Arizona republican., 1909-10-28
WORLDS GREATEST EDITOR.
How Joseph Pulitzer First Became .
 Reporter.


 Reporter.
 The November American Magazine contains an interesting story of the extraordinary personality and the phe- nominal rise of Joseph Pulitzer. the editor and proprietor Of the New York World. The story oi how Pu- litzer became a reporter, Mir Me loney relates as follows:
 "A bitter February night in 1866 saw Joseph Pulitzer crawling out of train in the East St. Louis railroad yards, penniless, hungry. alone and friendless. The first job he secured was at Jefferson Barracks, an army post, taking care of sixteen govern ment mules.
 The man who has not cared for sixteen mules does not know what work and trouble are,' MT. Pulitzer has said often since those days. During the next two years. Joseph Pulitzer. was fireman on steamer which piled between St Louis and New Orleans; but as soon as he was able he deserted the river for work ashore He was impatient to get ahead; to work with his head and not with his hands. He conceived horror of debt during this formative period and carried to painful prac- tice the rules of conduct he laid down for himself in this respect. If he could not pay for thing as he went along, he did without it. He hap pened to reach a paymaster's win lnNg a n nlana tvhnrn ha artn- ployed too late one Saturday evening to receive his wages. It was the evening when his weeks board and lodging fell due and he would not face his landlady without the money which belonged to her. He walked the streets. sleeping where he could un- til he got his wages Monday morn ing.
 l. Joseph Pulitzer's restlessness and unsuitable desire to learn prevented his staying long at one task. He would work in one place only long enough to put ahead of him sufficient, money to insure bed and food for a fortnight or three weeks. Then he. would be off to haunt the public library. So long as his money lasted he was the first person there and the last to leave at night, and there under the flickering light of mid- i night oil. over the fine type of in- nuInerable pages, he set his eyes a task which was destined to assess ran awful penalty.
 "Besides books, Joseph Pulitzer had one other passion, and that was chess, yshich he had learned as a child in Hungary. The boy found little op- portunity of indulging in the game, but he enjoyed visiting a small Ger man saloon and restaurant in a rear room of which the .city's best chess players used to foregather. He was among the spectators of hotly con- tested game one evening. when. car ried away by his enthusiasm and Forgetting all the proprieties of such -alI occasion. he. shouted in the ear of the player who had been steadily losing: Give him your knight
 You seem to know so much more about this game than I do.' said this gentleman. you would better take my seat
 "The boy sat down and won the apparently lost game, then another and another The champion of the coteries of players was Dr. Emil Pree- torius, one of the editors of the West liche Post. and a match was arranged between him and the boy. which took place the following evening. Young Pulitzer beat the champion out of hand. Thus he opened the door to friendships which were to mean much to him.
 'The boy obtained a clerkship in the German Immigration socie:y's of | flee Next ne got an appointment as a notary public; later he was admit | ted to the bar. Then he was seized with the itch of writing. The late | Carl Schurz was associated in the publication of the Westliche Post and the German Immigration society manager introduced the youth to him and recommended him. The staffs of | all the St. Louis papers were small | in 1867, but the Post was most mo- | table in this respect. It boasted but one reporter, who also was the city | editor Joseph Pulitzer was employed at a salary of s10 week to become ' StnffF