Teddy Roosevelt's 'Bully Pulpit' Isn't The Platform It Once Was
But the group that really caught my attention was the group at McClure's Magazine, and what they were was investigative reporters. I mean, what he did, which would be so special if it could be done today, was to allow his reporters maybe two years of research — Ida Tarbell spent two years studying Standard Oil before her famous set of articles came out that essentially produced legislation and antitrust regulation. Ray Baker had a couple years to do the studies of the abuses of the railroad that, with Teddy Roosevelt's help, essentially produced railroad regulation.
On the themes from that time that felt familiar
That's what's so interesting. The echoes of the past, it just seems, are so clear in today's world and that turn-of-the-century world. Because what you had at the turn of the century was a growing gap between the rich and the poor, a growing set of mergers that produced trusts that seemed to be snuffing out the possibilities of small businessmen; you had people moving from the country to the city, you had the pace of life speeding up in ways that it hadn't before, and most importantly you had the big question ... what should government's relationship be to the problems created by the age? Roosevelt answered that it should be a positive force, and this was the first time that really the government stepped in to have a real role in the economic and social problems of the age.
On whether reporters ever felt manipulated by Roosevelt
I think sometimes they did, and sometimes he might have felt disappointed in them — Ray Baker eventually turns and goes towards Wilson, Lincoln Steffens becomes more radical, Ida Tarbell had her own disappointments with Roosevelt, but still they all would say he was probably the most colorful, most interesting politician they had ever known, and they knew later in their lives when they looked back on this period with huge nostalgia — I mean, Ray Baker and the other editor at McClure's, John Phillips, would say they just hoped there would be another time when there'd be a generation of journalists who enjoyed what they did, the feeling that they had a mission and a call to change the country. And that's what united them. That was their goal. And he helped them to make that goal — yes, he helped himself with it, too, but they cared deeply about the role of a journalist in informing the country and creating stories that would then move public opinion forward.
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