Pulitzer, Not Just a Prize By: Alannah Cooper
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Pulitzer, not just a prize By: Alannah Cooper It’s the mid 1800’s and Joseph Pulitzer was born in Mako, Hungary. His father is a wealthy merchant and his mother is a devout Roman Catholic. Joseph has always wanted to become a soldier, but was denied many times for his weak eyesight and poor health. When he was in Hamburg, Germany, he met a bounty recruiter for the U.S union army and became a substitute draftee. After this, he finally ended up in the United States in 1864 in St. Louis, Missouri, where he had many different jobs. Some of these jobs included a waiter, mule tender and jack driver. He then went and studied English at Mercantile Library. where he was asked to work at Carl Schurz paper. Later in 1883 he ended up buying the New York World, where he promised that he would expose fraud and fight all public abuses. Then, in 1895, he bought the New York Journal which led to him and William Randolph Hearst having a competition against each other. Later he ended up retiring in 1907 when he stated, “I know that my retirement will make no difference in its [my newspaper's] cardinal principles, that 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.”. Later the Pulitzer Prize was created and is now named after Joseph Pulitzer. https://u-s-history.com/pages/h3694.html .