Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-06-16
THE Woodchucks' Union-the queerest

on earth! 1t has no organization, no
dues, no blacklist no walking delegates, no
elaborate system of laws and bylaws; yet
it is probably the most vigorously disciplined
union in the United States, and its influence
spreads across the map from Maine to Cali
fornia. It's union card is Belgian block.
Perhaps your idea of a woodchuck is con-
fined to the furry animal that burrows IN
orchards and meadows and tries to locate
its own shadow every year for the benefit of
local weather prophets. Enlarge that idea
now to include two-legged animal, hairy
and unkenpt, wearing ragged coat, which
burrows in the ruins of torn-down buildings,
and you have added to your stock OF lntor-
nation the "human woodchuck."
His habitat is the jungle of debris that
forms with the razing of old buildings. Here
he digs for the broken bits of scantl1ng,
laths, and anything else of wood. When he
collects the quantity allowed by the unlon,E
as much as one can carry without the aid OF
wheeled things,-he ties the wood into bum
dies Then he scurries to the tenement dis
tricts, where he ernits shrill, raucous cries
that sound like, 3Anny Wood-wood-
wood! Anny-aw!"
Here and there a window is raised and
hand beckons. He crawls up many flights
of grimy stairs until his last bundle IS dis
posed Of He has sold, perhaps, five bundles
for whatever he could get. They sell for five,
ten, or fifteen cents, according to size, or ac
cording to the sharp bargaining of his Gus
TONERS; for the women OF the tenements
must haggle long and hard even for cent.
The total sales for day average perhaps
fifty cents.
The 3woodchucks" needs are not many.
This income enables him to drift from one
Poor Mans Club to another, with shrewd
preference for those which furnish the most
liberal free lunches with the largest glasses
of beer. For shelter at night he seeks the
grass or benches in city parks when the
weather permits In the cold stretches of
winter two or three will establish a COM
munal society, and build a hut of odds and
ends in the ruins of some dismantled build
ing. Here they hibernate until, like their
rodent namesakes, their shadows show
strong in the spring sunshine.
In his native haunts-in New York, for
instance, within almost any square mile of
the downtown district-you will come to
great gaps in the long rows of dwellings
where the old-fashioned buildings have been
tunbled down to make room for a modern
apartment or Office building. In the jun
bled wreck where every stick and stone IS
hallowed with the memory of some bygone
romance or tragedy, fit the "woodchucks, J"
like ghouls of the present in the graveyards
of the past.
Perchance you will see Wooden Willie,
who used to be well-groomed bank clerk
before he became a hard drinker; or Chicago
Jim, whose bleary eyes grow baleful with
hate at the mention of a woman's name; or
Pegleg Pete, who once was brakeman on
the Southern Pacific; or Chuck Charlie, who
just drifted along the shores of the turbulent
sea of life like jelly6sh, too pulpy to have
a history. If you are exceptionally fortu-
nate, you may see slender old man, in faded
green coat of the Prince Albert type, and
wearing much battered silk hat. That is
Pop Ross, dean of the 3woodchucks. In all