Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| the other tenants had “made trouble” with the police. The “ladies,” locating the source of the trouble in their flat, had seized upon the child and “punched” his nose. They had even had to send for a doctor. She unrolled a bundle and showed a bottle of medicine in corroboration. Her brother had suffered and the household had been put to expense. Seeing which, she had collected her evidence and come straight to Police Headquarters to “see the Commissioner.” Having said it, she waited calmly for directions, sure that when she found the Commissioner they would get justice. |
| And they did get it, though Roosevelt was no longer there. It was for him they had come. Nothing that happened in all that time showed better how deep was the mark he left. It was his legacy to Mulberry Street that the children should come there seeking justice, and their faith was not to be put to shame. |
| In those days he would sometimes slip away with me from Headquarters for an hour with the little Italians in the Sullivan Street Industrial School, or some other work of the Children’s Aid Society, in which his father had borne a strong hand. It was after the first |