Mr. Martin Dooley was the newspaper creation of journalist Finley Peter Dunn, whose column, ostensibly written by the genial Irish bartender, was published in more than seven hundred newspapers in the early 1900s. The archconservative Dooley had an opinion on every subject: he was the stereotypical "comic Irishman," who held forth in a thick brogue on such topics as American foreign and domestic policy, the reform movement, the latest fashions, and literary trends. Here is Mr. Dooley complaining to his long-suffering customer, Hennessey, on the new investigative journalism:

Ivrything has gone wrong. Th' wurruld is little better thin a convict's camp. . . . All th' pomes be [by] th' lady authoresses that used to begin: 'Oh, moon, how fair!' now begin: 'Oh Ogden Armour, how awful!'... Read Wash'n'ton Bliffens's [Lincoln Steffens's] dhreadful assault on th' board iv education iv Baraboo. Read...