ABSTRACT
Upon graduation he began a career as a newspaper reporter, moving from Minneapolis, to Detroit, to Denver, to New York, and finally to Chicago. He wrote on the corruption of urban political machines, the immigrant areas of the city, crime, and other urban affairs. Journalism, particularly in Manhattan, satisfied his thirst for adventure and multifarious experience, but a persisting interest in the grand questions of life led him to return to academia to study philosophy at Harvard University in 1898. He subsequently grew interested in social thought and thus was impelled to move to Germany and the University of Berlin, which was then seen by many to be the intellectual center of Europe. While in Berlin, he came under the influence of Georg Simmel, then a Privatdozentlecturing in sociology. He obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1904.
