davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14
THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN
By JANE E. ROBBINS Head Residence, Jacob Riffs NeighbOrhOOd House

spent week photographing the sources of the pollution and forced the city to buy a strip of land along the streams that discharged into the Croton River. Tt takes lot of telling to make city know when 1t is doing wrong" said he. "It is just a question of endurance. The right has got to be moved along like everything else in this world by men. That is how we take title to the name.
 For years MT. Riis worked at night. At 8 a. m., he said, the veneering Is off and you see the true grain of a thing He was delighted to find that Roosevelt as a police commissioner was willing to get up when other people slept and see what the town looked like in the night. "The power of fact he called the mightiest lever of this or of any day.
 In the year 1888 he had written a letter to the newspapers. asking that flowers be sent to Mulberry street, and they came in such abundance that five stout patrolmen were necessary to give them out to the bowling mobs of child ren. From the distribution of these boxes of flowers and their revelation of the hunger for beauty on mean streets there developed the Settlement at 4s Henry street which bears the name of MT Riis It stands within a stone's throw of many a door In which he sat friendless and forlorn trying to hide from the policeman who would not let him sleep, and of the Bowery lodging house where he almost starved to death after his first days work in the newspaper office.
 sHow the Other Half Lives"
 The comfortably lodged who had not red blood enough in their veins to feel for those to whom everything was denied and not sense enough to make i out the facts when they saw them about school houses, playgrounds and better tenements always aroused his special scorn W
 How MT. Riis came to be speaker he never knew, and he greatly enjoyed reading in country newspaper that"a voluble German with a voice like a -sdueaky door" had been in town. At first
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14
Income Tax Dodging Is Fine Art in E,1g1and

Well, you occasionally go to the thea ire or a public dinner in the course of your work" said the expert. We will put down $100 for two dress suits a year expenses of your business you know and another s10O for dress shirts, ties, gloves. extra laundry. You take taxicabs, too. don't you?--several times a week. you say---that's good for another s100. Did you tuy a typewriter this year9 Yes-$100 You sometimes engage stenographer to take down your artcles-cail that $75 Now how about your house? Ever write at home? You are entitled to the rent of the room you write in. When you took your holiday last summer you went in search of local color for that new novel. We will put down the cost of that holiday. My boy, the government will owe you money before we are done with it."
 The result of it all was that instead of paying the government about $l0o this year my friend will pay the agent s15 and send along all his friends
 One ingenious agent. however, has dis covered a truly Napoleonic scheme for evading the payment of the super tax of from 12 cents to 32 cents in the $5 which is imposed. over and above the in- come tax, on all incomes over $l5,000 year. This is based on the fact that companies are not liable for the super tax and he proposes to organize all his super taxable clients into companies. Under the English company law only two shareholders are required and one of them need hold only one share. The person who becomes a company will be chairman and managing director of him- self and he can declare what dividend he pleases. It is proposed that he only declare as dividend the amount which he requires for living expenses and that all the rest of the company y's-or his-income shall go back Into the business" and shall. therefore. escape the tax altogether The scheme looks good on paper and may succeed, although the English judges have a way at times of ignoring the strict letter of the law in favor of equity. but if 1t does 1t is safe to say that Par lament will stop up this loophole before the next budget becomes due.
 Given an easy going tax collector and an ingenious payer, or rather nonpayer, 1t is fairly easy to postpone the evil day when taxes must be paid even for years in some cases. One man at least has managed to pay no taxes for four years by the simple method of raising knotty legal points for discussion with the .col- lector. These points were raised and discussed by letter, one by one. and as
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

the churches were almost unwilling to give a hearing to the wrongs of Null berry street, but at last he obtained per mission to show the pictures he had taken by flashlight in the homes Into which he had gone as a police reporter After one of his illustrated lectures the editors of leading magazine asked him for an article. How the Other Half Lives, was the result
 With tongue or pen, his argument shaped itself into the fundamental ono of the rescue of the home and the making of tenements which sheltered two million souls as nearly fit as might be. He summoned the American people to look the matter squarely In the face James Russell Lowell wrote to him after reading How the Other Half Lives . T felt as Dante must when he looked over the edge of the abyss. at the bottom of which Gergon lay in ambush l found 1t hard to get to sleep the night after had been reading your book"
 Government and the People
 His ideas of good government began and ended with the peoples life. After 30 years of work he knew that the con ditions of New York's crowded tenement quarter still made for unrighteousness and that the great mass of respectable workingmen of the city must dwell there with their families. Yet the work he said, twas not wasted for at last we see the truth and seeing, 1t Is Impossible that the monstrous wrong should go unrighted. We have only begun to find out what government can do for man kind in the day when we shall all think enough about the common good the res publica. to forget about ourselves"
 He was no saint" his reporter friends will tell you, but man with a mind and an honest will" He refused cab inet position at one time because he could do better work elsewhere. "I value the good opinion of my fellow men," he says. in '"The Making of An American," for with it comes increased power to do things.'
 To most of us Jacob Riis was the fin est immigrant we had ever known.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

Exclusive Service of Survey Press)
 q would not have missed being in it all for anything" said MT Riis--'I have been very happy. No one ever had so good a time"
 Years ago at the college settlement he spoke of the meadows and the fields near the old town of Rihe with tears In his eyes and explained afterward, that his audience had suddenly disappeared from view, and in it's place he saw only the north seacost. It was this wonder full imaginative genius of Mr. Riis' that caused a roomful of students to lay down their pencils and notebooks as they realizied that they were not Asten- ing to a lecture but to a living, breath ing prose-poem.
 lover against the tenements that we fight in our cities" he said, ever rises in my mind the fields, the woods, Goa s open sky, as accusers and witness that his temple is being so defiled, man So dVarfted in body and soul.
 Tn spite of the tramping and starving of the first three years in America. he knew that he was out to twist the wheel of fortune his way if he could only get his hands upon 1t.
 The principal of a telegraph school to which he went in New York city sent him, just as his hopes were almost gone, to the New York News Associations where he began his life as a newspaper man. For over 20 years he spent most of his waking hours with murders. fires suicides and robberiess
 We talk great deal about city toughs," he wrote in '"The making oi an American. Tn nine cases out of ter they are lads of normal impulses whose resources have all been sinothered by the slum, of whom the street and its lawlessness and the tenement that Is without q home, have made ruffians With better opportunities they might have been heroes
 The Power of Facts
 Once when there was some fear of g cholera epidemic, MT. Rffs took his cam era, went up to the cfoton watershed
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

Copyright, 1914, by Curtis Brown) LONDON. June 13.-( Special. .)-At H. least two classes of business .@s.: men in England are delighted V44&tj with the new taxation intro duced by Lloyd Georges latest budget which has caused almost universal grum- Ibling. They are the insurance men and those astute individuals who describe then. selves variously as income tax ex- perts,'' income tax recovery agents and ''income tax adjusters
 Lloyd George has set himself the task of raising $1,051, 600 this year to meet the growing cost of armaments, his so- cial reform schemes and all the other incidentals of running the British gov ernment, and to do 50 he has found 1t necessary to pile on the taxes to such an extent that serious business men de- clare that he has about exhausted the taxable capacity of the British people, great national emergency he will have othing left to fall back on.
 There is proverb in England that nothing is so unavoidable as taxes--ex- cept death-but the latest budget has set a lot of clever men to thinking up ways to avoid the taxes and 1t is a good bet that when the end of the year comes Lloyd George will be good many hum dreds of thousands of dollars short of his estimates Incidentally, the insur- ance companies will be good many more thousands ahead. The reason for this is that under the income tax law money paid for life insurance premiums Is ex- empt from income tax up to sixth or the taxpayers total income. Hitherto few Englishmen have taken full advan- tage of this. for after all the income tax did not bear very heavily on the small man, but now that the burden Is increased something like boom is be- ing experienced in the insurance world The companies are taking full advan- tage of the situation and are doing all they can to help the boom along by an unprecedented campaign of advertising ! circularizing and canvassing.
 How to Cut Down Your Income Tax { is the title of pamphlet which is being ] widely circulated by one of the biggest English Insurance companies and t shows by typical examples how one can dodge the tax collector altogether. Thus . man earning $S60 would in the ordinary way pay income tax at IS cents in the 6 on $1d0. ssoo of earned income being exempt from tax.
 If, however. he spent that $l6O, which fs just one-sixth of his total income. on 1nsurance hs would escape tho inoona
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

tax altogether and at the same time lay up a tidy estate for his heirs, or. if he took out an endowment policy, for his own old age. The man earning $12Oo year who spent 300 a year on insurance would get off with $75o income tax in- stead of $15 and so on.
 The income tax saving becomes even more important to the man with a large income, for the rate of tax on the big income is proportionately much heavier than on the small one. For instance, a man whose income is $500, 600 is liable for a tax of $65,2O0, which is an increase of $2S66o over last years rate If, however, he devotes one-sixth of his income roughly $s00O0--to life insurance he saves income tax on that to the tune of about $110O0.
 But the insurance companies stand to gain almost as much by the new Lloyd Georgian death duties as by the income tax. On large estates these now amount to 20 per cent of the total. and it is easy to see that in the event of two or three deaths occurring in rapid succession a great estate might be practically swal- lowed up by the crown or a great busi- ness ruined. Even in the case of a single death great loss may be experienced by the necessity of realizing investments on an unfavorable market. for the death duties must be paid before the will is admitted to probate and the heir can take possession. Holders of great es- tates. therefore. have made a rush to take out special policies covering the amount of the duties to which their es- tates are liable on their death, and I am told that policies for many millions of dollars have been written in this class alone in the last month.
 If the insurance companies have been doing a flourishing business what can be said of the ingenious gentlemen whose business it is to show the taxpayer Brit0n how to pay as little as possible? It is true that they haven't taken as much actual money as the insurance men, but there are fewer of them. and all they take is clear gain. There are no trouble some shareholders demanding dividends and comparatively few expenses con- nected with the business An office, a supply of stationery and an extensive knowledge of income tax law are all that are required. The knowledge has usually been obtained at first hand. for most of these experts are ex-employes of the income tax collecting department just as many customs attorneys and agents in the United States learned their trade in the custom houses or appraisers' sfores-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

fast as one was settled after months of correspondence q fresh one was raised. The collector may have seen through the game, but he apparently enjoyed the dis cussion and eonsoled himself with the reflection that in the end he was bound to win. Luck was with the nonpayer. however. for the collector died few months ago and he has begun the game again from the start with his successor.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14
No More Interruptions

From the National Monthly.
 One of the theological seminaries of tha Methodist church has professor known throughout the denomination for his impatience with modern Biblicaf critics and criticism. This professor was lecturing to the class one day on the subject of Balaam and his ass. dwelling particularly on the miracle of an ass being endowed with the power of human speech. In the midst of the lecture one of the students interrupted him to ask whether he did not think a phenomena so unusual as an ass talk Ing unbelievable. The professor hesiA. tated a moment. then answered emphat-' ically; No! nothing unusual l am con- stantly afflicted by having to listen to it." Needless to say there were no more Interruptions.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14
BY J. s. STEELE

ever, they are Hooking to the experts who are reaping golden harvest, their charges being usually 5 or 10 per cent of the amount which they are able to save their clients. One newspaper writer of my acquaintance who went to one of these experts was so confident that he had produced work of art in his
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

income tax return that he promised the expert an additional 25 cents over and above his fee for every B he could save him. The expert looked at the work of art and smiled.
 ''I see nothing here for evening dress, he said
 'Of course not. Why should there be-" was the reply.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14
AdUice to Bryan on
 Mexican Problem

they must cummeth. Have 1t fixed so that the peons cannot only acquire land to til, but make them acquire 1t, and then make them till it. Inform him that when native evven talks about reyvolusion i'll his sleep, have him hung furst, and leeve his remains and the details of his triel to posterrity. He must be despot with Altrooisticll motives, the United States to furnish the Altroois- tick motives, commodity of which Mex ico statesmen air verry shy on rite at this time. This, of corse, is not in full accord with our dears of libburty and demmycrat- ic form of Guvverment, but Mexieon don t know enny moor about such things than an Angory Goat knows about mint bap- tism. Soopremmasy of the plain peepul, demmycratic forms of Guvvermint, and the libburty of the peepul air as much out of phase in Mexico till they air prepared for it as a limburger cheese in perfume fac tory. Mexico may let out yelp and squirm and twist and not like the dose but neethur does a collicky kid like castur oil.
 I hate to be plain with you, I seys, but I am speaking as frend to the adminnis- trasion. Mediasion by the A. B. c. pow CTS or enny boddy else ant wurth a whoop in punch out commissery checks in Mexico. Before theere is peese and before the coun- try blossums like rose, and becums safe phase for tourists and predatory weelth theere must be put into power a guvvermint that will rule with an run hand, who will put the kibosh on enny transgressors that stick theere noses ovver the horrizun. If this IS dun in three or fore hundred yeers Mexico will becum phase almost human.
 Yours trooly,
 BILL VINES
 Washington, D. C.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

of these functsions unless urged to do so by special request. saw no one shot, but saw quite a number half shot, seys.
 ''How would you passify Mexicog' asked the Secreterry. Oh, I seys, the best way to passify Mexico would be to innaugu- rate one long and continuous funnerel per session with Mexicons playing the leading parts, until the populasion was thinned down to a stand, but the Sosiety for Pre- vension of Crewelty to Animals would ob- iect to that and probabully would give us sum truble in the next gennerel electsion, so that wouldn't do But theere air uther ways "You encourage me, sed he, form of Guvvelmini ," You guessed it tue furst time, I sed Have lawyur in Con gress to draw the Constitusion for them, then noboddy will prderstand it.
 The only form of Constitusion the av- verage MeNicon can understand and respect is in the form of muskit, I sed.
 Is theere enny hope for us to quiet things down in Mexico without shedding American bud, be inquired plaintively
 Yes, seys. What $ you solusiong he en- quirred Well, 7 told the Secreterry, and this is no joke, that ill the end the only way to arrive at perminint pans that would wurk out Mexico's ploh!ims would be to put MeNicon in charge of affairs in Mexi- co with string tied to him. Give him full authority, so long as he don t start enny funny blzness. Make him the Congriss, soo- preem court, petty jurry, Interstate Com nurse Commission, Shurman Aunty trust law, and the hole wurks. Tell him to speek harshly to the peepul, and give them to understand when he seys "skoot' they must skooteth, and when he seys ''cum''
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

British income tax law is so complex that none but an expert can understand it. There are so many and so intricate exemptions that most lazy men-and most men are lazy-don't bother about them. and if the tax collectors bill is not too stiff, pay it with a grumble- Now that it threatens to be stiffer than ever, how
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

hAIoIUh fDD1IU6: 1 am Dack III EMsd Washington. I don't mind saying
 confidensiallly that this grate eoun try that we took frum the Injuns looks good to me- Newer again will I stand around and listen to sum anarkist mock the home of the free and the meel ticket of the aunty- saloon league in my pressints. We may ovver do the regulating bizness in this country, but as for me, had rathur have 1t ovverdun than to live wheere theere aint enny reguasion whatsoever. If the dis cuntinted patryot who sneers at his native land will look around him and take slant at sum of our naybors, he will be satisfied with his unhappy lot, and keeep rite on voting the demmycratic ticket, and borro- ing mummy rum his wife's relatives
 I did not expect to return heer so quick Sly, but reserved an urgint request frum Secreterry Bryen to hurry on to Washing ltun and confur with him as to condisions in Mexico That's one of the best things the Secretery does, is to confur with folks about condisions in Mexico. He is one of the best long -distints confurrers at large. He is so famillier with Mexico thro' theese confurrenses that he could map out Chi > takur Sircuit down theere with as much lease as Cnrnel Roosefet can discuvver a lrivur. Aftur hurrying heer on fast train II waited fore days before the Secreterry found time between speeches to have a con fidensial talk with me. However am willing to do enny thing reesunabull to help { the administrator turn loose this media sion thing which is inturfeering with our Summer engagements.
 "Mexico is a grand country" sed the Secreterry to me, full of Grand Old Ruins
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

you With the rong dope, seys. " urk Hakes about as big hit down there, 1 seys, as you would make in Wall Street. When you speek to a Mexicon about wurking for livving he becums completely discouraged, sed l.
 I don't know so much about the plain peepul cumming into theere own down there eethur, I seys. What will pleese them moor is to cum into sumboddy else's. They hay mt got enny thing of theere own to cum into, so far as I could assurtain, and don think you have tuched upon the reel sintimint of the plain peepul in Mexico.
 But didn't you find the army of the Constitusionalists full of furvur and pa tryotism?" asked he. No, seys I. 1 found them full of muscall and intemperense I seys.. They all look alike to me, told him. A MeXicon is a Mexicon whethur he's with Viller and Carransur, or whethur he is with Huerter You mite as well try to turn a skunk into peeony, as to turn a peon into a sivvilized citizen, told him. "Can't we appeel to theere love of libburty and pa tryotism?' seys the Secreterry. Theere an It no such animal, seys l. The only thing that will appeel to them is the standing army, I seys; you mite as well appeel to mule to go to Sunday school, sed l. you would probabully make a gratur impress sion. The moor you appeel to Mexicon the moor chesty he gets. If you appeel to him long enuff and don t show him gun to back it up, he'll be the ownur of your union suit, and your appeel will be dis missed as irrellivint and immaterial in the end
 ''Did you see the execusion of Nasionels of uther nasions down theereg' asked the Secreterry. No, seys l. l newer attind one
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

| that's Mexicos middle name, Grand Old Ruins. As Grand old ruin,'' 1 seys, :. Mexico is one of the most complete sue cesses on the map"
 ssWhat must be dun in Mexico seys the Secreterry, 'is that the plain peepul must rule. Newer will the Doove of Peese huvver ovver that distacted country until the plain peepul cum into theere own, and return to peese and plenty by tilling the soil ,
 told the Secreterry that if the Doove of Peese had enny persunnel regard for its heelth it would not attimpt to huvver ovver Mexico rite at this time. I informed the that much to my regret that 1 was compelled to inform him that the Doove of Peese would find huvvering ovver Mrs. Pankhurst and reggimint of En- glish Suffragetts calm and refinning job, as compaired with trying to huvver ovver Mexico. The only way to huvver ovver Mexico, I sed, is to do so with a shotgun loded with trase chains and giant powder. So far as the plain peepul air consumed, 1 seys, Mexico is theere. 1 have newer seen moor and plainur peepul in my life. Evvery Mexicon you meet, l seys, can show you his Union card as testimony that he is in good standing in the Amalgammated Assosiaslon of Plain Peepul But when it cums to till ing the soil, l seys, they pass. Filling the soil in Mexico has had a unfavurabull re- port frum the standing committee, which was unanimusly adopted, 1 told him. When it cums rite down to being opposed to hard labor the Mexicon peepul air as avurse to it as Samuel Gompurs, intimated to the Secreterry. Sumbody has been stringing
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-14

1914. by Curtis Brown)
 LONDON, June Special l.)-At i, least two classes of business
 men in England are delighted Ze with the new taxation intro