An article by Laura Irwin entitled, “Half Dead (Unnecessary Movement a Crime).” It laments the fact that more care is given to machines and animals than to men by the big interests. Another article is a reprint entitled, “Hobos in Missouri.” It is a description of life on the road. Daniel Horsley, a Chicagoan, has an article on “Hobo Life and Death: Something to Think About.” It is a discussion of the struggle for existence. There is also a short story entitled “Callahans’s Castle” depicting jungle pastimes.
Under the heading “Near Poetry” are several short poems by different hobo contributors. Some of the titles are: “History,” “Adrift,” “To a Hobo,” “Labor’s March,” “Our Boss,” “The Hobo: of Course,” and “The Glory of Toil.” Several letters to the editor deal with subjects of general interest to the hobos. The editor writes on the prospects for work the coming winter. There are two cartoons. One shows the figure of a worker hewn out of stone at the top of a mountain. He is being assailed by politicians and capitalists. Over the cartoon is this legend, “These Shall Not Prevail against Him.” Another cartoon shows a tramp waiting at the water tank. A train is approaching in the distance. It is entitled, “The Regular Stop.”
No class of men are in a better position to know life than the migratory population. These men have a large fund of experience, but they do not seem to have developed any sense of the relative values. With all this experience and with all these contacts with life, they are not able to interpret it. The intellectuals are obsessed by the class struggle, and instead of writing literature, they prefer to repeat the formulas and play with the mental toys which the doctrinaire reformers and revolutionists have fashioned for them.
We cannot say therefore that the radical press in monopolizing the hobo pens has robbed art. Among all these contributors to the radical publications, there are few who might produce literature. Many of them do not have patience to write literature nor the courage to formulate a new idea. They prefer to ride a hobby and repeat familiar formulas.
Writers who do find themselves do not remain in the hobo class. Others have the ability to rise, but because of drink or drugs are unable to do so. These men may find a place on the staff of one of the radical papers. They may even aspire to an editorship. Such a goal is not uncommon among the intellectuals. The Hobo News is one paper that the hobo writer likes to be identified with because it is more than a doctrinaire propagandist sheet. It maintains some literary features, and every issue has one or more articles or poems that portray hobo life.
CHAPTER XIV
HOBO SONGS AND BALLADS
Much so-called hobo verse which has found its way into print was not written by tramps, but by men who knew enough of the life of the road to enable them to interpret its spirit. The best hobo poems have been written behind prison bars. Many of the songs of the I.W.W. have been written in jail.
The poetry most popular among the men on the road are ballads describing some picturesque and tragic incident of the hobo’s adventurous life. The following by an unknown author illustrates the type. Here is an incident told in the language of the road in a manner that every “bo” can understand and appreciate.