Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1892-10-24

l
and finally the permanently unem-
ployed.
1t is estimated that there is class of
| 5000, 900 unemployed in the United
| States. From the ranks of this class are
recruited the last hopeless battalion
the tramps. These people are popular
| ly classed as "a danger and menace to
| our civilization" But / hold that the
| present civilization is a danger and men
ace to the whole working class of this
country, for no workingman, however
prosperous, who depends upon the sale
of his labor in the competitive market
can be sure that the yeriest chance may
not make him tramp tomorrow.
The police and the tramps seem to be
natural enemies. Seldom, by any
chance, do they speak well of each other.
No matter how kind hearted police
man may be he has no mercy or pity for
tramp. For the tlamps the policeman
represents the society which hunts them
| down and proscribes them, and they
shiver and cover before the power of its
representatives. Nothing human could
be more abject than the manner and
attitude of tramp in the presence of a
policeman. At his slightest word or
move they skulk off and need no COM
mand to "move on"
A new and one of the saddest features
of tramp life is the large and increasing
number of woman tramps. The police
man in charge of Paradise park states
that between seventy and seventy-fve
women sleep nightly on its benches.
Anything more inexpressibly degraded
and repulsive than these women tramps
l have never seen. "And still" this po
liceman added, "these tramps were once
all hardworking people"
At $3.50 p. IN. | met my police guide at
the music stand in Battery park for the
purpose of making tour of the park
and interviewing its dodgers. 1t is one
of the most picturesque of the city
parks, and on this clear, starry night
one could not have looked upon a more
beautiful scene than the park and bay,
or one more typically American. Above
the background of trees arose huge
and manufactures; before us stretched
the beautiful bay dotted with vessels
bringing and carrying the wealth of the
world. Peace and prosperity seemed to
brood over all, but it was only seeming.
In the midst of all this apparent pros
perity and content there was a dark un-
dercurrent of human misery and degra-
dation. In the shadows Of the lofty
buildings, under the clumps of beautiful
flowery shrub and tree-aye, even in the
hooks and crannies of old Fort Clinton,
which reminded us of the glad begin
nings of our national existence, when
we proudly proclaimed to the world
that "all men are created free and
euual"-lurked hundreds of human be-
ings to whom the words equality, lib
erty and happiness" were but bitter
mockery, and who furnish the most
damning evidence that already our
young civilization is rotten to the core.
| We wended our way toward the old
fort, formerly inclosed and used as a
part of Castle Garden. Here from every
one of its twenty or thirty portfolios pro-
jected two pairs of feet, belonging as we
found to its two dodgers, who with a
stone for pillow and newspaper for
a covering had settled themselves for
the night. Selecting them by chance, /
interviewed several of these tramps, and
their stories, in many cases corroborated
by the police, proved my assertion that
in most cases tramp is only working
man unable to find employment.
! One was waiter out of work for
many months-a young man still in his
twenties, with a boyish, good natured
face. He said: 81 don't think l shall
ever find q job again, for my clothes are
getting too ragged and dirty. No one
would take me now. l have walked
| fourteen miles today and have eaten
nothing. went out into the country to
look for work in some of the summer
hotels, but look like tramp. No one
would hire me-"
Another was an old man of sixty-five
years-a soldier in the civil war-whc
had walked long way to New York tc
procure an order for admission to sol
diers' home. He had no money, and hat
been kept many days while the intermin
able "red tape" of military bureau hat
been gone through with. He had evi
IDENTIFY seen better days and was in tn,
last stages of consumption; still he hat
been sleeping for several nights upol
the damp ground of Battery park H,
was an American.
There were half dozen others whose
sad experiences had been similar in
general way to these. The last one
interviewed was an educated Swede
who had been employed as bookkeepel
and clerk in the barge office, and alsC
rs interpreter of the Scandinavian Ian
guages in the immigration bureau. HI
also spoke fiuently French, German ant
Italian. For his services, which required
such varied requirements, the govern
ment paid him the munificent sum o
sixty dollars per month. When he fel
sick five years ago, and became by pal
tial paralysis of the brain unable to work
he had no resources, and after being dis
charged from the hospital drifted bac
to his old place of employment-Castl
Garden-as tramp.
When | saw him he was not talkativ,
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