Some men can do their best work in an organization. Some, though they occasionally work in an organization, can do best by themselves. Recently a man well qualified to pass judgment alluded to Mr. Jacob A. Riis as “the most useful citizen of New York.” Those fellow-citizens of Mr. Riis who best know his work will be most apt to agree with this statement. The countless evils which lurk in the dark corners of our civic institutions, which stalk abroad in the slums, and have their permanent abode in the crowded tenement houses, have met in Mr. Riis the most formidable opponent ever encountered by them in New York City. Many earnest men and earnest women have been stirred to the depths by the want and misery and foul crime which are bred in the crowded blocks of tenement rookeries. These men and women have planned and worked, intelligently and resolutely, to overcome the evils. But to Mr. Riis was given, in addition to earnestness and zeal, the great gift of expression, the great gift of making others see what he saw and feel what he felt. His book, _How the Other Half Lives_, did really go a long way toward removing the ignorance in which one half of the world of New York dwelt concerning the life of the other half. Moreover, Mr. Riis possessed the further great advantage of having himself passed through not a few of the experiences of which he had to tell. Landing here, a young Danish lad, he had for years gone through the hard struggle that so often attends even the bravest and best when they go out without money to seek their fortunes in a strange and alien land. The horror of the police lodging-houses struck deep in his soul, for he himself had lodged in them. The brutality of some of the police he had himself experienced. He had been mishandled, and had seen the stray dog which was his only friend killed for trying in dumb friendship to take his part. He had known what it was to sleep on door-steps and go days in succession without food. All these things he remembered, and his work as a reporter on the New York _Sun_ has enabled him in the exercise of his profession to add to his knowledge. There are certain qualities the reformer must have if he is to be a real reformer and not merely a faddist; for of course every reformer is in continual danger of slipping into the mass of well-meaning people who in their advocacy of the impracticable do more harm than good. He must possess high courage, disinterested desire to do good, and sane, wholesome common-sense. These qualities he must have, and it is furthermore much to his benefit if he also possesses a sound sense of humor. All four traits are possessed by Jacob Riis. No rebuff, no seeming failure, has ever caused him to lose faith. The memory of his own trials never soured him. His keen sense of the sufferings of others never clouded his judgment, never led him into hysterical or sentimental excess, the pit into which not a few men are drawn by the very keenness of their