Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/335

"Muck-raking" 317 above, but to articles of a sensational and timely nature — the so-called "literature of exposure." The formula for these articles was simple. It consisted in adhering strictly to the literal truth, but in so arranging and proportioning statements of fact as to show most disadvantageously some person, cor- poration, or other organization of which the public mind was predisposed to believe the worst. Although the formula was simple, the technique attained was in its way masterly. The writers were mostly persons of journalistic instincts and prac- tical newspaper training who on giving evidence of unusual aptitude for this kind of writing were regularly employed on the staff of the magazine. Ida Tarbell, who had previously compiled a life of Napoleon and a popular life of Lincoln, pre- pared a hostile history of the Standard Oil Company. Ray Stannard Baker also wrote sensationally on economic questions, and attacked other corporations. Lincoln Stefiens confined himself especially to political corruption. These flourished in McClure's from 1902 or earlier until 1906, when they associated themselves with the newly-established American Magazine, and McClure's developed a new staff of workers according to the same models. In 1906 President Roosevelt in a famous address expressed his disapproval of this kind of writing, and applied to its authors the term "muck-rakers," which with the derivative "muck-raking" has since been accepted as a fitting designation. Popular judgment agreed on the whole with the President, and while this type of writing is not even now extinct, it gradually lost its vogue. Though it may fairly be said to have begun with McClure's Magazine, it was really symptomatic of a tendency of the time, and most other popular magazines with the exception of Munsey's indulged in it. One of the most famous series of muck-raking articles, in some ways more sensational than anything in McClure's, was Frenzied Finance, by Thomas W. Lawson, published in Everybody's. Most of the magazines named above are still issued though in most instances with change of format, and at an increased price; but they no longer exert so great an influence. It is too early to comment with certainty on their significance; yet they cannot be ignored in a study of nineteenth century literature, even if they reached their culmination just after 1900. Indeed, it may appear that many of the literary ten-