The practice of taking up personal collections is looked down upon by most curbstone speakers. They feel that the soap box should not be exploited. Collections are not always approved by the audiences. Some men label their speeches “lectures” and “pass the hat” on the ground that they have spent years in getting the information. When they “perform the hat trick on the ‘simpoleons’ [simpletons]” they regard it as a compensation for the rôle they play as educators. They chew fine the complex intellectual food so that it may be taken up by the untrained and unlearned. But unpopular as is the practice of collecting money, it is not a barrier. The audience is exceedingly tolerant toward the hat-passer and more so if he has a good “line” of talk, or if he is handicapped.
Most men who talk to Hobohemian crowds make their living by selling some kind of literature. Sometimes they sell pamphlets they have written themselves, or they sell pamphlets or periodicals on a commission. Getting money in this way is not unpopular among the soap-boxers. It is a practice that is rather favored, for it is the best way of getting the down-and-out to thinking, and if the soap-box orators are united on any one thing it is this: that the proletariat must be educated.
One of the favorite methods of distributing literature is to sell it from the box. Enthusiastic persons in the crowd often buy a paper and pay for several others to be distributed from the box. Sometimes a man will take the stand and dispose of a hundred papers or pamphlets in a few moments by persuading those who have money to buy for those who have none.
A man who entertains the “slum proletariat” need not be without status because he lives by street speaking. Most of them either directly or indirectly earn their living in this way, though many of them would not admit it. If a man can plead the cause of the under dog to the satisfaction of the man on the street, if he has a philosophy that pleases the crowd, and if he can present it in an attractive manner, very few resent his passing the hat.
So with all their contentiousness the soap-box orators manage to keep on speaking terms, and rather informally turn favors to one another. Seldom do they “knock” one another, and seldom do they crowd one another away from a corner or place one another in embarrassing positions. In this they have gone farther toward reaching a unity of purpose than the various mission groups who compete on opposite corners for the same crowds.
It must not be thought that soap-boxing is a game that is without its tricks. There are tricks for getting the crowds, tricks for holding the crowds, and tricks for exploiting the crowds. Speakers do not like to be the first one up on the box, nor do they like to be the last one up when the crowd has become tired. If a man wants to pass the hat, it is to his advantage to get the first chance at the crowd. Men will do considerable jockeying to get on the box just when they think it will be to their advantage.
FREE-LANCE VERSATILITY
Street speakers who stand before the same audiences one or more times a week throughout the year tend to wear out. Some of them are resourceful enough to find something new to say, but others find it difficult to say old things in a new way, so they are likely to fall into the habit of repeating themselves. Sometimes they try to keep from growing stale by speaking in as many places as possible, but since their audiences are limited to the Hobohemian population they are always talking to a number who have heard them say the same things before. After a speaker has made the rounds of all the corners he is forced to get a new “line.”
Some men, however, persist in delivering old thread-bare messages in their old, well-worn way. The speeches of some men are so well known that the only interest is one of curiosity. The crowd listens to see if anything was left out. The hobby of one free-lance speaker is Henry George and the Single Tax. To the crowd he is the “P and P” man, because he usually ends his speeches by selling copies of Progress and Poverty at “cost.” Everyone who has been in town long enough to become acquainted with the principal soap-boxers is familiar with this man’s “line,” but usually he hears him again, partly, perhaps, because of his apparent sincerity.
Most soap-boxers, when they find themselves growing stale, are able to change. B’s hobby for a long time has been a speech on birth control, which he followed by selling some books on sex, but he wore this subject out and recently changed to a speech on superstition at the close of which he sells literature of an anti-religious nature. Another speaker whose speech on patent medicine and quack doctors finally lost its novelty is now talking on birth control. Another has gone from trade unionism to the Ku Klux Klan. An old-timer on Madison Street said of a certain speaker: “That man used to be with the I.W.W.; then he went over to How’s organization and now he’s free lancing.” “What is his line now?” is a question that is commonly asked in regard to a soap-box pulpiteer. They are expected to change.