Montana labor news., 1933-01-19
On the Road.

iHSlue VI u SCIOOl IOuoe. GApcSldit
mothers, sick babies, young child-less
couples, grim-faced middle aged dis
lodged from life time jobs on they go,
an amazing index of insecurity. .
The drifting family has but n rea-
son generally for it's vagabondage, and
that is the loss of a job by its bread
winner. Unable to find work or to
continue the rent or payments on the
house, the family piles itself into the
old car and takes to the highway. Its
philosophy, if any exists, probably
runs like this: "We know what to ex-
pect if we stay at home, but who
knows what our luck may be further
on?"
Terry Donoghue, educated New
Yorker, wandered west in search OF
work. He reports:
"We were the army of defeat. Aim
less, homeless, we had hit the coast.
DETECTED by nature and man we had
Joined the endless circle of starvation.
We were back in box cars again,
w~himpering at back doors, pleading in
the streets. Male and female, old
and young, thousands and myself. We
were sifted and strained at almost
every stop. In the jungles of Cotton
we lost two men-one for murder, one
for robbery. In Idaho a government
officer clambered over our tangle of
bodies in the bottom of a Southern
Pacific gondola. His light flashed in
each face; he took four men with
him.
Days and nights, mile posts and sta
lions passed. Sometimes there were
stops long enough to allow us to beg
a meal; sometimes there were not.
For a day and a half a bony Texan
and | went without food; at last he
could stand it no longer and ripped a
board from a REFER ceiling and we
ate pears tart and gripping.
At Tuscon we loafed beside the
tracks. A woman drove up in an
automobile. "Are you men hungry"
she asked. Almost unbelieving we
looked into her face. "Take this" she
said. 81 went hungry for three days
in this town and nobody fed me. Now
| have my own business and every
night l bring food down here" There
were seventeen buttered rolls. Texas
and | ate them, splitting the odd one.
-(From New York World-Tele-
gram, December 3, 1922
Men that sleep in the all night NOV
ing picture houses in Los Angeles COM
plain that the theaters are half filled
with tramp children from all over the
country.
More than 120 persons, veterans OF
the bonus army are living in old box
CdTS near Dali EfLOiiiOy CAdo'
From a formerly prosperous farming
community in central Iowa:
"There are families in Jefferson
who do not have shoes but go around
the house barefooted. There are fam
lilies of six or eight living in one room
There are homes where it is necessary
to cover the walls and windows with
newspapers to keep out the cold"
From Cleveland:
T~hirty-two unemployed are living II
the concrete basement Of what was
once a Cleveland warehouse. Coffir
Row Hotel they call it. Some of thu
men have lived in this "hotel' more
than a year.
But what of my country which
has no homes for its children,
no shelter for it's old men and
women?
THOSE WHO WORK
Massachusetts:
The following table Of wages AM
hours now being worked in certain
Lawrence textile mills is based on
recent article appearing in the Law
renee Independent:
Group or Hrs. a Wages
Mill Craft Week a Week
Wood Viewers AZ ~ to $lS
Wood Ballers 6O(N) 1880
Aver Yarn Boys48 IL
Pacific Women 36 B
Pacific Men 60(N) g
Pacific Combers 48 10 to ID