By Tim Sanders

Since it’s Springtime, when people all across the country celebrate Joseph Pulitzer’s birthday, I thought it would be a good time to offer a really informative historical column about the famed 19th century journalist and newspaper editor. It was my plan to use this column to kiss up to the Pulitzer people in hopes of garnering support for my campaign for a 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Earlier this year I’d written to the Pulitzer committee at New York’s Columbia University, praising their late benefactor for either his support for or his opposition to the Spanish-American War. I wasn’t sure which position he took, so I covered all my bases by explaining that however he felt about that war, I was in total agreement with him because of his astute political insight, his lifelong pursuit of truth, and his deep and abiding compassion for the common man, which I was sure would also have included compassion for the common woman, the common transsexual, and the common houseplant, if he’d only thought of it.

One of their board members contacted me, explaining that I could not even be considered for a prize unless an editor somewhere filled out a lot of unnecessary paperwork and paid an entrance fee. He also said that the article I’d submitted, the pathetic tale of a decapitated Gaylesville farm chicken, Shorty, who managed to live for nine months and three days until he wandered onto Highway 35, wearing only a tourniquet and his pitiful little beret, and was hit by a Volkswagen bus, was not exactly Pulitzer material. I wrote back, explaining that I was a contributing editor my own self, and was not in the least bit intimidated by paperwork. This time I sent what I considered an excellent column from last December, detailing the efforts of an enterprising inventor right here in Cherokee County who’d come up with prosthetic limbs for corn rats caught in traps. I also included a very poignant poem dealing with management corruption in the South’s textile industry. I titled it "White Collars, Black Hearts," and I still believe that had I only come up with a less offensive rhyme for "cotton knits" in stanza 24, that little jewel would have put me in the driver’s seat, Pulitzer-wise. I told the Pulitzer people to pick their favorite submission and I’d send in whatever paperwork they required plus payment for that particular nomination, as long as it cost no more than five bucks. I’m not made of money, after all.

As icing on the cake, so to speak, I even sent the Pulitzer board my proposed mini-biography of the great man, which I’d planned on publishing this week. Here it is, essentially as I sent it to them:

The explosive story of Joseph Pulitzer (condensed)

Joseph Pulitzer’s family immigrated to this country from Sweden to escape the devastating Swedish meatball famine of the mid-1800s. Young Joseph labored in one of his father’s chewing gum factories in Chicago, where, due to some personality quirk, he began experimenting with nitroglycerine, in high hopes of inventing dynamite. After several failed attempts and four tremendous factory explosions, young Pulitzer was heard to exclaim "Oops, there goes another bubble gum plant." Later he actually succeeded with his dynamite research and became filthy. By which I mean filthy rich. With his newfound wealth, he purchased a number of newspapers, including the Phoenix Sun, the Denver Nugget, the Miami Heat and the New York Daily Grind.

In the late 1890s, Pulitzer became embroiled in a publishing war with the notorious Irish publisher W. Randolph "Paddy" Hearst, whose name may be found between "hearsay evidence" and "heart" in your World Book Encyclopedia. Photos from that period reveal that Hearst looked almost exactly like Orson Welles, while Pulitzer strongly resembled the sickly Smith Brother who didn’t use his own cough drops. Pulitzer in those days practiced what was called "yellow journalism," indicating his penchant for hiring illegal Chinese immigrants who’d crossed the U.S. border just north of Juarez. He used these "guest workers," many of whom had walked all the way from China, to deliver his widely popular New York Daily Grind. When Hearst arrived in New York in 1896, with a loaf of bread under one arm and a copy of his own paper, which he called the NEWER York TWICE-Daily Grind, Pulitzer was incensed. Not to be outdone, Hearst had himself incensed, too. Upping the ante, Pulitzer had himself slathered with cocoa butter, and Hearst followed suit with a fine veneer of oil of peppermint. One thing led to another, Hearst hired many of Pulitzer’s best Chinese newsboys away from him, Pulitzer imported Japanese martial arts experts, both groups unionized and demanded shorter work weeks and day care centers, and the "Yellow Journalism War" was on. This publishing war finally ended when Pulitzer used the dynamite he’d invented as a young man to blow up Hearst’s outhouse, and then papered his trees with the "personal hygiene pages" from Hearst’s own Sears & Roebuck catalogs.

By the end of his life, Pulitzer suffered deep feelings of guilt over his misuse of dynamite, Asians, and newsprint, a combination of which he believed would eventually usher in global warming and put an end to life as we know it. To assuage his guilt, and also as a tax write-off, he endowed Columbia University with millions of dollars to be disbursed annually in the form of such prizes as the Pulitzer Peace Prize, the Heisman Trophy, the Best Supporting Actor in a Foreign Language Film Award, and of course the ever popular Miss Congeniality Ribbon and Accompanying Product Endorsements.

Joseph Pulitzer died aboard his yacht, "Rosebud," in 1911 as Halley’s Comet streaked across the skies. Forensic experts determined that the explosion aboard the yacht was an accident, and that the comet almost certainly had nothing to do with it. Fragments of the renowned publisher are now on display at Washington’s Smithsonian Institution, which I believe is located somewhere near Seattle."

I double checked my spelling and grammar, inserted even more punctuation than absolutely necessary just to be on the safe side, and sent the manuscript off using both e-mail and the good old U.S. Postal Service. I was sure I had a winner. This time I received a very snotty certified letter from Columbia, telling me that I had the historical acumen of a gnat, and strongly hinting that many of my references were to some character named Nobel, not Pulitzer. They also advised me to leave the Pulitzer board alone, and threatened me with legal action if I harassed them further.

So, to heck with those hoity-toity Pulitzer phonies and their cheap little tin plaques. And to heck with the remnants of old Joseph Pulitzer, too (pronounced PULL-it’s-HER, not KNOW-bell, regardless of what they say). For their information, I won a Sunday School attendance pin and a blue ribbon at the Southwestern Michigan Solo and Ensemble Contest, Cornet Division, when I was a kid. Both of those awards, by the way, took more than a little stamina. As far as I’m concerned, that makes me an "award-winning journalist," just like those Watergate guys, Woodcock and Birnbaum.

At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Contact Tim Sanders by sending email to tsander9@tds.net.