POEMS OF PROTEST
In spite of its transient charms, the life of the tramp is a hard one. It is fine to be free, but it is good to have a home. The hobo likes freedom, but is not satisfied to be an Ishmaelite. His speeches and his poetry are filled with protests against the social order which refuses to make a place for him; against the system that makes him an outcast.
The following poem entitled “The Dishwasher” was written by Jim Seymour, the “Hobo poet.” The second half, omitted here, is a prophecy of the overthrow of the “system.”
Alone in the kitchen, in grease laden steam,
I pause for a moment—a moment to dream:
For even a dishwasher thinks of a day,
Wherein there’ll be leisure for rest and for play.
And now that I pause, o’er the transom there floats,
A strain of the Traumerei’s soul stirring notes.
Engulfed in a blending of sorrow and glee,
I wonder that music can reach even me.
But now I am thinking; my brain has been stirred.
The voice of a master, the lowly has heard.
The heart breaking sobs of the sad violin,
Arouse the thoughts of the sweet might have been.
Had men been born equal, the use of their brain,
Would shield them from poverty: free them from pain,
Nor would I have sunk into the black social mire,
Because of poor judgment in choosing a sire.
But now I am only a slave of the mill,
That plies and remodels me just as it will;
That makes me a dullard in brain burning heat;
That looks at rich viands not daring to eat;
That works with his red, blistered hands ever stuck,
Down deep in the foul indescribable muck;
Where dishes are plunged seventeen at a time;
And washed in a tubful of sickening slime.
But on with your clatter; no more must I shirk.
The world is to me but a nightmare of work.
For me not the music, the laughter and song;
For no toiler is welcome amid the gay throng.
For me not the smiles of the ladies who dine;
Nor the sweet, clinging kisses, begotten of wine.
For me but the venting of low, sweated groans,
That twelve hours a night have instilled in my bones.
Arturo Giovannitti won his reputation as a poet by a poem in blank verse which pictures the monotony of prison life. “The Walker” was written in jail, as was “The Bum,” the poem by which Giovannitti is best known among the hobos. As an I.W.W. and a radical, his writings breathe the spirit of protest. “The Bum,” the first three verses of which follow, is an eloquent tirade against religion:
The dust of a thousand roads, the grease
And grime of slums, were on his face;
The fangs of hunger and disease
Upon his throat had left their trace;
The smell of death was in his breath,
But in his eye no resting place.
Along the gutters, shapeless, fagged,
With drooping head and bleeding feet,
Throughout the Christmas night he dragged,
His care, his woe, and his defeat;
Till, gasping hard, with face downward
He fell upon the trafficked street.
The midnight revelry aloud
Cried out its glut of wine and lust
The happy, clean, indifferent crowd
Passed him in anger and disgust:
For—fit or rum—he was a bum,
And if he died ’twas nothing lost.[61]
In the following poem, by an unknown writer, “The Bum on the Rods and the Bum on the Plush” states the case of labor against capital in the language and accents of the hobo:
The bum on the rods is hunted down
As the enemy of mankind,
The other is driven around to his club
Is feted, wined, and dined.
And they who curse the bum on the rods
As the essence of all that is bad,
Will greet the other with a winning smile,
And extend the hand so glad.
The bum on the rods is a social flea
Who gets an occasional bite,
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Blood-sucking day and night.
The bum on the rod is a load so light
That his weight we scarcely feel,
But it takes the labor of dozens of men
To furnish the other a meal.
As long as you sanction the bum on the plush
The other will always be there,
But rid yourself of the bum on the plush
And the other will disappear.
Then make an intelligent, organized kick,
Get rid of the weights that crush.
Don’t worry about the bum on the rods,
Get rid of the bum on the plush.
The following verses are taken from a selection written by Henry A. White, who is a veteran of the road and for many years connected with the publication of the Hobo News. It is entitled “The Hobo Knows.” In it one can detect an unfamiliar note of resignation, the resignation of an old man who has hoped and struggled, and learned.
He knows the whirr of the rolling wheels,
And their click on the time-worn joints;
His ear is attuned to the snap and snarl
Of the train, at the rickety points.
He knows the camp by the side of the road,
And the “java” and “mulligan” too;
The siding long, and the water tank
Are as home to me and you.
He knows the fright of hunger and thirst,
And of cold and of rain as well;
Of raggedy clothes and out-worn shoes,
An awful tale he can tell.
He knows what it means to slave all day,
And at night eat the vilest of fare;
What a tale he can tell of loathsome bunks,
Cramped quarters, and noisome air.
He knows what the end of it all will be
When he crosses the line at the goal;
A rough, pine box, and a pauper’s grave
And he has paid his toll.