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Show DEATH CALLS I JACOB A. RIIS Noted Author and Social Worker Succumbs to Heart Disease After Long Illness. GREAT SLUM FIGHTER I As New York Reporter Brings About Many Reforms Roosevelt His Strong -j Ally. fUne. Mass May 26 Jacob A. Riis, ; uthor and social worker, died at his summer home here today aittr; a lotr; illness. Mrr Rli8 and a son were at Mr. I Riis' bedtside when the end cauie. Mr Riis was brought lure about1 two weeks ago from a sanitarium at Battle (reek. Mich., where he had been h patient for several months, taking treatment for heart trouble of ilong i landing Jacob August Riis became, through his work in behalf of the poorer people peo-ple In New York, the most useful citizen " of the metropolis, according to a tribute once paid to him by Theodore. Roosevelt, his intimate' t friend tt As an almost penniless immigrant he obtained knowledge of the slums i at rl'sl had and found conditions i there so repollant that he consecrat-j 0 ed his whole life to warfare against retchedness. $ Bom in Denmark Kits was the thirteenth child of a Latin teacher in Kibe. Jutland. Den- H mark. He was born in 1 8 4 1) Protesting Pro-testing at the literary career which his father had cut out for him. young Riis decided to work with his hands and became a carpenter's apprentice The vocation he had chosen did not prevent him, however, from falling in love with Elizabeth Nlelson. daugb- ter of one of the richest men In his native town. But she refused him, and when RHe was L'l ears old, having hav-ing learned his trade, he embarked for New York with only $40 In his pocket. He spent half the bum for a J heavy navy pistol as soon as he land ed "to fight Indians and desperados. Rlls led a varied career during the follow uig six rears He built miners' huts in a Pennsylvania construction camp mined coal, made bricks drove a team and peddled flat irons and book-- At 27 he spent his last cent in reaching New York, hoping to enlist en-list through the KYench consul in the French army against Germany for tbe FYanco-Prussian war but his services were refused, and Riis was forced to accept a beginner's place as a report er for a New York news bureau. At the v ry first he made his most conspicuous con-spicuous success in the study of conditions con-ditions on the east side of New York. Wlih only ?75 capital and notes for !: $575, lie succeeded in buying the "South Brooklyn News,'' which was on the verge of bankruptcy and made euch a success 0 l' the property thut he w:. able to sell it at a considerable consider-able profit a few years later. He retun-ed to Denmark and married the girl who had refused him when he was h carpenters apprentice This first wife died in 1905 and two years later Riis married Mary Phillip of St. Louis. Reporter for N Y. Papers. As a reporter on the New York Tribune and lateT on the New York Sun, Riis took up his real work in slum lighting While attending to routini-. duty as a police reporter, he worked day and night to arouse the' people to the need of improved living! condittpnjs. One of the first of his Campaigns was against the Impurity of the city water, and it was his i fight uhich finally led to the purchase pur-chase of the Croton watershed to as j sure safe drinking water for New York. He brought sunlight to the tene-1 meat districts by forcing the destruc-J tion of rear tenements He entirely cleared Mulberry Bend, one of the worst tenement sections in the city, and replaced the Bqualid homes by-shady by-shady parks. Roosevelt His Strong Ally. Theodore Roosevelt was police j commissioner of New York when Riis attacked the evils of police station ! lodging houses. He won his point and Incidentally a strong ally in Mr. Rooseelt. Rlls drove bake-shops out of tenement basements, he fought for laws abolishing child labor, and was largely instrumental in getting the I passage of "the briefest, wisest, and I best statute on the books of New York, laying down the principle that hereafter 'no school shall be built withont an adequate playground ' " After twenty-seven years as a reporter. re-porter. Riis resigWd to continue his fight bj writing and lecturing. Among the products of his pen are 'How the Other Half Lives," ' The Children of the Poor." "The Making of an American," (his autobiography i. The Battle With the Slum." "Children of the Tenements," "The Old Town," "Theodore Roosevelt, The Citizen.' and "Hero Tales From the Far North." |
