The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1877-06-21
"TRAMPS."

The New York Herald has an edi-
torial headed 1.-The Brutal Tramps.'
The adjective by which that journal
attempts to characterize large class
of unfortunate human beings is in
truth not inapplicable to the article
referred to. Extracts from the statute
books are freely quoted to show that
call persons having no visible means
of subsistence" may be arrested and
sent to jail. Well, there are two mil
lions such persons in this country to-
dav. Two millions who are able and
willing to work, but who are not per-
mitted to work-WhOse hands are
chained to enforced idleness by that
policy which the Gold Ring and Eng
lish Free-Traders, aided, we regret to
say, by the Herald itself, have made
triumphant in the land. Are you
going to arrest these millions!
But those cramps will not work,
says the Herald. They don't want to
work. How does the Herald writer
know that If the writer OF that ar
ticle had only taken the trouble to
look into the columns of the Herald
itself and note the failures in bust
ness, the closing Of factories, the re-
peated reductions in wages, the
throwing out of work Of multitudes,
and the suicides Of idle men-he
might not have written as he has.
Give them work-give the whole peo-
pie plenty of work-and then, but not
till then, will you be in a position to
point your finger at men who have
''nO visible means Of Subsistence.
The Herald doesn't cite a solitary
instance Of proffered work rejected by
ga tramp"
Some of the men thus held in en-
forced idleness, off and on the past
three years, have come to the cOnclu-
sion ito tramp it out of the country
altogether. Every week a ship of
American workingmen leave for Aus
tralia. Read this:
s.Three hundred and fifty or more
emigrants, the third batch sent out
from this port New York; to sgd
ney, New South Wales, will sail next
Saturday in the ship Annie III. Smith.
All these people devoutedly, believe
that they can better their for
tunes by emigrating to a new colony
All the men are proficient in trades
They are of good moral character
, sober and Industrious, and leave here
only because they are unable to sup
port their families while the factories
and workshops are running half and
quarter time
These people have ''tramped' anC
} 'stramped' and ''tramped" through
the streets of New York trying to gel
, work-trying to find ''some visible
means for subsistence" for them
selves and families-but in vain! Ye1
, they are all proficient in trades" O.
.sgood moral character" "sober ant
industrious" What is the matter
Is America over populated. No. Are
our resources exhausted No. Some
/ thing is wrong. What is the matter
: Tramp" This is a new word il
7 our vocabulary. Five years ago there
| were comparatively no trampS in tn,
e United States. For one then Their,
S twenty now. What is the caase
n Ask Wendell Phillips. Ask Genera
Butler. Ask Judge Kelley, Asl
l. Peter Cooper, Judge Campbell. Nose
y w. Field. Ask those reformers VIII
y have labored for the protection 0
;. home industry and the liberation o
0 the peoples money from the hands O
an infamous conspiracy. Ask an
man with mind to think and hear
to feel. But do not ask the cor
scienceless Bohemian who writes, nc
I to educate, but to fill space in news
:. paper.-rish World.