The herald., 1897-01-11
! THE TRAMP: WHO AND WHAT IS He? !
3 A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY


The working man or unemployed la
| borer walkink to find work is not q tramp
neither is he a hobo" even If money
less and begging bread instead of de-
| corously starving or feloniously stealing
The thousands of honest men. thrown
1 out of employment are not vagrants
willingly and from choice. They may
| have been improvident: but this is not Il
| crime. The crime seems TO be hunger
and the asking of fraternal charity.
There are tramps and tramps. mendi-
cants and "hobos." There are grades and
varieties, from the callow adventurer
stranded on the rocks of hunger and
beggary to the bleareyed professional
who glories in his rags and revels in his
! hunger.
We shall not speak further of the poor,
| starving unemployed, nor OF the stran-
ger overtaken by penury. nor of the
! mentally deficient. nor of the friendless.
| manned and crippled who have nothing
of this worlds goods save liberty. the
highways and the bread of fraternal
| charity. Children of sorrow, weep and
| beg,
1t is the professional tramp who Is our
/ study; he of the Jail. the rock-pile and
the chain gang Was he ever born of
woman? Was he ever a sweet innocent
| babe. the pride of mother and the hope
| OF his father? 1t seems incredible. If
not impossible. How and when was this
| transformation wrought? Was his fall
a slow. gradual subsistence, or sudden
| social cataclySm?
From the dear little cooling infant.
smiling up into his mothers face to the
unloved and unlovable tramp, the hun
CRY, hunted. arrested. prison doomed
! vagrant. there seems an unthinka BILE
descent-a veritable metamorphose.
| 1t is our purpose to trace out this
| change, to discover and explore the dan
gerous descending pathway and also put
| up danger signals and friendly signs of
! warning.
The professional tramp or vagabond
| is an effect whose creative first cause
| may be found. studied. understood and
| forever eradicated. if such be the wish
/ of the majority These tramping out
casts are nurtured and multiplied by vic
| ious social conditions and by unwise,
unholy. legalized mercenary methods
| We make the tramp: we create this
| Frankenstein. He is our handiwork and
our punishment. True, the tramp is
what some are pleased to term free
! moral agent: nevertheless. no man is
| free from his environments. No man is
free who is born with inherited. abncr-
| NAL evil tendencies-born with thirst
/ and unusual appetite for debauching
| StlllluldllS. CucN are 10 De nluleu ana
! protected. Furthermore, ii is the funda-
mental function of all wise, good and
| just governments to guard the weak and
! promote the public welfare; to protect
/ the morally weak even from themselves
| by removing temptations. In this we
are either faithful or we are recreant.
! \ strange anomaly-rags, hunger.
/ starvation. in a land infinite in resources
and bounteous in fertility. Why are men
] hungry M aHrift n m "
| Why are these tramps. these wrecks
of humanity ragged and begging bread
! in a country where granaries and ware
! houses are bursting with repletion?
| Have social and moral conditions so far
progressed that virtuous. educated
! young women refuse to marry tobacco
using and whisky drinking young men?
Have they learned the folly of marrying
a dissipated man, hoping thereby to
| work out his future reformation?
| Do our young women prefer seif-sup
/ port and single blessedAess" to marry
| ing men of dangerous habits and doubt
! full morality? The drunkard of the flu
ture will be bachelor. Hence tramps
will increase even under our present
condition and bungling methods. The
hobo hordes added to the countless
army of worthy, honest unemployed.
make our economic outlook appalling.
No sane man, voluntarily. becomes a
homeless tramp, a wandering outcast,
who is able to support himself or has
a wife or family willing and able to sup
port him. The wife may die at the wash
tub or the daughter sell her woman
hood still the dissipated husband and
father claims his support with profit
gate promptitude.
Statistics show that the majority of
the hobo hordes are native born
Americans. l do not understand this,
unless the native born woman is not SO
ready and willing to feed and clothe her
spendthrift husband. The modern laun-
dry is hard on the idle drunkard. 1t
! takes work from Washerwomen who
might otherwise support husband and
! children When the kinswomen die,
fail or openly revolt, then the besotted
husband who had long since ceased to
be the bread d-winner-takes the road
he becomes the despised tramp nuis-
ance."
Cities can make tramps. vagrants, but
they find neither pleasure NOR profit in
feeding and otherwise supporting these,
their especial creations. municipalities
make undue haste in hunting and driv
ing out these exhausted revenue patriots
from their midst, to prey upon the sur
rounding country. Those vagrants who
refuse to leave the equally guilty cities
are straightway robbed of their one re
naming heritage-their liberty. God
pity the poor. weak and errng when
man forgets mercy.
Every reckless and dissipated young
man is now training to fill up the ranks
of possible tramphood. A little more
animalism, a little more drunkennes.
and the new recruit is ready to muster
into the ragged army of hungry vags-
bonds. The recruiting offices pay a
high license!
Squads of new recruits are marching
from their open doors reeking with
fumes of drunkenness and prison taints