Crime -- United States; Police -- United States; Tramps
Personal liberty and freedom in contra-distinction to class liberty and
freedom also count for a good deal in the outcast's life. Besides being
independent of other people, he is also more or less independent of his
own people, so far as laws and commands are concerned. He tolerates no
king, president, or parliament, and resents with vigour any
infringements upon his privileges, either from society or his own
organisation. In fact, he leaves the organisation and lives by himself
alone, if he feels that its unwritten, but at times rather strict, laws
bear too heavily upon him. There are men who live absolutely apart from
the crowd, shunning all society, except that which supports them. They
are often called "cranks" by their less thoroughgoing companions, and
would probably impress every one as a little crotchety and peculiar, but
their action is the logical outcome of the life. The tendency of this
life is to make a man dislike the slightest conventionalism, and to live
up to his disliking is the consistent conduct of every man in it. He
hates veneer about him in every particular and only as he throws off
every vestige of it does he enjoy to the full his world.
In a lodging-house in Chicago, some years ago, I met a tramp who was a
good example of the liberty-loving professional offenders. We awoke in
the morning a little earlier than the rest, and, as it was not yet time
to get up, fell to talking and "declaring ourselves," as tramps do
under such circumstances. After we had exchanged the usual cut and dried
remarks which even hobo society cannot do entirely without, he said to
me, suddenly, and utterly without connection with what had gone before:
"Don't you love this sort o' life?" at the same time looking at me
enthusiastically, almost as if inspired. I confessed that it had certain
attractive features, and showed, for the sake of drawing him out, an
enthusiasm of my own. "I don't see," he went on, "how I have ever lived
differently. I was brought up on a farm, but, my goodness, I wouldn't
trade this life if you'd give me all the land in the wild West. Why, I
can do just as I please now--exactly. When I want to go anywhere, I get
on a train and go, and no one has the right to ask me any questions.
That's what I call liberty,--I want to go just where I please," and he
brought out the words with an emphasis that could not have been stronger
had he been stating his religious convictions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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