The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-09-28
Rock Island Launches Cam
paign Against Trespassing.
Claim Agent Cartilage Opens
Fire From Topeka Offices.
FEDERAL LAWS ARE NEEDED
An Appeal to Washington for
Help in Late venture.
Days of the Hobo and Boy
Jumpers" Must Pass.

liams. claim agent of the Chicago,
Rock Island and Gulf at Fort Worth,
has been taken up by w. c. Cartilage,
claim agent of the Missouri, Kansas,
Nebraska. Colorado and Ell Paso divi-
sions of the road with headquarters
in Topeka. To discourage and pro-
hibit trespassing on the right of way
and in the terminal yards OF the com
pany by all persons is the idea OF the
campaign.
IF all the trespassers who have
lost their lives upon the railway
tracks in the United States during
the last ten years could be called back
to existence and marShalled together,
they would form city the size OF
Topeka Claim Agent Williams stated
while in the city recently. In other
words 51,OS3 persons have lost their
lives in the last ten years."
Then Mr.. Williams grew oratorical:
Thousands of Lives Crushed Out.
Thousands of homes on which the
shadows fall would be happy aud
prosperous; thousands of widows and
orphans struggling along life high
way would be enjoying the support
ard guidance of husbands and fathers
whose lives were crushed out on the
commercial arteries of the country
More than $4,000 manned and crippled
human beings dragging their weary
way along in an unequal contest, NEIL
dicants and charges upon society can
trace their Inisforturies back to the
time when they ventured thought
Iessly upon railway tracks.
1T may seem a trifle brutal or
harsh to speak about pecuniary loss
or measure by dollars and cents, me
pain and anguish of thousands who
fall beneath the wheels, but in the
last analysis the subject becomes
practical one and the railways are
involved in perpetual and costly htlga-
ton for killing and Gripping persons
Il I,Dsv- urelrg
I'm addition to the expenditures in
court costs and judgments directly at
tributable to the trespass evil the ralI-
ways are confronted by enormous
destruction by the adroit and un-
scrupulous trespasser who works in
side the cars and does not fall be-
meath them.
Trouble to Railroads.
''They frequently build fires in box
cars. become disgruntled at being
elected from trains and in spirit of
revenge tamper with switches, place
distractions on the tracks, cause
wrecks killing and Gripping passen-
gers and not infreqently shoot and
slug trainmen who attempt to force
them from the cars. Costly cotton
and prairie fires saddled upon rail-
ways and attributed to escaping sparks
from passing locomotive and in
number of instances undoubtedly
originate from the cigarette or pipe of
a hobo. The vagrancy question is a
serious one the world over and has
been handled in a crude fashion in
most of the states. The practice in
greater number of our towns and
cities is to give a tramp or vagrant
hours and unload him on the next
town at which he elects to stop.
''If the tramp was barred from the
railroads his favorite means of trans
portation would be gone, and he
would face a crisis in his existence
calculated n
form him from a wanderer to a work
If the lure of the rail and the
'sidedGor Pullman were removed
from the path of venturesOme young
sters just emerging from the knicker-
booker and marble stage many a
mothers darling limping and skulking
down the alleys and byways begrimed
and blackened by the SCOT and cinders
of pilfered pilgrimage, would re-
main beneath the parental roof until
he secured the training calculated to
equip him for the serious duty of as
sisting in working out the destiny of
the country in which he was born.
No Tramp Marks on Highways.
"a law strong enough to deter the
American boy from clinging to truss
rods and brake beams in the unpro-
ductive search of Utopias and Edo
radios would at once cut off the source
from which trampdom must look for
its supply. The marks of 'A-No. l.
%. T. Kid and Tex Slim are not
macada mixed pixies but upon box cars
and railroad water tanks.
with the elimination of the tramp
together with the nomadic working
man who persists in beating his way
and whose rowing disposition urges
him from place to place, the tresspass
question would narrow itself down to
those who live near the railways and
use them as a convenience. The en-
actment of a federal law prohibiting
hn
tracks of railways engaged in interstate
commerce will, in my opinion, furnish
the only adequate relief.
Experience shows that the state
laws on this question have been dis
regarded and when arrests have been
made the parties promptly turned
loose.
Lawmakers Indifferent.
1.-THE apathy and difference shown
by our lawmakers at Washington 20
wards the tresspass question is
worthy of mention especially in view
of the many guardianship measures
recently passed. Our public men are
chanting requiems over our treeless
tracts. viewing with alarm soil erosion
and the disastrous consequences, push
ing back with an iron hand the greedy
Spectator who would butcher our coal
lands in far away Alaska, the alleged
germ laden drinking cup has been
snatched from the hands of the I'm
suspecting- public, the life line has been
thrown out to muskrats and squirrels,
safeguards have been cast about the
birds in the air and the fish j.. the sea-
oysters dumb and unable to vote are
watched with infinite care. The Bur-
eau of Entomology is spraying black
berries and blackjacks. slippery and
other elms and rich prizes are being
hung up for anyone who can success
fully sandbag the boil weevil that cot
ION may grow: mounted guards are
protecting jackrabbits on cur game re-
servations and yet the United States
to permitting thousands of its citizens