This book not only explores the nature of the protest movement of journalists, novelists, and newspaper men and women in early twentieth-century America, it also examines the social and political conditions which gave rise to their torrent of outcries. Concentrating on the foremost issues of the literary protest, the author examines the increase of abuses in business practices and the spread of corruption in the city, state, and national government that were the inevitable outcome of the country's rapid industrialization and growth.