David Graham Phillips

Biography

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.