American muckraking journalist who exposed municipal corruption in The Shame of the Cities — the first systematic investigation of American urban political machines.
The Shame of the Cities (1904): documented the corrupt alliance between political machines and business interests in St. Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. After returning from the Soviet Union in 1919, said 'I have seen the future, and it works' — a declaration he later retracted.
No recorded historical influences.
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