Presidents and the Media: The Muck Rakers
In Doris Kearns Goodwin's wonderful book The Bully Pulpit, reviewed here in this community, the author tells the story of the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, once the best of friends and later political enemies. One of the most interesting part of the book is the story of the "muck rakers", four of the twentieth century's earliest and best investigative journalists. The term "muck raker" was made famous in a speech that Roosevelt gave in 1906. It is a derogatory term for a reporter who one who investigates and writes about scandal and allegations of corruption among political and business leaders. Despite the pejorative nature of the term, Roosevelt actually maintained a very good relationship with many of these journalists.
One of the first of these (not among the four that Goodwin focused on) was Upton Sinclair. In 1904, Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover, working in Chicago's meatpacking plants in order to research his novel, The Jungle. This book was published in 1906. It was an exposé about the unsanitary conditions in the plants as well as unsafe conditions for the poor immigrants who worked in them. The book became a bestseller. It motivated President Theodore Roosevelt to push Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Conservatives in his party initially opposed the bill, and it was Sinclair's book that helped gather support for this type of reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped.
Jacob Riis was a Danish-American journalist and social documentary photographer. He used his photographic and journalistic talents to bring attention to the plight of the poor in New York City. While living in New York, Riis became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to improve the living conditions of poor people by exposing their living conditions to the middle and upper classes. Theodore Roosevelt introduced himself to Riis, following Roosevelt's 1895 appointment to the presidency of the Board of Commissioners of the New York City Police Department. Roosevelt asked Riis to show him nighttime police work. During their first tour, the pair found that nine out of ten patrolmen were missing. Riis wrote about this in his column, and Roosevelt was able to improve police efficiency as a result. After reading the exposés, Roosevelt befriended Riis. he later said, "Jacob Riis, whom I am tempted to call the best American I ever knew, although he was already a young man when he came hither from Denmark".
After Roosevelt became president, Roosevelt wrote of Riis:
"Recently a man, well qualified to pass judgment, alluded to Mr. Jacob A. Riis as 'the most useful citizen of New York'. Those fellow citizens of Mr. Riis who best know his work will be most apt to agree with this statement. The countless evils which lurk in the dark corners of our civic institutions, which stalk abroad in the slums, and have their permanent abode in the crowded tenement houses, have met in Mr. Riis the most formidable opponent ever encountered by them in New York City."
Riis later wrote a campaign biography of Roosevelt that was very complimentary towards its subject.
One of the four journalists featured in Goodwin's book is Ida Tarbell. She wrote for McClure's Magazine. One of her famous assignments for McClures was a 20-part series on President Abraham Lincoln. This was highly popular, attracting enough new readers to double the magazine's circulation. The articles were collected in a book, and they gave Tarbell a national reputation as a major writer and the leading authority on Lincoln. In 1898, Tarbell moved to New York where McClure's was based. In 1902, she began publishing serialized articles in McClure's that were later collected in the book, The History of Standard Oil. In 1900 Tarbell began to research the Standard Oil trust with the help of her assistant, John Siddall. She conducted a series of interviews with Standard Oil executive Henry H. Rogers, who she was introduced by Mark Twain. Rogers was normally guarded in matters related to business and finance, and he likely believed that the story that Tarbell was writing would be complimentary. Instead, Tarbell's interviews with Rogers formed the basis for her negative exposé of the business practices of industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the massive Standard Oil organization. Her investigative journalism led to a series of articles published in McClure's from 1902 to 1904. These articleswere later published as a book in 1904, The History of the Standard Oil Company. Her stories on Standard Oil began in the November 1902 issue of McClure's and lasted for nineteen issues. Her investigation showed that Standard Oil used strong-arm tactics against rivals, railroad companies and others that got in its way. The exposé of Standard Oil attacked the business operations of Rockefeller, the best-known businessman in the country at the time, although he had retired from the oil business several years before. Tarbell disliked the label "muckracker" and she later wrote an article, "Muckraker or Historian," in which she justified her efforts for exposing the oil trust.
Although he was already inclined toward "trust-busting", the efforts of Tarbell and others emboldened Roosevelt, now more aware that he had public support for his goals. He proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the anti-trust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
Another "muck raker" was Lincoln Steffens, also a writer for McClure's. Steffens began his career as a journalist at the New York Evening Post, but later became an editor of McClure's, where he worked with Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker. He specialized in investigating government and political corruption. He published two collections of his articles: The Shame of the Cities (1904) and The Struggle for Self-Government (1906). In 1906, he left McClure's, along with Tarbell and Baker, to form The American Magazine.
Ray Stannard Baker joined the staff of McClure's in 1898, and quickly rose to prominence along with Steffens and Tarbell. In 1907, Baker, Steffens, and Tarbell left McClure's and founded The American Magazine. In 1908 Baker published the book Following the Color Line: An Account of Negro Citizenship in the American Democracy. He became the first prominent journalist to examine America's racial divide. His work was described as "the best account of race relations in the South during the period". He followed up that work with numerous articles on the subject in the following decade.
In 1912 after considering Communism as a viable political alternative, Baker supported the presidential candidacy of Woodrow Wilson, which led to a close relationship between the two men. In 1918 Wilson sent Baker to Europe to study the war situation. During peace negotiations, Baker served as Wilson's press secretary at Versailles. He eventually published 15 volumes about Wilson and internationalism, including the 6-volume work: The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (1925-1927), and the 8-volume Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters (1927–39), the last two volumes of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1940. He served as an adviser on Darryl F. Zanuck's 1944 film Wilson.
William Allen White was a Kansas journalist who bought the Emporia Gazette in 1895 and became its editor. In 1896 White attracted national attention with a scathing attack on William Jennings Bryan, the Democrats, and the Populists titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" In it, White ridiculed Populist leaders for letting Kansas slip into economic stagnation and not keeping up economically with neighboring states because of their anti-business policies which frightened away economic capital from the state. He accused Bryan of socialism and wrote, "The election will sustain Americanism or it will plant socialism." The Republicans sent out hundreds of thousands of copies of the editorial in support of William McKinley during the United States presidential election, 1896.
White became a leader of the Progressive movement in Kansas. He formed the Kansas Republican League in 1912 to oppose railroads. White helped Theodore Roosevelt form the Progressive (Bull-Moose) Party in 1912 in opposition to the conservative forces surrounding incumbent Republican president William Howard Taft. Later, White was a reporter at the Versailles Conference in 1919 and a strong supporter of Woodrow Wilson's proposal for the League of Nations. During the 1920s, White was critical of both the isolationism and the conservatism of the Republican Party. In 1924, outraged by the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the state, he made an unsuccessful run for Kansas Governor. In the 1930s he was an early supporter of the Republican presidential nominees, Alf Landon of Kansas in 1936, and Wendell Willkie in 1940. However, White was on the liberal wing of the Republican Party and wrote many editorials praising the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The muck rakers had a profound effect on public policy and in hastening the passage of social welfare legislation. They are the icons who set the standard for today's modern investigative reporters.
One of the first of these (not among the four that Goodwin focused on) was Upton Sinclair. In 1904, Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover, working in Chicago's meatpacking plants in order to research his novel, The Jungle. This book was published in 1906. It was an exposé about the unsanitary conditions in the plants as well as unsafe conditions for the poor immigrants who worked in them. The book became a bestseller. It motivated President Theodore Roosevelt to push Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Conservatives in his party initially opposed the bill, and it was Sinclair's book that helped gather support for this type of reform. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped.
Jacob Riis was a Danish-American journalist and social documentary photographer. He used his photographic and journalistic talents to bring attention to the plight of the poor in New York City. While living in New York, Riis became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to improve the living conditions of poor people by exposing their living conditions to the middle and upper classes. Theodore Roosevelt introduced himself to Riis, following Roosevelt's 1895 appointment to the presidency of the Board of Commissioners of the New York City Police Department. Roosevelt asked Riis to show him nighttime police work. During their first tour, the pair found that nine out of ten patrolmen were missing. Riis wrote about this in his column, and Roosevelt was able to improve police efficiency as a result. After reading the exposés, Roosevelt befriended Riis. he later said, "Jacob Riis, whom I am tempted to call the best American I ever knew, although he was already a young man when he came hither from Denmark".
After Roosevelt became president, Roosevelt wrote of Riis:
"Recently a man, well qualified to pass judgment, alluded to Mr. Jacob A. Riis as 'the most useful citizen of New York'. Those fellow citizens of Mr. Riis who best know his work will be most apt to agree with this statement. The countless evils which lurk in the dark corners of our civic institutions, which stalk abroad in the slums, and have their permanent abode in the crowded tenement houses, have met in Mr. Riis the most formidable opponent ever encountered by them in New York City."
Riis later wrote a campaign biography of Roosevelt that was very complimentary towards its subject.
One of the four journalists featured in Goodwin's book is Ida Tarbell. She wrote for McClure's Magazine. One of her famous assignments for McClures was a 20-part series on President Abraham Lincoln. This was highly popular, attracting enough new readers to double the magazine's circulation. The articles were collected in a book, and they gave Tarbell a national reputation as a major writer and the leading authority on Lincoln. In 1898, Tarbell moved to New York where McClure's was based. In 1902, she began publishing serialized articles in McClure's that were later collected in the book, The History of Standard Oil. In 1900 Tarbell began to research the Standard Oil trust with the help of her assistant, John Siddall. She conducted a series of interviews with Standard Oil executive Henry H. Rogers, who she was introduced by Mark Twain. Rogers was normally guarded in matters related to business and finance, and he likely believed that the story that Tarbell was writing would be complimentary. Instead, Tarbell's interviews with Rogers formed the basis for her negative exposé of the business practices of industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the massive Standard Oil organization. Her investigative journalism led to a series of articles published in McClure's from 1902 to 1904. These articleswere later published as a book in 1904, The History of the Standard Oil Company. Her stories on Standard Oil began in the November 1902 issue of McClure's and lasted for nineteen issues. Her investigation showed that Standard Oil used strong-arm tactics against rivals, railroad companies and others that got in its way. The exposé of Standard Oil attacked the business operations of Rockefeller, the best-known businessman in the country at the time, although he had retired from the oil business several years before. Tarbell disliked the label "muckracker" and she later wrote an article, "Muckraker or Historian," in which she justified her efforts for exposing the oil trust.
Although he was already inclined toward "trust-busting", the efforts of Tarbell and others emboldened Roosevelt, now more aware that he had public support for his goals. He proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the anti-trust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill.
Another "muck raker" was Lincoln Steffens, also a writer for McClure's. Steffens began his career as a journalist at the New York Evening Post, but later became an editor of McClure's, where he worked with Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker. He specialized in investigating government and political corruption. He published two collections of his articles: The Shame of the Cities (1904) and The Struggle for Self-Government (1906). In 1906, he left McClure's, along with Tarbell and Baker, to form The American Magazine.
Ray Stannard Baker joined the staff of McClure's in 1898, and quickly rose to prominence along with Steffens and Tarbell. In 1907, Baker, Steffens, and Tarbell left McClure's and founded The American Magazine. In 1908 Baker published the book Following the Color Line: An Account of Negro Citizenship in the American Democracy. He became the first prominent journalist to examine America's racial divide. His work was described as "the best account of race relations in the South during the period". He followed up that work with numerous articles on the subject in the following decade.
In 1912 after considering Communism as a viable political alternative, Baker supported the presidential candidacy of Woodrow Wilson, which led to a close relationship between the two men. In 1918 Wilson sent Baker to Europe to study the war situation. During peace negotiations, Baker served as Wilson's press secretary at Versailles. He eventually published 15 volumes about Wilson and internationalism, including the 6-volume work: The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (1925-1927), and the 8-volume Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters (1927–39), the last two volumes of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1940. He served as an adviser on Darryl F. Zanuck's 1944 film Wilson.
William Allen White was a Kansas journalist who bought the Emporia Gazette in 1895 and became its editor. In 1896 White attracted national attention with a scathing attack on William Jennings Bryan, the Democrats, and the Populists titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" In it, White ridiculed Populist leaders for letting Kansas slip into economic stagnation and not keeping up economically with neighboring states because of their anti-business policies which frightened away economic capital from the state. He accused Bryan of socialism and wrote, "The election will sustain Americanism or it will plant socialism." The Republicans sent out hundreds of thousands of copies of the editorial in support of William McKinley during the United States presidential election, 1896.
White became a leader of the Progressive movement in Kansas. He formed the Kansas Republican League in 1912 to oppose railroads. White helped Theodore Roosevelt form the Progressive (Bull-Moose) Party in 1912 in opposition to the conservative forces surrounding incumbent Republican president William Howard Taft. Later, White was a reporter at the Versailles Conference in 1919 and a strong supporter of Woodrow Wilson's proposal for the League of Nations. During the 1920s, White was critical of both the isolationism and the conservatism of the Republican Party. In 1924, outraged by the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the state, he made an unsuccessful run for Kansas Governor. In the 1930s he was an early supporter of the Republican presidential nominees, Alf Landon of Kansas in 1936, and Wendell Willkie in 1940. However, White was on the liberal wing of the Republican Party and wrote many editorials praising the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The muck rakers had a profound effect on public policy and in hastening the passage of social welfare legislation. They are the icons who set the standard for today's modern investigative reporters.