Out in the street, I gave a look at the book. It was Genung’s “Psychology of Madness.” It grew black and red before my eyes. So it’s madness to want to give out my thoughts to the world? They turn me down like a crazy beggar only because I come to give them new ideas.
I threw the book away in the nearest ash can. But that word “madness” was to me like a red rag to a bull. I had to write now or go crazy with the wrath these reformers roused in me.
“What’s my place in America?” I asked myself. “Must I remain a choked-in servant in somebody’s kitchen or somebody’s factory, or will I find a way to give out my thoughts to America?”
So what I wrote was the story of myself—myself lost in America.
It was like new air in my lungs to let myself loose on paper. But how could I get it to the American people? One thing I was sure of. I wasn’t going to subject myself to another insult from those reform magazines. I don’t know how it happened, but I picked out Wharton’s Magazine, the most literary magazine of all those I looked over, simply because it looked so solidly high above the rest. My desperate need for a hearing made me bold. In my ragged coat and torn shoes I walked into that breath-taking rich office like a millionaire landlord with pockets full of rent money.
“Do you want something new and different for your magazine?” I asked with the low voice and the high head of an American-born.
Friendly eyes turned on me. “We’re always seeking something new and different. Have you got it?”
I looked right into the friendly eyes. This was Mr. Robert Reeves, the editor. He had the clean, well-dressed look of the born higher-up. But how different from those others! His face was human. And there was a shine in the eyes that warmed me.
“I’m an immigrant,” I said. “I have worked in kitchens, factories and sweatshops. I’m dying away with the loneliness of my thoughts, so I wrote myself out in a story.”
He snatched up the papers and began to read. A quick light flashed into his eyes. Then he turned to me.