White Pine news. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1920-1923, 1923-07-29
AUTO TRAMP IS PROBLEM
OF MDUSTRLAL EMPLOYER

new phrase, but it's here to stay and
going to stick.
There used to be the railroad
tramps, the ones who came to your
door, if you lived neal a railway or
in a mainline town, and begged for
food, and if there was a certain
kind of a notch or a chalk mark on
your front gate post he offered tc
work to pay for it. But he is all
but gone. You never hear OF him
and his life. ways and wiies are but
a memory.
Then there was the wagon tramp.
Not every one of you ever heard of
him, or he in a sense was of local
growth, following only in certain
areas or zones. He came and went,
to be sure, the same as other tramps
for without coming and going he
would not have been a tramp, but his
confines were those Of certain Sec
lions of the prairie schooner
and regions of the west. In one way
he differed form the railroad tramp,
for he was plural. He took the whole
family with him and made trips by
team across from Arkansas 10 the
coast and back again year after year.
or from Iowa to Kansas and back,
always on the move and always
broke. The father was not the
wagon tramp alone, for the whole
family was alike and it ran all
through From place to place they
went and when days came that horse
feed and grub could not be had by
the ordinary means of having it given
to them through neighborly feeling
they would stop and work for a few
days through blowing, harvest or
cornhusking. With five, ten or
twenty dollars ahead they would go
again and keep the same thing up all
their lives.
The auto tramp is the successor
of these and combines their quail
ties, only he is an artistic improve
ment on all of them. Generally two,
three or four young men will raise
as much rs S75 to $3.50 and buy n
wrecked fivver, strip it down. get
ten gallons of gasoline, a gallon or
two of oil and start out.
Arriving at a place where work is
going on they stop and do a little
Sherlock Holmesing around to find
out what class OF wOrkmen, if any.
is short. If switchmen are wanted
they are switchmen; if steam shovel
men, they are Gteam shovel men
and so on down the list. in apply
ing for jobs they always are experts
in the line of work in which men are
so desperately needed that they will
be given a trial of a few days wheth-
er or no, with no further recommend
than mere assertion on their part.
They will work for four or five days.
if their foreman does not get onto
them and send them after their time
sooner, hanging on long enough to
get IL few DAYS pay, and then they
are rich and ready to strike out for
any old place, with far less care fer
the morrow than Colonel Jackling
in his private car.
While here~-and this IS where the
system is of the most disadvantage
to the employer-they talk to en-
ployes who have been working stead
lily and giving satisfaction for months
or years. They tell of the fine places
they have seen and where they have
worked with conditions UtOpian.
where wages are better and work
less, where amusement and pleasures
grow on trees and are to be had for
the taking. They relate how little
they had to pay to overhaul a sec
Ond-hand fiivver to start and 10Y
their gas was secured by devious
ways by the roadside, how many
miles they made at not Il penny of
cost, and how fine it is to see the
world right before it is too late This
wanderlust germ finds the easiest
victims in the young men who hav.
not travelled much and whose chief
desire at their particular age is t
go 1t and see some of the world while
young. There is no need Of specu-
lating on the length Of time it takes.
for one or two sittings in a bunk
house chair are ample, and the ma
tive youngster is a tiivver tramp in
spirit if not otherwise. After the
next or second Payday he is On tho
road in a bucket seat of his W and
eating up distance between four or
five day jobs like the other fellow
who revealed the life to him and
told him how it was done, with reci-
pes and directions about getting by
That is one phase of the matter
and it constitutes a problem, one that
is worrying employers more han any
single one with which they have to
deal in this gasoline age. Each
week, each month and each year sees
It worse than it was the one before.
and it is becoming more and more u
question of how long it will be posi-
BILE to hold and break in any really
valuable help for any certain lines