THE TRAMP AND HIS ASSOCIATIONS WITH WOMEN
The homeless man has not always been homeless. Like most of us, he was reared in a home and is so far a product of home life. He enters upon the life of the road in his late teens or early twenties. He brings with him, as a rule, the habits and memories gained in the more stable existence in the family and community. Frequently it has been his conflict with, and rebellion against, that more stable existence that set him on the road.
Most of these men have mothers living. If their mothers are dead, they speak of them reverently. The mission workers often direct their appeals to these early memories, “the religion of our mothers.” The only correspondence that some homeless men carry on is with their mothers. Some of them only write one or two letters a year but these are letters home. In most of the missions there is a sign with the inscription, “When Did You Write to Mother Last?”
Other women may, and sometimes do, exert a wholesome influence upon him. He is often profoundly touched by the women of the missions who stand on the street corner and plead with him for his soul’s sake. Young and attractive women invite more attention because of their sex than their message. Though he may have little or no interest in the religious appeal, feeling for these women is generally idealized and wholesome. The missions have learned the value of young and attractive women and employ them extensively as evangelists.
Women in places where the hobo has worked or boarded, generally older women, frequently take a mother’s interest in him. “Mother” Greenstein, who keeps a restaurant on South State Street, is the idol of a great many “bos.” She never turns a hungry man away. She is known far and near by tramps and hobos. Many men know her by reputation who have never seen her.
Another woman who has become well known to many homeless men is “Aunt” Nina S. She kept a rooming-house for years and always gave any man who came to her in winter some place to sleep. She could always find room. Her only compensation was the good will of the homeless man.
51. Another woman who has won a place in the hearts of men of West Madison Street is an old lady whom the “bos” call “Mother.” She does not give them anything; on the contrary she begs from them but she takes a motherly interest in all the “boys.” She is against anyone who makes life hard for them and hates the bootleggers, the gypsies, the gamblers, and all who exploit them. She will denounce and curse anyone who dares to call them “bums” in her presence. Her hobby is cats. She spends several hours a day going up and down the street feeding cats. All the “boys” are tolerant of all cats on the street because they belong to “Mother.” He is a poor “bo,” indeed, who will not spare “Mother” a dime now and then for milk for her “kitties.”
When the tramp works he usually goes out on some job where there are no women. He may spend six months in a lumber camp and not see a woman during all that time. He may work for a whole summer, along with hundreds like himself, and never meet a woman. Sometimes there are women on such jobs, but they are generally the wives of the bosses and have no interest in the common workers. Children in such families frequently strike up a more intimate acquaintance with them. The only company for such a man is men, and men who are living the same unnatural life as himself.
There are jobs open to the homeless man that are more wholesome. Sometimes he finds himself in communities where he is neither isolated nor an outcast. The tramp is not often interested in small-town or country associations, because they generally tend to terminate seriously and he does not want to be taken seriously. If he has the money to spend, and he usually has while he is working, he can meet women, but he meets them in town when he has leisure. He may have a hundred reasons for going to town, but the major reason, whether he admits it or not, is to meet women. The types of women he meets depends upon his personality, his taste, and his purse. In this he is like the soldier or the sailor.
The younger hobos, especially those who are on the road and off again by turns, are able at times to save money and put on a “front.” These younger men are frequently able, therefore, to get into the social life of the communities in which they find themselves. When they are in town with money to spend they “go the limit” while it lasts, and then they go out to work and save up another “stake.” Usually they have a number of women on their correspondence lists. As they go from one city to another they make new acquaintances and forget the old friends. Usually they are as transient in their attachments to women as to their jobs.
Many of these younger men ultimately settle down, but they do not always have the ability to make permanent attachments though they may try again and again. They invariably seek greener pastures. Wherever they are, they will be found “burning the candles at both ends.” As long as they are young and attractive they have little difficulty in finding girls who are willing to assist them in scattering their cash.
Among these are the show girls who sing or dance in the cheap burlesque theaters on South State and West Madison streets. Thousands of hobos, who never can hope to come in personal contact with chorus girls, throng the cheap playhouses of Hobohemia. The titillations of a State Street vaudeville are vulgar and inexpensive. The men, many of them, at least, would not and could not appreciate a higher grade of entertainment.
The hobo has few ideal associations with women. Since most of them are unmarried, or living apart from their wives, their sex relations are naturally illicit. The tramp is not a marrying man, though he does enter into transient free unions with women when the occasion offers. There are many women in the larger cities who have no scruples against living with a man during the winter, or for even a year or two, without insisting upon the marriage rite. They are not prostitutes, not even “kept women.”
52. M. lived with Mrs. S. N. for four or five years, off and on, whenever he was in town. What little money he earned he brought home, though he took money from Mrs. N. more frequently. She worked and usually when she came home very tired he would have the house work done and a meal ready. When she was sick he waited on her. He listened to her troubles and was patient and good natured. In winter he always got up and made the fires. She was always jealous of him and when he would leave town for a month or two she fancied that it was to get away from her and to live with some other woman. Finally they separated, but they are still good friends. He is living with another woman and she with another man. Of late he is only in Chicago in winter.
The tramp who succeeds in living in idleness with a woman in such a companionship considers himself fortunate. The woman who can find a man like M. is often content, provided he is faithful to her, although she prefers a man who can be depended upon to earn a little money. The women who enter these free unions have the least to gain and the most to lose. The general experience of women who keep their “men” is that when they are in the direst need the men will desert them; on the other hand, when the men are in need they will return.
A certain class of detached men makes a practice of getting into the good graces of some prostitute for the winter. The panderer is not a characteristic tramp type, but certain homeless men are not averse to becoming pimps for a season. These attachments between homeless men and prostitutes are often quite real. Some of them even become permanent, others last a year or two, but most of them are only of a few months’ duration. While they do persist they are often more or less sentimental.