MICHAEL C. WALSH, ORGANIZER AND PROMOTER
Walsh has long been a factor in the hobo life of Chicago. At present he is the head of a struggling organization of workers known as the United Brotherhood of American Laborers, which seeks to organize workers around an insurance program. Walsh designates himself “Journalist and Lecturer, Founder of the Famous Hobo College,” “The Society of Vagabonds,” and “The Mary Garden Forum.” He further styles himself, not without reason, a graduate of the “University of Adversity.”
Left an orphan at an early age, he began wandering, working casually at his trade as an iron-worker. He traveled extensively over the United States and went abroad as a tramp worker and a beach-comber. In 1906-7, becoming interested in the problem of the down-and-outs, he conducted the Liberty Hotel in Seattle for the unemployed. Later in San Francisco he was again active in the interest of the unemployed. Still later he joined James Eads How in St. Louis and aided in organizing the “penniless men of his own city.” In 1915 he came to Chicago and organized the “Hobo College.” Other hobos say that the “college” had been in existence years before Walsh arrived on the scene, but that he did play a part in making it popular.
Walsh, as president of the “college,” was able to attract the assistance of many leading citizens. He won the services of Mary Garden, who took special pride in singing there occasionally. He has been active among the unemployed, and at one time attracted considerable public notice which got him into disrepute with the local police.
Walsh has also sought the limelight as a lyceum and chautauqua lecturer. His subjects dealt with the various aspect of the hobo problem. Walsh, like many of the hobo celebrities, only sees in the tramp problem one cause, and that is, unemployment. “Give the boys plenty of jobs and there will be no tramps.” This is a popular interpretation among the tramps themselves.