Jacob A. Riis 1849–1914. The Battle with the Slum. 1902.
Page 188
| If it pleases the other man, what is it to him for whom he votes? He is after the job. |
| Here, ready-made to the hand of the politician, is such material as he never saw before. For Pietro’s loyalty is great. As a police detective, one of his own people, once put it to me, “He got a kind of an idea, or an old rule: an eye for an eye; do to an-other as you’d be done by; if he don’t squeal on you, you stick by him, no matter what the consequences.” This “kind of an idea” is all he has to draw upon for an answer to the question if the thing is right. But the question does not arise. Why should it? Was he not told by the agitators whom the police jailed at home that in a republic all men are made happy by means of the vote? And is there not proof of it? It has made him happy, has it not? And the man who bought his vote seems to like it. Well, then? |
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| The Play School. Dressing Dolls for a Lesson. |
| Very early Pietro discovered that it was every man for himself, in the chase of the happiness which this powerful vote had in keeping. He was robbed by the padrone—that is, the boss—when he came over, fleeced on his steamship fare, made to pay for getting a job, and charged three prices for board and lodging and extras while working in the railroad gang. The boss had a monopoly, and Pietro was told that it was maintained by his “divvying” with some railroad official. |