The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1910-05-24
GARY LURES
DEREL|CTS
LIKE FLIES
Human Jetsam and Flotsam
Flocks to City and Seek
Help From Honest Toilers
Who Ought to Be Deaf to
Their Whining Appeals.

The name of Gary is inscribed in
great red letters upon the territorial
maps and in the blue books of tramp
dom. Probably fifty of the men from
nowhere drop into the city each day
in the course of their journeyings they
ahrdly know. and seem to care, not
whittier.
Broadway each morning and evening
one can always find a group of these
human derelicts eagerly awaiting the
workman whose lunch pail has con-
tanned. more than his appetite de-
manded- One sometimes sees the same
faces several days in success sion, but
usually each day produce new assort-
ment for the inspection OF the passer-
by.
Some Really Hungry.
Some. Of these are frankly hungry:
othere use the hunger pretext merely
as a means to panhandle" the gener-
GUS Many workman yields to the
Establishments of the arch-loafers
coins which find their way. with little
delay, into the Golfers of the dispens-
ers of the fluid which puts the bum
a step further on the route to oblivion
Those among the nomads who are
crippled appear to excite the envy of
their fellows. Recently one burly
young ruffiian, undescribably soiled,
sought the sympathy of those whom
he accosted by removing from his
throat a silver pipe which replaced a
portion of his windpipe-cut away in
some operation. Another unbeneyolent
looking. but very ancient pariah, ex-
posed the bare stump of a leg upon the
pavement
A Shocking Collection.
They form a pitiable sight, these
| men. Not pitiable by reason of their
restitution. or filth. or hunger, but
shocking because they are. for the most
part, evidences of complete moral de-
geeracy. With an abundance of work
at hand they are yet content to stand
| unshamed before their fellow men and
! take the scraps which would otherwise
Sy thrown to the dogs
| Gary is now the most modern of
| modern American municipal creations
and yet, If the arches under which
these derelicts stand, day after day
could tell the histories, the crimes, the
moral turpitude of these men they
would reveal a story which would
make the horrors of the inquisition OF
the dungeons of Venice Sunday school
reading by comparison.
Lesson of no Avail.
| On a recent morning an observer
| counted twenty-three of these social
| lepers in one group. They ranged in
| age from seventeen to three score and
ten. Two boys-of the minimum age
| bore themselves jauntily and were ca G.
| erly imbibing the conversation of their
| more seasoned fellows The dean OF
the group, bent. wheezy and blear-
eyed bearing the hallmarks of count
less years in JAIL the slums and upor
| the road" in senile triumph was
| Boosting of his back-door triumphs
and his panhandling strategies. Yet
! these blind youths could not read ir
this old man the bitter years they
| were opening up to themselves. Those
| boys have mothers and sisters some
/ where and the mistakenly charita bic
men of Gary, who feed them, are add
| ing to the misery of those women BY
helping to keep them and their kline
| away from their homes.
| If they will not work when they can
and none need go laborless in the mag
ic city, then let them starve until they
come to their senses. An empty stom
i ach is an insistent taskmaster-fit ever
to cope with a profound disinclinatior
TO work or a mistaken idea that thu
life Of the vagrant contains even tn,
slightest percentum of glory.
The men of Gary who toll would d.
we'll in answer to appeals for help I,
) point to the employment offices of tn,
Indiana Steel company or those of thu
many other industries here.