Evening star., 1925-05-05
THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN

-h.@<o VI AN AMERICAN,
6y JACOB A Riis. The Macmillan
Company.
Made in America" is the label nv
which at least two outsta ndir3g 'cifi.
zens OF the United States designate
themselves in evident satisfaction and
PRIDE. Jacob Riis, the Dane, and Ed.
ward Box, the Hollander. And thou.
SANDS OF foreign-born Americans he.
sides, take pride in their new allegi.
ance, just as America takes pride in
them. There are enough of another
sort, however, to suggest that Made
IN America is but half truth in re-
spect to this country's generally fine
immigrant population. To suggest that,
on the contrary, the actual making of
the man was in the grain before ever
America had entered the dreams. And
as one goes along here with Jacob
Riis-a man throughout-he is more
than ever sure of this. Not only sure
OF Rifs in this respect, but sure of
many another.
There Is another side to this story
that steps out here in a poignancv Of
attack upon the reader, as ii certainly
did upon Jacob Riis himself at the
time and upon every other new immi-
grant. That is the terrible loneliness
of the immigrant. the appalling
strangeness. No word that he can ln.
derstand, ways that are alien to his
ways, nobody quite alone, but him
self, every one busy about familiar and
companionable kinds of work or play.
no sense of where his own work may
lie in this monstrous strangeness. no
money on account, no home place.
Reading here this frightful load slips
down over the reader to his misery
and dismay and his sure sense that il
Is all, all, quite wrong. The plainest of
men, Jacob Riis in this writing was
not working for this effect. He was
merely telling what he himself did
when he landed in America. But the
effect Is there, one that ought to work
nightly, If 1t is not already doing so.
** **
Your will read here about a youth
with no particular training and no
special aptitude trying to make his
way in America. A persistent fellow.
Yes, an obstinate one. Without this
quality he would have gone under.
1t takes just that, and more, to stand
goodly number of years that count
up nothing more than keeping body
and soul together. To be sure, a
thousand impressions and as many
points of knowledge come in these
years. But these are slim living ma
Obstinacy and persistence did it,
Finally Rfis became a newspaper
writer-a reporter And he is sure
that this is one of the greatest of
callings. No, not to be editor or
manager-those are piff1ing jobs. But
TO be reporter, on the contrary, is
TO get right at all the life there is
and to get all the drama that life
holds so abundantly. And he was
right-r1ght for him. This business
OF living down where the most of the
news OF the world is made proved
to be the key to the nature of Jacob
Riis, the key as well to his surpass-
Ing service to America. Out of this
work came the knowledge that went
into How the Other Half Lives"
and into the STORY of the Slums"
and into many another story and
speech and importantly for the ben
eft of the ''other half" A true
American, Jacob Riis, a man whom
God made and to whom America
merely gave opportunity for the
Towering OF his beautiful humanity.
A big story, whose plain simplicity
is such as stamps an greatness OF
Me. al bsAaty ef writing.