FOOTNOTES:
[64] Chapter xvii, “Missions and Welfare Organizations.”
CHAPTER XVI
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL HOBO ORGANIZATION
The hobo is an individualistic person. Not even the actors and artists can boast a higher proportion of egocentrics. They are the modern Ishmaels who refuse to fit into the routine of conventional social life. Resenting every sort of social discipline, they have “cut loose” from organized society.
For them there is only the open road which offers an existence without discipline, without organization, without control. To the restless and dissatisfied the life of a vagabondage is a challenge, the most elementary way by which men seek to escape from reality.
Out of this unrest, efforts have arisen through which the hobo has striven to materialize his dreams. Among the organizations initiated or promoted by migrants are the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), the International Brotherhood Welfare Association (I.B.W.A.), the Migratory Workers’ Union (M.W.U.), the United Brotherhood of American Laborers, and the Ramblers.