This process of personal degradation of the migratory casual worker from economic independence to pauperism is only an aspect of the play of economic forces in modern industrial society. Seasonal industries, business cycles, alternate periods of employment and of unemployment, the casualization of industry, have created this great industrial reserve army of homeless, foot-loose men which concentrates in periods of slack employment, as winter, in strategic centers of transportation, our largest cities. They must live; the majority of them are indispensable in the present competitive organization of industry; agencies and persons moved by religious and philanthropic impulses will continue to alleviate their condition; and yet their concentration in increasing numbers in winter in certain areas of our large cities cannot be regarded otherwise than as a menace. The policy of allowing the migratory casual laborer to “get by” is, however, easier and cheaper at the moment, even if the prevention of the economic deterioration and personal degradation of the homeless men would, in the long run, make for social efficiency and national economy. FOOTNOTES: [8] See Document 18. [9] The mayor’s office issued about 6,000 free permits in 1922 to peddle from house to house (not from wagon or cart), from basket or other receptacle, only for a period of sixty days. [10] Unpublished Document 111. [11] Unpublished Document 112. [12] Unpublished Document 113. PART II TYPES OF HOBOS CHAPTER V WHY DO MEN LEAVE HOME? Why are there tramps and hobos? What are the conditions and motives that make migratory workers, vagrants, homeless men? Attempts to answer these questions have invariably raised other questions even more difficult to answer. Homeless men themselves are not always agreed in regard to the matter. The younger men put the blame upon circumstance and external conditions. The older men, who know life better, are humbler. They are disposed to go to the other extreme and put all the blame on themselves. 10. “My old man tried his d--dest to get me to go to school; but no, I couldn’t learn anything in school. I could make my own way. I could get along without the old man or his advice. Well, when I woke up I was forty years old, of course it was too late. I couldn’t go back. That’s what’s the matter with half of these d--d kids on the road. No one can tell them anything. They’re burning up to learn something on their own hook; and they’ll learn it, too.” From the records and observations of a great many men the reasons why men leave home seem to fall under several heads: (_a_) seasonal work and unemployment, (_b_) industrial inadequacy, (_c_) defects of personality, (_d_) crises in the life of the person, (_e_) racial or national discrimination, and (_f_) wanderlust. SEASONAL WORK AND UNEMPLOYMENT