The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (22 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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There was no weakness or self-abasement in Hearst’s leniency. So long as the job was getting done, he had no need of conformity or supplications from his staff. “His is the unconscious egotism of an absolute self-sufficiency,” wrote Lincoln Steffens.
56
Having watched his son work at the
Examiner,
George Hearst was able to elaborate on this point, albeit with fatherly affection: “If he lacked confidence in himself he might require more ceremony from others; but doubtless, the very reason why he is so indulgent to those who serve him in various capacities is that it never occurred to him that he was insecure in his own position. He selects his men wisely for the work he wants them to do and so long as they attend that work he does not bother himself by trying to discipline them. Thus, without much wear and tear, he does a vast deal of work by other heads and hands: he multiplies himself in them.”
57
56
Having watched his son work at the
Examiner,
George Hearst was able to elaborate on this point, albeit with fatherly affection: “If he lacked confidence in himself he might require more ceremony from others; but doubtless, the very reason why he is so indulgent to those who serve him in various capacities is that it never occurred to him that he was insecure in his own position. He selects his men wisely for the work he wants them to do and so long as they attend that work he does not bother himself by trying to discipline them. Thus, without much wear and tear, he does a vast deal of work by other heads and hands: he multiplies himself in them.”
57
Like Pulitzer, Heart often showed generosity and concern for employees who fell ill or found themselves in need, and he was quick with thanks and praise for good work, but there are important qualifications to his standing as a liberal employer. Irvin Cobb noted that Hearst was an appreciative boss “provided you deliver the particular brand of goods he hankers for.”
58
His rank-and-file journalists were as overworked and modestly compensated as those at any other leading daily, and their job security was nonexistent. Even talented editors could be ingloriously sidelined after Hearst landed one of his star recruits. And while Hearst himself treated employees with consideration, others operating in his name could behave ruthlessly. One history of Park Row reports that staffers who ran afoul of their superiors at the
Journal
would be made men’s-room attendants in order to humiliate them into quitting.
59
58
His rank-and-file journalists were as overworked and modestly compensated as those at any other leading daily, and their job security was nonexistent. Even talented editors could be ingloriously sidelined after Hearst landed one of his star recruits. And while Hearst himself treated employees with consideration, others operating in his name could behave ruthlessly. One history of Park Row reports that staffers who ran afoul of their superiors at the
Journal
would be made men’s-room attendants in order to humiliate them into quitting.
59
Still, Hearst quickly established himself as the most attractive employer on the street, and a clear favorite over the suspicious and volatile Pulitzer, his chief rival for newspapering talent. Journalists responded with dedication and enterprise. They followed their proprietor’s lead in subordinating all other concerns—office politics, administrative niceties, sobriety—to the overarching goal of creating a great and popular newspaper. And the
Journal,
effectively a new publication without a preexisting style or personality, quickly found its voice.
Journal,
effectively a new publication without a preexisting style or personality, quickly found its voice.
Late in April 1896,
Printer’s Ink
reported a conversation between two advertising executives on business prospects and the difficulties of the times: “I cannot help feeling,” said one, “that that man Hearst has struck it. He has done what he alone could have done. The success is as conspicuous, as mysterious, as actually present as the electric light. It is here, we see it, we know it, and it is Hearst that has done it. He has created a great property and it will grow and grow. He alone has done it. It was not his money, though that was useful. It was not the men he has gathered around him, though they too were needed implements, but the success is attributable solely to him, to Hearst, to his personality, to the man. Nothing succeeds like success, and it is upon a recognized, a phenomenal success that the young man from the other side of the continent is already rearing a colossal structure—upon a foundation already plainly seen to be wide and broad and strong enough to sustain any weight and height its projector may aspire to construct. He will do what . . . has not been done [before]. It is as certain as fate.”
60
Printer’s Ink
reported a conversation between two advertising executives on business prospects and the difficulties of the times: “I cannot help feeling,” said one, “that that man Hearst has struck it. He has done what he alone could have done. The success is as conspicuous, as mysterious, as actually present as the electric light. It is here, we see it, we know it, and it is Hearst that has done it. He has created a great property and it will grow and grow. He alone has done it. It was not his money, though that was useful. It was not the men he has gathered around him, though they too were needed implements, but the success is attributable solely to him, to Hearst, to his personality, to the man. Nothing succeeds like success, and it is upon a recognized, a phenomenal success that the young man from the other side of the continent is already rearing a colossal structure—upon a foundation already plainly seen to be wide and broad and strong enough to sustain any weight and height its projector may aspire to construct. He will do what . . . has not been done [before]. It is as certain as fate.”
60
CHAPTER FIVE
Like a Blast Furnace, a Hundred Times Multiplied
W
ill Hearst’s politics owed much to his father’s politics, which were far more substantive than the senator’s reputation allows. Knocked for buying his way into the U.S. Senate and drinking his way around Washington—facts that are not really in dispute—George Hearst nonetheless gave a lifetime of meaningful support to the Democratic Party and its causes, setting an example his son would follow well into middle age.
ill Hearst’s politics owed much to his father’s politics, which were far more substantive than the senator’s reputation allows. Knocked for buying his way into the U.S. Senate and drinking his way around Washington—facts that are not really in dispute—George Hearst nonetheless gave a lifetime of meaningful support to the Democratic Party and its causes, setting an example his son would follow well into middle age.
George began attending political meetings in boyhood and was a delegate to a Missouri Democratic convention at age twenty-six. Almost two decades later, in 1865, he was elected to the California state legislature. As a southerner and a Democrat, he sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War and voted in the legislature against the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, requiring states to provide all citizens equal protection under the law. He was a strong advocate of states’ rights throughout his career, identifying with the South and West against the Northeast and promoting individual liberties against government paternalism. He was also a relentless critic of Republican coziness with Wall Street and of Washington’s systems of preferment and protections for industry. To his wife’s annoyance, he poured as much as $500,000 a year into the Democratic machine.
1
1
George Hearst’s political career took off after he failed to win the Democratic nomination for governor of California in 1882. He was subsequently appointed by the man who beat him, General George Stoneman, to finish the term of a deceased U.S. senator, and later elected to the Senate for his own six-year term. He sat on several committees and was the Democratic point man on the Southern Pacific Railroad file, one of the thorniest tangles of commercial, political, legal, and constitutional issues then extant. But Senator Hearst was no silk-hat statesman. The issues he tackled were mostly related to his regional or commercial interests. The few speeches he made in the chamber were remembered as “blissfully short.”
2
He exerted influence through personal relationships and his seat at the regular Senate poker game. It is worth noting that almost all Gilded Age senators either paid for their seats or had someone else pay for them—and however thirsty George Hearst may have been, he was never short of drinking companions in Washington.
2
He exerted influence through personal relationships and his seat at the regular Senate poker game. It is worth noting that almost all Gilded Age senators either paid for their seats or had someone else pay for them—and however thirsty George Hearst may have been, he was never short of drinking companions in Washington.
Will was proud of his father’s contributions to public life and freely admitted that George was the major influence on his own politics. He absorbed noblesse oblige from both parents but chose the senator’s example of service through partisan wrangling and journalism over the philanthropic route advocated by Phoebe, who still considered politics demeaning. Will not only followed his father into the Democratic Party, but beat many of the same policy drums, although with the benefit of a few semesters at Harvard, he talked a better game. Will defined himself as a Jeffersonian Democrat, by which he meant a defender of individuals, small businessmen, and farmers against overreaching central governments and concentrated capital in the form of monopolies and trusts.
3
(Trusts were a relatively new corporate structure designed to give a small ownership group the ability to fix prices or otherwise restrain trade in an entire industry.) He viewed Republican-style capitalism as “industrial feudalism on the lines of the old military feudalism and for the same purposes—the exploitation and control of the many by the few.”
4
All of this was straight from the Democratic hymnal, and his father would have happily sung along.
3
(Trusts were a relatively new corporate structure designed to give a small ownership group the ability to fix prices or otherwise restrain trade in an entire industry.) He viewed Republican-style capitalism as “industrial feudalism on the lines of the old military feudalism and for the same purposes—the exploitation and control of the many by the few.”
4
All of this was straight from the Democratic hymnal, and his father would have happily sung along.
Another important similarity between the Hearsts is their regional chauvinism. It might be said that George didn’t know better: he was well into middle age before he spent much time east of Missouri. Will, by contrast, was educated in New England and had seen more of Europe than all but a few other Americans, yet he agreed with his father on the merits of western life. His earliest letters home from college tout the social and geographic superiority of California over the Northeast: “I long to get out West somewhere where I can stretch myself without coming in contact with the narrow walls with which the prejudice of the bean eaters has surrounded us. . . . I hate their weak, pretty New England scenery with its gently rolling hills, its pea green foliage, its vistas, tame enough to begin with but totally disfigured by houses and barns which could not be told apart save for the respective inhabitants. . . . I long to see our own woods, the jagged rocks and towering mountains, the majestic pines, the grand impressive scenery of the ‘far West.’ I shall never live anywhere but in California.”
5
Hearst would consistently champion the West against the Northeast throughout his life.
5
Hearst would consistently champion the West against the Northeast throughout his life.
However strong his father’s influence, Will was nonetheless a different breed of Democrat. The senator was a pragmatist, taking politics as it came; he kept on good terms with the old-line party bosses and accepted their ways. Will represented the progressive or reform wing of the party, rallying behind a range of policies recently brought to market by the Populists. He saw a limited but legitimate role for the state in protecting the interests of common folk from predatory capitalism; he supported labor’s demands for an eight-hour day and collective bargaining; he embraced redistributive measures, including the graduated income tax; he recommended all manner of health and public safety and education improvements, as well as anti-corruption policies and the popular election of U.S. senators, among other democratic reforms. He was progressive enough to be considered dangerous by Republicans and conservative Democrats alike. His papers “breathed the spirit of radical democracy,” wrote his editor Willis Abbot, adding that Hearst was “entirely sincere in his sympathy for the masses.”
6
6
Hearst’s political skills were put to a grueling test almost immediately upon his purchase of the
Journal
: he had landed in New York at the opening of the 1896 election season. Presidential campaigns were main events for daily newspapers in the pre-broadcast era, when newspapers more or less monopolized election news. As Pulitzer had demonstrated with his support of Grover Cleveland, an editor riding the right candidate for a nomination or the presidency could attract large numbers of fierce partisans and perhaps even influence the course of a great event. Alternatively, a single misplaced endorsement could drive readers away and ruin a newspaper franchise. Hearst knew that his own political reputation and the success of his paper would be on the line in 1896. He had watched and applauded Pulitzer’s triumph over Dana from Harvard Yard in ’84, and he now hoped to imitate Pulitzer’s success and establish himself as the foremost Democratic editor in New York. But Pulitzer, of course, was still around, still on top, and very much in Hearst’s way.
Journal
: he had landed in New York at the opening of the 1896 election season. Presidential campaigns were main events for daily newspapers in the pre-broadcast era, when newspapers more or less monopolized election news. As Pulitzer had demonstrated with his support of Grover Cleveland, an editor riding the right candidate for a nomination or the presidency could attract large numbers of fierce partisans and perhaps even influence the course of a great event. Alternatively, a single misplaced endorsement could drive readers away and ruin a newspaper franchise. Hearst knew that his own political reputation and the success of his paper would be on the line in 1896. He had watched and applauded Pulitzer’s triumph over Dana from Harvard Yard in ’84, and he now hoped to imitate Pulitzer’s success and establish himself as the foremost Democratic editor in New York. But Pulitzer, of course, was still around, still on top, and very much in Hearst’s way.
THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 1896 could not have been duller from a political point of view. All eyes were on the Republican nomination race—not that it was much of a race. Former congressman and Ohio governor William McKinley had built a commanding lead long in advance of the party’s June convention in St. Louis. McKinley was the favorite son of the politically fecund state of Ohio, home to four of the five previous presidents. He was the clear favorite of the Midwest, the region in which the election was likely to be won or lost. He had gained ground in the South, making him the only candidate for the nomination with substantial support outside of his own region. He was so well organized so early in the contest that none of his competitors ever got off the ground.
7
7
Another damper on the election season was the fact that the Republicans appeared to have no opposition. It was widely assumed that whoever won the nomination would be president by default. The Democrats were prostrate and bleeding from the nastiest collapse in American electoral history. In 1892 they had won an enormous victory, putting Grover Cleveland back in the White House in a landslide and sweeping both houses of Congress for the first time since the Civil War. But Cleveland was undone almost at the moment of his inauguration. A run on the gold supply precipitated the Panic of ’93, the worst economic depression the U.S. had yet experienced. Markets tumbled. Banks called in loans. The Reading Railroad fell into receivership, followed quickly by the Erie, the Northern Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Santa Fe. Before long, a quarter of the U.S. railway industry was in the hands of bankruptcy courts. Some 15,000 businesses failed, including, by the end of the year, 642 banks, most of them in the South and the West. Farms foreclosed at a dizzying rate. Countless factories were shut down, sending armies of unemployed in search of work and stoking labor militancy. Soup kitchens were said to be the only industry benefiting from a Cleveland White House.
8
8
It was not entirely fair to point the finger at Cleveland, since many of the factors contributing to the panic predated his administration. But the public was in no mood to quibble: Cleveland was in office; Cleveland was to blame. The Democrats were thumped in the elections of 1894, dropping 125 seats in the House while the Republicans picked up 130 and gained control of both chambers—an unprecedented swing in partisan fortunes. To make matters worse, the Populists emerged in 1894 as a serious force, crowding the Democrats from the left. Disgraced, demoralized, divided, and leaderless, Democracy looked doomed for ’96.
Hearst’s
Journal,
however, was in no hurry to concede the election. On April 7, it published an editorial objecting to the assumption of a McKinley coronation and reminding readers and rival newspapers that there was more than one political party in the country. As many as six million Americans counted themselves Democrats, the
Journal
insisted, and their loyalty would ensure a close contest by autumn. Given the facts on the ground, the forecast was preposterous, yet it would be borne out. McKinley won the Republican nomination handily in June only to see the Democrats spring to life in July at their Chicago convention—one of the most dramatic moments in American politics. Nebraskan congressman William Jennings Bryan, the Great Commoner, the Boy Orator of the Platte, emerged as the party’s nominee and stormed the hustings with unexpected energy. Fresh-faced and charismatic, he was the perfect foil to the stolid McKinley, and he would make the race exhilaratingly close.
Journal,
however, was in no hurry to concede the election. On April 7, it published an editorial objecting to the assumption of a McKinley coronation and reminding readers and rival newspapers that there was more than one political party in the country. As many as six million Americans counted themselves Democrats, the
Journal
insisted, and their loyalty would ensure a close contest by autumn. Given the facts on the ground, the forecast was preposterous, yet it would be borne out. McKinley won the Republican nomination handily in June only to see the Democrats spring to life in July at their Chicago convention—one of the most dramatic moments in American politics. Nebraskan congressman William Jennings Bryan, the Great Commoner, the Boy Orator of the Platte, emerged as the party’s nominee and stormed the hustings with unexpected energy. Fresh-faced and charismatic, he was the perfect foil to the stolid McKinley, and he would make the race exhilaratingly close.
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