"It's bankrupt already, so far as having any influence over the men that you and I meet," he replied. "I don't see a man more than once in six months who goes near a church, and he's generally a Catholic. There's something wrong, you can bet, when things have got to that pass. If the church can't interest fellows like us, it's going to have its troubles interesting anybody."
There were others who expressed themselves equally strongly, but I was unable to get any satisfactory suggestion from any of them as to how the church may be made either more religious or effective. They all had their notions concerning its defects and shortcomings, but they seemed unable to tell how these were to be supplanted by merits and virtues. Many of them impressed me as men who would be capable, under different conditions, of religious feeling, and there was something pathetic, I thought, in the way they loved to linger in conversation on the subject of religion, but in their present circumstances the most inspired church in the worldcould not do much with them. They are victims of the passion for indiscriminate criticism, and I doubt whether they would know whether a church was doing its duty or not.
Naturally a never-failing subject for talk was the labour question, and, under this general head, in particular the importation of foreign labour by the big corporations. I cannot recall an allusion to their present circumstances that did not bring this point prominently to the fore, and on occasions the mere mention of the word "foreigner" was sufficient to bring out the most violent invectives. In a number of instances they claimed that they knew absolutely that they had been forced out of positions to make room for aliens who would work for less money.
"An American don't count for what he used to in this country," an old man said to me in Chicago. "The corporations don't care who a man is, so long as he'll work cheap. 'Course a Dago can live cheaper'n I can, 'n' so he beats me. I don't blame the Dago, 'cause he's doin'better'n he did in Italy, anyhow, but I do blame them corporations, 'n' they're goin' to get it in the neck some day, too. I won't live to see it, perhaps, but you will. I tell you, Jack, there's goin' to be a revolution in this country just as sure as this city is Chicago. It's comin' nearer every day. Just wait till there's about a million more men on the road, 'n' then you'll see somethin'. It'll beat that French revolution bang up, take my tip for that."
This same man, if his companions told the truth, had had a number of opportunities to succeed, and had let them slip through his hands. Like hundreds of others, however, he could not bear to admit that he was to blame for his own defeat in life, and he made the foreigner his scapegoat. It is, perhaps, true that some foreigners in this country have ousted some Americans from their positions, but one needs but to make a journey on any one of the railroads frequented by "gay-cats" to realise how small a minority of them are tramping because foreigners have got their jobs.Corporations and trusts may or may not be beneficial, according to the way one considers them, but, in my opinion, they are innocent of dealing unfairly by the thousand "gay-cats" that I have recently interviewed.
Previous to my experience in a railroad police force, I was employed by the same railroad company in making an investigation of the tramp situation on the lines under their management. The object of the investigation was to find out whether the policy pursued by the company was going to be permanently successful in keeping tramps and "train-riders" off the property, and to discover how neighbouring roads dealt with trespassers. Incidentally, I was also to interview tramps that I met, and ask their opinion of the methods used by the railroad for which I worked. The first month of the investigation was given up to roads crossing and recrossing the lines in which I was particularly interested, and I lived and travelledduring this period like a professional tramp. While on my travels I made the acquaintance of a very interesting organisation of criminal tramps, which is continually troubling railroads in the middle West. As I also had to keep watch of it while on duty as a patrolman, an account of my experience with some of its members seems to fall within the scope of this book.
One night, after I had been out about a week on the preliminary investigation for the railroad, I arrived at Ashtabula, Ohio, on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, in company with a little Englishman, who, when we registered at the police station where we went to ask for shelter, facetiously signed himself, George the Fourth. There are four "stops," as the tramp says, in Ashtabula, three police stations and the sand-house of the Lake Shore Railroad, and after we had used up our welcome in the police stations we went to the sand-house. Later, when we were sure that the police had forgotten us, we returned to the "calabooses," and made another round of them, but wealso spent several nights at the sand-house. On our first night at the sand-house we arrived there before the other lodgers had finished their hunt for supper, and on the principle of "first come first served" we picked out the best places in the sand. It was early in April, and in Ashtabula at this season of the year the sand nearest the fire is the most comfortable. During the evening other men and boys came in, but they recognised that our early arrival entitled us to the good places, and they picked out the next best. About ten o'clock we all fell asleep, leaving barely enough room for the sand-house attendant to move about and attend to his duties. A little after midnight I was awakened by loud voices scolding and cursing, and heard a man, whom I could not see, however, say:
"Kick the fellow's head off. It's your place right 'nough, teach 'im a lesson."
Somebody struck a match then, and I saw two burly men standing over the little Englishman. They were the roughest-looking customers I have ever seenanywhere. More matches were struck in different parts of the sand-house, and I heard men whispering to one another that the two disturbers were "Lake Shore Push people," and that there was going to be a fight.
"Get up, will ye?" one of them said, in a brutal voice to my companion. "It's a wonder ye wouldn't find a place o' yer own."
"Hit 'im with the poker," the other advised. "Stave his slats in."
Then the first speaker made as if he were going to kick the Englishman in the head with his big hobnailed boot. The Englishman could stand it no longer, and jumping to his feet and snatching up an empty sand-bucket, he took a defensive position, and said:
"Come on, now, if you blokes want a scrap. One o' ye'll go down."
The crowd seemed only to need this exhibition of grit on the part of the Britisher to make them rally to his side, and one of them set a ball of newspapers afire for a light, and the rest grabbed sand-bucketsand pieces of board and made ready to assist the Britisher in "doing up" the two bullies. The latter wisely decided that fifteen to two was too much of a disadvantage, and left, threatening to come back with the "push" and "clean out the entire house," which they failed to do, however, that night or on any other night that the Englishman and I spent at the sand-house.
After they had gone, the crowd gathered around the Englishman, and he was congratulated on having "put up such a good front" against the two men. Then began a general discussion of the organisation, or "push," as it was called, which I could only partially follow. I had been out of Hoboland for a number of years previous to this experience, and the "push" was a new institution to me. It was obvious, however, that it played a very prominent part in the lives of the men at the sand-house, for each one present had a story to tell of how he had been imposed upon by it, either on a freight-train or at some stopping-place, in more or less thesame way as the Englishman had been. Had it not been that questions on my part would have proven me to be a "tenderfoot," which it was bad policy for one in my position to admit as possible, I should have made inquiries then and there, for it was plain that the "push" was an association that ought to interest me also; but all that I learned that night was that there was a gang of wild characters who were trying to run the Lake Shore Railroad, so far as Hoboland was concerned, according to their own wishes and interests, and that there were constant clashes between them and such men as were gathered together in the sand-house. There was no mention made of their strength or identity; the conversation was confined to accounts of their persecutions and crimes, and to suggestions as to how they could be made to disband. One man, I remember, said that the only thing to do was to shoot them, one at a time, on sight, and he declared that he would join a "push" which would make this task its object as an organisation."They're the meanest push this country has ever seen," he added, "an' workin' men as well as 'boes ought to help do 'em up. They hold up ev'rybody, an' it's got so that it's all a man's life's worth to ride on this road."
The following morning, while reading the newspaper, a week or so old, in which a baker had wrapped up some rolls which I had purchased of him, I came across a paragraph in the local column, which read something like this: "A middle-aged man was found dead yesterday morning, lying in the bushes near the railroad track between Girard and Erie. His neck was broken, and it is thought that he is another victim of the notorious 'Lake Shore gang.' The supposition is that he was beating his way on a freight-train when the gang overtook him, and that, after robbing him, they threw him off the train."
After reading this paragraph, I strolled down the Lake Shore tracks to the west, until I came to the coal-chutes, where tramp camps are to be found theyear round. As many as fifty men can be seen here on occasions, sitting around fires kept up by the railroad company's coal, and "dope" from the wheel-boxes of freight-cars. I found two camps on the morning in question, one very near the coal chutes, and the other about a quarter of a mile farther on. There were about a dozen men at the first, and not quite thirty at the second. I halted at the first, thinking that both were camps where all roadsters would be welcome. I had hardly taken a seat on one of the ties, and said, "How are you?" when a dirty-looking fellow of about fifty years asked me, in sarcasm, as I afterward learned, if I had a match. "S'pose y' ain't got a piece o' wood with a little brimstone on the end of it, have ye?" were his words. I replied that I had, and was about to hand him one, when a general grin ran over the faces of the men, and I heard a man near me, say, "Tenderfoot, sure." It was plain that there was something either in my make-up or manner which was not regular, but I was not left long in suspenseas to what it was. The dirty man with the gray hair explained the situation. "This is our fire, our camp, an' our deestrict," he said in a gruff voice, "an' you better go off an' build one o' yer own. Ye've got a match, ye say?" the intonation of his voice sneeringly suggesting the interrogation. There was nothing to do but go, and I went, but I gave the camp a minute "sizing up" as I left. The men were having what is called in tramp parlance a "store-made scoff." They had bought eggs, bread, butter, meat, and potatoes in Ashtabula, and were in the midst of their breakfast when I came upon them. In looks they were what a tramp companion of mine once described as "blowed in the glass stiffs." It is not easy to explain to one who has never been in Hoboland and learned instinctively to appraise roadsters what this expression signifies, but in the present instance it means that depravity was simply dripping off them. Their faces were "tough" and dirty, their clothes were tattered and torn, their voices were rasping and coarse,and their general manner was as mean as human nature is capable of. To compare them to a collection of rowdies with which the reader is acquainted, I would say that they resembled very closely the tramps pictured in the illustrated edition of Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper." Their average age was about thirty-five years, but several were fifty and over, and others were under twenty. The clever detective would probably have picked them out for what they were, "hobo guns,"—tramp thieves and "hold-up" men,—but the ordinary citizen would have classified them merely as "dirty tramps," which would also have been the truth, but not the whole truth.
I learned more definitely about them at the second camp, where a welcome was extended to everybody. "Got the hot-foot at the other camp, I guess?" a young fellow said to me as I sat down beside him, and I admitted the fact. "Those brutes wouldn't do a favour to their own mothers," he went on. "We've jus' been chewin' the rag 'bout goin' over an' havin'a scrap with 'em. There's enough of us this mornin' to lay 'em out."
"Who are they?"
"Some o' the Lake Shore gang. They jump in an' out o' here ev'ry few days. There's a lot more o' them down at Painesville. They're scattered all along the line. Las' night some of 'em held up those two stone-masons settin' over there on that pile o' ties. Took away their tools, an' made 'em trade clothes. Caught 'em in a box-car comin' East. Shoved guns under their noses, an' the masons had to cough up."
A few nights after this experience, and again in company with my friend, George the Fourth, I applied for lodging at the police station at Ashtabula Harbour. We made two of the first four to be admitted on the night in question, and picked out, selfishly, it is true, but entirely within our rights, two cells near the fire. We had made up our beds on the cell benches out of our coats and newspapers, and were boiling some coffee on the stove preparatory to going to sleep, when four newcomers,whom I had seen at the "push's" camp, were ushered in. They went immediately to the cells we had chosen, and, seeing that our things were in them, said: "These your togs in here?" We "allowed" that they were. "Take 'em out, then, 'cause these are our cells."
"How your cells?" asked George.
"See here, young fella, do as yer told. See?"
"No, I don't see. You're not so warm." And George drew out his razor. The men must have seen something in his eyes which cowed them, for they chose other cells. I expected that they would maul us unmercifully before morning, but we were left in peace.
One more episode: One afternoon George and I decided that it was time for us to be on the move again, and we boarded a train of empty cars bound West. We had ridden along pleasantly enough for about ten miles, taking in the scenery through the slats of the car, when we saw three men climb down the side of the car. George whispered "Lake Shore Push" tome the minute we saw them, and we both knew that we were to be "held up," if the fellows ever got at us. It was a predicament which called for a cool head and quick action, and George the Fourth had both. He addressed the invaders in a language peculiar to men of the road and distinctive mainly on account of its expletives, and wound up his harangue with the threat that the first man who tried to open the door would have his hand cut off. And he flashed his ubiquitous razor as evidence of his ability to carry out the threat. The engineer fortunately whistled just then for a watering-tank, and the men clambered back to the top of the car, and we saw them no more.
So much for my personal experience with the "Lake Shore Push" as a possible victim; they failed to do me any harm, but it was not their fault. They interested me so much that I spent two weeks on the Lake Shore Railroad in order to learn the truth concerning them. I reasoned that if such an organisation as they seemed to be was possible on one railroad property,it might easily develop on another, and I deemed it worth while to inform myself in regard to their origin, strength, and purpose. Nearly every other newspaper that I came across, while travelling in this district, made some reference to them, but always in an indefinite way which showed that even the police reporter had not been able to find out much about them. They were always spoken of as the "infamous" or "notorious Lake Shore gang," and all kinds of crimes were supposed to have been committed by them, but there was nothing in any of the newspaper paragraphs which gave me any clue as to their identity. In the course of my investigations I ran across a man by the name of Peg Kelley, who had known me years before in the far West, and with whom I had tramped at different times. We went over in detail, I romancing a little, our experiences in the interval of time since our last meeting, and he finally confessed to me that he was a member of the "Lake Shore Push," and added that he was prepared to suggest my name for membership. From him I got whathe claims are the facts in regard to the "push." To the best of my knowledge, never before in our history has an association of outlaws developed on the same lines as has the "Lake Shore Push," and it stands alone in the purpose for which it now exists.
In the early seventies, some say in 1874, and others a little earlier, there lived in a row of old frame houses standing on, or near, the site of the present Lake View Park in Cleveland, Ohio, a collection of professional criminals, among whom were six fellows called New Orleans Tom, Buffalo Slim, Big Yellow, Allegheny B., Looking Glass Jack, and Garry. The names of these particular men are given, because Peg Kelley believes that they constituted the nucleus of the present "Lake Shore Push." They are probably all dead by this time; at any rate, the word "push" was not current tramp slang in their day, and they referred to themselves merely as the "gang." Cleveland was their headquarters, and it is reported that the town was a sort of Mecca for outlaws throughoutthe neighbouring vicinity. The main "graft," or business, of the gang, was robbing merchandise cars, banks, post-offices, and doing what is called "slough work," robbing locked houses. The leader of the company, if such men can be said to have a leader, was New Orleans Tom, who is described as a typical Southern desperado. He had been a sailor before joining the gang, and claimed that during the Civil War he was captured by Union soldiers and sailors, while on theHarriet Lane, lying off Galveston. The gang grew in numbers as the years went on, and there is a second stage in its development when Danny the Soldier, as he was called, seems to have taken Slim's place in leadership. By 1880, although still not called "The Lake Shore Push," the gang had made a name for itself, or, rather, a "record," to use the word which the men themselves would have preferred, and had become known to tramps and criminals throughout northern Ohio and southern Michigan. The police got after them from time to time, and there were periods when theywere considerably scattered, but whenever they came together again, even in twos and threes, it was recognised that pals were meeting pals. When members of the gang died or were sent to limbo, it was comparatively easy to fill their places either with "talent" imported from other districts, or with local fellows who were glad to become identified with a mob. There has always been a rough element in such towns as Cleveland, Toledo, Erie, and Buffalo, from which gangs could be recruited; it is composed largely of "lakers," men who work on the lakes during the open season, and live by their wits in winter time. This class has contributed its full share to the criminal population of the country, and has always been heavily represented in mobs and gangs along the lake shore.
Opinions differ, Peg Kelley claims, as to when the name "Lake Shore Push" was first used by the gang, as well as to who invented it, but it is his opinion, and I have none better to offer, that it was late in the eighties when it was first suggested,and that it was outsiders, such as transient roadsters, who made the expression popular. He says, in regard to this point:
"The gang was known to hang out along the lake shore, an' mainly on the Lake Shore Road, an' 'boes from other States kep' seein' 'em an' hearin' about 'em when they came this way. Well, ye know how 'boes are. If they see a bloke holdin' down a district they give 'im the name o' the place, an' that's the way the gang got its monikey (nickname). The 'boes kep' talkin' about the push holdin' down the Lake Shore Road, an' after awhile they took to callin' it the 'Lake Shore Push.'
"Ev'ry 'bo in the country knows the name now. Way out in 'Frisco, 'f they know 't ye've come from 'round here they'll ask ye 'bout the push, if it's what it's cracked up to be, an' all that kind o' thing. It's got the biggest rep of any 'bo push in the country."
The story of how the "push" got its "rep" is best told by Peg, and in his own words. I have been at considerable painsto verify his statements, and have yet to discover him in wilful misrepresentation. He admits that the "push" has done some dastardly deeds, and appreciates perfectly why it is so hated by out-of-works who have to "beat" their way on trains which run through its territory, but he believes that it could not have been otherwise, considering the purpose for which the "push" was organised.
"Ye can't try to monopolise anythin', Cigarette," he said to me, "without gettin' into a row with somebody, an' that's been the 'xperience o' the push. When there was jus' that Cleveland gang, nobody said nothin', 'cause they didn't try to run things, but the minute the big push came ev'rybody was talkin', an' they're chewin' the rag yet."
"Who first thought of organising the big push?"
"I don't know 't any one bloke thought of it. It was at the time that trusts an' syndicates an' that kind o' thing was beginnin' to be pop'lar, an' the blokes had been readin' 'bout 'em in the newspapers.I was out West then,—it was in '89,—an' didn't know 'bout the push one way or the other, but from what the blokes tell me the idea came to all of 'em 'bout the same time. Ye see, that Cleveland gang had kep' growin' an' growin' an' spreadin' out, an' after awhile there was a big mob of 'em floatin' up an' down the road here. Blokes from other places had got into it, an' they'd got to be the biggest push on the line. There was no partickler leader, the way the James and Dalton gangs had leaders, an' there never has been. 'Course the newspapers try to make out that this fella an' that fella runs the thing, but they don't know what they're talkin' 'bout. The bigger the gang got, the more room it wanted, an' pretty soon they began to get a grouch on against the gay-cats that kep' comin' to their camps. Ye know how it is yourself. When ye've got 'customed to a push, ye don't want to have to mix with a lot o' strangers, an' that's the way the gang felt, an' they got to drivin' the gay-cats away from their camps. That started 'em to wonderin' why they shouldn't havethe Lake Shore Road all to themselves. As I was tellin' ye, trusts an' syndicates was gettin' into the air 'bout that time, an' the push didn't see why it couldn't have one too; an' they begun to have reg'lar fights with the gay-cats. I came into the push jus' about the time the scrappin' began. I ain't speshully fond o' scrappin', but I did like the idea o' dividin' up territory. There's no use talkin', Cig, if all the 'boes in the country 'ud do what we been tryin' to do, there'd be a lot more money in the game. Take the Erie Road, the Pennsy, the Dope,[1]an' the rest of 'em. Ye know as well as I do, 't if the 'boes on those lines 'ud organise an' keep ev'ry bum off of 'em 't wasn't in the push, an' 'ud keep the push from gettin' too large, they'd be a lot better off. 'Course there's got to be scrappin' to do the thing, but that don't need to interfere. See how the trusts an' syndicates scrap till they get what they want, an' see how many throats they cut. We've thrown bums off trains, I won't deny it, an' we hold up ev'ry oneof 'em 't we can get hold of, but ain't that what the trusts are doin', too?"
I asked him whether the "push" distinguished or not in the people it halted.
"If a reg'lar 'bo, a fella 't we know by name," he went on, "will open up an' tell us who he is, an' his graft, we'll let 'im go, but we tell 'im that the world's gettin' smaller 'n' smaller, 'n' 't he'd better get a cinch on a part of it, too. That don't mean 't he can join the push, an' he knows it. He understan's what we're drivin' at. He can ride on the road 'f he likes, but he'll get sick o' bein' by himself all the time, an' 'll take a mooch after awhile. 'Course all don't do it, ye've seen yerself that there's hunderds runnin' up an' down the line 't we ain't got rid of, an' p'r'aps never will. I ain't so dead sure that the thing's goin' to work, but the coppers'll never break us up, anyhow. They've been tryin' now for years, an' they've got some of the blokes settled, but we can fill their places the minute they've gone."
"How many are in the push?"
"'Bout a hunderd an' fifty. Sometimesthere's more an' sometimes there's less, but it aver'ges 'bout that."
"Do all the fellows come from around here?"
"No, not half of 'em. There's fellas from all over; a lot of 'em are Westerners."
"What is the main graft?"
"Well, we're diggin' into these cars right along. We got plants all along the road, from Buffalo to Chi. I can fit ye out in a new suit o' clothes to-morrow, 'f ye want to go up the line with me."
"Don't the railroad people trouble you?"
"O' course, they ain't lookin' on while we're robbin' 'em, but they can't do very much. We got the trainmen pretty well scared, an' when they get too rambunctious we do one of 'em up."
"Do you ever shift to other roads?"
"Lately we've branched out a little over on the Dope an' the Erie, but the main hang-outs are on the Shore. We know this road down to the ground, an' we ain't so sure o' the others. Most o' the post-office work, though, is done off this road."
"What kind of work is that?"
"Peter-work,[2]o' course, what d'ye think?"
"Pan out pretty well?"
"Don't get much cash, but the stamps are jus' about as good. Awhile ago I was payin' fer ev'rythin' in stamps. Felt like one o' the old fourth-class postmasters."
"Doesn't the government get after you?"
"Oh, it's settled some of us, but as I was tellin' ye, there's always fellas to take the empty places."
"Got much fall money?"
"No, not a bit. We don't save anythin', it all goes fer booze an' grub. I've seen a big box o' shoes go fer two kegs o' beer, an' ye can't get much fall money out o' that kind o' bargaining. We have a good time, though, an' we're the high-monkey-monks o' this road."
Later he introduced me to some of his companions. They were the same kindof men with whom the Englishman and I had had the disagreeable encounters,—rough and vicious-looking. "They're not bad fellas, are they?" Peg asked, when we were alone again. "You'd tie up to them, Cig, 'f ye was on the Shore, I know ye would."
It was useless to argue with him, and we separated, he to join a detachment of the "push" in western New York, and I to continue on my way westward. Since the meeting with Peg I have been back several times in the "push's" territory, and have continued to make acquaintances in it. In the tramp's criminal world it stands for the most successful form of syndicated lawlessness known up to date, and, unless soon broken up and severely dealt with, it will serve as a pattern for other organisations. Whether it is copied or not, however, when the history of crime in the United States is written, and a very interesting history it will be, the "Lake Shore Push" must be given by the historian a prominent place in his classification of criminal mobs.
It is a popular notion that tramps have a mysterious sign-language in which they communicate secrets to one another in regard to professional matters. It is thought, for instance, that they make peculiar chalk and pencil marks on fences and horse-blocks, indicating to the brotherhood such things as whether a certain house is "good" or not, where a ferocious dog is kept, at what time the police are least likely, or most likely, to put in an appearance, how late in the morning a barn can be occupied before the farmer will be up and about, and where a convenient chicken-coop is located.
Elaborate accounts have been written in newspapers about the amount of information they give to one another in thisway, and many persons believe that tramps rely on a sign-language in their begging.
It is well to state at the outset that this is a false conception of their methods. They all have jargons and lingoes of their own choosing and making, and they converse in them when among themselves, but the reported puzzling signs and marks which are supposed to obviate all verbal speech are a fabrication so far as the majority of roadsters are concerned. Among the "Blanket Stiffs" in the far West, and among the "Bindle Men," "Mush Fakirs," and "Turnpikers," of the middle West, the East, and Canada, there exists a crude system of marking "good" houses, but these vagrants do not belong to the rank and file of the tramp army, and are comparatively few in numbers.
It is furthermore to be said that the marking referred to is occasional rather than usual. Probably one of the main reasons why the public has imagined that tramps use hieroglyphics, in their profession is that when charity is shown to oneof them the giver is frequently plagued with a visitation from a raft of beggars.
This phenomenon, however, is easily explained without recourse to the sign-language theory. Outside of nearly all towns of ten thousand inhabitants and more the tramps have little camps or "hang-outs," where they make their headquarters while "working" the community. Naturally they compare notes at meal-time, and if one beggar has discovered what he considers an easy "mark,"—a good house,—he tells his pals about it, so that they may also get the benefit of its hospitality. The finder of the house cannot visit it himself again until his face has been forgotten, at any rate he seldom does visit it more than once during a week's stay in the town; but his companions can, so he tells them where it is, and what kind of a story they must use.
Although the hoboes do not make use of the marks and signs with which the popular fancy has credited them, they have a number of interesting theories about begging and a large variety of clever ruses todeceive people, and it is well for the public to keep as up-to-date in regard to these matters as they keep in regard to the public's sympathies. Not all tramps are either clever or successful; the "road" is travelled by a great many more amateurs than professionals, but it is the earnest endeavour of all at least to make a living, and there are thousands who make something besides.
Roughly estimated, there are from sixty to seventy-five thousand tramps in the United States, and probably a fifth of all may be classified as "first-class" tramps. There is a second and a third class, and even a fourth, but it is the "A Number One men," as they call themselves, who are the most interesting.
The main distinction between these tramps and the less successful members of the craft is that they have completely conquered the amateur's squeamishness about begging. It seems comparatively easy to go to a back door and ask for something to eat, and the mere wording of the request is easy,—all too easy,—but the hard part of the transaction is to screw up courageenough to open the front gate. The beginner in tramp life goes to a dozen front gates before he can brace himself for the interview at the back door, and there are men to whom a vagrant life is attractive who never overcome the "tenderfoot's" bashfulness.
It was once my lot to have a rather successful professional burglar for a companion on a short tramp trip in the middle West. We had come together in the haphazard way that all tramp acquaintanceships are formed. We met at a railroad watering-tank. The man's sojourn in trampdom, however, was only temporary; it was a good hiding-place until the detectives should give up the hunt for him. He had "planted" his money elsewhere, and meanwhile he had to take his chances with the "'boes."
He was not a man who would ordinarily arouse much pity, but a tramp could not have helped having sympathy for him at meal-time. At every interview he had at back doors he was seized with the "tenderfoot's" bashfulness, and duringthe ten days that our companionship lasted he got but one "square meal." His profession of robber gave him no assistance.
"I can steal," he said, "go into houses at night, and take my chances in a shootin' scrape, but I'll be —— if I can beg. 'Taint like swipin'. When ye swipe, ye don't ask no questions, an' ye don't answer none. In this business ye got to cough up yer whole soul jus' to get a lump (hand-out). I'd rather swipe."
This is the testimony of practically all beginners in the beggar's business; at the start thieving seems to them a much easier task. As the weeks and months pass by, however, they become hardened and discover that their "nerve" needs only to be developed to assert itself, and the time comes when nothing is so valuable that they do not feel justified in asking for it. They then definitely identify themselves with the profession and build up reputations as "first-class" tramps.
Each man's experience suggests to him how this reputation can best be acquired.One man, for example, finds that he does best with a "graft" peculiarly his own, and another discovers that it is only at a certain time of the year, or in a particular part of the country, that he comes out winner. The tramp has to experiment in all kinds of ways ere he understands himself or his public, and he makes mistakes even after an apprenticeship extending over years of time.
In every country where he lives, however, there is a common fund of experience and fact by which he regulates his conduct in the majority of cases. It is the collective testimony of generations and generations of tramps who have lived before him, and he acts upon it in about the same way that human beings in general act upon ordinary human experience.
Emergencies arise when his own ingenuity alone avails and the "average finding" is of no use to him, and on such occasions he makes a note on the case and reports about it at the next "hang-out" conclave. If he has invented something of real value, a good begging story, for instance, and itis generally accepted as good, it is labelled "Shorty's Gag," or "Slim's," as the man's name may be, and becomes his contribution to the general collection of "gags."
It is the man who has memorised the greatest number of "gags" or "ghost stories," as they are also called, and can handle them deftly as circumstances suggest, that is the most successful beggar. There are other requirements to be observed, but unless a man has a good stock of stories with which to "fool" people, he cannot expect to gain a foothold among "the blowed in the glass stiffs." He must also keep continually working over his stock. "Ghost stories" are like bonnets; those that were fashionable andcomme il fautlast year are this year out of date, and they must be changed to suit new tastes and conditions, or be replaced by new ones. Frequently a fresh version of an old story has to be improvised on the spot, so to speak.
The following personal experience illustrates under what circumstances "gags" are invented. It also shows how even theprofessionals forget themselves and their pose on occasions.
One morning, about eight years ago, I arrived in a small town in the Mohawk valley in company with a tramp called Indianapolis Red. We had ridden all night in a box-car in the hope of reaching New York by morning, but the freight had been delayed on account of a wreck, and we were so hungry when we reached the town in question that we simply had to get off and look for something to eat. It was not a place, as we well knew, where tramps were welcome, but the train would not stop again at a town of any size until long after breakfast, so we decided to take our chances.
We had an hour at our disposal until the next "freight" was due. The great question was what story we should tell, and we both rummaged through our collections to find a good one. Finally, after each of us had suggested a number of different stories and had refused them in turn, on the ground that they were too old for such a "hostile" place, Red suggestedthat we try "the deef 'n' dum' gag." There are several "gags" of this description, and I asked him which one he meant.
"Let's work it this way," he said, and he began to improvise. "I'm your deef 'n' dum' brother, see? An' we're on our way to New York, where I'm going to get a job. I'm a clerk, and you're seein' me down to the city so's't nothin'll happen to me. Our money's given out, an' we've simply got to ask fer assistance. We're ter'bly hungry, an' you want to know if the lady o' the house'll be good enough to help yer brother along. See?"
I "saw" all right, and accepted the proposition, but the odds seemed against us, because the town was one of the most unfriendly along the line. We picked out a house near the track. As a rule such houses have been "begged out," but we reasoned that if our story would go at all it would go there, and besides the house was convenient for catching the next freight-train.
As we approached the back door I was careful to talk to Red on my fingers, thinkingthat somebody might be watching us. A motherly old lady answered our knock. I told her Red's story in my best manner, filling it out with convincing details. She heard me out, and then scrutinised Red in the way that we all look at creatures who are peculiar or abnormal. Then she smiled and invited us into the dining-room where the rest of the family were at breakfast. It turned out to be a Free Methodist clergyman's household. We were given places at the table, and ate as rapidly as we could, or rather Red did; I was continually being interrupted by the family asking me questions about my "unfortunate brother."
"Was he born that way?" they asked, in hushed voices. "How did he learn to write? Can he ever get well?" and other like queries which I had to answer in turn. By the time I had finished my meal, however, I saw by a clock on the wall that we had still fifteen minutes to catch our train, and gave Red a nudge under the table as a hint that we ought to be going. We were about to get up and thank our hostessfor her kindness when the man of the house, the clergyman, suggested that we stay to family prayers.
"Glad to have you," he said; "if you can remain. You may get good out of it." I told him frankly that we wanted to catch a train and had only a few minutes to spare, but he assured me that he would not be long and asked me to explain the situation to Red. I did so with my fingers, telling the parson afterward that Red's wiggling of his fingers meant that he would be delighted to stay, but a wink of his left eye, meant for me alone, said plainly enough to "let the prayers go."
We stood committed, however, and there was nothing to do but join the family in the sitting-room, where I was given a Bible to read two verses, one for Red and one for myself. This part of the program finished, the parson began to pray. All went well until he came to that part of his prayer where he referred to the "unfortunate brother in our midst," and asked that Red's speech and hearing be restored.
Just then Red heard the whistle of ourfreight. He forgot everything, all that I had said and all that he had tried to act out, and with a wild whoop he sprang for the door, shouting back to me, as he went out:
"Hustle, Cigarette, there's our rattler."
There was nothing to do but follow after him as fast as my legs would carry me, and I did so in my liveliest manner. I have never been in the town since this experience, and it is to be hoped that the parson's family have forgiven and forgotten both Red and me.
Besides studying the persons of whom he begs, and to whom he adapts his "ghost stories" as their different natures require, the tramp also has to keep in mind the time of the day, the state of the weather, and the character of the community in which he is begging. I refer, of course, to the expert tramp. The amateur blunders on regardless of these important details, and asks for things which have no relation with the time of the day, the season, or the locality.
It is bad form, for instance, to ask earlyin the morning for money to buy a glass of whiskey, and it is equally inopportune to request a contribution toward the purchase of a railway ticket late at night. The "tenderfoot" is apt to make both of these mistakes; the expert, never. The steady patrons of beggars, and all old hands at the business have such, seldom realise how completely adjusted to local conditions "ghost stories" are. They probably think that they have heard the story told to them time and again and in the same way, but if they observe carefully they will generally find that, either in the modulation of the voice, or the tone of expression, it is different on rainy days, for instance, from what it is when the sun shines. It takes a trained ear to discriminate, and expert beggars realise that much of their finesse is lost even on persons who give to them; but they are artists in their way, and believe in "art for art's sake." Then, too, it is always possible that they will encounter somebody who will appreciate their talent, and this is also a gratification.
Speaking generally, there is more begging done in winter than in summer, and in the East and North than in the South and West; but some of the cleverest begging takes place in the warm months. It is comparatively easy to get something to eat and a bed in a lodging-house when the thermometer stands ten degrees below zero. A man feels mean in refusing an appeal to his generosity at this time of the year. "I may be cold and hungry some day myself," he thinks, and he gives the beggar a dime or two.
In summer, on the other hand, the tramp has no freezing weather to help him out, and has to invent excuses. Even a story of "no work" is of little use in the summer. This is the season, as a rule, when work is most plentiful, and when wages are highest, and the tramp knows it, and is aware that the public also understands this much of political economy. Nevertheless, he must live in summer as well as in winter, and he has to plan differently for both seasons.
The main difference between his summerand winter campaigns is that he generally travels in summer, taking in the small towns where people are less "on to him," and where there are all kinds of free "dosses" (places to sleep), in the shape of barns and empty houses. In November he returns to the cities again to get the benefit of the cold weather "dodge," or goes South to Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.
Probably fifteen thousand Eastern and Northern tramps winter in the South every year. Their luck there seems to be entirely individual; some do well and others barely live. They are all glad, however, to return to the North in April and go over their old routes again.
An amusing experience that I had not long ago illustrates the different kind of tactics necessary in the tramp's summer campaign. So far as I know, he has never made use of the story that did me such good service, and that was told in all truthfulness, but it has since occurred to me that he might find it useful, and I relate it here so that the reader may notbe taken unawares if some tramp should attempt to get the benefit of it.
I was travelling with some tramps in western Pennsylvania at the time, and we were "beating" our way on a freight-train toward a town where we expected to spend the night. Noontime found us all hungry, and we got off the train at a small village to look for lunch. It was such a small place that it was decided that each man should pick out his particular "beat," and confine his search to the few houses it contained. If some failed to get anything, those who were more successful were to bring them back "hand-outs."
My "beat" was so sparsely settled that I hardly expected to get so much as a piece of bread, because the entire village was known to hate tramps; but an inspiration came to me as I was crossing the fields, and I got a "set-down" and a "hand-out" at the first house I visited.
The interview at the back door ran thus:
"Madam,"—she was rather a severe-looking woman,—"I have exactly fivecents in my pocket and I am awfully hungry. I know that you don't keep a boarding-house, but I have come to you thinking that you will give me more for my nickel than the storekeeper will over in the village. I shall be obliged to you if you will help me out."
A look of surprise came into the woman's face. I was a new species to her, and I knew it, and she knew it.
"Don't know whether we've got anything you want," she said, as if I were a guest rather than a wayfarer.
"Anything will do, madam, anything," I replied, throwing into my words all the sincerity of which a hungry man is capable. She invited me into the dining-room, and gave me a most satisfying meal. There were no conversational interruptions. I ate my meal in silence and the woman watched me. The new species interested her.
Just as I was finishing, she put some sandwiches, cake, and pie into a newspaper. I had made a good impression.
"There," she said, as I was about to go. "You may need it."
I held out my nickel and thanked her. She blushed, and put her hands behind her back.
"I don't keep a hotel," she said, rather indignantly.
"But, madam, I want to pay you. I'm no beggar."
"You wouldn't have got it if you had been. Good-bye."
The tramps' methods of begging, as has been said, are largely regulated by circumstances and experience, but even the amateurs have theories about the profession, and they are never more interesting than when sitting around some "hang-out" camp-fire, discussing their notions of the kind of "ghost stories" that go best with different sorts of people. Indeed, the bulk of their time is passed in conferences of this character. Each man, like the passionate gambler, has a "system," and he enjoys "chewing the rag" about its intricacies. The majority of the systems are founded on the tramp's knowledge of women. Taking the country by and large, he sees more of women on hisbegging tours than of men, and it is only natural that his theoretical calculations should be busied mainly with women. Some tramps believe that they can tell to a nicety what a blonde woman will give in excess of a brunette, or vice versa, and the same of a large woman in contra-distinction to a small one. Much of their theorising in these matters is as futile as is the gambler's estimate of his chances of luck, but certain it is that after a long apprenticeship they become phenomenally accurate in "sizing up" people; and it is he who can correctly "size up" the greatest number of people at first glance and adapt himself to their peculiarities, that comes out winner in the struggle.
Next in importance to the ability to appraise correctly the generous tendencies of his patrons, and to modulate his voice and to concoct stories according to their tastes, come the tramp's clothes and the way he wears them. It probably seems to most persons that the tramp never changes his clothes, and that he always looks as tattered and torn as when they happento see him, but the expert has almost as many "changes" as the actor. Some days he dresses very poorly; this is generally the case in winter; and on other days he looks as neat and clean as the ordinary business man. It all depends on the weather and the "beat" he has chosen for the day's work. Every morning, before he starts out on his tour, he takes a look at the weather and decides upon his "beat." The "beat" selected, he puts on the "togs" which he thinks suit the weather, and away he goes for better or worse. In New York city there are probably a hundred scientific beggars of this character, and they live as well as does the man with a yearly income of $2,000.
Sunday is the most dismal day in the week to the average tramp,—the beggar who is content with his three meals a day and a place to lie down in at night. But few men who go on tramp for the first time expect that Sunday is going to be any different from any other day in the week. They usually reach "the road" on a week-day after a debauch, and they findthat their soiled clothes and general unkempt condition differentiate them in public thoroughfares very little from hundreds of workingmen. No policeman worries them with suspicious glances, and in large cities they pass unchallenged even in the dead of night. Indeed, they receive so little notice from any one that they wonder how they had ever imagined that outcasts were such marked human beings.
Then comes their first Sunday. They get up out of their hayloft, or wherever it may be that they lay down the night before, prepared to look for their breakfast just as they did on the previous day, and after brushing off their clothes and washing themselves at some pump or public faucet, they start out. In a small town they feel that something is wrong before they have gone a block, and by nine o'clock in large towns they decide to go without their breakfast if they have not yet got it. A change has come over the earth; they seem out of place even to themselves, and they return through back streets to their lodging-houses or retreats on the outskirtsof the town, sincerely regretting that they are travellers of "the road."
A number of men in the world have to thank this Sunday nausea that they are to-day workers and not tramps. The latter feel the effects of it to the end of their days; it is as unescapable as death, but like certain seafaring men who never get entirely free of seasickness and yet continue as sailors, so old vagabonds learn to expect and endure the miserable sensations which they experience on the first day of the week. These sensations are due to the remnant of manhood which is to be found in nearly all tramps. The majority of them are for all practical purposes outcasts, but at breakfast-time, on Sunday morning, they have emotions which on week-days no one would give them credit for.
It was my fate, some years ago, to be one of a collection of wanderers who had to while away a Sunday in a "dugout" on a bleak prairie in western Kansas. We had nothing to eat or drink and practically nothing to talk about except ourdismal lot. Toward nightfall we got to discussing in all earnestness the miserableness of our existence, and I have always remembered the remarks of a fellow sufferer whom we called "West Virginia Brown." He was supposed to be the degenerate scion of a noble English family, and was one of the best educated men I have ever met in Hoboland. He took little part in the general grumbling, but at last there was a lull in the conversation, and he spoke up.
"I wonder," he said, "whether the good people who rest on Sunday, go to church, and have their best dinner in the week, realise how life is turned upside down for us on that day. There have always been men like us in the world, and it is for us as much as for any one, so far as I know, that religion exists, and yet the day in the week set apart for religion is the hardest of all for us to worry through. Was it, or wasn't it, the intention that outcasts were to have religion? The way things are now, we are made to look upon Sunday and all that it means with hatred, and yetI don't believe that there's any one in the world who tries to be any squarer to his pals than we do, and that's what I call being good."
The last "the road" knew of Brown, he was serving a five years' sentence in a Canadian prison. His lot cannot be pleasant, but methinks that on Sundays, at least, he is glad that he is not "outside."
As a political party the tramps cannot be said to amount to much. Counting "gay-cats" and hoboes, the two main wings of the army, they are numerous enough, if concentrated in a single State, or in a city like New York, to cast, perhaps, the determining vote in a close election, but they are so scattered that they never become a formidable political organisation. They are more in evidence in the East than in the West, and in the North than in the South, but they are to be met in every State and Territory in the Union. On account of their migratory habits very few of them are legally entitled to vote, and the probability is that only a small fraction of them actively take part in elections. In large cities like NewYork, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, and during fiercely fought political struggles even in some of the smaller towns, they are collected into colonies by unscrupulous electioneering specialists, and paid to vote as they are told, but otherwise they make very little effort to have their voices count in political affairs. Two of their number, Indiana Blackie and Railroad Jack, have achieved some notoriety as stump speakers, and Blackie was a man who might have secured political preferment,—a consulship, perhaps,—if he had understood how to keep sober, but he broke down during a campaign in West Virginia, and was drowned not long after in the Ohio River. In Wheeling, West Virginia, I heard him make one of the wittiest political speeches I have ever heard anywhere, and his hearers listened to him as attentively as a few evenings before they had listened to a famous politician. The speech was no sooner ended, however, than Blackie went off on a terrible "jag," and I saw him at noon the next day, looking for a wash-boiler.He was splattered all over with mud, and did not know whether he was in West Virginia or Indiana. He finally concluded from the colour of the mud that he was out in Wyoming.
Although the tramps have no comprehensive political organisation, and take but little interest in voting, except when their ballots bring in hard cash, they are great talkers on political questions of the day, and are continually championing the cause of some well-known political leader. As a class, they may be calledGeister die stets verneinen,—they are almost invariably in opposition to the party in power. Since the last presidential election Mr. William Jennings Bryan has been their hero, and they expect of him, if his ambition to be President is ever gratified, a release from all the troubles which they think are now oppressing the country, and particularly themselves. They have, without doubt, misconstrued a great deal that Mr. Bryan has said in his speeches and writings; they have pinned their faith to him without carefully considering his promises;but in something that he has said or done, or in his personality, they have discovered, they think, the elements of leadership, which, for the nonce, at any rate, they admire. There is not a man in the country at the present moment, for whom they would shout as much, and in whose honour they would get so drunk, as for Mr. Bryan. They know very little concerning his theories about silver, beyond the expression, "The Cross of Gold," and they are very scantily informed in regard to his notions about expansion and imperialism, but he represents for them, as probably no other political leader ever did, upheaval and revolution, and it is on such things that they expect to thrive.
The place to hear them talk and to get acquainted with their political views is at the "hang-out." Practically any nook or corner where they can lie down at night is a "hang-out" to them, but as most of their life is spent on the railroads their main gathering points are little camps built alongside the track. Here they sleep, eat, wait for trains, and "chew the rag."Much of their conversation is confined to purely professional matters, but every now and then, at some large camp, a roadster will make a slurring remark about this or that political leader, or a paragraph in a newspaper in regard to a "burning" question of the hour will be read aloud, and the confab begins. The topic that started it is soon smothered under a continually accumulating pile of fresh ones, but that does not matter, the "hang-out" never settles anything; it takes up one thing after the other in rapid succession, as fancy dictates, and one must listen carefully merely to catch the drift of what is said. The sentences are short and broken, and a word often suffices to kill what promised to be a lengthy discussion. The old men speak first, the young men next, and the boys are supposed to keep quiet and listen. Sometimes, when "booze" accompanies the talk, the age distinctions are temporarily overlooked, and all speak together; but this kind of a conclave finally ends in a free fight, to which politics and everything else are subordinated.
The burden of practically all the palavers is "the way the country is going to the dogs." It comes as natural to the average tramp to declare that the United States is in dire peril as it does to the German socialist to say that Germany is a miserablePolizei-Staat. He does not honestly believe all that he says, and it needs but a scurrilous remark about our country from some foreign roadster to startle him into a pugnacious patriotism; but in the bosom of his "hang-out" he takes delight in explaining what a bad plight the country is in. This is really his political creed. Free trade, protection, civil service reform, the currency question, pensions, and expansion are mere side issues in his opinion. The real issue is what he considers the frightful condition of our "internal affairs." From Maine to California the tramps may be heard chattering by the hour on this topic, and they have singled out Mr. Bryan as their spokesman because they think that he voices their pessimism better than any other man in public view.
It came as a surprise to me, when first getting acquainted with tramps, to find that they were such grumblers and critics,—suchNörgler, as Kaiser Wilhelm says. I had pictured them as a class which managed to live more or less successfully whether any one else got on or not, and had imagined that they were, comparatively speaking, at peace with the world. That they troubled themselves with public questions and political problems was a thought that had not occurred to me. The fact is, however, that they are as fierce political partisans as the country contains, and in talking with them one must be careful not to let an argument go beyond what in polite society would be considered rather narrow bounds. They are quick to resort to fists in all discussions, and in my intercourse with them it has paid best to let them do most of the talking when politics has been the topic of conversation.
It would take a book, and a large one at that, to report all the evidence that they advance at "hang-out" conferences in supportof their statements concerning the evils from which they believe the country is now suffering, but no account of their political notions, no matter how short, should fail to take note of their rantings against capital, and what they consider the political corruption of the country. Nearly every conversation they have on politics begins with some wild assertion in regard to one of these topics, and Mr. Bryan's name is invariably dragged into the discussion. They believe that he hates the man who has saved money and understands how to make it earn more, quite as much as they do, and they will be very much disappointed in him, in case he is ever elected President, if he does not suggest legislation by which the rich man can be made "to shell out his coin." On no subject do the tramps use such violent language as on this one of the capitalist. They think that it is he who has imported all the foreign labour in the country,—another eyesore in their opinion; who has made England the real "boss" of things on this side of the Atlantic,—anotion which they claim to have dug out of Mr. Bryan's speeches; who has reduced the wages of the "poor workingman" and increased the cost of living; and, worst of all, who is now trying to take away from them what they consider their inalienable railway privileges.
They hold him answerable also for the trusts and syndicates, agitation against which they require from any political party in which they take an interest. They have thought seriously over these matters about as much as a ten-year-old child has, but that does not matter. They do not propose to think hard about anything. Mr. Bryan is for the present doing all the thinking which they consider necessary, and they are content merely to repeat in their own jargon statements which he has made, or which they think he has made. He has become for them an infallible oracle, who understands them and their position, and whom they understand. In the bottom of their hearts they know that they are deserving of precious little championship, that they lead despicable lives,and commit some very reprehensible deeds; but it is a consolation to them which they cannot let go, to think that Mr. Bryan includes them in his classification of victims of the "gold bugs," so they try to make propaganda for him.
The time was when many of them shouted for Henry George and "General" Coxey as vociferously as they now shout for Bryan. They expected from George and Coxey the same overthrow of their imaginary oppressors and general upheaval of things that they now look forward to from Mr. Bryan. They were once also enamoured of Mr. Blaine, but for a different reason. They admired the way he championed the cause of Americans who got into trouble in foreign parts. When he was Secretary of State it was a temporary fad among them to scold about the way Americans were treated abroad, and on one occasion, the details of which I have forgotten, Mr. Blaine pleased them immensely by insisting on the release of an American who had been falsely arrested in some foreign port.
They are particularly entertaining when talking about the corruption in the country. They discuss this question with all the seriousness of professional moralists and reformers, and it seems never to occur to them that there is any inconsistency in their attitude toward the matter. An amusing instance of their lack of perception in this particular came to my notice in Columbus, O., where I was temporarily on duty as a railroad police officer. One morning, word came that Mr. Bryan was expected to arrive about noon. He was to give a talk to his local admirers. There were about two hours between the time I received notice of his coming and the hour of his arrival, and I put them in strolling about the streets, seeing whether there were any light-fingered gentry in the town whom I knew. In the course of my wanderings I dropped into a saloon in one of the side streets where a man, whom I recognised as a "hobo gun,"—a tramp pickpocket,—was holding forth in loud language on the "poleetical c'rupshun" in the country,and in Ohio in particular. He made the usual platitudinous remarks about this matter, to which his drunken hearers listened with approval, and wound up his harangue with a eulogy on Mr. Bryan, who was "the one honest man in the land." When Mr. Bryan arrived at the railroad station, my companions and I had to be on watch to see that his pockets as well as those of the people crowding about him were not picked, and whom should I find prowling about suspiciously in the throng, but the loud-mouthed reformer of the saloon! He was looking hard for a pocket to "nick," but some one must have "tipped off" the "fly cops" to him, for he disappeared before long as mysteriously as he had appeared, and without any plunder, for no "leather" was "lifted" on that occasion.
Not all of the tramps' political talk is merely negative and critical; some of it is also positive and constructive. They think that they know what they want in the way of government, as well as what they do not want. Speaking generally, they favour acrude kind of state socialism, to be prefaced, however, by a general cataclysm, in which existing conditions are to be entirely revolutionised, and out of which the poor, and more particularly the outcast, are to come victorious. They make no attempt to elaborate in conversation the details either of the convulsion, or of the new order of things which is to follow; generalities alone interest them, and they scorn inquiries as to how their theories are to be put into practice. That Mr. Bryan is in sympathy with their notions of the extensive powers that the government ought to have is proved for them by the fact that he believes that silver can be given its rightful place in our monetary system merely by an enactment of Congress, or by command of the President. They recognise no laws in politics other than those which man makes. That there are natural laws and economic facts, over which man has no control, is a matter which they have never taken into consideration. I refer to the rank and file of the tramp army. There are individual menwho do not subscribe to what I have given as the political philosophy of the majority of the tramps,—men, indeed, who laugh at the thought of a tramp having any political notions at all,—but they are exceptions. The average roadster considers himself as justified in stating his political beliefs, and working for them, if he is so inclined, as does the workingman,—even more, because he thinks that he has time to formulate his ideas, whereas the workingman is kept busy merely earning his bread.
As agitators and propagandists the tramp is mainly in evidence at big strikes. In the last fifteen years there has not been a notable railroad strike in the country in which he has not taken part either as a helper in destroying property, or as a self-elected "walking delegate." The more damage the strikers achieve, the more he is pleased, because he believes, as said above, that it is only upon ruins that the government he desires can be founded. When a train of cars is derailed or burned, he considers the achievement a contributionto the general downfall of the rich and favoured classes. He also has the antiquated notion of political economy, that when a thing has been rendered useless by breakage or incendiarism the workingman is benefited, because the thing must be replaced, and labour must be employed to do it,—hence it pays the poor to effect as much destruction as possible. It would be unjust to Mr. Bryan to say that the tramp has got this notion from him, but the trouble is that Mr. Bryan preaches from texts so easily misunderstood by the class of people to which tramps and criminals belong, that he does a great deal of harm to the country, and materially hurts his own cause. Not only the tramp, but thousands of workingmen expect of him, in case he is successful in his ambition, things which he can no more give than can the humblest of his admirers; yet both the tramp and the workingman believe that they have promises from him which justify them in expecting what they do. He is a victim of his own "gift of gab," as the tramp dubs his oratory. Hehas talked so much and so loosely that the tramp has read into his words assurance of changes which he can never bring about. Of course it is not to be expected that he or any other man in his position should put much store by what such a constituency as the tramps thinks of him, but the tramp's exaggerated notions of his policy are symptomatic of the man's influence on people. What the tramp particularly likes about him is his doctrine of discontent; they would drop him like a hot coal if he should admit that the country was in a proper condition. A great many other people, who are not tramps, tie to him for the same reason. He is the idolpar excellenceof persons who have nothing to lose whether he succeeds or fails. He has promised them great benefits if they will help him to office, and as in the case of the tramp, it costs them nothing to shout and vote for him.