The Treason of the Senate

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The Treason of the Senate is a series of articles on Cosmopolitan magazine by David Graham Phillips, published in February, 1906. The series is a caustic expose the corruption of the United States Senate, particularly the corporate magnate-turned-Senator Nelson Aldrich from Rhode Island. During the composition of the articles Phillips received help from newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who then desired to publish sensationalist stories to attract more readership of his publications.

The release of the series precipitated the passage and ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, which provides the direct election of the U.S. Senators.^[1]