Early career

In October 1901, the Atlantic Monthly published an article by Sullivan, "The Ills of Pennsylvania", on corruption among local and state officials who were reportedly accepting bribes.^[7][6] A focal point was Matthew Quay, the local Republican senator. Sullivan alleged that Pennsylvania was "politically the most corrupt state in the union" and Philadelphia "the most evil large city in America". The article triggered a widespread debate about honesty in politics and the role of the press.^[8]

Sullivan briefly practiced law in New York City (he said his law career was "as brief as it was briefless"),^[1] then returned to journalism. After writing for the Ladies Home Journal about misleading advertising for patent medicines, he was hired in 1905 by McClure's as a staff writer.^[5][6] In 1906, along with Willa Cather, Georgine Milmine, Will Irwin, and Burton J. Hendrick, Sullivan became part of the McClure's team that produced a series of 14 investigative articles on Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science church.^{[9][10][11][12]} In his autobiography, The Education of an American, Sullivan described how he spent time fact-checking in New England.^[13] The series was published as a book in 1909, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science.^[14]

After McClure's, Sullivan moved to Collier's Weekly, where he became an associate editor, then editor in 1912.^[1] He also wrote a regular column, "Comment on Congress", from 1908 until 1919.^[2][6] When Sullivan joined the New York Evening Post in 1919 as its Washington correspondent, the newspaper's president, Edwin F. Gay, wrote: "His ability, his vision, his knowledge of human reactions and twenty years of Political study are coupled with unquestionable sincerity, plus 100 percent of rugged Americanism."^[15] While living in Washington, on Wyoming Avenue, he and his wife became friends with Herbert Hoover, who lived nearby on S Street; the close relationship continued when Hoover became president in 1929, to the point where Sullivan was viewed as one of Hoover's spokespersons.^[2] Describing feelings in the Midwest, Sullivan wrote in 1928: "I don't like Prohibition, but I'm going to vote for Hoover because I'd rather eat than drink."^[16]

New York Herald-Tribune

In the early 1920s Sullivan joined the New York Herald (later named the New York Herald-Tribune) and became a syndicated political columnist.^[5] Between 1924 and 1952 he wrote nearly 6,000 columns, usually "Mark Sullivan Says", for the Herald-Tribune and others.^[1] During the same period, he wrote his six-volume Our Times: The United States, 1900–1925 (1926–1935). Dan Rather, who edited the material to produce one volume, wrote in 1996 that "no series of nonfiction books, all on the same general subject by the same author over such a compact space of writing time, ever captured the country so completely, sold so well, was so widely read and acclaimed, and had such a lasting, growing reputation for excellence".^[17]

Sullivan said in 1935 that he was a liberal ("Teddy Roosevelt was my only political god") and that consistent with liberalism he sought to "take power away from the state".^[2] Michael Hiltzik described him in 2011 as a progressive who "moved steadily rightward". By 1935 his view of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal was "frankly apocalyptic", in Hiltzik's view.^[18] In 1937, after the Social Security Act was signed into law, he made his secretary of 17 years, Mabel Shea, famous by asking why she should be forced to pay 35 cents social security out of her weekly paycheck of $35 (equivalent to $1144.5 in 2023). This led Time magazine to publish that Sullivan had an annual income of $23,417 (over $408,000 in 2018).^[18][19] During a press briefing, Roosevelt said Sullivan was arguing that Shea had the "absolute freedom, as an American citizen, to starve to death when she got to be sixty-five if she wanted to".^[18] He suggested that Sullivan raise her salary.^[20]