MEMBERS OF THE JEFFERSON PARK INTELLIGENTSIA
THE HOBO READS PROGRESSIVE LITERATURE
Sex stories are, of course, popular. The tramp has a preference for books of adventure and action. Jack London is the most widely read of novelists among the “bos.” Books on mechanics, How to Run an Automobile, Uses of the Steel Square, Block Signal Systems, Gas Engines, have a wide sale.
Works on phrenology, palmistry, Christian Science, hypnotism, and the secrets of the stars, etc., are of perennial interest. Joke books and books explaining tricks with cards or riddles, detective stories, and books in the field of the social sciences are surprisingly popular. Bookstores patronized by tramps keep in stock special pocket-size editions of works on sociology, economics, politics, and history. The radical periodicals recommend books to the serious-minded hobo reader. Following is a list from the Hobo News:
- Easy Outlines on Economics, by Noah Ablett
- A Worker Looks at History, by Mark Starr
- Philosophical Essays; Positive Outlines of Philosophy, by J. Dietzgen
Among the books recommended for the proletariat in the I.W.W. literature list for April, 1922, are the following:
- The Ancient Lowly, C. Osborne Ward
- Ancient Society, Lewis H. Morgan
- Capital, Karl Marx
- Capital Today, Herman Cahn
- The Economic Causes of War, Achille Loria
- Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History, Antonio Labriola
- Evolution of Man, Wilhelm Boelache
- Evolution of Property, Paul Lafargue
- Social and Philosophical Studies, Paul Lafargue
- Stories of the Great Railroads, Charles Edward Russell
- The Universal Kinship, J. Howard Moore
- History of Great American Fortunes, Gustavus Myers
- History of the Supreme Courts, Gustavus Myers
- Origin of the Family; Private Property and the State, Frederick Engels
- The History of the I.W.W., Frederic Brissenden