The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1911-01-14
Wanderer on Face of Earth
Makes Startling Revelations
and Shows That Mans In
humanity to Man Makes Count
less Officials Rich.

"A No. t." who is the best known
tramp in the United States and who
knows from A to z the entire rail-
road system of this country, gives
an astounding account of methods
employed by the deputy sheriffs Of
the United States in grating out Of
the sweat and blood and misery of
poor, jobless workers who are ION
the road" in chase for a master
who is willing to buy their labor
power.
An interview with "A No. 1" ap-
pears in a recent issue Of the Phila-
delphia North American in which this
startling information appears.
In the United States, according to
the most picturesque and widely ex-
perienced authority the world holds
today, the whole penal chaos seems
to have been devised to reach out
and seize the Industrious mechanic,
travelling afoot to find employment.
as we'll as the idle tramp, and chain
them to the road forever.
Deputies Rapacious Shylocks.
It is no xaggeration-chain is the
word that expresses what literally
happens, for there are deputy sheriffs
who, in their industry as rapacious
shylocks, actually carry chains with
them because they are always sure
OF capturing so many unfortunates
during a single night that they must
chain them to telegraph poles until
they land them in Jail and get their
bloodmoney fees in the morning.
This man of the rods" and blind
baggage" who, in the beginning,
started as a tramp, but who is now
an author and publisher, because he
capitalized his hobo experiences,
makes the following indictment
against deputy sheriffs:
The average deputy sheriff, in
hundreds of towns of the United
States, can chain, rob, imprison-yes,
and fill with disease-any man. from
a Morgan to mechanic, whom he
catches with no safeguard of posi-
ton or identification. And he'll do
it so quickly that the victim won't
have time to yell for help.
"Our system-or, to be correct, our
utter lack of system-in laws bear
ing on vagrancy is the worst blot
American civilization carries. We
of the world, and also as the lowest
brutes that wear the human form.
Greed for money lies at the root
of it all. A man, walking the rail-
road, even travelling the highways, or
lettering about railroad yards, is
liable to arrest by one of two Of
flcers Of the law, ,..: ....
when one of the legalized thugs
who wear the badge of an American
deputy sheriff catches any one he is
lost. usually, beyond any redemption
that society, as we make it, can
bring to bear.
50 Per Cent of. Arrests Needless
'Of the arrests made by deputy
sheriffs in the United States on the
charge of vagrancy, SO per cent are
needless, since the victims are men
accused of trespass or vagrancy who
are tramping only temporarily, me-
chanics-poor enough, but still hon
est ingmen-travelins from one
place to another in quest of employ
ment.
1T is simply slave-catching sys-
tenn practiced by the deputies and
financed by the local community, with
the most appalling waste of money
known to any form of government"
Here No. 1 went into some finan-
clal details of the fee SYSTEM:
i know of no statistician who has
attempted to calculate the millions
wasted in the whole country. on the
basis of fees paid, productiveness in
terrupted and prisoners supported at
the expense of the taxpayers. But I
do know that in Los Angeles county.
Ca, alone, $250,000 a year is stolen
from the taxpayers in tramp fees.
counting nothing more.
Sometimes $37 for Arrests.
The fees vary throughout the
country, but nothing is too small to
tempt the fee-paid deputy, and moth
ing is too large to get away from
him. They are as low as Is cents
for an arrest and as high as $12.
In New Mexico 1t costs the county
$37.55 for fees for every tramp ar
rested and IS cents a day for his
board. The terms to which they are
sentenced range from 80 to $50 days
L know OF one deputy, a few miles
from Trenton, N. j., whose average
catch runs from ten to thirty tramps
night. He goes about with a SUP
ply of chains and chains them to
telegraph poles. He owns his own
wagon, into which he loads them in
the morning and hauls them to Tren-
ton, where he collects fees that year
by year, represent fortune. Tren-
tons example is about the worst in
the country, but on a smaller scale
it is paralleled all over.
THE whole force of the law Of
Ulcers of these counties is in on the
graft. Every time the deputy gets a
Zee, another fee goes to the magis-
trate, the prosecuting attorney, the
clerk of the court and the sheriff
The jails in which such prisoners
are kept are, 80 out of 100 of them,
so many dens of filth. The blankets
are used by DRINKS, consumpttves and
vermin-covered outcasts as we'll as by
the decent workingmen whose mis-
fortune it is to be captured by the
rapacious deputies. These prisoners
when freed, in turn spread disease
and vermin through the community.
Horse Thieves and Deputies.
In the South the peonage and
near-peonage systems are applied ia