Michael Pulitzer, the grandson of Joseph Pulitzer, took to the lectern on Sept. 22, 1991, to give a crowd of celebrants a bit of background on the founding family’s view of the Pulitzer Prizes. The occasion was their 75th anniversary.
Pulitzer not only shared inside information; he also made sure the hundreds of guests knew how to pronounce “Pulitzer.” Please don’t stop enjoying this peek behind the curtain until you’ve learned at least that elusive skill.
Here’s a hint: It’s not PEW-litzer.
Pulitzer truths: Board needs balance, reporters need money
My remarks will be confined to some family anecdotal material on the prizes that might be of interest. These are mainly from letters and memos of Joseph Pulitzer II and his brothers Ralph and Herbert, sons of the donor. I would like to thank Professor Dan Pfaff of Penn State University for much of this. He has completed a biography of my father, Joseph Pulitzer II, which will be published in October.
The prize has been compared to the Academy Award of movies. I submit that the prizes had a much more professional and intellectual origin than the film awards. John Hohenberg and other biographers have documented that Joseph Pulitzer’s main philanthropic drive was to create a graduate school of journalism for the purpose of training journalists in a learned profession, much like lawyers and architects were trained. The prize was almost an afterthought to go along with the establishment of a graduate journalism school. The plan was contained in a 1902 memorandum. The school at Columbia would be under the control of an advisory board consisting of the heads of from nine to 13 newspapers in the New York area.The paragraph for the awards, tucked in toward the end of the memorandum, stated: “Incidentally, I strongly wish the College to pay from the large income I am providing a sum of _______ in annual prizes to particular journalists or writers for various accomplishments, achievements and forms of excellence.” The blank spot was filled in at the bottom of the document: “At least $20,000 in prizes.” The pledge for the school and prizes was $2,000,000, and the first installment for $200,000 was paid in 1903.
On the subject of movies and the prizes, Herbert Pulitzer wrote to his brother Joseph II in 1930:
“Suggestions have been made to me that the Pulitzer awards might in some form be extended to include motion pictures. As I recall offhand, my father left the $1,000 drama prize for the play which best represented the wholesome aspects of American life.
“It seems to me that something of this kind could be done for the best moving picture of the year — not a cash award but a medal or some form of certificate. It is obvious that a moving picture today has far wider popular appeal than any play can possibly have and so must have a greater effect on the American people. I believe if my father were alive today he would very likely set up some sort of award of this kind. Please let me know what you think of this.”
His brother, Joseph II, didn’t think much of this. His reply: “I have opposed giving a Pulitzer Prize for movies on the ground that it presents many difficulties as to who would get the prize — the original novelist or playwright, the director, or who, and on the more important ground that the Advisory Board has its hands more than full in intelligently awarding the prizes as it is.”
A letter from Ralph Pulitzer, longtime chairman of the advisory board, to his brother Joseph II, written probably in the late 1920s or early 1930s, comments on the literary and theater prizes. This letter is intended to provide some historic interest and it is not my intention to make any judgment or comparison between the journalistic prizes and the letters prizes.
“After reflection, it seemed to me that appointing a literary or dramatic critic to the board would be a definite mistake:
“One, because the board was appointed by J.P.’s arrangement primarily as a body of journalists to ‘advise’ on the School of Journalism. While the literary prizes have the greater importance in the general public’s mind, yet the journalistic prizes are inherently the more important business of the board, and it seems to me that it should, therefore, be limited to newspapermen with news and editorial experience. The appointment of a critic would tend to diminish the authority of the journalism awards without enhancing the efficiency of the literary awards, which practically always follow the advice of the play juries and should do so except on matters of policy.
“Two, I am positive that you could not get any of the present New York daily dramatic critics to accept the job with only one vote out of the 15 and with the panning of their colleagues to face. You might possibly get a weekly critic like Benchley of The New Yorker or a general critic like Woollcott or George Jean Nathan, but they would not accept unless they were assured of a positive function of selection as far as their vote went irrespective of the vote of the advisory juries, and that might lead to a frequent overruling of the juries’ advice, which in my opinion would be very destructive.
“No, it seems to me that the wise thing to do would be (1) to get young newspaper blood into the Advisory Board and (2) to strengthen the prestige of the play jury; if we would get Woollcott, Benchley or Nathan onto that, I would heartily favor it.”
The Drama jury is now composed of distinguished drama critics, and while there are no critics per se on the board there are, in addition to Mike Sovern [president of Columbia University], three non-journalists whose particular fields of expertise range from law to literature.
In 1928, in a letter to President Butler of Columbia, Joseph Pulitzer II had this to say about the journalism prizes:
“Reporters need the money; I should, therefore, be sorry to see the amount of the reporter’s prize reduced, although I should be only too pleased to approve any and all necessary changes in the amounts of the various prizes, including the elimination of prize No. 2 that would make available a fund ample to provide the intensive solicitation of newspaper offices from coast to coast. If we cannot manage somehow to get more entries and thus very largely widen the field, I seriously fear that the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism will come to be regarded as sad jokes by American newspapermen in general; indeed, I have reason to believe that this tendency is already well underway.”
And in a letter responding to a request for an interview by Editor & Publisher, the newspaper trade magazine in 1941:
“I thank you for your letter of May 18th. In view of the fact that it was my father who established the Pulitzer Prizes, I must ask to be excused from discussing them for publication.
“One thing I should like to accomplish, however, is to get over to the press of the entire country, large and small, East and West, North and South, the fact that entries for distinguished journalistic service are urgently requested and that the newspapers of this country can help the board by submitting entries. If you could make this point editorially I am sure it would help.”
The problem that concerned my father about lack of entries has been well taken care of and for some decades now the problem facing the board has not been to elicit more entries but to cope adequately with the flood of entries in both journalism and letters that roll in without solicitation.
And now, the last word — a letter dated Nov. 8, 1950, from Joseph Pulitzer II to Dean Carl Ackerman of the Journalism School:
“Please ask whoever is responsible to see to it that Elmer Davis learns the proper pronunciation of the name Pulitzer in his announcements of what the next Pulitzer Prize Playhouse should be. On the evening of the dinner, after I had made a crack about my hope that name would come to be pronounced correctly, out came Elmer with the pronunciation “PEW-litzer.” I find the easiest way to explain the proper pronunciation is to tell people to utter the three simple English words, “PULL-it-sir,” with the accent on the “pull.” Technically, the “s” of “sir” should be pronounced as “z.”