David Graham Phillips(1867-1911)
- Writer
The son of a leading figure in 19th-century Madison, WI, David Graham
Phillips first made his mark as a reporter in Cincinnati and New York
(which included an editorial position at The New York World). Unjustly
neglected today, Phillips achieved considerable fame as a muckraker,
his most notable piece being "The Treason of the Senate", a series of
articles exposing political corruption in the U.S. Senate. The
articles, which ran in Cosmopolitan magazine between March and November
of 1906, are considered to have contributed to the passing of the
Seventeenth Amendment, which provided for the direct election of
senators. Phillips' beliefs, political and otherwise, frequently served
to mold the lots of his novels. His first novel, "The Great God
Success" (1901), deals with a respected and influential newspaperman
who sells out to coal interests. A remarkably prolific writer, Phillips
produced 25 volumes of fiction in the nine years before being shot
while strolling outside Gramercy Park. His murderer, a troubled man who
accused Phillips of attacking him in his fiction, committed suicide at
the scene. Phillips' longest work, "Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise"
(1917), is the story of a young woman's descent into and subsequent
escape from prostitution. The novel's subject matter prevented
publication during his lifetime.
