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Riis, Jacob A., 1849-1914

"The Making of an American"

The older I get, the more patience I have
with the sinner, and the less with the lazy good-for-nothing who is
at the bottom of more than half the share of the world's troubles.
Give me the thief if need be, but take the tramp away and lock him
up at hard labor until he is willing to fall in line and take up
his end. The end he lets lie some one has got to carry who already
has enough.
I ran to earth at last one of the citizens' bodies that were striving
with the nuisance, and went and joined it. I will not say that I
was received graciously. I was a reporter, and it was human nature
to assume that I was merely after a sensation; and I did make a
sensation of the campaign. That was the way to put life into it.
Page after page I printed, now in this paper, now in that, and
when the round was completed, went over the same road again. They
winced a bit, my associates, but bore it, egged me on even. Anything
for a change. Perchance it might help. It didn't then. But slowly
something began to stir. The editors found something to be indignant
about when there was nothing else.


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