Steinmetz, then a boy of seventeen, was drawn into the work of socialistic agitation, and he became the editor of a paper during a period when the real editor was in prison for _lèse majesté_. The paper was finally suppressed, and Steinmetz's connection with it was reported to the university authorities. Then he received information that a warrant was out for his arrest and he fled to Zurich, Switzerland. Here he supported himself by tutoring, and by writing for electrical magazines and for a daily paper. The articles for the daily paper paid him two dollars a week. His income was pitifully small, but he managed to save a few dollars, and, meeting with a young American from San Francisco, he decided to relinquish his ambition to become a professor of mathematics in some German university. He then emigrated to America. Lands as a Poor Immigrant. Steinmetz and his American friend landed in New York with just twenty dollars between them. They hired a small room in Brooklyn, where they started housekeeping together. Steinmetz had acquired this knack during his Zurich days, and through his first year in America he lived with his friend in one room, doing their cooking and washing on a gas-stove, and at the same time conducting electrical and chemical experiments. Steinmetz had with him when he arrived in this country a couple of letters of introduction, one to a man who manufactured electrical and chemical supplies on a small scale. This letter was the first presented, but on visiting the place Steinmetz was unable to see the manufacturer. He was, however, told to call again. He called again, and was once more put off with a polite invitation to return. After two more calls Steinmetz realized that he was an unwelcome visitor. He thought it over for a few moments, then laughed and, turning to the clerk, said: "Oh, well, all right. He'll have to call on me, now, if he wants me--and I think he will." Eventually the manufacturer did want Steinmetz, but never got him, for Steinmetz took the second letter of introduction to Rudolph Eickemeyer, head of the Eickemeyer Elevator Company, of Yonkers. Eickemeyer sized the young man up, and at once put him to work as a draftsman, at twelve dollars a week. It was while in Yonkers that Steinmetz drew attention to his ability by a series of articles in an American electrical magazine on alternating currents. This was followed by the first of the inventions and improvements that laid the foundation of Steinmetz's substantial fortune. From the first Steinmetz had taken a lively interest in America and everything American, and the views for which he was forced to fly from Europe were so modified that they agreed with the new conditions in which he found himself. Speaking of them, he said: "In this country they would be theories without any chance of practical application, and there is no use in a theory merely for theory's sake."