is offended by every reference to the unpleasant things of life, I do not mean the kind of morality which refuses to recognize the existence of immorality--that type of moral hypocrite has done more to check the moral progress of humanity than all the immoral people put together—­what I mean is the kind of good taste which demands that frankness should be linked with decency, the kind of moral tone which is braced and not relaxed when it is brought face to face with vice.

“Some people try and make you believe that a newspaper should not devote its space to long and dramatic accounts of murders, railroad wrecks, fires, lynchings, political corruption, embezzlements, frauds, graft, divorces, what you will.  I tell you they are wrong, and I believe that if they thought the thing out they would see that they are wrong.

“We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its State, its National conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on.  There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.  Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.

“Publicity may not be the only thing that is needed, but it is the one thing without which all other agencies will fail.  If a newspaper is to be of real service to the public it must have a big circulation, first because its news and its comment must reach the largest possible number of people, second, because circulation means advertising, and advertising means money, and money means independence.  If I caught any man on The World suppressing news because one of our advertisers objected to having it printed I would dismiss him immediately; I wouldn’t care who he was.

“What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on its editorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy, accuracy, accuracy!”

Mr. Pulitzer made this confession of faith with the warmth generated by an unshakable faith.  He spoke, as he always spoke when he was excited, with vigor, emphasis and ample gesture.  When he came to an end and asked for another glass of water I found nothing to say.  It would have been as impertinent of me to agree with him as to differ from him.

After all, I had to remember that he had taken over The World when its circulation was less than 15,000 copies a day; that he had been for thirty years and still was its dominating spirit and the final authority on every matter concerning its policy, its style, and its contents; that he had seen its morning circulation go up to well over 350,000 copies a day; that at times he had taken his stand boldly against popular clamor, as when he kept up for months a bitter attack against the American action in the Venezuelan boundary dispute, and at times had incurred the hostility of powerful moneyed interests, as when he forced the Cleveland administration to sell to the public on competitive bids a fifty-million-dollar bond issue which it had arranged to sell privately to a great banking house at much less than its market value.