To How the hobos are a “chosen people” who have been denied their own. They will come into their own in time. All his repeated failures to build up a strong organization of migratory workers have not shaken his faith in his vision. How still believes that hobos and millionaires will sooner or later work together in harmony to construct the House of Happiness for humanity.
DR. BEN L. REITMAN, “THE KING OF THE HOBOS”
With the exception of James Eads How, “the millionaire hobo,” Reitman is known to more migratory workers than any other man in the country. Several years ago, while he was roaming casually over the United States, Reitman was dubbed by the papers the “King of the Hobos.” This title was well earned by more than twenty years on the road, including two or three tramps around the world.
DR. BEN L. REITMAN
His own description of himself given to the papers several years ago still holds:
I am an American by birth, a Jew by parentage, a Baptist by adoption, a physician and teacher by profession, cosmopolitan by choice, a Socialist by inclination, a celebrity by accident, a tramp by twenty years’ experience, and a reformer by inspiration.
The only modification that he would make today is that he has settled into the routine of his profession. He still lectures at the “Hobo College.” He still intercedes for hobos and guarantees their bills in case they do not make good. He is still a refuge for the sick and afflicted and not a day passes that he does not treat some down-and-outer free. He is still a reformer but he has lost that “lean, hungry look” of his hobo days, and since he owns a Ford, the hobos charge him with being an aristocrat.
JOHN X. KELLY, SOAP-BOXER AND ORGANIZER
John Kelly has been associated with James Eads How for more than fifteen years. Before he met How he was a curbstone orator. Beating his way from city to city, he has talked in the “slave markets” of every metropolitan city in the United States. He has been jailed many times for his “soap-boxing,” and has often been forced to leave town between the suns because of free-speech fights. He has often beaten his way 1,000 miles to be present at a hobo convention and to participate in the demonstrations of the hobo against the upper strata of society.