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Riis, Jacob A., 1849-1914

"The Making of an American"


I pointed to these men and women I have spoken of, some of them of
great wealth--the thing against which they seemed to have a special
grudge--and told them how they had given their lives and their means
in the cause of humanity without asking other reward than that of
seeing the world grow better, and the hard lot of some of their
fellow-men eased; wherein they had succeeded because they thought
less of themselves than of their neighbors, and were in the field,
anyway, to be of such use as they could. I told them how distressed
I was that upon their own admission they should have been engaged
in this discussion four years without getting any farther, and I
closed with a remorseful feeling of having said more than I intended
and perhaps having made them feel bad. But not they. They had
listened to me throughout with undisturbed serenity. When I had
done, the chairman said courteously that they were greatly indebted
to me for my frank opinion. Every man was entitled to his own. And
he could quite sympathize with me in my inability to catch their
point of view.


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