If they have failed, it is due in part to the fact that so large a part of modern industry is organized in a way which tends inevitably to the casualization of labor. It is due, in part, to the fact that the hobo, in so far as he is a congenital type, finds in casual and seasonal labor a kind of occupation congenial to his temperament, for the hobo is the bohemian in the ranks of common labor. He has the artistic temperament. Aside from the indispensable labor of his hands, the only important contribution which he has made to the permanent common fund of our experience which we call our culture has been his poetry. It is an interesting fact, however, that some of the best of this poetry has been produced in jail. During these periods of enforced quietude, when he could no longer move, the hobo has vented his habitual restlessness in songs, songs of protest, the hymns of the rebellious I.W.W., tragic little ballads describing some of the hardships and tragedies of life on the long, gray road.
There have been many hobo poets. The most eminent of them, Walt Whitman, reflected the restlessness and rebelliousness and individualism of the hobo mind not only in the content but in the very formlessness of his verse.
What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?
Nothing could better express the spirit of the old frontier which, more than any other feature in American life, has served to characterize American institutions and American mores. The hobo is, in fact, merely a belated frontiersman, a frontiersman at a time and in a place when the frontier is passing or no longer exists.
Robert E. Park
CHAPTER X
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE URBAN COMMUNITY
The task of compiling a bibliography on the city which is to be of use to the sociologist involves many difficulties. The materials are scattered over many fields of investigation ranging all the way from the various branches of the natural and social sciences to the practical arts and crafts. Much of the material is highly technical and abstract, while the rest is popular and full of human interest. If one attempts to survey the whole field he is likely to be led into tempting bypaths which lead far afield and in the end arrive nowhere. Moreover, the bibliographer has neither chart nor compass to guide him in his search, for the sociologist himself is not yet certain of the meaning of the concept “city” and of the relationship of his science to the phenomenon.
Specialization has gone so far that no one can hope to become an expert in more than one field in a lifetime. The sanitary engineer, interested in urban sanitation, is mainly concerned with drainage systems, pumps, sewer pipes, and incinerators; but the accountant, the political scientist, and the sociologist are not primarily interested in these matters. At first glance the sociologist might be tempted to pass over such material as lying outside his province, while he would be less likely to pass over materials relating to parks, playgrounds, schools, infant mortality, city-planning, and non-voting, because these institutions and processes have traditionally held the sociologist’s interest. And yet it is within the realm of possibility that such a question as that of the type of sewer pipe that is to be employed in a city drainage system may become one with which the sociologist is as legitimately concerned as the question of city-planning or juvenile delinquency.
The problem of deciding what is pertinent and what is extraneous is, then, obviously an important one. While the sociologist may be intensely interested in a subject matter pertaining to another science or craft, he has his own distinctive point of view, methodology, and objective, and since he cannot be an expert engineer, city manager, and sociologist all at the same time, he must accept the data of these other specialists when they happen to form the subject matter of his investigation. The sociologist is no more a housing specialist or a zoning specialist or a social case worker in a metropolitan social agency than he is an urban engineer or health officer, but he may have an important contribution to make to all of these activities, and may in turn acquire from these technicians a body of materials which shed light on his own problems and yield to sociological analysis. What is to be included or excluded from a sociological bibliography of the city depends upon the sociological definition of the city.
Although the literature on the city extends as far back as the city itself, the subject is now being studied with renewed interest and with a new point of view. If we were compiling a complete bibliography we would most likely begin with the classical discussion of Socrates in the second book of Plato’s Republic and follow the increasingly complex and scattered writings up to the present day, when we can scarcely find a science that does not have something to contribute to the subject. But this is not the aim of this bibliography. The attempt is here made to note just that part of the literature which has something to offer to the sociologist in the way of source material, point of view, method, and interpretation. A great deal, no doubt, has been included which is of little value. At the same time much has been necessarily omitted which is important. Some effort was made to avoid excessive duplication, but this attempt has not been wholly successful. The list of books and articles includes many works which were inaccessible at the time the bibliography was compiled, and whose contents could therefore not be examined. They are included because either the titles were suggestive or else the reputation of the authors merited attention.