Arizona republican., 1921-05-08

may occasionally become a seasonal worker.
 The seasonal workers are a large and we'll defined class. They make their livings at such work as cutting ice and felling timber in the winter and working on lake boats and in the harvest fields in the summer. When not employed these men congregate in large cities. such as Chicago. where there are great numbers of cheap lodging houses that cater to them. They soon learn to live for a year on the earnings of few months and will not take. all- time actually starving A man who is used to making a living out of the harvest fields in the summer has 1 been known to refuse work at ice cutting in the winter on the ground that he did not need the money and would be merely taking bread out of the mouth of some habitual winter worker.
 The lives of these men lack all comfort and stability. but they have | change, adventure and leisure. Hence l 1t is comprehensive that men of a certain type come to prefer it. Free | dom and wandering are the things | that we all dream of, and the man for whom the alternative is 10 hours | | ical task cannot perhaps be altogeth- CT blamed if he prefers a life in which labor and leisure alternate and there ! is a change of scene and occupa tioii. l Unfortunately. society makes no ] allowance for men of that temper i The seasonal worker out of work is
 regarded as a vagrant. He is hunted
 by the police and pitied by charity He and his pocketful of savings are ! AP all l. dE af
 and fraud. No place is open to him but the lodging houses. which are i dirty and comfortless places, breed
 CTS of the drug habit and of all other
 habits which unfit men for norma ! social relations. Hence the seasona
 worker generally deteriorates into Q
 confirmed tramp. begsar or thief.
 A Study of Tramps
 There has been much romance
 written about tramps. and also sew
 eral honest realistic books. The besi
 of these are by Jack London au6 Josiah F1ynt both of whom tramped
 with the tramps. These books brins
 VividIv home to one the social vast,
 and deterioration that go with va grancy, but also the lure of freedom
 and adventure which lead men int,
 it.
 When it comes to scientific stud,
 of vagrancY. remarkably little ha!
 been done, considering what a larg,
 fraction of the nations labor suppl,
 it absorbs. Perhaps the best thin,
 that can be found in this line is ;
 study of one thousand homeless mer
 made by Mrs Alice Willard Solen
 berger for the Russell Sage Founda
 ton. She studied carefully a thou
 sand men who applied for aid to
 certain organization in Chicago. Sh
 found that of this thousand only 22
 could be properly classed as tramp
 that is, men who wandered for thu
 sake of wandering.
 The distinguishing thing about tn
 tramp. she found, was that he Ina, an overpowering nomadic impulse He is almost invariably a man wh : craves wandering as some other ! crave alcohol. In some the cravini , was incessant and kept them alway on the go. In. others it was periodi
 cal. Some men deserted their fami
 lies regularly at intervals of years i wandered for while. and then re l turned and settled down as usua l In vet other cases, the men had con trolled the impulse to wander unti . some misfortune overlook then n usually this was the death of wife s which broke up the home. or a failur Q in business or The loss of a sum 0 , money. Such men usually deterior = ated rapidly on drink and drug, r feeling that they had lost thei . places in society
 . The continuous wanderer. on tn 5 | other hand. is often a man who en
 joys his way of life and keeps hi :, self-respect. Tramps of this clas :, come from all grades of society. an = include considerable proportion C = college men. Many of them hay = ways Of making money along tn Il road. Some of them are very ac
 complished begCars. Many of thes T inveterate wanderers are intelliger " men who differ from others chiefly i
 that they cannot endure the routiu
 of settled life and must wande II Explorers. globe-trotters. literar e and journalistic vasabonds. are $ the same type. but have had the goo $ fortune to find a way of making II living that is coneenial to them an T. approved bv society.
 - It is said that crime is the cor V science of society. That Is, ever 'f crime points to some imperfection 'r our social organization. The feeble Ie minded murderer would not have bee Q. killed if he had been properly studio n in the public schools and isolated. n Neither would the seasonal work, )t and the hobo be a menace, perhap a if. their cases were intelligent
 studied. The seasonal worker is a n' 70 Cessity. crops could not be gatl Of cred. nor boats manned. nor ice hal of vested without this army of fioatiu id labor But society makes no propS i'm provision for this man who is ueces ID be ascertsined, his movements q