Kate Pulitzer

Inventing and coordinating the massive efforts of the World and the Post-Dispatch would have put a strain on any person. Pulitzer, who had never been known for a strong constitution, suffered under the job-related stress. One day in 1887, he walked into the World offices and picked up an article to edit. After he realized that he could hardly see the page, he went home and consulted an oculist. The doctor diagnosed him with a broken blood vessel in one eye and deterioration in the other. Pulitzer was advised to remain in a dark room for six weeks to have some chance at saving his sight. He followed these instructions, and it must have taken its toll on the previously active man and his family. ⁴⁰ 

In addition to his poor eyesight, Pulitzer suffered from asthma, weak lungs, diabetes and exhaustion. His hearing grew more acute as his eyes weakened. By the time he moved into a new mansion after losing his eyesight, he was not able to sleep in the main part of the building. He had an annex built for his sleeping quarters, and the floor of the passage to the main house rested on rollers to minimize creaking.

After fighting his illness and exacerbating it through stress encountered because of the newspaper, he had to leave the head post. An editorial in the October 16, 1890 issue stated: "Yielding to the advice of his physicians, Mr. Joseph Pulitzer has withdrawn entirely from the editorship of the World. . . ." ⁴¹  Following his abdication of the throne of supreme influence over New York's opinions, Pulitzer embarked on an around-the-world yachting journey, again on doctors' orders.

Physicians instructed him to avoid distress, especially that which would ensue from contact with the office. Despite the new editors' assertions that their former boss had "withdrawn entirely" from office politics, this was far from the case. Pulitzer left intimate instructions for his brother-in-law, William H. Davis, upon leaving for the trip. The former editor demanded that "nothing disagreeable or annoying unless of REAL IMPORTANCE" reach him during his voyage. Still, he left detailed directions for sending mail at each location of the journey. ⁴² 

JP chose to name his ship "The Liberty."

Pulitzer would never run the World from behind a desk in the office as he had in the past. However, through frequent telegrams and conferences, he managed to use a hands-on approach from great distances. Pulitzer would continue to retire in the future, most notably on his sixtieth birthday, April 10, 1907. He hosted two grand dinners to commemorate the occasion and ran them in the same manner he managed his newspapers--he was present at neither party. Members of the Post-Dispatch staff, prominent lawyers, officials and others made up the gathering of sixty at the banqueting hall of the Southern hotel in St. Louis. Another gathering of sixty men took place simultaneously in New York at Delmonico's, the same posh restaurant which Pulitzer had pilloried James Blaine for patronizing.

Pulitzer directed the affair from Cap Martin, France, sending self-congratulatory cables to both assemblies. The one addressed to the St. Louis gathering read in part: "In retiring from the presidency [of the World] in favor of my son, Ralph, I want to express to you . . . my sincere appreciation for the integrity and ability with which the Post-Dispatch has been so successfully conducted. ⁴³ 

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