After all, the term “muckraker” had been coined to describe McClure’s efforts, which included publishing Lincoln Steffan’s “Shame of Our Cities” series and blistering exposes on Standard Oil and the United Mine Workers.

The third and final member of our little all-male dinner party was a thickset fellow in his mid-thirties who looked rather like a bulldog in a three-piece suit, a navy suit as rumpled as its wearer’s homely face. This was Edward Rumely, the owner and publisher of The New York Evening Mail, a recent acquisition of this scion of the Rumely farm implement manufacturing clan. The family wealth may have derived from diesel farm equipment, but Edward Rumely had other ideas about making his own fortune. . in publishing.

“I understand congratulations are in order,” I said to McClure, and then lifted my stein in an informal toast toward the vested bulldog. “To both of you-for your new position, Mr. McClure, and for landing such a prestigious editor for the News, Mr. Rumely.”

“You may not be aware, sir,” McClure said to me, his voice a gruff baritone, “that I’ve lost control of my own magazine. . to my ‘loyal’ partners, and various investors.”

“I had not been so informed,” I said. But I did know that S.S. McClure’s reputation was that of a man of innovative, grandiose ideas. . who lacked in business sense.

“Part of the buyout of the magazine that still bears my name,” McClure said, “is a ten-year noncompetition clause.”

“That applies to magazines,” Rumely put in, in his knife-blade tenor, “not to newspapers. . Meaning I’ve bagged one of the biggest names in publishing to edit the News.”