: My Mamie Rose: The Story of My Regeneration by Kildare Owen - New York (N.Y.) Biography; Kildare Owen 1864-1911

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Chapter

Map of Bowery District

Mr. Kildare's Birthplace on Catharine Street

A Typical Group at Barney Flynn's Side-Door

Mike Callahan's Saloon

MAP OF THE BOWERY DISTRICT.

The map on the left shows how small a fraction of Manhattan Island this world-famous district is. In this small section, called by Mr. Kildare "The Highway of the Foolish," he was born and lived, until he was thirty. Rarely did he leave it. In fact, he states that a large percentage of the people who are born here go through life with the very vaguest ideas of the world beyond--many living and dying without ever having passed north of 14th Street and West of Broadway. It is a strange world of strange people who live only from day to day and unto their daily needs.

Many men have told the stories of their lives. I shall tell you mine. Not because I, as they, have done great and important things, but because of the miracle which transformed me.

If lives may be measured by progress mine may have some interest to you. When a man at thirty cannot read or write the simplest sentence, and then eight years later is able to earn his living by his pen, his story may be worth the telling.

Before beginning, however, the recital of how I found my ambition awakened, let me make my position unmistakably definite. I am not a self-made man, having only contributed a mite in the making. A self-made man can turn around to the road traveled by him and can point with pride to the monuments of his achievements. I cannot do that. I have no record of great deeds accomplished. I am a man, reborn and remade from an unfortunate moral condition into a life in which every atom has but the one message, "Strive, struggle and believe," and I would be the sneakiest hypocrite were I to deny that I feel within me a satisfaction at being able to respond to the call with all the possible energy of soul and body. I have little use for a man who cloaks his ability with mock modesty. A man's conscience is the best barometer of his ability, and he who will pretend a disbelief in his ability is either untruthful or has an ulterior motif.

In spite of having, as yet, accomplished little, I have confidence in myself and my ability, because my aims are distinctly reasonable. I regret that in my story the first person singular will be so much in evidence, but it cannot be otherwise. Each fact, each incident mentioned, has been lived by me; the disgrace and the glory, the misery and the happiness, are all part of my life, and I cannot separate them from myself. I know you will not disbelieve me, and I am willing to be confronted by your criticism, which, for obvious reasons, will not be directed against my diction, elegance of style and literary quality. I am not an author. I only have a story to tell and all the rest remains with you.

There was nothing remarkable about my early childhood. Most of the boys of the tenements are having or have had the same experience.

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