Evening star., 1936-02-23

Park, Va, and to his friends who well
coined him back. He returned here
late Friday night with his father, who
went to Aberdeen, S. OAK. when the
Federal Bureau Of Investigation no.
titled him last Saturday that the
youth had been found.
But for blizzard last Sunday,
which kept him snowbound at Edge
mont, S. OAK, for two days, he might
have slipped through the hands of
two special agents dispatched by j.
Edgar Hoover after the postmistress
OF Rockford, S. OAK, had tipped the
F. B. I. of that Robert, under the
name Of Ward, was in q transient
camp near Custer.
II had no idea the Department of
Justice was looking for me-" young
Cohen explained last night. ''It had
warmed up to nearly zero at Custer
1t had been down to IS below-and
decided to hop train for Santa Fe.
left the camp last Saturday and
hoped freight that took me as far
as Edgemont, about 10 miles away.
when it egan to snow, just as
started to hitchhike to Lusk Nebr.
1t was 20 below. I went back to
Edgemont and put up in a small hotel
there. The second night there the
agents raped on the door about S
o'clock in the morning. They told me
who they were and who 7 was. I
told them they knew as much about
me as did.
Those agents certainly treated me
fine. They were the best fellows
believe I ever met. We drove in their
car back to Rapid City and then got
snowbound there for three days, be-
fore we finally got to Aberdeen by
train. They left the car behind"
Robert said he is not sure in his
own mind today just why he decided,
very suddenly and without any plan
ming, to run away from home after
school on the afternoon of May %
last.
He said there were "a lot of rea-
sons" that played their part. He
didn't think he was getting along well
in school-although his teachers later
told his parents that his work was
satisfactory. He wanted to buy an
automobile and his parents had sug-
gested he wait while. He wanted
to see the Worlds Fair, to see the
country.
1T was just one of those urges that
get into you now and then," he ex-
planned.
Without telling any one of his
abrupt decision, he said he went to
the Ellipse, left his school books near
the Monument (they never were re-
ported found) and then went to the
freight yards at the foot Of Four
teenth street and boarded his first
freight. He had $22 in his pocket.
From that moment on freight rid
ing became his chief mode of trans
portation. He said the train crews
seldom objected-in fact, at times they
gave him food, clothing and some
times let him ride In the caboose. Once
they gave him goggles to keep cinders
out of his eyes.
His first freight took him to Cum
berland, where he hoped another one
to Grafton, w. Va. His immediate OBJ
jective was Pittsburgh, where he
thought he might land a job in the
steel mills.
From Grafton he caught a freight
to Hagerstown, where he made his first
contact with the transient camps,
Transient relief oficials at Hagers-
town gave him some papers to fill
out and he signed his name as "Al
Ward" It was the name of a SOL
dier he knew. he explained.
The Hagerstown relief authorities
did not ask him whether he had any
money, he said, although he still had
most Of his $22 in his pocket. "They
don't care whether you have nothing
or $780," he commented.
They sent him to q transient camp
at Fort Howard, near Baltimore.
where he contracted an infection of
the foot from poison Ivy he was cut
tlng.@ He was sent to hospital and
remained there . week, whereupon he
was sent by the relief officials to a
camp at Fort Holabird and thence by
boat TO Fort Eustis, Va. It was at the
Fort Eustis camp that he was told
not to worry about the police. he de.
clared,
Leaving tbs Fort lr,,stis camp early