ABSTRACT
I remember clearly the first time I ever saw Lincoln Steffens. He had been invited by the undergraduates of Harvard to speak to them at their regular Tuesday evening lecture in the Harvard Union. The hall was packed, and that means that there were some two thousand students present. I was one of them, and I think I know what brought us there. It was to hear some spicy stories about police graft and crooked politicians from the author of “The Shame of the Cities.” We had not read the book, but we had heard about it, and the subject was exciting. Of Steffens we knew only that he was a muckraker. It was hard to imagine just what he would be like, but we were all men, and we could stand it. Those who were “up on things” pictured him to us as an angel with a flaming sword—a holy terror to sinners.
