He was twenty-one years old. In his pocket were forty dollars. It was not much, either in years of experience or in wealth; but he had his trade to fall back on, and, above all, he had “a pair of strong hands and stubbornness enough to do for two; also a strong belief that in a free country, free from the dominion of custom, of caste, as well as of men, things would somehow come right in the end.”
From the deck of the steamer he watched the city of New York grow large on the horizon. Ships of the world filled the blue harbor. Tall spires of churches lifted above the roofs; wharves were alive with activity. A static quality was in the air; he was filled with a spirit of adventure and limitless opportunity.
In Castle Garden, at the tip of New York, where in years past the immigrants were landed, a man was hiring laborers in an iron-works at Brady’s Bend in Pennsylvania. The pay seemed good, and Riis engaged to join the party which was being formed.
The work was hard, but Riis’s knowledge of a trade stood him in good stead, and he was put at work building houses for the employees in the foundry. Then from a clear sky came news which abruptly changed his plans and the course of his entire life. France had declared war on Prussia, and Denmark was expected to join with France and avenge her wrongs of 1864.
Back to his memory came the love of his own country, of her flag, and of what seemed his duty there. His brain aflame with patriotism, he threw up his job and hurried to Buffalo, and from there proceeded finally to New York. He had just one cent in his pocket; he had sold his clothes and small possessions to buy his ticket.
But the Frenchmen in New York did not understand the young Dane who wanted them to send him home to fight if his country needed him; nor did those of his own countrymen whom he saw feel able to pay his transportation on this patriotic journey. Again and again young Riis offered himself. At every attempt rebuff or misfortune countered him. It was useless to try further. Reluctantly he abandoned his hope to join the French in their great struggle.
Winter was at hand. To the scantily clad, starving, and penniless young man, the great city seemed to turn a cold and forbidding shoulder. But opportunity does not come to those who wait expectant of it: it is a prize to be won by struggle, and often by privation. Opportunity is everywhere, but it is only the stalwart, indomitable spirits who seek and seize it.
Hard days followed. From New York Riis went to Jamestown, a small village in the northern part of the state, and there he spent the winter doing such trivial jobs as fell to him, glad to receive the small and irregular pay which enabled him to struggle on. For a time he worked in a Buffalo planing-mill. Summer found him working with a railroad gang outside the city. Then came the winter again, and with it work at good wages in a Buffalo shipyard. Destined to be known throughout the United States in later years for his social reforms, and his virile writings for the betterment of his fellow men, in these early days it was his knowledge of an honest trade that made it possible for him to build the foundations of future greatness.
Two years later Riis was back again in New York. Among the “want” advertisements, in a newspaper, his eye caught one which offered the position of city editor on a Long Island City weekly. The probability that a position thus advertised would be of small value was confirmed by the salary attached to it. Riis got the position; the salary was eight dollars a week, and at the end of two weeks the paper failed. Three wasted years they seemed; three years of no accomplishment.
Then came the turning. A former acquaintance, casually met, mentioned a job that was open in a news-gathering agency. “It isn’t much—ten dollars a week to start with,” he said. The brief two weeks’ experience on the Long Island City paper had given Riis a slight familiarity with the requirements. In the shadow of Grace Church he prayed for strength to do the work which he had so long and so hardly sought. Beside him his dog, his only friend in these dark days, wagged his tail in encouragement. The die was cast.