EBOOK THE SHAME OF THE CITIES *

THE SHAME OF THE CITIES

BY

LINCOLN STEFFENS

NEW YORK

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

MCMIV

Copyright, 1904, by

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

Published, March, 1904

Second Impression

COPYRIGHT, 1902, 1903, BY S. S. MCCLURE COMPANY

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION; AND SOME CONCLUSIONS 3

TWEED DAYS IN ST. LOUIS 29

THE SHAME OF MINNEAPOLIS 63

THE SHAMELESSNESS OF ST. LOUIS 101

PITTSBURG: A CITY ASHAMED 147

PHILADELPHIA: CORRUPT AND CONTENTED 193

CHICAGO: HALF FREE AND FIGHTING ON 233

NEW YORK: GOOD GOVERNMENT TO THE TEST 279

INTRODUCTION; AND SOME CONCLUSIONS

This is not a book. It is a collection of articles reprinted from McClure’s Magazine. Done as journalism, they are journalism still, and no further pretensions are set up for them in their new dress. This classification may seem pretentious enough; certainly it would if I should confess what claims I make for my profession. But no matter about that; I insist upon the journalism. And there is my justification for separating from the bound volumes of the magazine and republishing, practically without re-editing, my accounts as a reporter of the shame of American cities. They were written with a purpose, they were published serially with a purpose, and they are reprinted now together to further that same purpose, which was and is—to sound for the civic pride of an apparently shameless citizenship.