Phillips' novels often commented on social issues of the day and frequently chronicled events based on his real-life journalistic experiences.

The story launched a scathing attack on Rhode Island senator Nelson W. Aldrich, and brought Phillips a great deal of national exposure.

This and other similar articles helped lead to the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, initiating popular instead of state-legislature election of U. S. senators.

David Graham Phillips is known for producing one of the most important investigations exposing details of the corruption by big businesses of the Senate, in particular, by the Standard Oil Company.

[4] The killer was a Harvard-educated musician named Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, a violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra who came from a prominent Maryland family.

Following Phillips's death, his sister Carolyn organized his final manuscript for posthumous publication as Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise.