Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1911-03-07
The KIND OF woRkHoUse NEEDED,

/
Marshal Weeks finds good deal Of
"ofh 70 90 even i'll these winter DAYS
IN taking care of the hoboes and keep
ms them moving along The work of
regulating the hoboes is something of a
strain on any police force. There. is a
question OF humanity in their treat
ineht, a question of public safety, and
IA question OF justice, all to keep in
view Some of the travellers are worthy
fellows, but most of them are ruined
booze fighters drifting around as they
! lind 1t convenient. They must not be
frozen to death or starved, but they
can be kept moving along till they find
1t better To work and do some good Oh
earth than to drift about proving on
society. III cold weather they are
housed in TAIL if it is necessary and
they are fed and then shunted along.
Recently there have been from one to
dozen every nigh, in town, and peo-
pie at whose houses they beg are
alarmed about their presence. IT seems
more and more necessary To have
rock pile and make the rascals work
for what they Set.-Denison Bulletin.
The Bulletin is right and wrong. The
stone pile for six days has been tried
and is failure except as il is a pro-
lection in that the tramp lodges the
town where il is an institution and
goes on to the next which has none or
takes TO the open country When the
stone pile is finished i, has not done
any lasting good. The day it is abol-
ished the tramp comes back 20 his little
camp in the outskirts and begins TO
pa nhandie FOR the price of beer. But
the Bulletin is right when it wants
these men put to work. They ought to
work and work hard. And there are
| others who are not peripatetic who
need the same treatment.
Mark it down as absolute that the
man set to work on q stone pile simply
! because he is vagrant and as a pen
atty for Nagrancy is rarely the better
! for his punishment. We need a new
deal which shall not only insist that
all men shall work for themselves and
| their dependents but that they or
theirs shall profit by the price of their
la Dor. Trampdom is not a peculiarly
fertile field for reform but the field
where the tramp and yegs and the I'M
desira bles who continually move on
are begun and made is a fertile field
and should be worked. And that field
is inside the city limits.
There are few sneaking ,inhorl
| gamblers hanging about Marshalltown
who should be furnished honest labor
! at wages by the city or county and
| forced to earn their wage by the sweat
! of their brows. There is a number OF
strong men able TO work who are living
on the wages and washboards of their
| wives unable to find employment.
| There is a considerable number of
drunken and worthless fellows drinking
every cent they can scrape and pam
handle while their families lack the
common necessities. The city should
three months sentence at wages which
should go to their families or to them
! selves if without dependents when they
are turned loose. These men need to
understand that they must do some
! thing useful. They need the lesson and
should have before them the certainty
that if they do not labor as an indi-
vidual responsibility and in freedom
they shall most assuredly labor and
earn under constraint.
| There i. plenty to do and enough
| to do it with. There are roads to make,
| bridges to build and all manner of pub
lie work which could be done with this
| ahor winter and summer, in the open
and under cover. That is the kind OF
Xro..kho,lse we need