One must be an artist before he can create-that I knew. - Ida Tarbell

It has been sickening to see hopes grow dim under the hammering of reality, to see a generation lose its first grand fire and sink into apathy, cynicism. One asks oneself if man has the staying power ever to realize his ideals.

Women, newspaper women, have to get over that habit of quitting — it's fatal. And she mustn’t cry — if she belong[s] to that class she will probably be asked to quit. Tears may be a forceful weapon in matrimony, but never in an editorial room.

But if the practices were not universal, if there was a steady, though slow, progress, ought not the public to recognize it? Was it not the duty of those who were called muckrakers to rake up the good earth as well as the noxious? Was there not as much driving force in a good example as in an evil one?