Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1890-03-08
The Tramp a Phenomenon.

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The Philadelphia Press is denounc-
ing tramps as "skulking pirates" and
demanding law for their suppression.
There might be fewer tramps if some
of the laws we have already were re-
pealed, but it is certain that they cannot
be suppressed by new legislation.
Many people regard the tramp as viii
full criminal. He may be so in a large
number of given cases, but as a rule he
is simply phenomenon, easily explain
able by any moderately close observer
of our social and economic conditions.
This country is becoming more and
more a country of cities into which me-
chanics and laborers are forced by the
necessity of earning living. The mod.
ern mechanic of the city, outside of 8
few trades, is very generally factory
operative. The modern shoemaker can
not make shoe. He can do nothing
more than run a machine which makes
parts of shoe. Say that there are five
shoe factories, or ten or fifteen, in the
city where he resides. He loses his
place, and seeking employment, in all
the others, finds none. He does not
wish to leave the city, and remains
hunting work until his small savings
are exhausted. Then he must go else
where. He would go il parlor-car il
he could, but as he cannot he walks or
goes in a freight-car, with or without
the connivance of some benevolent
brakeman who knows more of the prac-
teal workings of American political
economy than some more learned peo-
pie. When this tramp stops on his way
to ask for something to eat, the very
people who may be wearing shoes made
cheap by the same causes which made
him a tramp may set the dog on him,
or, what is worse than the dog, the vii
lage constable, who for the sake of some
small fees will commit him to the moi
some village lookup and prosecute him
into the county work-house for six
months in default of fine he has not
the money to pay. Where this happens
to any honest man, the people RESPONSE
BILE for it are more criminal than the
whole army of petty larcenists, for the
oppression and consequent suffering
they cause by their ignorance is far
greater.
This is not "sentimentality." We adj
wise no one who does not feel moved to
kindness for tramps and other unfortu-
nate or vicious people to believe that he
is perhaps as vicious or that he may
become as unfortunate as they. We
merely state the known fact that the
working population of the cities is to
great extent shifting one; that the
Capitalization in nearly all lines of pro-
duction limits opportunities for finding
work in particular lines of production
to few factories in each city, so that
an operative thrown out suddenly will
probably be forced to go to another city
to find work-on foot if he is too poor
to pay his fare. Tramps did not exist
in this country prior to the existence of
these conditions. People who wish to
suppress tramps should strike, not at
the tramp, but at the conditions pro-
ducing him.
If this were understood as it should
be, it might save much oppression. A
former tramp who is prosperous in a
Southern iron town, not long ago wrote
q grateful letter and returned a small
loan to Judge Cady of the st. ouis
Police Court. Judge Cady once had it
in his power to ruin this mans life by
setting him to breaking rocks for half a
year with thieves and criminals, but,
understanding that the tramp is a phe-
nomenon, he helped him to increased
usefulness by word of encouragement
and the loan of % cents. It was not
much, but it went long away.
Any given tramp may be a criminal,
but the tramp is a phenomenon showing
a reality of perverted political economy.
No matter how tramps, are treated, this
fact should not be forgotten.-S Louis