Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1912 — Jacob Riis on Neighborliness RAM’S HORN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Jacob Riis on Neighborliness RAM’S HORN

■ \ u J;,-.:: -KJ BEAUTIFUL story was told by Jacob A.' Riis tn his address at the commencement exercises at Ashley hall, a school for young Women In Charles-

ton, whose principal Miss Mary V. Mcßee, was once a director with him In his east side settlement work in. New York. The world were poor indeed, he said, but for the noble enthusiasm of youth. As an illustration of what he meant he told them this touching and beautiful story of "Heartsease,” a wonfan who did her little part faithfully as she found it: "I came upon her one night,” he said, “in ■ a mean street over on the west side. A brass plate on the door arrested my attention as I passed. 'Heartsease,’ it said, and I went in. Where they are easing weary hearts, there I want to be. The house was more of a box than a house. The elevated railroad ran in front, right under .the windows. It was flanked on one side by a factory, on the other by a jail. In the rear a building was going up, plumb up against its wall, that would soon, entirely close the back windows. Those in front you could not open for the dust and noise of the elevated. “There I found my little woman. She was a school teacher—taught by day in a public school over at Cypress Hills, L. 1., and when her work was done there she came all the many miles, and across the river, to this place, to be near the neighbor. For she had been brought up at Northfield under the Inspiration of Mr. Moody's life, and she knew that for. her task — to find the neighbor. "Who ' were these neighbors?— drunken and dissolute women, vile dens and dives. , It seemed the last place a woman of refinement and modesty would have chosen, but she did. At all hours of the night her bell rang, and they came, sometimes attended by policemen. _ One said: ‘We have this case. She is not wanted in this home or that Institution. She don’t come under their rules. I took her here in hope that you might stretch /ours and take her in. Else we don’t know, what to do with her.’ “ ‘Bless you! We have no rules. Let her come in/ And she takes her and puts her to he<L- • • » -h*-

"In the midnight, hour she hears of a young woman, evidently a newcomer, whom the dive has in its clutch, and she gets out of bed and, going there, demands her sister, and gets her from out the very jaws of hell. Again, a drunken woman finds her way to her door —a woman with a husband and children —and she gets out of her warm bed again and takes her home, never leaving her till she Is safe. “I found her papering the walls and painting the floor of her house. I said to her that I did not think you couid do much with those women—and neither can you, if they are ‘Just those women’ to you. The Saviour! could. One came and sat at his feet and wept, and dried them with her hair. * “‘OhJ’ she said, ‘it isn’t so. They come, and they are glad to stay. I don’t know that they are finally saved, that they never stumble again; but here, anyhow, we have given them a resting spell and time to think.’ "An<’ she told me of some of them, f* *1 don’t consider,’ she finished, ’that I am doing it right, but I will yet’ • > . "I looked at her, this frail young girl, with unshaken, unshakable faith in right, and asked her how she managed it —financially She laughed. “‘The rent is pledged by half a dozen friends. The rest —about 8150 a month —comes.’ “ ‘But how’’ “She pointed to a lot of circulars, painfully written out in the night watches. "T’m selling soap Just now,' she said, ‘but it isn’t always soap.' "‘Here,’ patting a chair, ‘this is Larkin’s soap; that chafing dish is green stamps. This set of dishes is Mother’s Oats. We could not get the oh; you know, you have to find the letters; but I wrote and told them and we got the dishes. I write to people and they buy the things and we get the prizes. We’ve furnished the house so. And some give us money. We have.even got a building fund. We shall have to move some day.'” It may not be your .life work to fob low in her steps. It is given to few. But neighbor you can always be, and you can be nothing better in this great wtldsome world. ’ It would be easy, let us say it with thanksgiving, to marshal a host of youne women who have helped to the world’s work, have helped shape its course toward that better;, brighter day that beckons ever to the young. Think only of Florence Nightingale, of Dorothy Dfx, of my own beloved friend, on whose grave the grass is greed today. Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. You maye never do any of the things they did, but you can always be ‘ft neighbor.”—Church- - - - .A,,.-.. ■ • Many a boy falls bocauie he has » father who runs his shoes down ah the heel