The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-12-15

Times staff Writer
More former college students than
illiterates, more skilled tradesmen
| than common laborers are among
{ Americas homeless, friendless and
penniless Migrants who straggle
daily into Indianapolis.
Coming by twelve major high
ways, over a score of railroad lines,
down a hundred side roads, they
swarm, hungry and tired, into the
city looking for food and seeking
shelter.
Not all of them are buns and
hobos and panhandlers. Rather,
most of them were good American
citizens in their home communities
a few years ago. Many are but boys
-motherless youths of 16 or
younger.
Victims of the depression, most of
them homeless, wondering men are
in search only of work.
Want Chance to Work
All many of them ask is the
chance to work; all they desire is
the right to job and an oppor-
tunity to live without charity.
The ranks of the transient men
were composed of seasonal laborers
q few years ago. They were the
workers that the nation depended
upon to harvest the crops, fell the
lumber, pave the roads, construct
the bridges and man its ships.
Today in their group are found
men of all occupations, represent
ing nearly every branch of business,
commerce and labor.
They used to be respectable bust
ness men, white collar workers,
superintendents of factories, buyers
in department stores, machinlsts,
clerks, tradesmen, foremen, techIll-
clans, electricians, mechanics, &C
tors, engineers.
MOtherIess Boys IN Crowd
College graduates rub elbows with
the professional hobo in this strange
economic setup in which 4,OOO,0O0
transients roam the nation in
search of work.
Thousands of motherless boys I'M
der 16 drift down the by-Ways along
with old, broken-doWn men.
At the crossroads of the nation,
Indianapolis has become pathetic
port of wandering men and boys
since 1929. Many highways and
railways converge here, making the
city a cosmopolitan center for
transients en- route from Chicago,
ST. Louis. Detroit, Cleveland, Co.
lumbus, Cincinnati and Louisville.
Most of the wanderers are penni-
less. Many need medical attention;
all need shelter.
Records at the Foundation Regis
tration Bureau indicate that more
than 4,400 youths under 20, applied
! for relief in Indianapolis in the
months from February to December
of this year.
Many Are Young Boys
Of the number, PAT of the
tranSients we're 16; seventy-nine
were Is; thirty-one had reached
their fourteenth birthdays; nine
teen were Is; eight "hobos" had an
even dozen years in this world and
ten youngsters were but II.
All boys under Is, promptly we're
sent to the detention home, where
an attempt is made to send them
back to their home communities or
to find some one that would care
for them. Every effort is made to
discourage this aimleSs wandering of
this horde of homeless boys, COM
parable to the homeless gangs of
boys in Russia after the revolution
in 1918.
More than $4,000 transients this
year have applied for relief in the
form of food and shelter from the
Central Housing Foundation, the
Wheeler City Mission and the Sal
Walton Army, records show These
men could populate a city the size
of Muncie if gathered together in
one place.
10000 Under Is.
Dame Fortune plays no favorites.
More college graduates than illit-
crates have applied for relief. More
men of skilled trades are destitute
than those men who only know
common labor as a means of liveh-
hood.
Government officials estimated
this summer that 10000 boys under
Is are roaming the country and
drifting from city to city, town to
town, like the professional bum"
of yesterday. Welfare workers see
scores of these growing boys seek
ing aid in Indianapolis every day.
STATE FARMERS GET