JOSEPH PULITZER, PART III 563
JOSEPH PULITZER
EARLY LIFE IN ST. LOUIS AND HIS FOUNDING AND CONDUCT
OF THE POST-DISPATCH UP TO 1883
BY GEORGE S. JOHNS
THIRD ARTICLE
IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
There was only one occasion on which he was absent
from a session of the convention, and that resulted in a vexing
but amusing incident. He had written out an elaborate
argument on a particular clause in which he was much interested. When he returned to the convention, he got the
floor and began his prepared address on the subject. He was
called to order by the chair, with the information that the
clause he was discussing had been debated and acted upon
while he was absent.
Of course, the big issue was the restoration of state rights
and the human rights of citizens, which had been badly
damaged by the powerful movement for the new nationalism
and increased power of the Federal government which grew
up after the civil conflict. Mr. Pulitzer did not follow the
extremists of either side. Replying to a delegate who declared
"that it would do no harm to insert a clause declaring the
allegiance of Missouri to the United States," Mr. Pulitzer
said, in part:
The gentleman seemed to be absolutely afraid that unless we recognized that we live in the United States of America, in the western hemisphere of the inhabited globe, on the west bank of the Mississippi river,
that some morning we will wake up and find ourselves slipped out of the
American Union! I have no such apprehension. We are the weaker of the
two. Our relations are those of the infinitely weak child compared with
the strong parent. Why, then, call upon the child to define the power of
the parent, the Federal Government? Are we not all aware of the power
of the Federal Government? Do we not all know of the revolutionary
changes irrevocably wrought in the last fifteen years? Is it necessary to
show bad conscience by reiterating needlessly that we love and cherish the
Union?
