The Mena weekly star., 1911-11-02
JOSEPH PULITZER
 DIES ON THE SEA
Publisher of New York World and Post Dispatch Passes Away Fought for Life Against
 Great Odds.

Charleston, s. C., Oct. 30.-Josepl
 Pulitzer, proprietor of the New
 York World and the St. Louis Pos
 Dispatch, died at i:40 o'clock Sun day aboard his yacht, the Liberty
 in Charleston harbor. The imme- diate cause of Mr. Pulitzer's deatf was heart disease. He had been 1T ill health for several days, but un- til a few hours before the end none of those around him suspected the gravity of his condition.
 A bitter February night in 1866 saw Joseph Pulitzer crawling out of train in the East St. Louis railroad yards, penniless, hungry, alone, friendless.
 For five years MT. Pulitzer work ed in St. Louis in various capaci- ties. He obtained his first emlpoy- ment as a deck hand on ferry boat. Then he became a hostler in the barracks, and later became a waiter in then popular cafe. Fol- lowing this he had a place as a coachman, and through part of the cholera epidemic of the late eos he was a grave digger.
 Joseph Pulitzer's restlessness and his unsuitable desire to learn pre- vented 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 fortnight or three weeks. Then he would be off to haunt the public library. So long as his money lasted he was the first there and the last to leave at night, and there, under the flickering light of midnight oil, over a fine type of innumerable pages, he set his eyes a task which was destined to assess an awful penalty.
 Joseph pulitzer's whole life was ordered in lines of the dramatic eff fleets. Even the terrible affliction of blindness must needs have set ting in keeping with the scheme. He ensIaved himself to the success of the World, burning the candle at both ends until shattered, raw nerves and a persistent mist before his pale blue-gray eyes drove him to seek rest in yachting cruise. One evening just before sunset, as' his vessel was standing ont on the Bosporous, and the Black Sea loomed full ahead, the blow fell. He was at the ships rail reading when he was suddenly plunged in to darkness.
 Has the sun set so soon?" he asked querulously.
 Not yet" answered compan- ion.
 "It has," was the astounding re- joinder. T am blind. Take me be- low and then tell the captai.. to put about"
 His blindness compelled him to withdraw from public life. He hid himself and sank his identity Tn his newspapers, and particularly in the World. Few of those who have read his signed editorials, gadfly- ing president or whaling state or municipal administration, were able to visualize the producing force that lay back of them.
 He was not only worker, but a worker who was driven on and on by an idea-a fundamental thing he believed in. The fame and the wealth he won were not the object i've, but merely incidental rewards. For nothing could be more mis- leading than to epitomize the car eer of Joseph Pulitzer from tshe viewpoint of personal achievement. That he came from Budapest, Hun gary. where he was born in t847, and in early manhood began as reporter at meager wages on the Wesliche Post, German newspaper published in St. Louis; that he was frugal and inspired sufficient con- fldence among St. Louis bankers to obtain such loans as enabled nm to speedily become managing editor and part proprietor of the news paper: that in 1878 he bought the moribund St. Louis Post and St. Louis Dispatch, combining them as the St. Louis post-Dispatch and making that newspaper a potent factor in public affairs in the west: that in 1883 lie bought the New York World and made 1t one of the most successful newspapers in this country-all these things lose their real significance unless there is presented an outline of what he accomplished with ms newspapers.
 The following is brief sum- mary of acts of public service per- formed by the World under MT. pulitzer's direction:
 It inaugurated newspaper illus irations.
 It introduced cartoons in the daily press.
 ii opencd public subscription for the building of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
 It later completed the Bartholdi pedestal fund of Sio0,oo0.
 It exposed Matthew s. Quay.
 It sent Thomas Stevens to South Africa to find Stanley.
 If began a vigorous campaign against trusts.
 Lost-Money and papers in black