Notes of an Itinerant Policeman Part 4

"I hustle for my grub the way hoboes do,--it's easy enough."

"I should think a workingman like yourself would hate to do that."

"I used to a little, but I got over it. You got to help yourself in this world, 'n' I'm learnin' how to do it, too."

The nationality of the "gay-cats" is mainly American. A large number have parents who were born in Europe, but they themselves were born in this country, and there are thousands whose families have been settled here for several generations.

What I have said in regard to the unemployed young men applies also, in a measure, to the old men; the latter, in many cases, are as much the victims of _Wanderl.u.s.t_ as are their youthful companions: but there are certain special facts which go to explain their vagabondage. The older men are more frequently confirmed drunkards than are the younger men.

Occasionally during the past year I have met an aged out-of-work who was a "total abstainer," but nine-tenths of all the mature men were by their own confession hard drinkers. Whether their loose habits are also answerable for their love of carping and criticising, and their notion that they alone know how the world should be run, it is impossible for me to say; but certain it is that their continual grumbling and scolding against those who have been more persevering than they is another of the causes which have brought them to their present unfortunate state. Men who are unceasingly finding fault with their lot, and yet make no serious attempt to better it, cannot "get on" very far in this country, or in any other.

This type of out-of-work exists everywhere, in Germany, Russia, England, and France as well as in the United States, but I am not sure that our particular civilisation, or rather our form of government, has not a tendency to develop it here a little more rapidly than in any other country which I have explored.

It is a popular notion in the United States that every American has the right to say what he thinks, and my finding is that the love of speaking one's mind is exceedingly strong among the uneducated people of the country. Agitators, who go among them, are partly to blame for this, and I have observed that a number of the expressions used by the "gay-cats"

are the stock phrases of socialistic propagandists, but there is something in the air they breathe that seems to incite them to untempered speech. In Germany, where there is certainly far more governmental interference to rant about, and among an equally intelligent cla.s.s of out-of-works who are not allowed for an instant the freedom of movement permitted the same cla.s.s in America, there is no such wild talk as is to be heard among our unemployed. I have met scores of old men on the railroads whom long indulgence in unconsidered language has incapacitated for saying anything good about any one of our inst.i.tutions, as they conceive them, and they begrudge even their companions a generous word. Such men, it seems to me, must necessarily go to the wall, and although a few, perhaps, can advance evidence to show that circ.u.mstances over which they had no control brought them low, the majority of those that I know have themselves to blame for their present vagabondage.

It is furthermore to be remarked concerning these aged out-of-works that pride and unwillingness to take work outside of their trades have also been causes of their bankruptcy. The same is true, to some extent, of all sorts of unemployed men, young and old, but it is particularly true of "gay-cats" who have pa.s.sed their thirty-fifth year. I have known them to tramp and beg for months rather than accept employment which they considered beneath their training and intelligence.

It has been a revelation to me to a.s.sociate with these men and see how determined they are that the employing cla.s.s shall have no opportunity to say: "Ah, ha! we told you so!" Many of them have given up their positions in a pet, and taken to the "road," with the idea that if they cannot get what they want they will make the world lodge and feed them for nothing. To bring out clearly their point of view, I will describe a man whom I travelled with in Illinois. He had been without employment for over eight months when I met him, and had just pa.s.sed his forty-second year. He expected to get work again before long, and was pa.s.sing the time away, until the position was ready for him, travelling up and down the Illinois Central Railroad. He was a carpenter by profession, and claimed that for over five years he had never worked at any other occupation, when he worked at all.

"I put in three hard years learnin' to be a carpenter," he said, "an' I ain't goin' to learn another trade now. For awhile I used to take all kinds o' jobs when I got hard up, but I've got over that. It's carpenterin' or nothin' with me from now on. You got to put your foot down in this country or you won't get on at all.

"If I was married 'n' had kids, o' course I'd have to crawl 'n' take what I could get, but, seein' I ain't, I'm goin' to be just as stuck up as any other man that's got somethin' to sell. That's what all men like us in this country ought to do. The rich have got it into their heads that they can have us when they want us, 'n' kick us out when they don't want us, 'n' that's what they've been doin' with the most of us. They ain't goin' to play with me any more, though. Ten years ago I was better off than I am now, 'n' I'd be in good shape to-day if it hadn't been for one o' them trusts."

"Are you not at all to blame for your present condition?" I asked, knowing that the man was fond of whiskey. He thought a moment, and then admitted that he might have squandered less money on "booze," but he believed that he was ent.i.tled to the "fun" that "booze" brings.

"'Course we workingmen drink," he explained, "'n' a lot of us gets on our uppers, but ain't we got as much right to get drunk 'n' have a good time as the rich? I'm runnin' my own life. When I want work I'll work, 'n' when I don't I won't. What we men need is more independence. What the devil 'ud become o' the world if we refused to work? Couldn't go on at all. That's what I keep tellin' my carpenter pals. 'Don't take nothin' outside o' your trade,' I tell 'em, 'n' then the blokes with no trades'll have a better chance.' But you know how it is,--you might as well tell the most of 'em not to eat. I have had a little sense knocked into me. You don't catch me workin' outside o' my trade. I'd rather b.u.m."

And, unless he got the job he expected, he is probably still "on the road."

Enough, perhaps, has already been said to indicate the general trend of the philosophy of the "gay-cats," but this account of them will fail to do them justice if I do not quote them in regard to such matters as government, religion, and democracy. It has never been my privilege to hear them contribute anything particularly valuable to a better understanding of the questions they discuss, but it seems fitting to report upon some of their conclaves, if only to show how they pa.s.s away much of their time. They have an unconquerable desire to express themselves on all occasions and on all subjects, and it is no exaggeration to say that two-thirds of their day pa.s.ses in talk.

In regard to the government under which we live, the favourite expression used to characterise it was the word "fake."

"Republic!" I heard a man exclaim one day; "this ain't no republic. It's run by the few just as much as Russia is. There ain't no real republic in existence. You and I are just as much slaves as the negroes were."

Not all stated their opinions so strongly as this, and there were some who believed that on paper, at least, we have a democratic form of government, but the prevailing notion seemed to be that it was only on paper. The Republican party is considered as derelict as the Democratic by these critics. Neither organisation, they contend, is trying to live up to what a republic ought to stand for, and they see no hope, either for themselves or anybody else, in any of the existing political parties. When quizzed about our Const.i.tution and the functions of the various departments of the government, they all show deplorable ignorance, but it avails nothing to take them to task on this ground.

"They guessed they knew the facts just about as well as anybody else,"

and that was supposed to end the matter.

Religion, which the majority of the men with whom I talked took to be synonymous with the word church, was another favourite topic of discussion. Indeed, as I look back now over my conversations with the "gay-cats," it seems to me that there was more said on this subject than any other, and I have observed its popularity as a topic of conversation among unemployed men in other countries as well. There is something about it which is very attractive to men who are vagrants, as they think, because of circ.u.mstances over which they had no control, and they sit and talk by the hour about what they think the church ought to do, and wherein it fails to accomplish that which it is supposed to have for a purpose. The men that I met think that the reason that the church in this country is not more successful in getting hold of people is because it neglects its duties to the poor.

"Here you and I are," a young mechanic remarked to me, as we sat in the cold at a railroad watering-tank, "and what does any church in this town care about us? Ten chances to one that, excepting the Catholic priest, every clergyman we might go to for a.s.sistance would turn us down. Is that Christianity? Is that the way religion is going to make you and me any better? Not on your life. I tell you, the church has got to take more interest in me before I am going to go out of my way to take much interest in it."

"But the church is not a public poor-house," I remonstrated. "You and I are no more excused than other people from earning our living. If the church had to take care of all the people who think they're poor, it would go bankrupt in a day."

"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 pa.s.s. 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 circ.u.mstances the most inspired church in the world could not do much with them. They are victims of the pa.s.sion 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 circ.u.mstances 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LAKE Sh.o.r.e PUSH.

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 trespa.s.sers. 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 travelled during 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 Sh.o.r.e 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 Sh.o.r.e 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 we also 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 ent.i.tled 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 seen anywhere. 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 Sh.o.r.e 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 s.n.a.t.c.hing up an empty sand-bucket, he took a defensive position, and said:

"Come on, now, if you blokes want a sc.r.a.p. 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-buckets and pieces of board and made ready to a.s.sist 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 inst.i.tution 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 the same 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 a.s.sociation 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 Sh.o.r.e 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 ident.i.ty; 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 Sh.o.r.e 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 Sh.o.r.e tracks to the west, until I came to the coal-chutes, where tramp camps are to be found the year 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 suspense as 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, b.u.t.ter, 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 gla.s.s 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 cla.s.sified 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 sc.r.a.p with 'em. There's enough of us this mornin' to lay 'em out."

"Who are they?"

"Some o' the Lake Sh.o.r.e 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.