The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man

by Nels Anderson

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations (1915), pp. 163-64.

[14] B. Seebohm Rountree, Unemployment; A Social Study. London, 1911. See especially chap. vii, “Detailed Descriptions of Selected Families,” where the demoralizing effects of unemployment upon the laborer are clearly indicated.

[15] Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations (1915), p. 157.

[16] See Bibliography, p. 287.

[17] The Individual Delinquent, pp. 776-79.

[18] One Thousand Homeless Men, pp. 88-89.

[19] L. M. Terman, The Measurement of Intelligence, p. 18.

[20] Rudolph Pintner and H. A. Toops, “Mental Tests of Unemployed Men,” Journal of Applied Psychology, I (1917), 325-41; II (1918), 15-25.

[21] “Unemployment and Feeble-mindedness,” Journal of Delinquency, II (1917), 59-73.

[22] Herman M. Adler, “Unemployment and Personality—A Study of Psychopathic Cases,” Mental Hygiene, I (January, 1917), 16-24.

[23] R. E. Park and H. A. Miller, Old World Traits Transplanted, p. 27.

[24] Rexford Tugwell, “The Gypsy Strain,” Pacific Review, pp. 177-78.

CHAPTER VI
THE HOBO AND THE TRAMP

The term “homeless man” was used by Mrs. Alice W. Solenberger in her study of 1,000 cases in Chicago to include all types of unattached men, tramps, hobos, bums, and the other nameless varieties of the “go-abouts.”

Almost all “tramps” are “homeless men” but by no means are all homeless men tramps. The homeless man may be an able-bodied workman without a family; he may be a runaway boy, a consumptive temporarily stranded on his way to a health resort, an irresponsible, feeble-minded, or insane man, but unless he is also a professional wanderer he is not a “tramp.”[25]

There is no better term at hand than “homeless men” by which the men who inhabit Hobohemia may be characterized. Dr. Ben L. Reitman, who has himself traveled as a tramp, in the sense in which he uses the word, has defined the three principal types of the hobo. He says:

There are three types of the genus vagrant: the hobo, the tramp, and the bum. The hobo works and wanders, the tramp dreams and wanders and the bum drinks and wanders.

St. John Tucker, formerly the president of the “Hobo College” in Chicago, gives the same classification with a slightly different definition:

A hobo is a migratory worker. A tramp is a migratory non-worker. A bum is a stationary non-worker. Upon the labor of the migratory worker all the basic industries depend. He goes forth from the crowded slavemarkets to hew the forests, build and repair the railroads, tunnel mountains and build ravines. His is the labor that harvests the wheat in the fall and cuts the ice in the winter. All of these are hobos.

M. Kuhn, of St. Louis (and elsewhere), a migrant, a writer, and, according to his own definition, a hobo, in a pamphlet entitled “The Hobo Problem” gives a fairly representative statement of the homeless man’s explanation of his lot.

The hobo is a seasonal, transient, migratory worker of either sex. Being a seasonal worker he is necessarily idle much of the time; being transient, he is necessarily homeless. He is detached from the soil and the fireside. By the nature of his work and not by his own will, he is precluded from establishing a home and rearing a family. Sex, poverty, habits and degree of skill have nothing whatever to do with classifying individuals as hobos; the character of his work does that.

There are individuals not hobos who pose as such. They are enabled to do this for two reasons: first, hobos have no organization by which they can expose the impostor; second, the frauds are encouraged and made possible by organized and private charity. The hobo class, therefore, is unable to rid itself of this extremely undesirable element. With organization it can and will be done even if charity, which is strongly opposed by the hobo class, is not abolished.

Nicholas Klein, president of the “Hobo College” and attorney and adviser to James Eads How, the so-called hobo millionaire, who finances the “Hobo College,” says:

A hobo is one who travels in search of work, the migratory worker who must go about to find employment. Workers of that sort pick our berries, fruit, hops, and help to harvest the crops on the western farms. They follow the seasons around giving their time to farms in spring, summer, and autumn, and ending up in the ice fields in winter. We could not get in our crops without them for the hobo is the boy who does the work. The name originated from the words “hoe-boy” plainly derived from work on the farm. A tramp is one who travels but does not work, and a bum is a man who stays in one place and does not work. Between these grades there is a great gulf of social distinction. Don’t get tramps and hobos mixed. They are quite different in many respects. The chief difference being that the hobo will work and the tramp will not, preferring to live on what he can pick up at back doors as he makes his way through the country.[26]

LEADERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT AMONG THE HOBOS

A POPULAR RESORT IN HOBOHEMIA

Roger Payne, A.B. and LL.B., who has taken upon himself the title “hobo philosopher,” sees only one type of the wanderer and that is the hobo. The hobo to him is a migratory worker. If he works but does not migrate, or if he migrates but does not work, he is not a hobo. All others are either tramps or bums. He makes no distinction between them. The hobo, foot-loose and care-free, leads, Mr. Payne thinks, the ideal life.

Although we cannot draw lines closely, it seems clear that there are at least five types of homeless men: (a) the seasonal worker,[27] (b) the transient or occasional worker or hobo, (c) the tramp who “dreams and wanders” and works only when it is convenient, (d) the bum who seldom wanders and seldom works, and (e) the home guard who lives in Hobohemia and does not leave town.[28]