Teddy And The Muckrakers: A progressive president with a progressive agenda

President Theodore Roosevelt had a love-hate relationship with the press. Investigative journalism made pursuing a progressive agenda like his easier — or even possible by bringing evils to light and by drumming up support for change.

But sometimes, news outlets would go too far in the name of sensationalism and eyeball-gathering. Sometimes, it would exaggerate. Point fingers in the wrong directions. Or at people or organizations Roosevelt considered allies.

On April 17, 1906 — 120 years ago today — Roosevelt vented his frustration.

A Progressive President With A Progressive Agenda

William McKinley was shot in September 1901, six months into his second term as president. He died eight days later and his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, was sworn in to finish his time in office.

Roosevelt served out McKinley’s remaining three and a half years and then was elected in 1904 for his own term.

Roosevelt was pleased at the way the public and many journalists responded to his various reforms, like breaking up the enormous trusts and business monopolies that stifled the free market and fair competition.

In November 1905, Upton Sinclair published a novelized look at he harsh, unsanitary conditions of the Chicago-based meatpacking industry. Pursuing legislation to better regulate the industry would be a major project for the first part of 1906.

But as much good as investigative journalism was doing for the progressive movement, Roosevelt had grown frustrated with journalists and publications — certain newspapers, newspaper chains and magazines — which, he felt, were a little too far in the name of sensationalism. These outlets were publishing unfounded rumors and, in some cases, pursuing agendas that were aimed to benefit the publishers themselves, rather than the public.

Roosevelt was fed up with this.

Teddy Roosevelt

Roosevelt's Warning To The Media

“There was a new spirit in the land,” writes former editorial cartoonist Rick Marscall in his 2011 book, “Bully! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt.”

“Reform was the order of the day. Where before only a few periodicals touted reform measures — some of them, like Hearst and Pulitzer’s newspapers, tinged with circulation-growing sensationalism — now a legion of magazines regularly published exposés, revelations of corruption, shocking reports of lawbreaking in high places, exploitation of workers, scandals like squalid child-labor operations and code violations in major industries.”

Every spring, the national media hosts a dinner banquet and invites government officials to attend. It’s called “the Gridiron Club,” although it has nothing at all to do with football.

The event was initially “off the record,” meaning that anything said or heard there wasn’t to be reported. This policy has been softened over the years. The annual Gridiron Club Dinner was launched in 1885. Every president — with the exception of Grover Cleveland — has addressed the gathering at least once.

It was at the 1906 Gridiron Club that Roosevelt decided to tell the nation’s media leaders of his frustration. Roosevelt likened the modern investigative journalist to “the Man with the Muck-rake” in John Bunyan’s 1678 novel, “Pilgrim’s Progress.” “who could look no way but downward.” The modern muckraker, he declared, focused “only on that which is vile and debasing,” providing “not an incitement to good, but one of the most potent forces of evil.”

While the literary reference he used is obscure today, most attendees at the banquet would have understood what Roosevelt was talking about.

“Hysterical sensationalism,” Roosevelt continued, “is the very poorest weapon wherewith to fight for lasting righteousness. The men who, with stern sobriety and truth, assail the main evils of our time, whether in the public press or in magazines or in books, are the leaders and allies of all engaged in the work for social and political betterment.

But if they give good reason for distrust of what they say, if they chill the ardor of those who demand truth as a primary virtue,” he warned, “they thereby betray good cause and play into the hands of the very men against whom they are nominally at war.”

It was the first time the term “muckraker” had been used to describe investigative journalists. And while Roosevelt had aimed his barb at what he considered oversensationalized exaggeration — he was particularly angry with McClure’s magazine and the Hearst newspaper chain’s newly-acquired “Cosmopolitan” — many journalists found they liked the reference.

Roosevelt repeated his argument a month later, at the laying of the cornerstone for a new congressional office building. Then he expounded on his message later in Putnam’s Magazine.

“Five months have gone by since I made this speech,” he wrote. “I believe more strongly than ever, if that is possible, in all that I have therein said.”

Notable Muckrakers

It needs to be remembered that Roosevelt aimed his complaints to only some media outlets. He was most complimentary — and even friendly at times — to those he felt had provided a valuable public service. A few of journalism’s most notable “muckrakers”:

Jacob Riis

A photojournalist whose 1889 magazine article — and 1990 book, “How the Other Half Lives” — documented living conditions in the tenement slums of New York City.

Ida B. Wells

In 1892, wrote for a Memphis newspaper she co-owned about lynching and the events surrounding lynchings. A white mob retaliated by destroying the newspaper office and threatened to kill her.

Frank Norris

Wrote a 1901 novel, “The Octopus: A Story of California” in which he detailed corruption and power exerted by railroad monopolies over wheat growers in the San Joaquin Valley.

Lincoln Steffens

Wrote about corrupt political machines in several American cities for McClure’s Magazine. His work was later collected into a 1904 book, “The Shame of the Cities.”

Ida Tarbell

Wrote about the ruthless business practices used by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company for McClure’s and collected into a 1904 book, “History of the Standard Oil Company.”

Upton Sinclair

“The Jungle,” a novel published in 1906, revealed the unsanitary practices of the Chicago meatpacking industry and the dangerous working and living conditions of its employees.

Louis Brandeis

Wrote about monopolies formed by banks and big business in a 1914 book “Other People’s Money And How the Bankers Use It.” Two years later, he was appointed to the Supreme Court.

Drew Pearson

Wrote two books and a syndicated newspaper column, “Washington Merry-Go- Round.” He also hosted programs on the Mutual Broadcasting System and NBC Radio.