WHAT THE TRAMP THINKS OF THE PRIVATE POLICE
To migrants the railroad is “the tramp’s traditional highway.” The tramp, however, expects opposition from the railroad police and even from the train crews; nevertheless he measures his success as a “boomer” by his ability to outwit this opposition. Encounters with the railroad police are a favorite theme of conversation in the “jungles” and along the “stem.”
One man tells of being held in Hutchinson, Kansas, on suspicion:
57. A bunch of us came in on a freight and started up town. It was about midnight and the moon was shining. We were sneaking along the shade of a row of box cars. A couple of men halted us and ordered us to come out into the light. I had a notion to run but one of the other fellows said they had “gats” and we’d better take no chances. It was a good thing we didn’t run because we found out that a couple of men had escaped from the jail. All the police and a lot of the citizens had been drafted to find them. Most of them carried guns and nothing would have suited them better than to have had some one to shoot at.
They rounded up about ten “bos” out of the yards and took us to a room in the depot where they held us for about an hour till one of the guards came from the jail. He did not see the escaped men in the crowd so we were turned loose. The railroad “bull” ordered us to walk out of town. We walked out a ways and then sneaked back and caught a freight.
I think we got off easy. I had a buddy once who was held a week until the police could get a picture. He was caught by the railroad “bull” and turned over to the “town clown.” They are always sorry if they can’t get something on a “bo” they hold.
Youths in their first adventures on the road accept with zest the conflict with the private police. A student who made a practice of “working the harvest” each summer gives the following statement:
58. My first experience with a bull was at Marshalltown, Iowa. I had been selling books up near Mason City, Iowa, and after three weeks of that loathsome occupation, I threw my prospectus into the ditch and started for home. Late one night I caught an express train on the Northwestern from Ames, Iowa, bound for Chicago, and rode from there to Marshalltown; unfortunately the train pulled into the station very slowly and the long string of lights on the station platform shed a great deal of light on the train. I started to get off when a rough voice cursing loudly told me to get off on that side. He took me by the shoulder and asked me what in hell I was doing riding on that train. “Don’t you know,” he said, “what we do with fellows who ride the front ends of these trains?” He gave me a kick and told me to get out of the yards. It was my first encounter with the “bulls” and I have since learned that “bull” tactics are very much the same.
Another time I crawled off the train into the waiting arms of a Rock Island “bull” in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He showed me his star and searched me over carefully, feeling every lump in my clothing. During the search he said, “Will you give me all I find on you?” The question rather startled me but I quickly replied, “Yes.” Finding nothing, he seemed disappointed and said, “I can’t understand why you haven’t more money on you! What are you, anyway?” I told him I was a college student looking for work. “The hell you are!” he sneered, “you’re a Weary Willie, now get out of here, quick.”
At Grand Island some fifty of us tried to ride a merchandise freight out of the yards, when an energetic “bull” pulled himself out of a car and waved a revolver wildly warning all not to get on. It was a long freight and the men strung themselves up and down the track the full length of it. In spite of his efforts, several got aboard. My companion and I were quite close to him and made no effort to get on.
My next encounter occurred at Bureau, Illinois, a division point on the Rock Island. There were four of us on the tender (behind the engine), my room mate and I and two lads who had jumped on some miles down the line. They had been jumping on and off and having a good time generally. Both of them had on white shirts and could be easily recognized by the train men. At Bureau a rough looking “bull” poked his head over the tender, waved a gun, cursed madly and told us to get down from there. We were lying flat on one corner and I did not believe he had seen us. The two boys did as they were told while I held my room mate down and told him not to move. I heard him swearing at the boys as the train pulled out.
With a companion I left a Rock Island freight one afternoon to get a drink of water. We came back to see our train far up the track toward Des Moines. I noticed by my table that an express train would soon be in. My companion was a long, lean individual, a bluffing, blustering type probably weighing about 175 pounds. A “bull” was waiting for us at Valley Junction, just outside of Des Moines. He pulled us off and marched us out in front of all the passengers and into the station. We both noticed that we had climbed a mail train and that our future was not very bright. The station agent was not in and I sized Mr. “Bull” up as he searched us. He was a young fellow, not over twenty-five and did not look nearly as hard as he talked. My companion was as pale as a sheet and would say nothing. I talked to him as best I could, and after scaring us to the best of his ability he finally turned us loose, actually buying us a ticket on the auto bus to Des Moines. He acted almost human toward us.
A man, prominent in Hobohemia as a soap-boxer, recites this experience out of a great number that he has had with railroad and other private police.
59. I was traveling in Indiana with a man by the name of Sullivan, known around the country as “Sully.” We got off at Flora, a railroad town in Indiana. It was cold and the town was “hostile” because so many “bos” had been there that the people were hardened to them. We knew better than to hang around the railroad yards so we decided to go out of town a ways and build a fire to keep warm while we waited for a train. We started out but Sully decided to return and learn from the switchman when a train would be leaving. I said that I would go out along the track and build a wind break with some old ties and make a fire.
I dragged some ties together and had the wind break up by the time Sully returned. I had the fire going too and was taking off my shoes. I had stepped in some water while dragging ties and my feet were wet and cold.
Everything went fine for about half an hour. I was drying my shoes and socks and Sully and I were talking about where we were going and what to do. It was at the time of the Steel Strike, and Sully was planning on going up there to get a job as a “scab herder.” He said that by that means he would get in with the company and that he could work some “sabotage” in the interest of the workers. At that time I was traveling and selling literature, and holding street meetings in the interests of the I.B.W.A.
All of a sudden something hit me in the back between the shoulder blades. I looked around quickly and there were two “bulls.” We were on railroad property and I knew we were in for it. Sully ducked and went over the fence. I had my shoes off and couldn’t run. One of them gave me another tap on the back with a black jack. “What are you here for?” “I am drying my shoes,” was the only answer I could think of. As I hurried to get my shoes on one of them slapped me on the side of the head. I jumped and ran while they cursed me and told me never to let them catch me again. I met Sully an hour later and together we cursed all railroad “bulls” as cowards and sneaks.
Sometime after that I was told by a friend that Sully was an employee of the Pinkerton agency. I did not believe it but before a year was out I heard it from two or three sources. I made an effort to find out and I learned it was true; that he was in their employ at the time we got chased. Then it came to me why he went back to talk to the switchmen and how he got away without being hit. He was traveling with me because he was trying to get a line on me as an agitator.
These stories are typical of those that any experienced tramp can tell.
The private police “talks by hand” because it is the most practical method at his command. The argument of the club coincides most admirably with the mood he is in when on duty searching trains and keeping trespassers off railroad property. He is a hunter and the tramp is his prey. If it is a game to the police, it is no less so to the tramp. One lad who had been caught a time or two said: “I get a lot of ‘kick’ out of riding trains out of a place when I know the ‘dicks’ are trying to keep me off.”
When a town has a railroad policeman who is “hard,” the fact is soon noised about. A few years ago, Galesburg, Illinois, was known throughout the country for the “bad” colored policeman who guarded the yards. The hobo who could tell a story of an encounter with the big “nigger bull” had an exploit to be proud of. For some time Green River, Wyoming, boasted a “hard bull” known to the “floating fraternity” as “Green River Slim.” As the reputation of a “bad” policeman travels ahead, so the information about his tactics and methods. Where he may be found, how avoided, how he watches the trains, are usually common knowledge to the average “bo” before he reaches a town.