He came to New York in 1883 and purchased The World from Jay Gould. At
that time The World had a circulation of less than twelve thousand
copies a day, and was practically bankrupt. From this time forward Mr.
Pulitzer concentrated his every faculty on building up The World. He was
scoffed at, ridiculed, and abused by the most powerful editors of the
old school. They were to learn, not without bitterness and wounds, that
opposition was the one fuel of all others which best fed the triple
flame of his courage, his tenacity, and his resourcefulness.
Four years of unremitting toil produced two results. 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.
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.
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