The herald., 1896-03-24
TRAMPS

TRAMPS
As the winter disappears and the blithe-
some spring with it's sunshiny days and
stormless nights makes itself evident
again, the tramp begins to trouble once
more, and the crop Of remedies and sug.
gestions for what is known as the "tramp
problem" is as large and varied as ever.
AS regards the tramp and his cure, the
repetition of history is annual. The reme-
dies for trampism, like trampism itself,
are practically the same each year. Time
seems impotent to add anything to the
wisdom with which the people attempt to
deal with the subject. The means ad-
vocated are not only frequently inhuman
and undemocratic in character, but they are
invariably local in application and imprac-
ticable of execution. And rarely. indeed,
do these means embrace any considera-
ton of the causes of trampism. Their ad-
vocates, as a rule. are content to struggle
with effects. And, SO we will continue to
have trampsm in some form with us for
a while. Society cannot conquer effects by
dealing with them alone. The only sure
way of abolishing disagreeable effects is
to remove the causes of them. The tramp,
while he may be the immediate cause of
an abundance of mischief, is himself an
effect.
The tramp is the product Of the kind of
social evolution we have had. Originally
man was not tramp in the sense that we
know that being now. He came into this
life with, of necessity, the instructive
knowledge that the price of existence is
labor.
The tramp commenced with involuntary
idleness, and as the opportunities for labor
have relatively decreased the tramp has
multiplied. The tramp is the apotheosis
of the man out of job. He began as an
applicant for work; he winds up as sup
plicant for aims. Enforced idleness drove
him to borrowing; when he could no longer
borrow he became beggar and when he
attained the dignity of being an interstate
beggar, society dubbed him a tramp.
There are men who have deliberately Sc
lected the sphere of vagrancy
in preference to that of decency,
but their number is comparatively
small. And the men who have become
tramps and become accustomed to the ex-
istence of trampdom, may not be willing
iginal proposition patent to every candid
student of social conditions past and
present, that the tramp is the logical out
come of those industrial situations that
have compelled a good percentage of peo-
pie to be unemployed and left them but
two methods of satisfying the demands of
nature on the living stealing and begging.
The reason for this involuntary divorce.
ment of so many from labor, So
ciety must find if it would
save itself from something worse
than tramps. But society must stop pick
ing the leaves from the tree and get down
to the roots. The following from the Chi
cago Chronicle. a paper that is always
bright, bold and original, regarding some
of the penalties for tramping, is we'll
worthy perusal:
"A convention of well-meaning persons
the utterances of few preclude descrip-
ton of them as phi!anthropists-ha lately
gathered in Milwaukee to consider the
menace OF the tramp and how it may be
met. The remedies ranged from that with
which Rip Van Wrinkle dismissed the man
who stole his land and married his wife
Give him cold potato and let him go'-
to the prescription of the benevolent Gen.
eral Bragg, who advises liberal application
of the cato -nine-tails, with a soothing dash
of salt and water afterward General
Bragg doubtless was unaw are Of the pleas
ing properties of the Russian knout re
intorced by oil OF vitriol, when he made
this humane proposition.
1t is not altogether humane, or even
wholly logical, to treat the tramp as neces-
sarily vagrant. Surely roads are made
as much to walk on as to ride over, and is
it intelligent to say that he only shall walk
who has money enough to ride if he will?
In older countries men plod from town to
town seeking work without encountering
danger Of the Jail or the lash. Why not
here? Even in our country. in it's more
picturesque parts, pleasure seekers tramp
from place to place, enjoying the exercise,
the scenery and the sense of vagabondage.
1t is a curious sort OF logic which declares
that the rich man who tramps for fun is
all right, while the poor man who tramps
through necessity must be whipped.
The tramp ought to be judged like other
men. His mere zest for wandering is not
necessarily evidence of criminal in
stinct-there's Congressman Foss. for ex.
ample. If he breaks law inflict upon
him the penalty which that law prescribes.
If he begs food and needs it only an iron.
hearted people would deny it him. If he
accompanies mendIcancy with threats
then the law has reason to interpose. He
is to be punished not as tramp, but as
a misdemeanant.
There may be some good reason why it
is thrift tor a poor man to walk from
downtown Chicago to Lake View instead of
giving Yerkes his ten cents and fragrant
violation of public law for him to tramp
from Chicago to Milwaukee instead of
paying car fare. But the reason for this
striking difference between tweedledum
and tweedledee is yet to be Defined
IT is WE'LL nigh certain that American