him at breakfast one morning, he studied his face and discerned two contrary natures. In the candidate’s high forehead and clear hazel eyes, Creelman saw the strong moral qualities of the born commander. Something in his jaw and the set of his mouth, however, suggested the desperado:
What would such a man be in the White House? What latent power for good or evil lies hidden in that restless, tireless brain to be called forth by some sudden crisis? . . . His youth and his radicalism invite investigation, and it is not hard to understand why every man who comes into the special car searches his face. That is one of the most impressive things about this wonderful journey. Men watch him as they might watch a developing child, marveling at his courage and endurance and wondering what new mental or moral trait he will display next. Already every man in his party knows that behind this seeming innocence and careless frankness of the young leader there is not only an ambition that never sleeps, but a rapidly expanding political shrewdness that takes not of the smallest trifles.
13
BY THE END OF AUGUST, Bryan was widely considered to have caught McKinley, but the Republicans were hardly giving up the fight. Hanna canceled his vacation and stepped up his fundraising and promotional efforts. He urged McKinley to board a train and meet the people in the manner of Bryan, but McKinley, certain that he could never compete with the Democrat in electoral athletics, wisely insisted upon a front-porch campaign that emphasized his stolid and reliable qualities. Hanna had to settle for bringing the people to his candidate, and he succeeded in spectacular fashion. Some 750,000 pilgrims from thirty states fell on Canton that summer.
14
They arrived by foot, on horseback, and in buggies, but mostly by train (encouraged by the cheap fares Hanna wrangled from supportive railway executives). Some of the delegations were large enough to include choirs and marching bands, and all of them bore gifts, including flowers, walking canes, fresh-baked pies, the polished stump of a Tennessee tree, and the largest plate of galvanized iron yet produced in the United States.
15
The visitors trampled the grass on McKinley’s lawn and cheered his pitch for a new era of Republican prosperity. While not a riveting speaker, McKinley carefully choreographed his front-porch entrances and exits, and tweaked his scripted remarks to better suit the particular geographic or occupational concerns of each set of callers, and tried to leave them all with something memorable.
14
They arrived by foot, on horseback, and in buggies, but mostly by train (encouraged by the cheap fares Hanna wrangled from supportive railway executives). Some of the delegations were large enough to include choirs and marching bands, and all of them bore gifts, including flowers, walking canes, fresh-baked pies, the polished stump of a Tennessee tree, and the largest plate of galvanized iron yet produced in the United States.
15
The visitors trampled the grass on McKinley’s lawn and cheered his pitch for a new era of Republican prosperity. While not a riveting speaker, McKinley carefully choreographed his front-porch entrances and exits, and tweaked his scripted remarks to better suit the particular geographic or occupational concerns of each set of callers, and tried to leave them all with something memorable.
With his candidate thus occupied, Hanna spent his days delivering the most audacious fundraising pitches Wall Street had ever heard. Instead of begging for donations, Hanna “levied” banks and insurers a percentage of their assets; wealthy individuals were “assessed” at 2 percent of their estimated annual income, the level of a proposed Democratic income tax on high earners.
16
One of his associates recalled Hanna returning from lunch with $50,000 in cash from a railroad magnate and forwarding a check in the same amount from another tycoon later in the day.
17
The likes of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Huntington, and Armour all ponied up to preserve the high-tariff business environment they sincerely believed was best for America, and also to preserve their personal fortunes from harebrained Democratic monetary theorists. By early August, reports from Republican sources estimated the party’s war chest at $10 million or more. The exact amount Hanna raised and spent was probably less than that but has never been determined. All that is certain is that previous spending records were shattered: at a minimum the party more than doubled its 1892 expenditure.
16
One of his associates recalled Hanna returning from lunch with $50,000 in cash from a railroad magnate and forwarding a check in the same amount from another tycoon later in the day.
17
The likes of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Huntington, and Armour all ponied up to preserve the high-tariff business environment they sincerely believed was best for America, and also to preserve their personal fortunes from harebrained Democratic monetary theorists. By early August, reports from Republican sources estimated the party’s war chest at $10 million or more. The exact amount Hanna raised and spent was probably less than that but has never been determined. All that is certain is that previous spending records were shattered: at a minimum the party more than doubled its 1892 expenditure.
Hanna employed the money to great effect. In addition to the usual brass bands, parades and rallies, posters, buttons, and balloons, the McKinley campaign printed and mailed a mind-boggling 250 million documents. Its staff of writers and artists generated 275 different pamphlets—many of them reproduced in English, Italian, Polish, Greek, and Yiddish, among other languages—along with mounds of pro-Republican copy and cartoons for sympathetic newspapers. It paid for and carefully monitored the deployment of a regular roster of 1,400 speakers whose job it was to spread the McKinley gospel from town to town.
18
Hanna organized separate bureaus catering to special-interest and minority groups: “colored” bureaus, women’s bureaus, bureaus for bicycling enthusiasts and traveling salesmen. The campaign even paid for spies at Democratic headquarters.
19
18
Hanna organized separate bureaus catering to special-interest and minority groups: “colored” bureaus, women’s bureaus, bureaus for bicycling enthusiasts and traveling salesmen. The campaign even paid for spies at Democratic headquarters.
19
The
Journal
continued to chronicle Hanna’s operations and to denounce his efforts to marry “representatives of consolidated capital” to the Republican machine. The paper presented itself and the Democrats as the champions of the rights of the many against the privileges of the few. Less than three weeks into the campaign, the chair of the Democratic National Committee had written Hearst that his support was making Bryan’s election a possibility.
20
All of which may have made the
Journal
and its readers feel good, but Hearst knew as well as anyone that his lone voice was no match for Hanna’s magnificent promotional racket, backed by a near unanimous chorus of eastern newspapers. Moreover, it appeared to the same reporters who credited Bryan with massive gains in popular support that his organization was by late summer running out of steam.
Journal
continued to chronicle Hanna’s operations and to denounce his efforts to marry “representatives of consolidated capital” to the Republican machine. The paper presented itself and the Democrats as the champions of the rights of the many against the privileges of the few. Less than three weeks into the campaign, the chair of the Democratic National Committee had written Hearst that his support was making Bryan’s election a possibility.
20
All of which may have made the
Journal
and its readers feel good, but Hearst knew as well as anyone that his lone voice was no match for Hanna’s magnificent promotional racket, backed by a near unanimous chorus of eastern newspapers. Moreover, it appeared to the same reporters who credited Bryan with massive gains in popular support that his organization was by late summer running out of steam.
Bryan, in fact, did not have an organization.
21
He had a mass following and a loose, scattered network of allies and operatives. Outside of the South, the local and state Democratic machines gave him spotty support, if any. Prominent New York Democrats refused to take the stage with him when he first appeared at Madison Square Garden; Tammany had endorsed the ticket but kept a pointed silence on the platform and largely sat out the campaign; the business community closed ranks against the candidate. Bryan’s Democratic Party, rued the
Journal
, had become “too Democratic to suit them.”
22
As a result, Bryan was critically short of money, logistical support, strategic advice, and field intelligence. He was often guessing as to where he should spend his time. He would arrive in new towns to find no party officials among the people gathered to greet him; his skeletal traveling staff was not competent to direct his glad-handing or tune his remarks to local sensibilities. If his trains were late or connections were missed, Bryan often handled his own rescheduling. He also managed most of his own correspondence, and more than once reporters saw him carry his own bags off the train and walk unaccompanied to his hotel.
23
Having raised roughly $150,000 by September, he had no money to hire stump speakers or to match the literature spewing from the Republican camp. Standard Oil alone contributed $250,000 to Hanna’s campaign.
24
The House of Morgan matched that amount.
25
Bryan’s $150,000 didn’t do a lot more than keep him on the road.
21
He had a mass following and a loose, scattered network of allies and operatives. Outside of the South, the local and state Democratic machines gave him spotty support, if any. Prominent New York Democrats refused to take the stage with him when he first appeared at Madison Square Garden; Tammany had endorsed the ticket but kept a pointed silence on the platform and largely sat out the campaign; the business community closed ranks against the candidate. Bryan’s Democratic Party, rued the
Journal
, had become “too Democratic to suit them.”
22
As a result, Bryan was critically short of money, logistical support, strategic advice, and field intelligence. He was often guessing as to where he should spend his time. He would arrive in new towns to find no party officials among the people gathered to greet him; his skeletal traveling staff was not competent to direct his glad-handing or tune his remarks to local sensibilities. If his trains were late or connections were missed, Bryan often handled his own rescheduling. He also managed most of his own correspondence, and more than once reporters saw him carry his own bags off the train and walk unaccompanied to his hotel.
23
Having raised roughly $150,000 by September, he had no money to hire stump speakers or to match the literature spewing from the Republican camp. Standard Oil alone contributed $250,000 to Hanna’s campaign.
24
The House of Morgan matched that amount.
25
Bryan’s $150,000 didn’t do a lot more than keep him on the road.
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