ABSTRACT
In the new time, writers who became conspicuous worked with facts and personalities but merged with others who studied human nature and human need, and still others, activists, who sought tangibly to create a better life. McClure’s was a tribune of splendor and dimensions, offering stories, verse—to be sure, of little moment—personality sketches, as well as social commentary. However, it was true that the two major promontories of sensationalism and fact-finding were so hazily defined that whole legions of writers could be indiscriminately seen as committed to one or the other. In May 1902 Lincoln Steffens was no more than traveling about looking for subjects and writers for McClure’s and trying “to educate myself in the way the world is wagging, so as to bring the magazine up to date.” His search was for key men—among reformers but also among corruptionists—who would agree to abide by the golden rule.
