Muckrakers and Freedom of the Press
in the 20th Century and Beyond
“The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, and to connive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the former, pubic opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, then you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors all become wolves.”[1]
Thomas Jefferson
Throughout its history, the American people have been able to express themselves freely and write freely, relative to other countries, without fear of harsh or deadly reprisal from government powers. They have had the freedom to write and speak on controversial issues and attempt thereby to change public opinion, raise political and social consciousness of the common people, and reap substantive changes in the society, in government or corporate processes. For the past two centuries, the First Amendment has provided a rock of Gibraltar, a foundation behind which journalists, editors and authors could feel safe from any kind of intimidation, repression or prosecution. Glancing panoramically over the past 20th century, it is clear that the First Amendment served the purpose for which it was created – up until the year 2000. From the year 2000 a dramatic change has occurred, as one high-profile reporter after the other has faced prosecution and jail terms for refusing to reveal their sources and as one unembedded journalist after the other has been assassinated in Iraq by the US military. Hence, with the start of the 21st century, the US has decidedly entered a new era in freedom of the press or lack thereof.
Hitherto, if ever a particular federal government became too repressive or too corrupt, the free press stepped up to the bench and took the responsibility to inform the public, which in turn compelled the government to veer back on that moral course wherein they work for the people’s best interests. In some instances it took several years, as in the case of Joe McCarthy or Huey Long.[2] But, due to the relentless exposure of the truth by muckrakers of that period, justice was served and dangerous people were removed from positions of power.
How did the term ‘muckraker’ originate? For 2000 years ‘muckrake’ referred to a garden tool – a three-pronged pitchfork used to clean up stables and other farm work. Back in Mesopotamia it was used as far back as 750 BC. Kel Richards writes on ABC Class FM World of the Day about the world ‘muckraker,’ saying the first related word heard was ‘muckrake,’ which was a rake used for raking muck. It was recorded in John Bunyan’s book, Pilgrim’s Progress, as follows:
“a man … could look no way but downwards, with a muck-rake in his hand. There also stood one over his head, with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered to give him that crown for his muck-rake; but the man did not look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks and the dust of the floor.”
Shortly after appearing in Pilgrim’s Progress, the word ‘muckraker’ appeared for a person who uses the muckrake. Then in 1904 Upton Sinclair wrote his memorable book, The Jungle, in which he exposed the filthy hygienic conditions in meatpacking companies in the Chicago stockyards, describing in detail how the meat was processed. His book was the first heralding a Golden Age of Muckraking[3]. Numerous newspaper articles followed the publication of Sinclair’s book, until four months later President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act into law – a law made to protect the people from such low sanitary standards. However, the journalists of the day, inspired by Sinclair, went on a literary rampage, exposing corruption in the oil industry, insurance companies, banks, the railroads, prisons and of course the local and federal government. Their writings led to a public revolt against the predominant widespread immorality and corruption. Finally David Graham Phillips targeted Congress and wrote an expose called “The Treason of the Senate,” wherein he accused the most powerful senators of the day with passing legislation that directly benefited the financial interests of corporations. [And what would he write today?]
At this point, President Teddy Roosevelt lost his cool, and on April 14, 1906 he publicly labeled these journalists as ‘muckrakers – accusing them of being so much engaged in stirring up mud that they could not see the good aspects of American life. Roosevelt is quoted in the Cincinnati Enquirer, in April of that year, saying: “The men with the muckrakes are often indispensable to society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.” It is a belittling, demeaning term used by Roosevelt as he tried to label some reporters’ writings irresponsible and excessive.
While some journalists reacted with dismay and disgust at Roosevelt’s lambasting vitriole and insisted on being referred to as “investigative journalists,” others like Upton Sinclair embraced the term muckraker. Jessica Mitford began to proudly call herself the Queen of the Muckrakers.[4]
Far worse than Roosevelt’s slander was the rise of the two fields of advertising and public relations that evolved in direct response to the muckrakers for the express purpose of spreading counter-propaganda, smothering the truth, speaking lies, manipulating facts, and discrediting the journalists in any way possible so as to throw doubt on their writings. With these two developments, the Golden Age of Muckraking came to a screeching halt by the beginning of World War I. Nevertheless, some journalists continued to write, although thanks to counter-writing by the now established public relations firms, these writers no longer received the mainstream newspaper coverage they had previously.
According to Wordsmyth online dictionary, the modern definition of muckrake means, “to investigate and expose misconduct or corruption, esp. of political or business leaders.” [5] The online Onelook Dictionaray defines the verb ‘muckrake’ as: “to seek for, expose, or charge, esp. habitually, corruption, real or alleged, on the part of public men and corporations.”[6] The American Heritage Dictionary gives the etymology of ‘muckrake’ as “From the man with the muckrake, tool for raking muck, who cannot look up to heaven because he is so obsessed with the muck of worldly profit, in Pilgrm’s Progress, by John Bunyan.”[7] Dictionary.com defines ‘muckraker’ as one who “spreads real or alleged scandal about another (usually for political advantage), and gives the synonym as ‘mudslinger.’[8] However, this differs in emphasizing not real but alleged scandal and by giving the synonym as ‘mudslinger’ a person who slanders others, with slander defined as lies, nontruths. Dictionary.com further defines ‘muckrake’ as ‘to search for and expose misconduct in public life.’[9] Cambridge Dictionaries Online defines ‘muckraking’ as ‘the activity, especially of newspapers and reporters, of trying to find out unpleasant information about people or organizations in order to make it public.”[10] Merriam-Webster Online gives the etymological obsolete noun of muckrake as ‘rake for dung: to search out and publicly expose real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business.’[11]
In 1974 the Times wrote: “In its origins the term ‘muckraking’ described a tradition of American journalism around the turn of the century which was committed to the exposure of trusts and monopolies and of corruption; the Muckrakers were responsible for progressive reforms.”[12] The modern meaning would be one who seeks out and publishes scandals, allegations of corruption, etc. about prominent persons. The online Wikipedia defines muckraker as “a journalist or an author who searches for and exposes scandals and abuses occurring in business and politics.”[13] The term generally applies to writers of the early 20th century, but is occasionally used today to refer to those journalists who continue that tradition. While the term muckraking may have a negative opinion for the general public, yet the information gathered and distributed by those who muckrake can change history, can reform a legal system or catapult a government into dishonor and resignation Muckrakers served as a social conscience as they opened the eyes of the public to the abuses of power that lay hitherto hidden from view. Cosmopolitan, The Independent, Munsey’s Magazine, American Magazine and McClure’s all published and helped to expose scandals including fraud medicines, slum conditions, libertine politicians, prison conditions, and last but not least, the grossly unsanitary conditions of slaughterhouses.
Famous muckrakers were numerous, including Samuel Hopkins Adams, Ray Stannard Baker, Charlotte Gilman (attacked child labor), Christopher Hitchens, Helen Hunt Jackson (in A Century of Dishonor attacked US policy towards Native Indians), Frank Norris (in The Octopus attacked the railroad industry), David Graham Phillips, Jacob Riis (How the Other Half Lives), George Seldes (decried the lack of truth in journalism), Upton Sinclair, John Spargo (in Bitter Cry of Children attacked child labor), Lincoln Steffens (in Shame of the Cities attacked political corruption). I.F. Stone, Ida Tarbell (attacked Standard Oil and broke up their monopoly), Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (brought down a president). While some journalists published articles in mainstream newspapers and magazines of the day, most wrote nonfiction books to spread their knowledge among the people. Topics ranged from corporate corruption, civil rights, military issues, child labor, slums, the railroad industry, the environment, politics, poverty and women’s rights.
Today’s muckrakers live occasionally in mainstream papers and magazines but percentage-wise far more on the Internet, including such sites as Indymedia, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Matt Drudge, Michael Moore, (Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11). Guerilla News Network, Information Clearinghouse, Common Cause, Project for the Old American Century, World Prout Assembly[14], and many others.[15]
The name of Ida Tarbell is famous to any student of journalism. Born in 1857 in Pennsylvania, she grew up to study biology which helped her to develop a scientific method of inquiry when doing journalism research. Her father, Franklin Tarbell, was an independent oil producer in the early days of the oil boom in America, but was soon rendered bankrupt by William A. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company, which had developed a pure monopoly of the oil business. Ida began her reporting career by writing for Harper’s Weekly, Harpers and the New York Tribune. After a stint in Europe she returned to work for McClure’s Magazine. After writing a piece on Madame Roland (“O Liberty! O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!”), she wrote another on Napoleon Bonaparte and then Abraham Lincoln, both popular subjects in the mainstream media. It was McClure who then asked her to write about trusts and the Standard Oil Company. Ida Tarbell was the obvious choice. While her previous writings had been lauded, this time many warned her not to write about the man referred to as a corporate bully – William Rockefeller. Standard Oil was already being quietly investigated by the federal government since it was formed in 1870 for receiving rebates from the railroads. Tarbell spent more than a year just doing research for the article. It became a series of first three, then six, and finally nineteen articles in McClures called “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” and was later combined into a two-volume book. A historian later called it “the most important business book ever written.”[16] In a matter-of-fact manner, Tarbell wrote in her article under the section “Creating a Monopoly,” as follows:
“There were at that time some 26 refineries in [Cleveland] – some of them very large plants. All of them were feeling … the discouraging effects of the last three or four years of railroad discriminations in favor of the Standard Oil Company. To the owners of these refineries Mr. Rockefeller now went one by one, and explained … to them. ‘You see,’ he told them, ‘this scheme is bound to work. It means an absolute control by us of the oil business. There is no chance for anyone outside. But we are going to give everybody a chance to come in. You are to turn over your refinery to my appraisers, and I will give you Standard Oil Company stock or cash, as you prefer, for the value we put upon it. I advise you to take the stock. …’ Certain refiners objected. They did not want to sell. They did want to keep and manage their business. Mr. Rockefeller was regretful, but firm. It was useless to resist., he told the hesitating; they would certainly be crushed if they did not accept his offer, and he pointed out in detail, and with gentleness, how beneficent the scheme really was – preventing the creek refiners from destroying Cleveland, ending competition, keeping up the price of refined oil, and eliminating speculation. [Again to another refiner, he said:] “You can’t compete with the Standard. We have all the large refineries now. If you refuse to sell, it will end in your being crushed.”[17]
In retaliation and self-defense against her dignified but devastating expose of the Standard Oil monopoly, Standard Oil distributed five million copies of an essay which lauded the benefits of monopolies. Simultaneously, Rockefeller began giving large amounts to charity to improve his public image. But, his public relations campaign failed. In 1906 Congress passed the Hepburn Act which ended oil company rebates. In addition, the Bureau of Corporations was created to conduct an investigation into the petroleum industry. Still more followed. A lawsuit found Standard Oil guilty of getting preferential treatment from railroads and under the Sherman Act was guilty of conspiring to restrain and monopolize interstate commerce in petroleum. Standard Oil was fined 29 million dollars. Thereafter Standard Oil was broken up into 38 pieces, including Exxon, Mobil, Boron, Chevron and Amoco. Ida Tarbell spent five years of her life investigating and writing the Standard Oil story. The repercussions were horrendous – for Standard Oil. However, for the rest of Tarbell’s life she did no further ‘muckraking’ and contented herself writing about Benito Mussolini and later Abraham Lincoln, as she had some fascination for important political figures. Historians call the breakup of Standard Oil as one of the top 100 events of the 20th century, and Ida Tarbell was responsible for this momentous change. Hence, although it was the only muckraking she did, its huge effects put her down as a great muckraker of her time.
Lincoln Steffens was a born muckraker. When he was a young boy growing up in Sacramento he learned about corruption in city and state government. He learned early about the “old boy’s school” and about how bribery was used to get power in politics.[18] Steffens was a difficult student but finally graduated from University of California Berkeley in 1889. Throughout his studies and his life, he always asked himself and others, what is the scientific basis for ethics? After graduating he went to Europe to continue studies in art, music, history, economics and philosophy. He soon married, and when he and his wife returned to New York in 1892 he found his father had cut off all financial support. Lincoln managed to get a job with the New York Evening Post, which he liked because he could keep asking questions and get paid for doing so. He learned about financial crime by covering Wall Street in 1893. He covered the police department and learned about political corruption. His education was now in the domain of the real world. Gathering his cumulative knowledge he wrote The Shame of the Cities. The book became a best-seller and launched his career. He then went to work for the Commercial Advertiser, where he theorized that if reporters are allowed to write about what interests them, they will do a better job. But the tradition then and even now is to write about what your editor tells you to write. Not long after he went to work for McClure’s. Steffens was specifically interested in political and corporate corruption. His editor kindly allowed him to follow his interests and in 1902 Steffens went to St. Louis to collect material for a story on rampant corruption in city government. The corruption extended to financial, commercial and social corruption. His resulting article, “Tweed Days in St. Louis” was published in McClure’s in October 1902. Steffens wrote as follows:
“When another grand jury was sworn and proceeded to take testimony there were scores of men who threw up their hands and crying “Mea culpa!” begged to be permitted to tell all and not be prosecuted. The inquiry broadened. The son of a former mayor was indicted for misconduct in office while serving as his father’s private secretary, and the grand jury recommended that the ex-mayor be sued in the civil courts, to recover interests on public money he had placed in his own pocket. A true bill fell on a former City Register, and more Assemblymen were arrested, charged with making illegal contracts with the city. At last the ax struck the trunk of the greatest oak of the forest, Colonel Butler, the boss who has controlled elections in St. Louis for many years, the millionaire who had risen from bellows boy in a blacksmith’s shop to be the maker and guide of the Governors of Missouri…. “[19]
It was the beginning of many more articles to follow, reporting on one city after the other, and then one state after the other, each time delineating the corruption and intrigues taking place unbeknownst to the public. Each time an article was published, heads rolled, people were fired, lawsuits filed, and politicians begged for mea culpa to escape prosecution on various charges such as bribery and financial fraud. After exhausting research at the local and state level, Seldes moved to the federal level – the Congress. He saw the same corruption. “The Senate was a chamber of bosses with one senator from each state representing the political machine in his state, and the other senator representing the leading businessmen. Together they victimized the ordinary citizens.” Finally he found himself compelled to compromise as his own friend, President Teddy Roosevelt did not take action against corruption in Congress. Disillusioned with his own ethics, he soon left McClure’s and worked for a time with the American Magazine along with Ida Tarbell and others. In 1911 his wife and parents died and he stopped writing and began studying. He became interested in revolution and socialism. For sure, he was looking for the ideal society, the ideal political-economic system, as he saw how badly the present so-called democratic system in the US was working. He lived abroad for several years and returned with a new wife and then retired to family life. However, his fame lasted until and beyond his death and he is hailed as having been a fearless, independent journalist.
Upton Sinclair was a great muckraker. His horizons, his vision, were enormous. Originally he wanted to be a poet, but he failed, and decided to instead become a social activist. He was born in a lower-class boardinghouse in Baltimore, Maryland. His father died of alcoholism, which led to Upton becoming a prohibitionist. His mother drank neither coffee nor tea, which led to Sinclair becoming a health-food advocate. He spent his childhood living sometimes with his parents in poverty and other times with his mother’s father – in a wealthy, fashionable home in Baltimore. The difference between the two lives – one wealthy and the other impoverished – certainly had an effect on Sinclair, and he vowed never to compromise with the upper class life. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1897 and then began selling his writings before moving on to graduate school at Columbia University, where he studied literature and philosophy. After this he began writing novels. Every one of his novels was rejected by the publishers. Finally, the editor of The Appeal to Reason, America’s leading socialist newspaper, offered Sinclair $500 to write a novel about the plight of the poor people who earned pittance as wages. Sinclair decided to go the Chicago stockyards to learn about the meatpacking industry - how the workers were treated and what kind of wages they received. Sinclair worked undercover in this slaughterhouse for seven weeks until he had enough to write about. The result was his most famous book, The Jungle. Publishers had some interest but wanted him to edit and delete the gory parts of his story. After five rejections, Sinclair, refusing to compromise on the contents, decided to self-publish. Within two months he earned $4,000.00 from sales and had more money than he had earned in the previous five years. At this point Doubleday, Page & Co. offered to publish it. Sinclair faced continuous obstacles. The meat industry began attacking Sinclair and his book, calling him a liar and the book fabricated. Meatpacking giant Ogden Armour published a big rejection in the Saturday Evening Post, calling their business “noble in all its motives… with products “free from blemish.”[20] The company contacted libraries and told them not to buy Sinclair’s book. They told editors not to review it. Facing tremendous opposition, it was suddenly President Teddy Roosevelt who invited Sinclair to the White House to explain his book and tell him about the living conditions in Chicago so that he, the president, could respond to the 100+ letters he was receiving daily from appalled Americans. Why were Americans appalled? Sinclair writes as follows in The Jungle:
“It was a long, narrow room with a gallery along it for visitors. At the head … was a great iron wheel, about 20 feet in circumference, with rings here and there along its edge. Upon both sides of this wheel there was a narrow space, into which came the hogs at the end of their journey… In a minute or two… [the wheel] began slowly to revolve, and then the men upon each side of it sprang to work. They had chains which they fastened about the leg of the nearest hog, and the other end of the chain they hooked into one of the rings upon the wheel. So, as the wheel turned, a hog was suddenly jerked off his feet and borne aloft.
“At the same instant the ear was assailed by a most terrifying shriek; the visitors started in alarm, the women turned pale and shrank back. The shriek was followed by another, louder ad yet more agonizing – for once started upon that journey, the hog never came back; at the top of the wheel he was shunted off upon a trolley, and went sailing down the room. And … another was swung up, and then another, and another, until there was a double line of them, each dangling by a foot and kicking in frenzy – and squealing. The uproar was appalling… There were high squeals and low squeals, grunts and wails of agony; there would come a momentary lull, and then a fresh outburst, louder than ever, surging up to a deafening climax.
“It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests – and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretense at apology, without the homage of a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering-machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory..’”[21]
The book and the resulting expose had tremendous consequences. America’s first Pure Food and Drug Act was passed, which established food inspection regulations. It was the origin of today’s Food and Drug Administration. Once Sinclair’s fame was established, The New York Evening World wrote of how Sinclair became a celebrity overnight. The Jungle was translated into 17 languages and was a bestseller for six months. Slaughterhouse workers formed unions for the first time. Sinclair finally realized his childhood dream – which was simply to make the world a better place. He continued to write one book after the other and gradually earned the title “Muckrake Man”. He exposed many institutions, including Wall Street (The Moneychangers), the coal-mining industry (King Coal), organized religion (The Profits of Religion), the oil industry (OIL!); and American Publishing (Money Writes!) He accurately zeroed in on the worst sinners and the greediest capitalists of his day. His deep desire for justice for all people was unbounded. In protest against the great tragedy of World War I he wrote eleven books in what are called the Lanny Budd series, which also reflected his growing despair and fear of the clearly ominous signs of World War II. He was opposed to all war. In these novels he showed the American people how wars were fought by the poor but organized by wealthy men in smoke-filled backrooms who plotted to achieve their own greedy monetary goals without any regard for people’s lives. As Jensen writes: “Sinclair introduced the public to the duplicitous actions and sinister motives of the world’s elite that led to millions of casualties in both wars.”[22] He received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1942 as well as numerous other awards in his lifetime. However, The Jungle had the profoundest effect on his society and led to substantial improvements in the lives of the poorest working people in America. He was prolific right up until his death at the age of 89.
Margaret Sanger was born in 1879 in Corning, New York in the days when there was no such thing as legal birth control or any kind of contraception. Thousands of women were plagued by repeated pregnancies. Many stood in line to wait for five-dollar abortions in filthy surroundings. After nursing her sick mother, Margaret turned to nursing as a profession. She married William Sanger and had three children, and then began working as an obstetrical nurse in the slums of the Lower East Side of New York City. She was appalled by the health conditions and innumerable births to poor women who had no money or means to raise these new babies. Singer decided that women had a right to know about birth control. She went to Europe where family-planning clinics were already well established, and returned to New York in 1914 with a three-pronged approach in mind: education, organization and legislation. Her first task was to educate the public, and especially the poor women. She launched her own magazine called Woman Rebel in 1914, with the byline ‘No Gods, No Masters.’ She used Woman Rebel as her vehicle to speak to the women of America. Her writings reflected her anger at how women were treated, her contempt for those who put obstacles in her path, and her driving desire to educate as many women as she could with the meager resources available to her. In March 1914, expressing the aim of the Woman Rebel, she wrote:
“It will also be the aim of the WOMAN REBEL to advocate the prevention of conception and to impart such knowledge in the columns of this paper. Other subjects, including the slavery through motherhood; through things, the home, public opion and so forth, will be dealt with. It is also the aim of this paper to circulate among those women who work in prostitution; to voice their wrongs; to expose the police persecution which hovers over them and to give free expression to their thoughts, hopes and opinions. And at all times, the WOMAN REBEL will strenuously advocate economic emancipation.”[23]
In June 1914 she wrote in another article called “Suppression” the following:
“To suppress is an act of weakness. To suppress an idea is an admission that you are afraid of it, that its life is a threat upon yours. Suppression of the idea by the Church … indicates that our parasitic institutions thrive upon the exploitation of Poverty – that Stupidity and Ignorance and Slavery are the foundations of Church, State and Business.
“Our fight is for the personal liberty of the women who work. A woman’s body belongs to herself alone. It is her body It does not belong to the Church. It does not belong to the United States of America or to any other government… The first step towards getting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for any woman is her decision whether or not she shall become a mother. Enforced motherhood is the most complete denial of a woman’s right to life and liberty. The Church and the government deny personal liberty to the women of the United States…And the federal government arbitrarily suppresses any woman who dares to assert this right of personal freedom.
“If the WOMAN REBEL were allowed to publish with impunity elementary and fundamental truths concerning personal liberty and how to obtain it, the birth control movement would become a movement of tremendous power in the emancipation of the working class. The attempted suppression is thus primarily a blow at the entire working class of America, intended for no other purpose than to retard the economic and spiritual emancipation of working men, women and children.
“… you [working women] will recreate the revolutionary spirit of your class, the ardor of which you yourselves have enchained in thousands of cases. Nothing will cause the downfall of parasitic institutions like the Church, the State, and Big Business more than these attempts at suppression.”[24]
Immediately Sanger faced suppression in the form of the Comstock Act of 1873, which outlawed “obscene, lewd and lascivious” publications and barred birth-control material especially from the mail.[25] The post office refused to deliver her magazine. Nevertheless, Sanger found her own ways to distribute Woman Rebel. Then the federal government indicted her on nine counts of breaking obscenity laws. Rather than face conviction, Sanger fled to Europe where she furthered her knowledge of birth control. When after two years the charges were finally dropped, Sanger returned to the US and began her crusade anew. She opened a birth control clinic in the slums of Brooklyn. Once again she faced suppression, as just one week after opening, the clinic was raided and shut down and Sanger and her staff were arrested. She spent 30 days in prison. However, it was a good thing because her imprisonment brought her needed publicity. Several wealthy women offered financial support for her cause. After release from prison she began another clinic in her home and launched now a national publication called Birth Control Review. In response she received thousands of letters from distraught women. She selected 500 of these letters and published them in her book Motherhood in Bondage. In 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League and held the first National Birth Control Conference in New York.[26] She lectured all over America and lobbied Washington legislators and the American Medical Association, who had opposed her crusade from the beginning. Finally, in 1936 the Supreme Court allowed the mailing of birth control information, and thus struck down the Comstock Act. Shortly thereafter the AMA reversed its decision and said that doctors had the right to distribute birth control information and devices to their patients. In 1939 Sanger’s American Birth Control League and the Clinical Research Bureau merged into the Birth Control Federation of America. Today it is called Planned Parenthood. Sanger continued her travels and work to spread the message of birth control for women. In 1952 she founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation. In her journey, she fought the Catholic Church, the politicians who were afraid to be associated with birth control, and even with women’s groups who felt she should be concentrating instead on women’s suffrage. She was imprisoned eight times during her lifetime. Despite these obstacles, Sanger wrote 13 books and published countless articles and pamphlets about women’s issues and birth control. She said clearly that this fight for birth control and planned parenthood is never over. Certainly, with the rising religious extremism happening in America today, her words ring true
George Seldes was born in 1890 in a utopian colony started by his father in Alliance, New Jersey. His father raised George to be a nonconformist, a libertarian, a freethinker. His father told him to question everything and to take nothing for granted. In his youth he read the books of Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens. He first began to question news judgment when he saw an article telling about the start of the Russian revolution relegated to page three of the local newspaper, while a small local fire was printed on the front page.[27] In 1909 Seldes was first hired as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Leader. He began interviewing the famous people of the day, and would continue interviewing and writing for the rest of his life. In this first job he saw the advertising department manipulating the newspaper’s editorial content. In 1910 he joined the larger Pittsburgh Post, and in 1918 he went to Europe as a war correspondent, selling his stories to a syndicate that forwarded reports to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat as well as other newspapers.[28] At the end of World War I, Seldes and three other reporters drove into Germany and got an exclusive interview with Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who weepingly confessed that the Germans lost the war to the Americans on the battlefield. This remarkable story was censored by the US Army under pressure from Edwin James of the New York Times, who did not want it known that someone else had beaten him to this story. Later Edwin James became managing editor of the New York Times, and instructed his staff to never mention Seldes’ newsletter or books or even his name. It was only decades later that the New York Times acknowledged the great journalism achievements of George Seldes. He remained in Italy after the war until Mussolini threw him out for not writing the news to suit his fascist regime. In 1927 Seldes was sent to Mexico to report on the coming Communist revolution. Instead he found the real news, which was American corporate oil interests, at the US Embassy conspiring to topple the government in order to get at Mexican oil reserves.[29] He wrote the first five columns presenting the official US State Department version of events and the next five columns based on his own observations and data. The Tribune reneged on its promise to publish all ten, instead publishing only the State Department version. Seldes left in disgust and became a free-lancer, eventually writing 21 books and his own magazine called In Fact, with the byline, “For the Millions Who Want a Free Press.” It was America’s first successful magazine of press criticism. Every week In Fact would lambast the mainstream media for failing to cover the issues that mattered, such as health and health care, the economy, and war. In Fact was forced to die in 1950 directly due to the red-baiting by Joe McCarthyites. One of his major achievements was to expose the press for its complete censorship of the dangers of cigarette smoking. He spent ten years of his life publishing more than one hundred articles on the subject, to help the public learn about the connection between smoking and cancer. In his magazine, In Fact, he wrote the following about war:
“Today we are fighting for our lives. We have been attacked. The enemy is Fascism. There can therefore be no room in the anti-Fascist world at this time for doubt about the justness of the war, or its causes, as there were in the last war, but when peace nears all of us will have to be on the alert to prevent the present movement against world Fascism from being diverted into many strange channels by public opinion created by a press which is still in Fascists or Semi-Fascist control even in democratic nations…
“What is the most powerful force in America today?
Answer: Public opinion.
Answer: the main force is the press.
Answer: the baseball scores are always correct … The stock market tables are correct… But when it comes to news which will affect you, your daily life, your job, your relation to other peoples, your thinking on economic and social problems, and , more important today, your going to war and risking your life for a great ideal, you cannot trust about 98 percent (or perhaps 99 ½ percent) of the big newspaper and big magazine press of America.
But why can’t you trust the press?
Answer: Because it has become Big Business. The big city press and the big magazines have become commercialized… The big press cannot exist a day without advertising. Advertising means money from Big Business. Besides naming thousands of newspapers, scores of magazines, many writers and college professors as being corrupted by the special interests, and receiving the price paid, which ranges all the way from a five-dollar bill and a few drinks at a bar to a million-dollar mortgage, the reports come to these documented conclusions:
1. America is in the hands of two hundred industrial and fifty financial families.
2. These families run the country.
3. They supply the funds which elect the officials of the United States, from state legislatures to the presidency.
4. They control billions in stocks and bonds, they control the economic life of the nation.
5. They control legislation; they control Congress; they maintain the most powerful lobby in Washington, and usually get what they want.
6. They use the American Newspaper Publishers Association (the big newspaper owners) as an instrument to maintain their control of America.
7. They use advertising (in newspapers and magazines) to make this stranglehold on public opinion possible.
In other words, they control you. … these are also the facts which have been suppressed in the popular newspapers and magazine, and that of course is the reason America is kept in ignorance of the most vital matters affecting the life, happiness and welfare of the majority of its citizens.
“…Jefferson did not foresee that the American press which creates opinion and which rules indirectly would become almost exclusively a millionaire’s press, or a corporation-influenced press, or the medium of big business via its advertising, and therefore the corrupt press which serves private interests rather than the public interest… If America is to be bossed by the public opinion created by its press, if it is to fight and win this war, if it is to make a great peace, then it should know the power of the most powerful force which is abroad in the land.”[30]
Yet, hardly any of these articles were published in the mainstream press. Seldes wrote more than 20 books on the media, such as: You Can’t Print That; Freedom of the Press; Facts and Fascism; Tell the Truth and Run; Never Tire of Protesting; and Even the Gods Can’t Change History. Seldes never based his columns on rumors. Rather he went and collected hard facts. He was censored for more than half a century by the New York Times and other mainstream media. Yet he has gone down in journalism history for being the first to castigate the mainstream media for failing in its duty to inform the public on vital issues. He demanded the creation of ethics in journalism. Due to Seldes, journalism departments today offer classes in reporting ethics.
“Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was … famous for the abundances and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.
“Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children, who would be stricken suddenly while at play and die within a few hours.
“There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example – where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and march.”[31]
Jessica Mitford was born in a castle in Gloucestershire, England, into great wealth. However, as soon as she could, she ran away to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War and became a die-hard communist, finally ending up in America to eventually earn the title “Queen of the Muckrakers.” Growing up she felt the opulence surrounding her as a kind of prison. By the time she was twelve, she had already developed an internal outrage over the way the poor people lived. As time passed these feelings only intensified, and finally at the age of 19 she fled to France to meet her cousin, Esmond Romilly, who wrote anti-Fascist tracts for the Loyalist press. They married in 1937. Two years later they emigrated to America to start a new life. Romilly joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was killed in action at the age of 23. A few years later Jessica met attorney Bob Treuhaft, who shared her political beliefs. In 1951 she was subpoenaed to appear before the California Committee on Un-American Activities where she refused to answer questions about her membership to the Communist Party.[33] By 1958 Jessica and her husband had left the Party, disillusioned and bored with its lack of a strong agenda. It was now that her journalism career began, as she wrote one article after the other exposing society’s ‘cherished’ institutions and cover-ups. She was to battle censorship and corruption for the rest of her life, eventually winning the highest respect for her fight. Perhaps her most famous work was her book, The American Way of Death, a scathing indictment of the funeral industry, which sold millions of copies. Other topics included her harsh condemnation of the prosecution of Dr. Spock for his anti-Vietnam war activities, a similarly blunt look at the prison industry in America, and The American Way of Birth – about the myriad dangers faced by young mothers propelled into hi-tech births without option instead of simple mid-wife deliveries. In her book The American Way of Death, Mitford writes:
“Gradually, almost imperceptibly, over the years the funeral men have constructed their own grotesque cloud-cuckoo-land where the trappings of Gracious Living are transformed, as in a nightmare, into the trappings of Gracious Dying. The same familiar Madison Avenue language, with its peculiar adjectival range designed to anesthetize sales resistance to all sorts of products, has seeped into the funeral industry in a new and bizarre guise. The emphasis is on the same desirable qualities that we have all been schooled to look for in our daily search for excellence: comfort, durability, beauty, craftsmanship. The attuned ear will recognize too the convincing quasi-scientific language, so reassuring even if unintelligible.”
“…Not every casket need have a silver lining, for one may choose between ‘more than sixty color-matched shades, magnificent and unique masterpieces’ by the Cheney casket-lining people. Shrouds no longer exist. Instead, you may patronize a grave-wear couturiere who promises ‘handmade original fashions- styles from the best in life for the last memory – dresses, men’s suits, negligees, accessories.’ For the final, perfect grooming: ‘nature-Glo – the ultimate in cosmetic embalming.’ And where have we heard that phrase ‘peace-of-mind protection’ before? …. In funeral advertising, it is applied to the Wilbert Burial Vault, with its three-eighths-of-an-inch precast asphalt inner liner plus extra-thick, reinforced concrete – all this ‘guaranteed by Good Housekeeping.’”
“…A newer one, impressively authentic-sounding, is the need for ‘grief therapy,’ which is beginning to go over big in mortuary circles. [It is] the new role of the undertaker – ‘the dramaturgic role, in which the undertaker becomes a stage manager to create an appropriate atmosphere … Lastly, a whole new terminology, as ornately shoddy as the satin rayon casket liner, has been invented by the funeral industry to replace the direct and serviceable vocabulary of former times. Undertaker has been supplanted by “funeral director’ or ‘mortician.’ Coffins are ‘caskets;’ hearses are ‘coaches, or ‘professional cars;’ flowers are ‘floral tributes;’ corpses generally are ‘loved ones;’ … cremated remains are ‘cremains.’ Euphemisms such as ‘slumber room,’ reposing room,’ and calcinations – the kindlier heat’ abound in the funeral business.”
In 1961 Mitford wrote an article “Can You Afford to Die?” for the Saturday Evening Post and once again became an overnight sensation as thousands of letters poured in to the editor heralding her exposes. She once told a group of potential writers, “You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.”[34] Towards the end of her life she wrote a revised, updated version of The American Way of Death. The Queen of the Muckrakers passed away in 1996.
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an intense man, now 73 years old, who lives alone and has few close friends. He ran for president in 2000 and 2004 – the second time primarily as a protest against the two-party system and electoral voting system. He has spent his entire life fighting the powers that be, exposing their crimes and corruptions, and in many cases seeing legislation get passed to change what was wrong. Ralph learned from his father to always protest injustice. When Ralph was a boy his father held a march in their hometown of Winsted, Connecticut, to protest a congressional salary increase. Ralph was reading the Congressional Record at the age of twelve.[35] His heroes were Pericles and Thomas Jefferson. Sinclair’s The Jungle had a marked influence on him, as he understood the value of muckraking in ushering positive changes in government and society. Nader graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude with degrees in government and economics in 1955, and from Harvard Law School in 1958. In 1959 he published an article in The Nation that documented car manufacturers’ responsibility for the huge number of automobile accidents. As he began his law practice, Nader handled several car accident cases which caused him to research in great detail the exact cause of the accidents. In the early 1960s he left and traveled in the Soviet Union, Scandinavia, Africa and South America as a freelance journalist. Then he moved to Washington, D.C. where Secretary of Labor Daniel Moynahan hired him to be a consultant on auto safety issues. Nader’s years of research on auto accidents led him to finally publish his first book called Unsafe at any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile. This book sold millions and catapulted him to fame. The book zeroed in on the Chevrolet Corvair and held General Motors liable for innumerable deaths and injuries due to the construction flaws of the Corvair. Thus Nader’s first big enemy was born. GM tried their best to discredit Nader, including hiring a private investigator to follow him in hopes of finding a scandal. But their plan backfired due to Nader’s impeccable personal morality and honesty. Instead, Nader sued GM for invasion of privacy and won $425,000 out of court. With the cash, Nader started his first national consumer movement and traveled across the US giving lectures at universities and inspiring students to fight corruption in high places. He created a network of organizations involved in consumer protection and to investigate the affairs of business and government. Starting from the publication of his book Unsafe at Any Speed in 1965, Nader’s entire life has been devoted to exposing the crimes and corruptions of government and corporations. He has been a lifelong muckraker. He has also worked for freedom of information, access to justice, health, energy, lobbying, litigation, aviation, nutrition, air and water pollution, children, disability rights, food additives, nursing homes, pension rights, and still other areas. He worked to push through legislation to upgrade standards for meat and poultry, and to promote natural gas pipeline safety. He was involved in the passage of the Clean Air Act, the 1974 Freedom of Information Act and the Radiation Control Act. In 1989 he blocked members of Congress from giving a 51 percent pay raise to themselves. In his recent book, The Good Fight, Nader writes about constitutional issues:
“Our Constitution made no mention of political parties. Many of the framers despise them, calling them “factions” – narrow-minded, self-interested groups tempted by insidious power….the Duopoly with the Electoral College and winner-take-all elections… impediments frustrate free speech, the right to petition and the right of assembly. Most civil libertarians won’t push their party to support Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which could promote expression of these rights.”[36]
Further along, he writes:
“When just two parties control the electoral scene, they tend to converge. They are dialing for the same commercial interest dollars and recruiting mostly candidates willing to grovel and make quid pro quo deals… An emergence of corporate and conservative Democrats out-hustled the liberal/progressive wing of the party when it came to setting the policy agenda and mapping electoral strategy. They planned what they claimed was a necessary move to the center. But the Center was more like the Right when it came to populist, regulatory, and union issues. The liberal/progressives inside the party ran out of gas. Many left and weren’t replaced. Who wanted to play the rancid money-raising game?[37]
And again Nader continues:
“When a party’s sole claim to legitimacy is that its major opponent is even worse, idealists in the party have a choice. They can hold their noses and join the interminable slide or they can deny their party their vote until the party shapes up and resumes working for the people. It is clear that the majority of progressives have no intention of either leaving their party or fighting to rescue it from the likes of the powerful Democratic Leadership Council, which bizarrely blames the party’s defeats on its being too liberal.”[38]
Though many may not realize it today, the debt of the American people to Ralph Nader is immeasurable. He created more than 100 consumer and environmental organizations which he left while inspiring others to continue the work. When asked, he said that he felt his greatest gift was to give normal Americans hope that it is possible to change things, to improve their lives.[39] It is possible, he says, to challenge corporate empires such as Enron, and it is possible to challenge the president of the country for failing in his duty to take care of the American people! As Harrison and Stein say: ‘Few would question that … [Nader] continues to be the single most effective exponent and practitioner of the muckraking tradition.”[40]
“That a fondness for power is inherent in the human mind, I believe an incontrovertible axiom, that this fondness would lead many to practise any baseness to acquire their favorite object; and that the liberties of a nation might in this way be overthrown unless their machinations were timely discovered and prevented, I think equally indisputable. It is the press that must discover to the public a detection of such machinations.”[41]
Samuel Morse
Seymour Hersh was born in 1937 to a Russian father and Polish mother, and hence was a first generation American. He studied English and history in university, and then began his writing career, step by step, after serving in the military. He worked for Associated Press who sent him to Washington D.C. to cover the Department of Defense. This work he did in an unusual manner – wandering the halls of the Pentagon and listening to anyone ready to talk. He wrote a series of damaging articles on US stockpiling of deadly chemical and biological weapons. AP refused to print it without massive censoring. Hersh quit in disgust and then wrote his first book called Chemical and Biological Warfare: America’s Hidden Arsenal. After working a short while for Senator Eugene McCarthy he became disillusioned with politics and went back to freelance writing. In 1969 he learned about an attack on innocent civilians in My Lai, a Vietnamese village. At first he could not get the story published because the mainstream media did not believe the story was true. Gradually, his stories of My Lai got out through his friend’s Dispatch News Service, and from there to the mainstream media. Suddenly Hersh was looked upon as a super-journalist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his My Lai story. In Chapter 2 of this book, Hersh writes as follows:
“The killings began without warning. Harry Stanley told the CID that one young member of Calley’s platoon took a civilian into custody and then ‘pushed the man up to where we were standing and then stabbed the man in the back with his bayonet … the man fell to the ground and was gasping for breath.” The GI then “killed him with another bayonet thrust or by shooting him with a rifle….” The youth next ‘ventured to where some soldiers were holding another 40-50 year old man in custody.’ He ‘picked this man up and threw him down a well. Then [he] pulled the pin from a M26 grenade and threw it in after the man.’ Moments later Stanley saw ‘some old women and some little children – 15-20 of them – in a group around a temple where some incense was burning. They were kneeling and crying and praying, and various soldiers… walked by and executed these women and children by shooting them in the head with the rifles. The soldiers killed all 15-20 of them…. [These villagers] hollered out ‘No V.C. No V.C.’ … Others simply said, ‘No, No. No.’”[42]
Hersh then spent seven years at the New York Times but, tiring of this, he moved to become a regular contributor to Atlantic Monthly and the New Yorker. He wrote breaking stories on the Watergate scandal and later wrote a highly damaging book called The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. In 1997 his book The Dark Side of Camelot was published, about John F. Kennedy’s years in the White House. In 1998 he published still another book called Against All Enemies – Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America’s Ailing Veterans and Their Government. By reporting on the sufferings of the veterans, he hoped that the government would cease their indifference and begin to take care of Gulf War victim’s legitimate grievances and severe disabilities. In 2003 Hersh published once again ground-breaking stories on atrocities in Abu Ghraib. The New Yorker, on May 10th, 2004 published Hersh’s article called “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” where he writes the following:
“A fifty-three-page report, obtained by the New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of ‘sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses’ at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees… was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community…. The photographs … show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects .. are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts…. The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign, and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals….England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid…. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.
“Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men. Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained, ‘Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other – it’s all a form of torture,’ Haykel said.”
Hersh has spent his entire life serving as a political and military watchdog, ready to catch any immorality, any corruption they dare to commit. His stories had major effect on government policies. His My Lai story caused Americans to think twice and thrice about the validity of the Vietnam War. Some people call Hersh “brash, relentless, profane, abrasive, and always contemptuous of protocol.”[43] But, according to Hersh, his goal has always been to tell the truth and not be afraid to do so.
Greg Palast was born in 1952 on the wrong side of the tracks in Los Angeles and later attended University of Chicago, where he studied under Nobel Prize winner, Milton Friedman and received his MBA. He became one of the great muckrakers of America for his groundbreaking stories, more recently his expose of the 2000 election fraud in Florida. Katherine Harris referred to Palast as “twisted and maniacal,” while Naom Chomsky has said “Greg Palast upsets all the right people.” Due to the extremely controversial nature of his investigative exposes, Palast was denied access to the American mainstream and promptly moved to London where he is a journalist for the British Observer and Guardian. He is a self-proclaimed expert on corporate power and has worked with both labor groups and consumer groups. He accused Florida governor Jeb Bush and former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris along with others of voter fraud during the US Presidential election of 2000. Palast also exposed the connections between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family. These investigations formed the crux of Michael Moore’s documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. The Baltimore Chronicle wrote about Palast, saying: “No one has uncovered more about the Bush dynasty than Greg Palast … and lived to write about it.” His articles are published in The Washington Post, Harper’s and The Nation. Other more famous stories cover how Bush killed the FBI investigation into the financing of terrorist organizations by Saudi Arabia, how Enron cheated, lied and swindled its way to becoming an energy monopoly, as well as groundbreaking reports on the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organization and Wal-Mart. As stated on his website, “Greg Palast reports the news he couldn’t get the corporate media to cover.”[44] He has spent the last two decades uncovering fraud and corruption in the highest levels of power, exposing relentlessly “the backroom crimes and propaganda lies of the New World Order’s robber barons – from the pirates in the Oval Office to the corporate globalizers steamrolling the world over.”[45] In 1988 he conducted a civil racketeering investigation into the nuclear plant builder, Long Island Lighting, in which a jury awarded the plaintiffs US $4.8 billion in damages, but the New York chief federal judge had the verdict thrown out. In another investigation, Palast claimed that the Exxon Valdez accident of 1989 was because of an Exxon decision to turn the ship’s radar off in order to save money, in addition to breach of other safety regulations on ship. In England, the Tribune Magazine has called Palast “the most important investigative reporter of our time.” Yet, his award-winning investigative reports for BBC television have been stopped at the United States border, and his writings for the Manchester Guardian have been likewise banned from US mainstream media. His best-selling book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been one year on the New York Times best-seller list. He received the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowe Award for Press Criticism (Book Category – First Place) in 2003 and was selected “Reporter of the Year” by Guerilla News Network In a telling article, “Oafs of Office,” Palast writes:
“Our President said, ‘It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation.’ Well, no, it isn’t.
Our President said, ‘We will widen retirement savings and health insurance.’ No, he won’t.
Our President said, ‘America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains.’ Yes, he will.
Our President said, ‘And our country must abandon all habits of racism.’ Oh, sure.
He doesn’t believe a single word he’s saying. And all over America, everyone knows he’s lying and America is truly relieved.
America doesn’t want to give up the habit of racism. Karl Rove doesn’t. Jeb Bush doesn’t. If not for challenging hundreds of thousands of voters in Black precincts of Ohio and other swing states, if not for purging thousands more from voter rolls for the crime of voting while Black, you wouldn’t be president now, would you, Mr. President?
You won’t ‘pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains’ unless they are chained by your back-buddies in Saudi Arabia.
You’ll ‘support democratic movements’ so long as the citizens of Venezuela don’t get carried away and decide that democracy means they can choose a leader you don’t like.
And you’ll ‘widen Social Security and health insurance’? Who are you kidding? I just got a doctor bill for $5,200…. Should I send it to you at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?….
Today we witnessed more than the coronation of some privileged little munchkin of mendacity. It is the triumphant re-occupation of our nation by nitwits who think Ollie North’s a hero not a conman, who can’t name their congressman, who believe that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were going steady, who can’t tell Afghanistan from Souvlaki-stan. Bloated with lies and super-size fries, they clomped to the polls 59 million strong to vent their small-minded hatreds on us all.
When I looked today at the oaf of office, I could not shake the feeling that this election was an intelligence test that America flunked.”
Palast has said: “Multinational corporations, many you’ve never heard of, may soon have extraordinary control of your health, your culture, and your freedom.” He has further stated: “The world’s 300 richest people are worth more than the world’s poorest 3,000,000,000. Between 1983 and 1997, 85.5% of the increase in America’s wealth was captured by the richest 1%. Overall US income rocketed – of which 80% of Americans saw 0%. The market’s up, but who is the market?”[46]
Following is a chart summarizing these ten prominent muckrakers of the 20th century with the purpose of identifying which and how many of them managed to have their writings published in the mainstream media and how many were compelled to publish their own writings or faced severe opposition from the mainstream media for greater periods of their career.
Muckrakers of the 20th Century
|
Name |
Lived |
Type |
Wrote what Subject category |
Where published |
Opposition Source |
Suppression Faced |
|
|
|
|
|
Mainstream Alternate Self-published |
From government From corporation |
Low – none Medium High – prison or killed |
|
Ida Mae Tarbell |
1857- 1944 |
One expose. Temporary muckraker for five years of her life. |
Standard Oil Company. The ramifications were so huge that she went down in history as one of the greatest muckrakers of the 20th century. |
Both mainstream & muckraking magazines: McClure’s, Ladies Home Journal, American Magazine, and book |
Only from Standard Oil |
None. Full support from her editor/ publisher. |
|
Lincoln Steffens |
1866-1936 |
Lifelong muckraker. Called King of the Muckrakers. |
Local, state and federal government corruption |
New York Evening Post, McClure’s, American Magazine, and book |
From the local, state and federal politicians |
None |
Upton Sinclair |
1879-1968 |
Lifelong muckraker |
Slaughterhouses, Wall Street, coal-mining industry, organized religion, the oil industry, publishing, and more. He had boundless diversity in where he found injustice. |
Rejected by mainstream. Self-published almost all his works – more than 70 books. Doubleday published The Jungle only after it became famous. |
From the meat corporations whose immoral practices he exposed. |
Faced suppression of his writings by publishers and corporations. |
|
Margaret Sanger |
1879-1966 |
Lifelong muckraker |
Birth control for women, women’s economic emancipation |
Self-published. Issue of birth control was too controversial, too radical. |
Government, Church and Business all opposed her. |
Faced suppression of his writings. Imprisoned eight times in her life. |
|
George Seldes |
1890-1995 |
Lifelong muckraker |
Censorship, the press |
Self-pub |