By
1906 the combined sales of the ten magazines that concentrated on
investigative journalism reached
a total circulation of 3,000,0000. Writers and publishers associated
with this investigative journalism movement between 1890 and 1914
included Henry Demarest Lloyd , Nellie
Bly, Jacob A. Riis, Frank
Norris, Ida Tarbell, Charles
Edward Russell, Lincoln Steffens,
David Graham Phillips, C.
P. Connolly, Benjamin Hampton, Upton
Sinclair, Rheta Childe Dorr, Thomas
Lawson, Alfred Henry Lewis and Ray
Stannard Baker.
President Theodore Roosevelt responded
to investigative journalism by initiating
legislation that would help tackle some of the problems illustrated
by these journalist. This included persuading Congress to pass reforms
such as the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) and the Meat Inspection
Act (1906).
Roosevelt was seen to be on the side of these investigative journalists
until David Graham Phillips began
a series of articles in Cosmopolitan
entitled The Treason in the Senate. This included an attack
on some of Roosevelt's political allies and he responded with a speech
where he compared the investigative journalist with the muckraker
in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress: "the man who could look
no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; who would neither
look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake
to himself the filth on the floor."
These investigative journalists objected to being described as muckrakers.
They felt betrayed as they felt they had helped Theodore
Roosevelt to get elected. Lincoln Steffens
was furious with Roosevelt and the day after the speech told him:
"Well, you have put an end to all these journalistic investigations
that have made you."
After Roosevelt's speech these investigative journalists became known
as muckrakers. David Graham Phillips
believed that Roosevelt's speech marked the end of the movement: "The
greatest single definite force against muckraking was President Roosevelt,
who called these writers muckrakers. A tag like that running through
the papers was an easy phrase of repeated attack upon what was in
general a good journalistic movement."
Some of the magazines such as Everybody's,
McClure's Magazine, and the American
Magazine continued to publish investigations into political,
legal and financial corruption. However, as John O'Hara Cosgrave,
editor of Everybody's admitted,
the demand for this type of journalism declined: "The subject
was not exhausted but the public interest therein seemed to be at
an end, and inevitably the editors turned to other sources of copy
to fill their pages."
In his book, The Era of the Muckrakers
(1933), C. C. Regier argued that it is possible to tabulate the achievements
of investigative journalism during this period: "The list of
reforms accomplished between 1900 and 1915 is an impressive one. The
convict and peonage systems were destroyed in some states; prison
reforms were undertaken; a federal pure food act was passed in 1906;
child labour laws were adopted by many states; a federal employers'
liability act was passed in 1906, and a second one in 1908, which
was amended in 1910; forest reserves were set aside; the Newlands
Act of 1902 made reclamation of millions of acres of land possible;
a policy of the conservation of natural resources was followed; eight-hour
laws for women were passed in some states; race-track gambling was
prohibited; twenty states passed mothers' pension acts between 1908
and 1913; twenty-five states had workmen's compensation laws in 1915;
an income tax amendment was added to the Constitution; the Standard
Oil and the Tobacco companies were dissolved; Niagara Falls was saved
from the greed of corporations; Alaska was saved from the Guggenheims
and other capitalists; and better insurance laws and packing-house
laws were placed on the statute books."
Forum Debate: Investigative Journalism
Forum Debate on Watergate
(1) Lincoln
Steffens wrote about Charles Edward Russell in his autobiography
published in 1931.
I recall vividly meeting Charles Edward Russell and asking him what
he had got out of it all. He was the most earnest, emotional, and
gifted of the muckrakers. There was something of the martyr in him;
he had given up better jobs to go forth, rake in hand, to show things
up; and he wanted them to be changed. His face looked as if he had
suffered from the facts he saw and reported.
(2) President
Theodore Roosevelt, speech at the
House of Representatives (1906)
In
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress you may recall the description
of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward
with the muck-rake in his hands; who would neither look up nor regard
the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth
on the floor.
I
hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the
platform, or in a book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity
makes such attack, provided always that he in turn remembers that
the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.
(3)
Ray Stannard Baker, commented on Theodore
Roosevelt
and the muckraking movement (1910)
In
the beginning I thought, and still think, he did great good in giving
support and encouragement to this movement. But I did not believe
then, and have never believed since, that these ills can be settled
by partisan political methods. They are moral and economic questions.
Latterly I believe Roosevelt did a dis-service to the country in seizing
upon a movement that ought to have been built up slowly and solidly
from the bottom with much solid thought and experimentation, and hitching
it to the cart of his own political ambitions. He thus short-circuited
a fine and vigorous current of aroused public opinion into a futile
partisan movement.
(4)
Charles Edward Russell, interviewed
by C. C. Regier (1932)
The
greatest single definite force against muckraking was President Roosevelt,
who called these writers muckrakers. A tag like that running through
the papers was an easy phrase of repeated attack upon what was in
general a good journalistic movement.
Looking
back, it seems to me clear that the muckraking magazine was the greatest
single power that ever appeared in this country. The mere mention
in one of these magazines of something that was wrong was usually
sufficient to bring about at least an ostensible reformation.
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