JOSEPH PULITZER.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14227, 15 December 1911, Page 9

JOSEPH PULITZER.

- 1 A REMARKABLE JOURNALIST. HIS AFFECTION FOR ENGLAND. (FROM OUR OWN fOBHESPONDENT.) LONDON, November 1. A Hungarian Jew by birth, tho millionaire proprietor of the New York "World" had to swim for it when'he was refused admission to the United States on account of hie penury.. Hβ got his start in journalism at St. Louis, by the impression he made en a German journalist when he dashed ! into a saloon and beat tho best chess I p''«y« r m the C U D - ■ With insatiable energy ho pushed ahead in journalism and studied law at the same time, and soon became the leading newspaper ownar of St. Louis and of New York. Tho conflict between him and AY. R. Hearst, which gave risotto the so- ! called ''Yellow journalism" of to-day, j was a whirlwind struggle which dragged American newspapers into unhallowed seas and completely shifted the" centre ■of gravity. No loiter was the most iml>oriant news of the day tho most starred. filings now went by unnatural laws. Tho grotesque, the stupid, and the pettily personal, took precedence, while events of world »m----portanco played second fiddlo. In quite a friendly notice in. The Times'" a writer points out how strangely the perspective of tho American Press has become distorted. Tho front page of a leading journal, which is supposed to star the principal news of the day, tolls these yarns: — How a trained nuree was accused of petty thefts. . How some sailors on a battleship, became ill with eating tinned turkey; (none died). ■ How a boy of 11 years was accused of incendiarism "for fun." How a crowd. chased a supposed mad dog until the police shot it. J How two boys were capsized in a boat, and nearly exhausted when rescued. v ' How when a broker's clerk got a divorce his wife said she would be happier without him. How two long divorced couples intermarried. How a Chicago wifo-bcater spent the first quiet night of his married life in gaol. How two workmen poured kercsono | oil on another and burned him whilo asleep (for a joke). All these stories were well starred j and padded out, while enseonsed between them in scarcely visible positions j was the real news of the day, the death of Stolypin, tho eruption of Etna, a conference of State Governors. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN. Here is rather an interesting oompariEon of the allocation of itoms or stories in an American paper, and tho London "Times," each containing 73 columns and about 400 items of news :■ — U.S.A. "Times" Crimes and violence 39 6 . Matrimonial troubles 12 — News of tho world 11 48 Although, the murdere in the United States amounted to 11G against 6 in tho United Kingdom, the writer .contends that no Press with a due sense of its responsibilities could consider this mass of squalid and trivial personalities l , as important as the.whole- of tho news of tho rest of the world. But this strange condition of things is not traceable to the direct personal influence of Pulitzer in American journalism. On tho other, hand he was a man of extraordinary .intellectual attainments considering his upbringing, and his influence in international.* mattors was of quite a healthy nature. He was one of the best friends of England in America, and he incurred all the wrath of the Yellow Press'to show it at "a timewhen England required everyrjgofjd'.wbfd that could bo uttered on that sido of the Atlantic., , At the- time of the Venezuelan crisis he threw all his weight against the Administration, and in the endeavour to check the. war mania which had taken possession of tho people. _. Again during tho,Boer War he risked great unpopularity by epeaking his mind on behalf of England; and what he said reached .the plain people whom it was pre-eminently necessary to reach. '* . •■',. , . '■,;■■. : ,' : .'. • .•;.■ .'■.'..■' -That is why on this side of the ocean there is a chorus of panegyrics upon tho picturesque pioneer. Sir Charles \Vyndham calls him a "man of brain, a. true friend, and a,prince of journalists. .It was a lesson to watch his courage and patience under the coming affliction „{the blindness from which he was a sufferer for many years)."/ Mr John Redmond "regarded him as one of the greatest figures in Amorica." Mr 'Whitelaw Reid says though politically ho and Pulitzer were as far -apart as tho 'poles, not affect their pleasant relations. Ho was one of tho great forces of, American journalism. J I have noticed an increased moral tone j and vigour duo to the influence of tho ' man behind the 'World.'" j