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There were some people who believed the Bill of Rights. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . .’ and all that. They saw America as the land of the free, of the equal society where social justice was the legacy of all, where Government was for the people and by the people. But they could see that the country was far from the ideals expressed in the documents that defined its freedoms. At every level of political activity, corruption was rife; social injustice was everywhere, in the segregated ghettos, in the run-down slum areas where the poorhuddled in doorways, on the farms and reservations; dishonesty, duplicity, abuse and worse were everywhere throughout American society.
.....But there are always those who will oppose such abuses of power, governance and social control. Such people have forever been a thorn in the side of those in control. From the Muckrakers to the Watergate guys, Bernstein and thingummmybob, they have been wheedling out political corruption and making it public for the benefit of all (except the politicians.) Good on ya, guys.
.....It all started with the Muckrakers. The title was borrowed from John Bunyan’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ and was used in a speech by Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 to describe a breed of journalist ‘who could look no way but downward.’ He was talking about a group of writers, heirs of yellow journal-
ism, who specialised in exposés of Government corruption, injustice and inefficiency. The public, however, did not believe a word of it. They had a taste for honest, no holds-barred exposé style journalism, particularly if it uncovered corruption that might involve abuse of their money. And they liked the social concern and courageous zeal of the exposé writers.
.....Although the part of the Muckrakers in the rise of the alternative culture was small, it was significant. They were the precursors of the out-spoken and sometimes outrageous freedom of speech that characterised many of the movements that came together to form the alternative culture. Indeed, they were part of the voice that the alternative culture eventually developed.