A. W. DRAGSTEDT, “THE HOBO INTELLECTUAL”
Mr. Dragstedt is one of the numerous ex-secretaries of the “Hobo College” for the year 1922-23. As secretary of the “college,” it was his business to attend to the finances of the institution and to manage the programs. It is the secretary’s job to find speakers for various occasions, and to advertise the meetings. In short, the secretary must be a diplomat and an executive. Dragstedt has all the earmarks of a good hobo secretary.
Born in Sweden some forty years ago, he emigrated to this country and settled in Montana before he was out of his teens. He did not remain settled long, but went here and there in search of work until he developed into a regular hobo. He has worked at nearly all the migratory occupations and has seen nearly all the states of the Union. He is now one of the seasoned veterans of the floating fraternity. He is getting over his passion for travel, but he has not yet learned to settle down. He still likes to feel that he is free to go whenever the notion strikes him, although for a year or so he has not gone very far from the city.
Dragstedt is a man of wide and varied experience, but he seldom can be persuaded to talk about himself. He did his bit in the late war and went as far as France. Most hobos who have been across like to tell about it, but not he. But Dragstedt talks. He has ideas and he talks about them. He has a great many ideas, some of them consistent and others not, but they keep him occupied and he is generally keeping someone else interested. He is a type of the hobo intellectual.
As a high brow, Dragstedt is a poet of no mean ability. His poems either protest against the “system” or idealize tramp life. He is also an artist. The walls of the “Hobo College” are adorned with samples of his workmanship such as cartoons and decorated placards. He has an ambition to become a cartoonist, but he is a hobo, and hobos are men who will not apply themselves. He has two or three scenarios that might be developed into fair picture plays, but he will not go back to them to polish them up. This calls for more application than he cares to give. In this, again, he is a hobo, but he does not grieve about that.