riley's contemporaries acclaimed him "america's best-loved poet". in 1920, henry beers lauded the works of riley "as natural and unaffected, with none of the discontent and deep thought of cultured song". samuel clemens, william dean howells, and hamlin garland, each praised riley's work and the idealism he expressed in his poetry. only a few critics of the period found fault with riley's works. ambrose bierce criticized riley for his frequent use of dialect. he accused riley of using dialect to "cover up [the] faulty construction" of his poems. edgar lee masters found riley's work to be superficial, claiming it lacked irony and that he had only a "narrow emotional range". by the 1930s popular critical opinion towards riley's works began to shift in favor of the negative reviews. in 1951, james t. farrell said riley's works were "cliched". galens wrote modern critics consider riley to be a "minor poet, whose work—provincial, sentimental, and superficial though it may have been—nevertheless struck a chord with a mass audience in a time of enormous cultural change". thomas c. johnson wrote that what most interests modern critics was riley's ability to market his work, saying he had a unique understanding of "how to commodify his own image and the nostalgic dreams of an anxious nation".