The Shame of the Cities

Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
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
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.