It seems as though there is more muck than ever, in government, big business, media etc. and very few people who are actually digging in and getting the stories.
As noted back in 2016:
Over the years, simply because the blog is composed of things that
caught my eye rather than some grand plan, we've from time to time
mentioned some of the early 20th century journalists who got appended
the term muck-rakers but when I did a quick search of the blog I was
surprised how many we'd named, although usually just in passing.
Some links below.
And from Allegheny College, a swell repository of all things Ida Tarbell:
“The Explosions of Our Fine Idealistic Undertakings”
By Greg Gross, Allegheny College class of 1983
Table of Contents:
Preface
This thesis analyzes the staff breakup of McClure’s Magazine and demonstrates its historical significance by placing it in the context of the progressive era. The McClure’s
schism occurred in late March and early April, 1906, and triggered the
gradual decline of one of the era’s most popular mass-circulation
periodicals. To present this study in a logical manner, I have divided
this thesis into three segments, which can best be visualized by
imagining three concentric spheres. The “outer sphere,” Chapter I,
analyzes the rise of the progressive mentality, which had a strong
influence on American culture at the dawn of the twentieth century, from
approximately 1900-1912. I introduce the reader to the outer layer of
my area of study, presenting an analysis of the origins of progressivism
and its Protestant-oriented, middle-class character.
Chapter II, the “middle sphere,” chronicles the rise of McClure’s Magazine to
national prominence as the forerunner of the muckraking movement. I
introduce the central figures responsible for the expose journalism that
“arraigned,” on a nationwide scale, the lawlessness and immorality of
the American people, while analyzing the staff’s ideological ties to
progressivism.
In Chapter III, the core of this thesis, I explore the ideological tensions that wrenched apart the McClure’s staff.
Samuel Sidney McClure, the majority stockholder and chief editor of the
magazine which bore his name, committed the “sin” of adultery, which
affronted the moral standards of the progressive mentality. His staff
reacted by sternly disapproving of his actions. Their disdain caused
McClure to suffer from feelings of guilt, which aggravated his already
unstable mental condition. In the face of his colleagues’ disapproval,
he sought to regain their esteem by establishing a business empire which
would serve society. McClure undertook to establish a new magazine,McClure’s Universal Journal,
and subsidiary enterprises, including a bank, life insurance company
and correspondence school, all geared to serve the “common man.”
McClure’s “grandiose scheme” backfired, however, and only succeeded in
convincing his staff that he was attempting to found a trust-like
business conglomerate.
Convinced
of their editor’s mental instability, and affronted by love affairs and
unrealistic schemes they considered economically dangerous and morally
untenable, the McClure’s staff left the magazine. Ida Tarbell,
one of the “insurgents,” aptly summarized the breakup as “the explosions
of our fine idealistic undertakings.” (1) I
ultimately seek to demonstrate the relationship between these exploded
ideals and the movement which nurtured them.
My thesis is intentionally limited to an analysis of how the McClure’s staff
members perceived themselves and their mission; this paper is not, nor
was it intended to be, a comprehensive history of muckraking or
progressivism. Wherever possible, I have used the primary resource
materials of the Ida M. Tarbell Collection at Pelletier Library,
Allegheny College. The Tarbell Papers proved invaluable in assessing the
tensions which led to the breakup of a prominent progressive magazine
and the staff that created it.
PREFACE ENDNOTES:
“IMT Collection” designates Ida M. Tarbell Collection.
(1) Ida Tarbell to Ray Stannard Baker, October 17, 1939, IMT Collection, Correspondence between Ida Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker file, Allegheny College Library, Meadville, Pennsylvania.
Copyright 1997 by Greg
Gross. All rights reserved. This work may not be used for any reasons
other than noncommercial research and scholarship. For any other use,
please email jwestenf@allegheny.edu
Chapter I
“The Rise of Progressive Mentality”
Query: who made the world, Charles?
Charles: God made the world in 4004 B.C.;
but in 1901 it was reorganized by James J. Hill,
J. Pierpont Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller.
—Life (1)
The forty years between the end of Reconstruction and the finish of
World War I were a period of significant transformation in the United
States. The American way of life, which many would have formerly
believed inalterable, yielded to the cultural change prompted by
westward settlement. With the rise of industrialism, the populace began
to move from the farm to the city. This migration fostered a concurrent
shift in political and economic power from agrarian to urban America.
The United States, in short, was undergoing a redefinition of its basic
goals and values, and such a change — the growing pains of a nation —
inevitably ignited discontent. Populism was the first significant
expression of protest in this period and formulated much of the
progressive ideology which later followed.
The farmers who composed the populist movement were angered because
they witnessed the economic power they once held slipping out of their
hands and into the grip of prosperous city dwellers. In the face of crop
failures, declining prices, and diminished sources of credit, the
farmers demanded reforms that would place them in parity with the
burgeoning economic power of industry. They demanded the unlimited
circulation of silver currency, direct election of United States
senators, and revenue tariffs only. Above all, the populists called for
governmental ownership of the railroads, for they realized that control
of this mode of transportation was essential to their well-being. The
westward expansion of the railroad enabled the ways of the industrial
East to invade and disrupt the division of labor in the rural United
States:
The farmer suddenly discovered that he was implicated, to
an extent undreamed of in the days of true isolation, with banks, with
railroads, and with the manufacturers who went into politics in the
interest of controlling prices through discriminatory tariffs and
favorable monopolies. (2)
The farmer, in the midst of the transportation revolution, felt
betrayed. When the tracks were first laid, he envisioned the railroad as
the path to prosperity. The train would propel his goods to a larger
market and feed the ever-increasing post-war populace, thereby causing
crop prices to skyrocket. Under the limitations imposed by federal
tariff barriers, however, the market for the increasing amount of
agricultural products sharply narrowed, and food prices subsequently
declined. Yet the industries of the East “had only to compete in a local
market behind high tariff walls,” (3) and
the agrarian man bought his clothing, farm implements, and other
manufactured necessities at steadily rising prices while his own
financial resources continued to shrink....
....MUCH MUCH MORE
That
of course was the impetus of the line in John F. Kennedy's stump speech
during the 1960 Presidential campaign. I think this was first given in
Nebraska but it might have been in Iowa ahead of the caucuses:
"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail,
sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."
Not bad for a Harvard Man, son of a stockbroker. (he had good advisors)
And some of our muckraker posts:
In 2011 we visited Ida Tarbell in "
Ida M. Tarbell: 'John D. Rockefeller: A Character Study'" in part because I wanted a searchable link to the
Tarbell collection
at Allegheny college and partly because she described John D.'s
grandfather, Godfrey as "a shiftless tippler, stunted in stature and
mean in spirit".
In February 2016's "
Oil Tankers and Interest Rates and Scallywags and Time"
one of the Rockefeller minions, Thomas Lawson, got a mention, not for
his exposé of his copper dealings with Standard Oil honcho Henry
Huttleston Rogers,
Frenzied Finance, but because of the ship for which Lawson was namesake.
Staying in 2016, it was Ida's buddy Lincoln Steffens in "
Goldman Sachs: Death Of Capitalism Averted, Time For Working Schlubs to Partaay!", again not for the work he was most famous for, in Steffens' case his
Shame of the Cities (St. Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh et al) but because of his famously wrong statement about Soviet Russia in a letter dated
April 3, 1919: “
I have seen the future and it works.”.
It didn't.
In 2015 there was Jacob Riis because I was reminded of one of the photographs from "
How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York":
Jacob Riis Lives! "San Francisco Housing Bubble Goes Subterranean: $500/Month To Live In A Crawlspace"
And along the way Theodore Dreiser got a major link (possibly one of the best business novels ever) in "
Switzerland Begins Two-Year Trial of Driverless Buses (plus money, art, glory and sex)"
So yes, more than wary reader might have anticipated and I've probably forgotten a couple.
Circling back to Ida, here's an online version of
History of the Standard Oil Company.
Although there are quite a few critiques you can raise about her book it
was pretty important and was one of the factors that led to the breakup
of Standard Oil in the Supreme Court decision "
Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States" seven years later. So Mr Rockefeller probably considered the book important.
It ranks #5 on NYU's Journalism school's list of the 100 best works of 20th-century American journalism. (via the
NYT)
