“Over against the tenements of our cities,” he said, “ever rise in my mind the fields, the woods, God’s open sky, as accusers and witnesses that his temple is being defiled and man dwarfed in body and soul.”
He knew that the one way to remove such evils and to force people to put up decent houses for the poor was to bring the facts out in the open. When he described what he had seen, the words seemed to mean little to many of the people that he wanted to reach. Then he hit upon the plan of taking pictures. These pictures served to illustrate some very direct talks he gave in the churches. Later, many of them made an important part of his book, “How the Other Half Lives.”
“These people are your neighbors,” said Jacob Riis. “It is the business of the fortunate half of those who live in our great cities to find out how the other half lives. No one can live to himself or die to himself--
‘If you will not grub for your neighbor’s weeds, In your own green garden you’ll find the seeds.’”
Through his persistent campaigning, one of the very worst parts of New York, known as Mulberry Bend, a veritable network of alleys which gave hiding to misery and crime untold, was bought by the city, the buildings torn down, and the spot converted into a public park.
Several years later, when Roosevelt was President, he asked Mr. Riis to investigate the conditions of streets and alleys in Washington. It developed that within three squares of the Capitol there was a system of alleys honeycombing a single block where a thousand people were crowded together under conditions that made a hotbed of misery, crime, and disease. The good citizens of the National Capital, who had read with horror about the evils of New York and Chicago, were rudely shaken out of their self-complacency. That square is now one of Washington’s parks.
Jacob Riis early learned the power of facts. His training as a reporter taught him that. He was also willing to work early and late, when the need arose, to gather them. At one time when there was a cholera scare in New York, he happened to look over the Health Department analysis of the water from the Croton River, and noticed that it was said to contain “a trace of nitrites.”