JOHN X. KELLY, SOAP-BOXER AND ORGANIZER
John Kelly has been associated with James Eads How for more than fifteen years. Before he met How he was a curbstone orator. Beating his way from city to city, he has talked in the “slave markets” of every metropolitan city in the United States. He has been jailed many times for his “soap-boxing,” and has often been forced to leave town between the suns because of free-speech fights. He has often beaten his way 1,000 miles to be present at a hobo convention and to participate in the demonstrations of the hobo against the upper strata of society.
Kelly is still an organizer, though he is not an enthusiastic or hopeful one. He still has faith, but he is no longer the staunch advocate of democratic hobo organizations he formerly was. Years of bitter experience have taught him that the average hobo will not stand up under any responsibility. At one time he was an I.W.W. soap-boxer, but he no longer believes that the “Wobblies” are doing anything for the hobo, and he frankly tells them so.
From a champion of democracy, he has swung over to an advocate of benevolent autocracy. He is still active in the “Hobo College,” but is often at variance with How and opposes him bitterly on some issues.
How, an idealist, has never learned that the ordinary hobo organization is almost sure to fail if left to manage itself. “But,” says Kelly, the organizer, “they’ll never succeed. They will never be cured of quarreling over trifles. They have got to be saved by some other method than their own power.”