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.
It has been the policy of the Baptist Church on North LaSalle Street and the Immanuel Baptist Church on South Michigan Avenue more than other churches to feed homeless men. Dr. Johnston Myers is pastor of the latter church, and probably the most talked-of minister in Hobohemia when times are hard. Dr. Myers is contrasted by homeless men with the Greensteins on South State Street. “Mother” Greenstein’s “bread line” is known the country over.
These or their counterparts may be found in any city where hobos gather.
How, a man of wealth and education, renounced all to share the lot of the hobos. He is not an imposing personality, but he is a kindly, ingratiating, almost saintly man. He is a dreamer and a visionary with a program for reforming the world. Every cent that he does not spend for doughnuts and twenty-five-cent flops goes to the “cause.” He hopes that other millionaires will see his good works and imitate him.
How is a bachelor in his late forties. According to rumor, which he neither affirms nor denies, he has two college degrees, one of them in medicine. He plans soon to enter a college for a year to study law, so as to be the better prepared to promote the interests of the International Brotherhood Welfare Association and the “Hobo College.” The I.W.W. believes the world will be reformed by organization and direct action first, and education second. How puts education first. He hopes to establish a central hobo university to which the numerous hobo colleges in the large cities will be feeders.
To How the hobos are a “chosen people” who have been denied their own. They will come into their own in time. All his repeated failures to build up a strong organization of migratory workers have not shaken his faith in his vision. How still believes that hobos and millionaires will sooner or later work together in harmony to construct the House of Happiness for humanity.
With the exception of James Eads How, “the millionaire hobo,” Reitman is known to more migratory workers than any other man in the country. Several years ago, while he was roaming casually over the United States, Reitman was dubbed by the papers the “King of the Hobos.” This title was well earned by more than twenty years on the road, including two or three tramps around the world.
His own description of himself given to the papers several years ago still holds:
I am an American by birth, a Jew by parentage, a Baptist by adoption, a physician and teacher by profession, cosmopolitan by choice, a Socialist by inclination, a celebrity by accident, a tramp by twenty years’ experience, and a reformer by inspiration.
The only modification that he would make today is that he has settled into the routine of his profession. He still lectures at the “Hobo College.” He still intercedes for hobos and guarantees their bills in case they do not make good. He is still a refuge for the sick and afflicted and not a day passes that he does not treat some down-and-outer free. He is still a reformer but he has lost that “lean, hungry look” of his hobo days, and since he owns a Ford, the hobos charge him with being an aristocrat.
John Kelly has been associated with James Eads How for more than fifteen years. Before he met How he was a curbstone orator. Beating his way from city to city, he has talked in the “slave markets” of every metropolitan city in the United States. He has been jailed many times for his “soap-boxing,” and has often been forced to leave town between the suns because of free-speech fights. He has often beaten his way 1,000 miles to be present at a hobo convention and to participate in the demonstrations of the hobo against the upper strata of society.
Kelly is still an organizer, though he is not an enthusiastic or hopeful one. He still has faith, but he is no longer the staunch advocate of democratic hobo organizations he formerly was. Years of bitter experience have taught him that the average hobo will not stand up under any responsibility. At one time he was an I.W.W. soap-boxer, but he no longer believes that the “Wobblies” are doing anything for the hobo, and he frankly tells them so.
From a champion of democracy, he has swung over to an advocate of benevolent autocracy. He is still active in the “Hobo College,” but is often at variance with How and opposes him bitterly on some issues.
How, an idealist, has never learned that the ordinary hobo organization is almost sure to fail if left to manage itself. “But,” says Kelly, the organizer, “they’ll never succeed. They will never be cured of quarreling over trifles. They have got to be saved by some other method than their own power.”
Walsh has long been a factor in the hobo life of Chicago. At present he is the head of a struggling organization of workers known as the United Brotherhood of American Laborers, which seeks to organize workers around an insurance program. Walsh designates himself “Journalist and Lecturer, Founder of the Famous Hobo College,” “The Society of Vagabonds,” and “The Mary Garden Forum.” He further styles himself, not without reason, a graduate of the “University of Adversity.”
Left an orphan at an early age, he began wandering, working casually at his trade as an iron-worker. He traveled extensively over the United States and went abroad as a tramp worker and a beach-comber. In 1906-7, becoming interested in the problem of the down-and-outs, he conducted the Liberty Hotel in Seattle for the unemployed. Later in San Francisco he was again active in the interest of the unemployed. Still later he joined James Eads How in St. Louis and aided in organizing the “penniless men of his own city.” In 1915 he came to Chicago and organized the “Hobo College.” Other hobos say that the “college” had been in existence years before Walsh arrived on the scene, but that he did play a part in making it popular.
Walsh, as president of the “college,” was able to attract the assistance of many leading citizens. He won the services of Mary Garden, who took special pride in singing there occasionally. He has been active among the unemployed, and at one time attracted considerable public notice which got him into disrepute with the local police.
Walsh has also sought the limelight as a lyceum and chautauqua lecturer. His subjects dealt with the various aspect of the hobo problem. Walsh, like many of the hobo celebrities, only sees in the tramp problem one cause, and that is, unemployment. “Give the boys plenty of jobs and there will be no tramps.” This is a popular interpretation among the tramps themselves.
Daniel Horsley is a bookseller. His establishment, at 1237 West Madison Street, is called the hobo bookstore. The place is known as the “Proletariat” to the men on the “stem.” Here many men who have no other address receive their mail. Says one man, “Where is —— lately, Dan?” “I don’t know, but I suppose he is on his way to Chicago. I have had some mail for him for two weeks.” The men meet their friends at the “Proletariat,” or they leave things there for safekeeping. They all know Mr. Horsley, and he has the good will of all the “bos.”
Horsley has been somewhat of a hobo himself, as the following excerpt will show:
My occupation during the past 14 years has carried me through many grades of labor. First, the coal mining industry was for many years my sole occupation. The miner, having more dangers to confront than most workers, does not last long. The industry claimed two of my brothers. After having received a dose of black damps (foul air), my health was not of the best so I decided the open air would be the most beneficial.
I started with a picture machine to earn my living as I recuperated. I traveled through Nebraska, Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Alberta, Canada. In every small town we would generally come across some of the boys (hobos). Returning from the Northwest I came back East without the machine. I stayed a while in Iowa and then went back to the West. Previous to and during the war I was in the shipbuilding industry. Leaving there I worked for a short while in the woods but decided to come East again. Visiting the eastern seaboard I saw great industries closing down so I finally landed in Chicago.
Dan’s work is selling books and periodicals but he gets his recreation by mounting the soap box occasionally. He is a devout student of Marxian economics, and he likes nothing better than to talk economics to an audience of workers. At the “Hobo College” he is known as “professor,” and he gives lectures there now and then on economics, or his other favorite topic, current history.
The Hobo News has printed a number of his articles on economic subjects. His writing, like his teaching and soap-boxing, is along Marxian lines. He has little patience for anyone who sees things differently. His hobby is education, and the book business gives him a chance to get to the homeless man and all other workers the kind of literature that he thinks will start them thinking.
Mr. Dragstedt is one of the numerous ex-secretaries of the “Hobo College” for the year 1922-23. As secretary of the “college,” it was his business to attend to the finances of the institution and to manage the programs. It is the secretary’s job to find speakers for various occasions, and to advertise the meetings. In short, the secretary must be a diplomat and an executive. Dragstedt has all the earmarks of a good hobo secretary.
Born in Sweden some forty years ago, he emigrated to this country and settled in Montana before he was out of his teens. He did not remain settled long, but went here and there in search of work until he developed into a regular hobo. He has worked at nearly all the migratory occupations and has seen nearly all the states of the Union. He is now one of the seasoned veterans of the floating fraternity. He is getting over his passion for travel, but he has not yet learned to settle down. He still likes to feel that he is free to go whenever the notion strikes him, although for a year or so he has not gone very far from the city.
Dragstedt is a man of wide and varied experience, but he seldom can be persuaded to talk about himself. He did his bit in the late war and went as far as France. Most hobos who have been across like to tell about it, but not he. But Dragstedt talks. He has ideas and he talks about them. He has a great many ideas, some of them consistent and others not, but they keep him occupied and he is generally keeping someone else interested. He is a type of the hobo intellectual.
As a high brow, Dragstedt is a poet of no mean ability. His poems either protest against the “system” or idealize tramp life. He is also an artist. The walls of the “Hobo College” are adorned with samples of his workmanship such as cartoons and decorated placards. He has an ambition to become a cartoonist, but he is a hobo, and hobos are men who will not apply themselves. He has two or three scenarios that might be developed into fair picture plays, but he will not go back to them to polish them up. This calls for more application than he cares to give. In this, again, he is a hobo, but he does not grieve about that.
Recently, Superintendent Langsman celebrated his twentieth spiritual birthday. For twenty years he has been connected with the Bible Rescue Mission. Before he became converted, to use his words, he was an “ordinary bad man of the street.” He has lived the life of the tramp. He knows hobos from the human side. He knows their weaknesses, their temptations, and their trials. For twenty years he has worked with them to aid them. Hundreds of men have been lifted out of the quicksands of a transient and aimless life by him, while he has inspired thousands to make an effort.
In his official capacity he is the superintendent of the Bible Rescue Mission. He is also vice-president of the midwest district of the International Mission Union. To the men on the street he is known as “Charley.” No mission man in Chicago is better known.
The Bible Rescue Mission is the only one that feeds men the year around. Mr. Langsman feels that hungry men need food just as much in summer as in winter. To him feeding is an evidence of the spirit of Christianity. Because of this policy of feeding, he has been severely criticized by the homeless men themselves and by missions. Many of the “bos” say that “Charley” has a “doughnut philosophy.” They maintain that religion is not worth much if it can only get into a man’s heart through his stomach. These criticisms come back to Superintendent Langsman, but they have not changed his policy.
One of Langsman’s hobbies is a homeless man’s picnic each year. When “Charley” stages a picnic it is a gala day for West Madison Street. All the “boys” come out for a ride to the country in trucks furnished by various firms and to eat sandwiches provided by the churches.
The Helping Hand Mission at 850 West Madison Street is essentially a family mission with Sunday-school, parents’ classes, and other auxiliary activities. It does not, however, neglect the homeless man. Superintendent John Van de Water, for the last eight years superintendent of the Helping Hand Mission, is one of the few practical men in the mission work. Throughout the winter his organization feeds, upon an average, 100 men a day. However, no one is fed who will not work. He operates a wood yard and any able-bodied man who asks for aid is given a chance to work. His is the only mission that has such a test.
Mr. Van de Water does not care for converts that must be “bought” with doughnuts and coffee, and he has little patience with the missions imposed upon by men who become converted only for a place to sleep or something to eat. He is in favor of concerted action among missions, because where they work separately they lay themselves open to exploitation.
The homeless man is often an ungrateful individual, but Mr. Van de Water feels that more than a fourth of the men aided really appreciate the help they get. Many men prefer the mission floor in cold weather to the floor in the “flophouse,” which is seldom scrubbed.
Most exploited and least loved by the hobos is the Salvation Army. But the Salvation Army does more for the hobo than any other agency. In every city of the country it is the “good Samaritan” to the down-and-outs. Not only is it interested in working upon the hearts of men, but it seeks to help people to walk alone. One of the pioneers in this program of practical salvation is Brigadier J. E. Atkins.
Brigadier Atkins, a native of Wales, enlisted with the Salvation Army forty-three years ago. He was sent to this country in 1886 as a worker at the time when the first split occurred in the ranks. At that time he was a regular officer in the ranks, and later became a division officer. Before the war he was placed in charge of the Salvation Army industrial work in Denver, Kansas City, and Des Moines.
He entered the army as a chaplain, and was assigned to the first division. He was attached to “Young Teddy” Roosevelt’s organization, and as a consequence saw considerable action. In this capacity he spent twenty-one months overseas, serving with his organization in all its major offensives. Twice he was gassed, and, as a result, his voice has been permanently impaired.
Since his discharge from the army, Brigadier Atkins has been in charge of the four Salvation Army hotels for men in Chicago which cater to the superior class of homeless men. These hotels are operated on the usual Salvation Army business-like basis. The policy is to make them pay their way, if possible, but not to charge prices greater than the commercial hotels. It is the Atkins aim to give all the service that is consistent with the price: to keep the price as low as possible, and to keep the places clean and orderly. He is insistent on getting clean, sober guests in the Army hotels, and no apparently clean, sober man without funds need go away. The contrary is said to be true by many “bos,” but they are generally men who have been “found out.”
We have knocked out the heavy stone barrier which stood between us and the people and placed in its stead a glass, business, inviting front, bearing such announcements as, “We worship, we heal, we clothe, we feed, we find employment for those in need”; “Your friends are inside, come in.” Between five hundred and one thousand people accept this invitation daily. We are prepared to meet and help them.
This is what Dr. Myers has done with a typical, forbidding, gray-stone church, the Immanuel Baptist Church, at 2320 Michigan Avenue. For twenty-seven years he has been pastor of this church, and all that time he has been adhering to the Immanuel plan outlined above. For ten years previous to his coming to the Immanuel Church, he was pastor of the Ninth Street Baptist Church of Cincinnati, where he followed this scheme of serving humanity as well as God.
Dr. Myers is a practical religionist. He is bringing religion out of the clouds, and has made it an everyday, functioning affair. In his mind it does not hurt a church to have a kitchen in the basement nor to operate a restaurant in the building. His church serves an excellent meal for thirty cents. Many of the workers in the automobile salesrooms and the students from the medical college near by are in the habit of taking lunch at the church.
Most of the churches in the business area have closed their doors, but the Immanuel Baptist is more conspicuous today than ever before. The business men on the street are proud of it. They contributed recently to help rebuild it after the steeple had been blown down by a gale. The church does not serve its members as it used to, because most of the families have moved away and now most of its congregation is composed of homeless men.
Dr. Myers does not try to preach to the men, nor does he try to use the material aid he gives as a means of coaxing men to become converted. He does not believe in such conversions. He and his staff have learned that the average homeless man cannot hold money. The men who apply know this too. “Johnston Myers will feed anyone but it is pretty hard to get any ‘jack’ from him.”
Few hobos enter Chicago who have not heard of “Mother” Greenstein. For years Mother and Father Greenstein ran a saloon on South State Street. It was a barrel-house and the “bos” flocked to it when they had money. It was one of the few saloons in that area that was on “the square.” Among the hobos it is asserted that “Mother” is the richest woman in Chicago. But her wealth has not changed her habits. She reared a family of seven children, and most of them have gone through college and into business for themselves. The Greensteins are proud of their family, but no less proud of their work. With the coming of prohibition, they closed the saloon and opened a restaurant on the corner of Ninth and State streets.
The place is known as “Mother’s Restaurant,” and it is one of the few places in Hobohemia that has the right to write “Home Cooking” on the window. Day after day “Mother” is on the job, cooking steaks and chops and French-fried potatoes, while “Father” waits table and serves at the bar. Mother lives in her work. She is proud of her kitchen, and she likes to serve hungry men. The hobos say no chef in the Blackstone or Drake can prepare more savory dishes. The Greensteins did not earn their reputation by serving hungry men who could pay their way, but by serving the penniless and hungry at times when it is hard for hungry men to get food.
A sign is painted on the wall outside the restaurant: “Mother’s Restaurant. Don’t Go Hungry. See Mother.” Last winter another sign placed in the window read: “Attention! Starting Monday, Dec. 20 [1921], ‘Mother’ Will Serve Hot Coffee and Rolls Free ... from 5 A.M. to 7 A.M.” Some mornings the bread line at 901 South State Street contained as many as 500 men who were out to get a bowl of coffee and something to eat, but none were ever turned away. There is always plenty of bread and plenty of coffee, and good coffee, too.
The hobos do appreciate “Mother.” The old-timers of South State Street swear by her.
This rapid sketch of a few persons in the Who’s Who of Hobohemia gives a picture of the local leadership among the homeless men. All these persons, and many others who embody either the aspirations of the hobos or the organized religious and philanthropic impulses of the larger community toward the migrant, must be taken into account in any fundamental policy and program for his welfare. All these leaders are dealing with the homeless man as a human being, that is, with his personal needs, his memories, and his hopes. Working with these leaders, the social agencies may secure both insight into his attitudes and wishes and his co-operation for his own well-being.