The "Post-Dispatch"

Not "all the news that's fit to print" was ever a satisfactory program for Joseph Pulitzer, vivid genius of latter-day U. S. journalism. He insisted that a newspaper must be not only a compendium of affairs but also a champion of ideals; and it was that theory which made his Post-Dispatch, founded 50 years ago in St. Louis, an astonishing success.

Early in December, 1878, Pulitzer paid $2,500 down for the teetering St. Louis Dispatch, which consisted of a patched-up press and an Associated Press franchise; and the first edition of the revitalized paper appeared on Dec. 12. Five years later it was showing a net income of $85,000, enabling Mr. Pulitzer to buy his other famed property, the New York World.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary last week, with an edition extraordinary, the Post-Dispatch pointed with pride to 50 years of championing. Among other achievements, the Post-Dispatch was one of the few papers in the country which was not deceived by the premature report of the Armistice ten years ago, and while the city went wild stood steadfastly by its guns.

The Dispatch. Young Joseph Pulitzer was a familiar figure in St. Louis, and somewhat alarming, when he founded the Post-Dispatch. Born in Mako, Hungary, in 1847, of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, he came to the U. S. to enlist in the Union cavalry during the Civil War. When the war was over he found life difficult, and eventually put in practice the advice of an editor somewhat less famed than he himself was to become: Greeley, with his "Go West."

Across the Mississippi he worked his way by stoking on a ferry. When he stumbled up the levee he had no resources other than a staggering nose and an inclination to follow it into perilous places. It led him to jobs such as muleteer, waiter, stevedore, hack driver. It took him to libraries and book shops, and eventually to the editorial offices of Westliche Post, where he became a reporter.

At 22, Pulitzer had identified himself so aggressively with local affairs that he was elected to the State Legislature. There he attacked the leaders of a graft ring, shot one of them in the leg after an altercation, escaped trial through the support of some unexpected friends, and made himself a champion of honest government.

At 31, when the Dispatch was knocked down at a sheriff's sale on the courthouse steps to the highest bidder, Pulitzer had $2,500 to pay for it, $2,700 to run it. He bought. Three hundred dollars of his capital he reserved against the expenses of the forthcoming birth of his eldest child. With the rest, he made newspaper history.

The World. In 1883, Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World, for $346,000. In 1903, he was able to establish the Joseph Pulitzer Fund of some $2,000,000 for the endowment of the School of Journalism at Columbia University. In late autumn of 1911 he died, peacefully, on board his yacht Liberty bound south for a leisurely cruise. With William Randolph Hearst he was one of the two most influential figures in U. S. journalism.

In his will Pulitzer left extraordinary benefactions, most of them secret. Among them was a provision setting aside a percentage of the total net revenue of both the World and the Post-Dispatch, to be divided annually between a certain few executives, in addition to their salaries.

Keeping alive the Pulitzer ideals, his sons Ralph and Joseph remain actively in control of the two papers. Theirs is no absentee journalism, each' being in close personal touch with the affairs of his paper. In St. Louis Joseph Pulitzer II has the assistance of one of the few original Pulitzer men still in an editorial capacity, George Sibley Johns.

This year Editor Johns could celebrate his 45th anniversary on the staff of the Post-Dispatch, which he joined in 1883 as dramatic critic. A genial, magnanimous and cultured gentleman, he keeps the editorial department jealously independent of the business office. Under his direction the paper has continued to be one of the few in which advertising comes second to the news and editorial columns.

Crusades. Although remote from the eastern centres of business and government, and although confining its circulation efforts to its own locality in accordance with contemporary practice, the Post-Dispatch has not been without influence in national affairs.

When the late Senator Robert Marion La Follette demanded investigation of the naval oil leases, in 1922-23, the Post-Dispatch was almost alone in supporting his demands. Of this, Senator Thomas James Walsh wrote: "Very graphic and accurate reports . . . were supplemented by discriminating and helpful editorial comment quite in contrast with the hostile attitude of the press generally, until outraged public opinion forced a change."

In 1923 the Post-Dispatch headed a campaign for the release of Wartime prisoners still in the federal penitentiaries. It was active throughout in support of Sacco and Vanzetti. It brought before Congress evidence resulting in a vote for impeachment of Judge George W. English, of the U. S. District Court in East St. Louis. It championed the $87,000,000 bond issue for municipal improvements with which St. Louis began a new era of development.

Such were some of the crusades undertaken more recently by the Post-Dispatch, in accordance with the famed motto written for the paper by Pulitzer, at the time of his retirement:

"It will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news; always be drastically independent; never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."