The experiences of the tramp or hobo in the police court do not increase his respect for the law and the administration of justice. He finds the administration of justice a mechanical process. At the points where the law touches his life it has lost every trace of the human touch unless it be the brutal “third degree” or the traditional “sixty days.” The courts sometimes put fear into his heart but they do not reform him. What status as a citizen does the hobo wish? His attitude toward the police and his reaction toward the civil authorities that represent organized society seem to be tempered with antipathy. Most of the songs he sings are songs of protest. The organizations to which he allies himself are antagonistic to things as they are. In many ways, the migratory worker is “a man without a country.” By the very nature of his occupation he is deprived of the ballot, and liable when not at work to arrest for vagrancy and trespassing. The public ignores him generally, but now and again pities or is hostile to him. With no status in organized society, he longs for a classless society where all inequalities shall be abolished. In the I.W.W. and other radical organizations, he finds in association with restless men of his own kind the recognition everywhere else denied him. FOOTNOTES: [55] It must be remembered that the 400 include tramps in transit who are, perhaps, the better and most fit of all the types. At least there would be in such a group a greater number of able-bodied men than in any 400 selected at random in the “stem” of one of our cities. Again, 400 is not a sufficient number to permit more than a tentative conclusion. [56] From an unpublished study by the author of 400 tramps, Document 115. [57] Unpublished Document 80. PART IV HOW THE HOBO MEETS HIS PROBLEM CHAPTER XII PERSONALITIES OF HOBOHEMIA Like other communities, Hobohemia has its eminent persons. In the flux and flow of the life on the “main stem” certain individuals are conspicuous. They are for the most part the soap-box orators, the organizers and promoters of utopias. These men are the most loved or the most hated of all the Hobohemian celebrities. They are either overwhelmingly approved or are unsparingly condemned as grafters and parasites. But whether exploiters or benefactors they are centers of interest. They are powers. Among the many men of this group are: James Eads How, Dr. Ben L. Reitman, John X. Kelly, Michael C. Walsh, Daniel Horsley, and A. W. Dragstedt. Outside of these leaders of the migratory workers are mission workers, like Charles W. Langsman, of the Bible Rescue Mission; and John Van de Water, of the Helping Hand Mission; and Brigadier J. E. Atkins, of the Salvation Army, which is neither a mission nor a church.