The hobo is an individualistic person. Not even the actors and artists can boast a higher proportion of egocentrics. They are the modern Ishmaels who refuse to fit into the routine of conventional social life. Resenting every sort of social discipline, they have “cut loose” from organized society.
For them there is only the open road which offers an existence without discipline, without organization, without control. To the restless and dissatisfied the life of a vagabondage is a challenge, the most elementary way by which men seek to escape from reality.
Out of this unrest, efforts have arisen through which the hobo has striven to materialize his dreams. Among the organizations initiated or promoted by migrants are the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), the International Brotherhood Welfare Association (I.B.W.A.), the Migratory Workers’ Union (M.W.U.), the United Brotherhood of American Laborers, and the Ramblers.
The I.W.W. was formed in Chicago in July, 1905. Its headquarters are here and its conventions have almost invariably been held here. Chicago has been favored by the migratory radicals because it is a transportation center, and because of its tolerant attitude toward street speakers.
Theoretically, the I.W.W. is an organization of all industrial workers, but it has been most enthusiastically supported, however, by the hobos. It was conceived in the “stem,” and cradled and nurtured by the floating workers. The hobo has always been identified with it and, in the West, has played a militant rôle in fighting its battles.
“The backwardness and unprogressiveness of trade unions as organized in the American Federation of Labor, and the impotency of trade union as organized in the American Federation of Labor, and the impotency of political socialism to safeguard the ballot and provide the organs necessary to carry on production in the future society,” are the reasons, on paper at least, for the existence of the I.W.W. It is an effort to organize the workers along industrial lines, that is, to substitute, for trade unions, industrial unions for all the workers in one industry. All the industrial unions, metal-workers, construction-workers, seamen, agricultural-workers, it seeks to combine into one mammoth organization called the “One Big Union.”
The structure of the I.W.W. is simple. The unit is the industrial local, which is composed of all the workers of an industry in a locality. The various locals of an industry combine to form an industrial department. The departments join together to form the “One Big Union.” The organization is managed by a general secretary who is virtually the executive head. The general secretary-treasurer is assisted by an executive board elected by the six unions having the largest membership. A seventh member is elected by the other smaller unions.
Some of the “wobbly” spokesmen boast of 100,000 members, but that is an overestimate. The membership is fluctuating and rises and falls with the seasons, but perhaps it has reached 100,000 at times. The membership is “on the road” most of the time, and even the locals are migratory, so that definite figures are not always at hand. The dues are fifty cents a month, so that many loyal members are not always in good standing. The members in good standing represent probably but a third or a fourth of the men who designate themselves I.W.W.’s.[65]
When certain seasonal occupations begin, as the harvest fields, the construction camps, and lumbering camps, the organizers set to work enrolling members. Rumors circulate that no one will be permitted to work on certain jobs unless he carries a red card; that the “wobblies” will throw all non-members off freight trains; that all the other workers are taking out membership cards; that the employers of a certain district are going to cut the wages of transient labor, or that in other localities the wages are good because the I.W.W. will not permit anyone without a red card to work.
The I.W.W. as an organization does not officially sanction methods of intimidation, and will take action against any cases brought to its attention. However, force and fear get members. Men who are seeking work in a community on jobs over which the “wobblies” have assumed control will take out cards to avoid conflict. Men will join the organization to facilitate “riding the rods.” Memberships for convenience only are short lived, seldom enduring over the summer.
The I.W.W. does not depend wholly on fear to win its members. The great appeal of the I.W.W., as of all other radical organizations, is to the spirit of unrest that is a part of every hobo’s make-up. The I.W.W. program offers a ray of hope to the man who is down-and-out. Why the “wobbly” creed makes so stirring an appeal to the hobo may be best understood by quoting the preamble of its constitution:
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.”
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
The hobo, dissatisfied with things as they are, has no time to wait for the slow-moving processes of evolution. The preamble appeals to him because it is anti-evolutionary; it preaches the gospel of struggle and revolt. It is opposed to compromise and reconciliation, and affirms that the fight must go on as long as there is an employing class. No man, down-and-out, can hear this doctrine without a thrill. The declaration that no quarter shall be given to the capitalist is music to his ears.
Every member of the I.W.W. is expected to be an agitator. Wherever he goes it is the mission of the “wobbly” to sow seeds of discontent and to harass the employer. Certain members go from job to job as “investigators.” They usually remain long enough to start a disturbance among the regular employees, and to get discharged. Agitators regard a long list of dismissals as evidence of their success.
Official agitators make no effort at organizing. They merely “fan the flames of discontent” and pass on. They are followed by the pioneer organizer, an aggressive individual who starts the work of forming a local. He is of the militant type and often gets no farther than to arouse the men to the need of organization. Sooner or later he also gets discharged, which is to him evidence that he has “put it over.”
In the third stage of the offensive comes the real organizer. He follows the militants and reaps what they have sown. He works coolly and quietly in organizing the workers. He persuades and argues, but not in the open. The employer only learns of his presence when he has won over the men and is ready to make a demand.
The I.W.W. is little understood by society in general. The public believes that it is an organization of “tramps who won’t work,” and that the initials stand for “I Won’t Work,” or “I Want Whiskey.” It is true that many “wobblies” do want whiskey and many do not want work, but the organization is neither pro-whiskey nor anti-work. During the war the opposition to the organization was intense, and Chicago was a center of arrests and prosecutions. At present, however, the I.W.W. in Chicago enjoys a freedom for its activities not found in many other cities.
There are two reasons for this tolerant attitude. In the first place, West Madison Street, where the I.W.W. is most active, is virtually isolated from other parts of the city. It is hemmed in on the north and south by factories, and on the east by the river. Then, too, Chicago is situated far from the battle grounds of the organization. The “wobblies” wage a yearly war, but it is with the farmers in the harvest belt, the lumber barons of the northwest, the contractors, the mine operators; but all these are remote from Chicago. If Chicago serves any part in this warfare it is the rôle of a winter training camp where the tactics of the summer campaign are worked out.
Next in importance to the I.W.W. is the hobo organization known as the International Brotherhood Welfare Association, or the I.B.W.A. Like the I.W.W. it started in 1905, but its membership at no time has exceeded 5,000. The I.B.W.A., like the I.W.W., looks forward to a new social order, a society in which there will be no classes. But where the I.W.W. proposes to use force and direct action or industrial organization to accomplish its purposes, the I.B.W.A. would use education. The I.B.W.A. stresses welfare work, brotherhood, and co-operation among the hobos. It aims to organize and educate the unorganized and uneducated homeless and migratory workers.
The I.B.W.A. is largely the creation of James Eads How, a member of a wealthy St. Louis family. How, dissatisfied with the ease and comfort of a rich man’s life, left home and drifted into the group of hobos and tramps. Becoming interested in their problems, he set to work to better their condition. He conceived the idea of a great international hobo organization and converted several hobo “soap-boxers” to his cause. The program of the I.B.W.A. is set forth in Article III of the constitution:
A. To bring together the unorganized workers.
B. To co-operate with persons and organizations who desire to better social conditions.
C. To utilize unused land and machinery in order to provide work for the unemployed.
D. To furnish medical, legal and other aid to its members.
E. To organize the unorganized and assist them in obtaining work at remunerative wages and transportation when required.
F. To educate the public mind to the right of collective ownership in production and distribution.
G. To bring about the scientific, industrial, intellectual, moral and spiritual development of the masses.
Another section of the constitution states that the organization aims to “unite the migratory workers, the Disemployed and the unorganized workers of both sexes for mutual betterment and development, with the final object of abolishing poverty and introducing a classless society.”
The most important of the auxiliary institutions of the I.B.W.A. is the “Hobo College.” This unique institution is How’s idea. How, as a strong believer in progress through education, desires to bring to the hobo worker the rudiments of the natural and social sciences. The “Hobo College” affords the migrant an opportunity to discuss topics of practical and vital interest to him, and to attend lectures by professors, preachers, and free-lance intellectuals.
The “Hobo College” in Chicago[66] has received considerable newspaper publicity. Like all the hobo colleges, the Chicago branch only operates in winter. During the summer most of the “students” are out of town at work on different migratory occupations.
How’s income, which he inherited, is at the disposal of the hobos, but it is “fed out” by degrees, according to the terms of the will. As the money comes into How’s hands it is distributed and apportioned by the Holding Committee, which is composed of a member of the How family, a member of the “Hobo College,” a member of the Junior League (a non-functioning organization for boy tramps), and the acting secretary and all previous secretaries of the I.B.W.A. Most of this money goes to the support of the various organizations of the I.B.W.A., including the Hobo News.
The Holding Committee also may contribute at times to the purchase of halls and other property, to transport delegates to and from conventions, or rather to pay their fare back after they have “beaten their way” to the meeting, and to promote propaganda. A plan is now on foot to maintain a lobby at Washington to support legislation in behalf of the hobo. One proposal is a federal labor exchange. The Holding Committee may and often does contribute to other causes.
One of How’s ambitions is to establish hobo stopping places in all the principal cities of the country. Already he has opened “Hotels de Bum” in more than twenty cities. Some of them are owned by the I.B.W.A., but most of them only rented for the winter months. The “hotel” in Cincinnati is typical. It is a two-story frame building, located in the Hobohemian section of the city. The second floor, designed for “flopping,” is equipped with about forty cots. The first floor is divided into a loafing- or reading-room and a kitchen. In the kitchen there are a gas range and enough pots and kettles to “boil up” clothes or cook a “mulligan.” At the rear of the building is a small wood yard where ties and other wood are cut for the heater. The management of these hotels is left to the men who select a house committee from their number. The committee looks after the building and insists that the men keep the place clean. A small tax is imposed now and then to meet current expenses and to pay one man a small fee for looking after the accounts. The ordinary “mission stiff” cannot survive long in an I.B.W.A. hotel. He usually leaves when asked to contribute his share toward the upkeep. But a man without money is welcome, if he does his part. Some of these hotels pay their way. Most of them, however, never meet expenses, but the deficit generally is made good by How.
Whatever the future of the I.B.W.A., at present it is almost a one-man organization. Regardless of the ideals How entertains about democracy, he really controls the I.B.W.A. He does all this because he holds the purse. The I.B.W.A., with all its auxiliaries, are dependent in the last analysis upon the funds of Dr. How. None of these institutions is self-supporting. The membership fees are not sufficient in many cases to cover the running expenses. The Chicago branch of the “Hobo College,” for instance, has been one of the most active in the country, but it has never paid its way. How does not take advantage of the fact that his money maintains the institution. He does not have as much to say about the disposition of funds as certain other members of the Holding Committee, but his right to impose his will upon the organization is ever present with the leaders.
How has been persuaded at times to withhold funds from certain locals thought to be radical. He fears the I.W.W. who sometimes crowd into a local group and outvote the non-I.W.W. In such cases, How’s money is used to spread their propaganda. The initiation fee of the I.B.W.A. is so small (ten cents and ten cents a month dues) that a large number of men may be enrolled for a few dollars. When the I.W.W. recently lost one of their halls in Chicago, they tried to work their way into the I.B.W.A., but the plot was found out and the books for the time being were closed. When How cuts off the rent allowance to a local it soon closes its doors.
The fact that the I.B.W.A. is virtually How’s organization has had interesting effects on the behavior of the members. Certain officials compete with one another to get into his good graces. Others take a stand in bitter opposition to him. There is always jealousy between those “who sit on the right hand and those who sit on the left hand.” Individuals in the various locals with a grievance write directly to How. Complaints go to him more often than to general headquarters.
The Migratory Workers’ Union, or the M.W.U., composed wholly of hobos, was organized within the I.B.W.A. in 1918. Some of the leaders of the I.B.W.A. felt that the older organization was neglecting the interests of the migratory worker. They charged that it was too much concerned with welfare work and too little with the organization of the workers. They converted How to the idea of a migratory workers’ union and he contributed to its establishment.
The originators of the M.W.U. had other ends in mind. They wanted to organize a powerful group of workers within the I.B.W.A. that would be able to dominate the conventions and bring pressure to bear on How. They hoped that the M.W.U. would grow to such proportions that How would fear it, and that he would not dare to use it as a “plaything.” Secondly, the M.W.U. was a scheme to get funds independently of the How allowance. Thirdly, the originators planned to organize the workers along industrial lines more effectively than had the I.W.W., which at the time was unpopular on account of its opposition to the war. Fourthly, the M.W.U., starting with a “clean slate” and a less radical program than the I.W.W., might attract the more moderate of its members who had lost faith in the revolutionary movement. The thought of winning over the lukewarm members of the I.W.W. was probably the argument that appealed to How.
The “Aims and Objects” of the organization contain a decidedly less radical program than the preamble to the I.W.W. constitution.
1. A national agitation against the unconstitutional laws as they affect the migratory worker.
2. Federal inspection of all construction camps by the United States Public Health Service.
3. To work in favor of the abolition of the chain-gang system and all prison contract labor.
4. Free transportation to and from the jobs for all migratory workers.
5. The abolition of privately owned employment agencies.
6. A shorter work day.
The M.W.U. has not been active in Chicago, though one of its officers has always been a Chicago man. It has been most active in Ohio and Indiana but is even dying there.
Michael C. Walsh is the general secretary-treasurer and the chief promoter of the United Brotherhood of American Laborers. Walsh, an old organizer for the I.W.W., is not in harmony with the “wobblies” at present. Although at one time the president of the “Hobo College,” he has also withdrawn from that institution.
The aim of the Brotherhood is to unite all migratory and even non-migratory workers with the slogan, “What is the concern of one is the concern of all.” Its program promises reading-rooms, picture shows, lectures, but the chief attraction is an accident and life insurance policy which every member takes out.
Members of the M.W.U. and the I.B.W.A. accuse Walsh of drawing up an impractical program for economic and legislative reform, and charge that the “aims” of the Brotherhood were borrowed from their organizations and only slightly modified.
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Ramblers is supposed to be a semi-secret organization of the floating fraternity, but its membership is composed of a small number of Chicago’s “home guards.” It was organized by John X. Kelly and has no benefits nor program except that the members agree to help one another when in trouble. It holds meetings (for members only) now and then, but it does not aim to deal with any economic or social problems. The “Ramblers” endeavors to add a human touch to the migrant’s life. It is, in short, a hobo good-fellowship club that meets where and when it is convenient to drink the “milk o’ human kindness” and to sing “Hail! Hail! You Ought to Be a Rambler.”
Dissatisfied with things as they are, the hobo experiments now and again with co-operative projects. Most of these are attempts to do on a small scale what the dreamers hope to accomplish in the future on a larger, a national, or an international scale. That co-operative organizations failed is no discredit to the leaders nor any conclusive proof against the value of co-operative movements as a motive in economic life. The failure is to be explained at least in part by the egocentricity and individualism or the irresponsibility of the migratory workers.
Of the following five interesting cases of co-operative projects among migratory workers, only one took place in Chicago. The story of all of these attempts has, however, been written by the prime mover of them, John X. Kelly. Sooner or later all hobo co-operative experiments end the same way. They fail because of suspicion and lack of harmony.
61. My first attempt to organize a co-operative scheme was in 1909 in Redlands, California. I knew a group of men; some of them radical and all of them idealists. It occurred to me that they were the very types to make a communistic plan work. I knew of a tract of land, one hundred and sixty acres, open for settlement. Fourteen dollars to file a claim and a little additional expense and labor would have put the place in working condition.
I presented my plan to these men and ten of them approved the idea. They had all been soap-boxers and agitators and I felt that here at last is a group of men who can make a co-operative organization a success. Our scheme was very simple, everyone was to bear his share of the burden and to receive his share of the profits. No matter what a man did as long as it was part of the work of running the farm would be considered as important as any other part. The government of the place would be absolutely democratic. A manager would be elected from the number and he would remain manager for a certain term or as long as he gave satisfaction. The land was to be divided up as follows: each man was to have a five acre plot as his individual property and the other hundred and ten acres of ground was to be worked co-operatively.
We had scarcely got organized when dissensions arose. Some were satisfied with the manager but others feared him and mistrusted him. Some declared that it was impossible to determine how much of one kind of work was equal to another kind of work. Some were not satisfied because they felt that they were going to be imposed on and they would not join an organization in which there was no assurance that they would get a square deal. The result of this disputation was the breakup of the movement. Each man went his way.
My second endeavor to promote a hobo co-operative movement was in 1917 in St. Louis. It was in the winter time and there were many idle men in town. I conceived what I thought was the most modern and up to date plan ever brought into being to promote the interests of the down-and-outs. Knowing that the unemployed were being exploited by semi-religious and charitable organizations who gave little in return for much work, I set about to solve the problem in another way. Dr. James Eads How of St. Louis, founder of the International Brotherhood Welfare Association, contributed $200 to be used as follows: $100 to be spent for a horse and wagon, $50 for a gasoline engine and a saw, while the rest was to be used to buy food until funds could be had for the sale of wood. It was a reserve fund only to be used in case of emergency. A saloon-keeper gave us the use of a yard in East St. Louis free of charge. There was an old store in connection with the yard that could also be used. The place was in the heart of East St. Louis and accessible to any part of the city. The American Car Repairing Company gave us all the wood we cared to haul away. Eleven policemen sent in orders for wood. They were willing to pay three dollars a load for this wood sawed and split into kindling.
The conditions under which the men entered the program were similar to the first venture. They were all to have an equal share in the profits. The manager, the man who operated the saw; all who worked in and around the wood yard, after expenses were deducted, were to share alike. Everything was to be democratic, no one was to be an exploiter, and nobody was to be exploited. Everyone agreed and after I had remained with the project a day or so until it got under way, I left them to work out their own problems.
Within a week a committee of three came to me in St. Louis with a story of confusion and a cry of being buncoed by the manager. They said that some of the members would not work. I sent them back to straighten out matters but conditions seemed to get worse in so far as finances were concerned, and within six weeks the co-operative wood yard disbanded.
A short time later I went over to East St. Louis and took the horse and wagon and other property of the wood yard to St. Louis where I had interested a number of the St. Louis Group of the I.B.W.A. to take a chance with the communistic scheme. Instead of selling the wood by the load this time they were going to sell small bundles of kindling coated with pitch. The men did not care this time to use the buzz saw and engine so I bought six hand saws and six hatchets. I also bought a half barrel of pitch into which the kindling could be dipped. I succeeded in raising $32.00 as a jungle fund so that the boys could “get by” while working to get a start.
A start was all that was made as the entire group got intoxicated with “joy” with some of the jungle fund. Next morning the secretary, who was handling the fund returned half of it with the statement that the co-operative wood yard was a fizzle. The man who had been elected manager died while on this drunk.
Here was a group of men that I was satisfied would make a success of a communistic scheme if one could be put over, but they failed miserably. Some men in both these wood yard experiences blamed me because the schemes did not succeed.
The fourth venture was in Chicago in 1920. I tried to put over a co-operative lodging house scheme in the “Slave Market District” where thousands of migratory workers congregate because of the cheap living conditions. Instead of the Scissors Bill class this group was made up of radicals who at some time in their unhappy lives had taken part in some co-operative experiment. Again I went to Dr. How with my new idea and at my suggestion he agreed to pay three months rent in advance to help the movement along by retaining one of the rooms as an office for the I.B.W.A. Five rooms were rented for twenty-five dollars and the I.B.W.A. took one of them at half the price or twelve and a half dollars a month. Later we rented four additional rooms at fifteen dollars making the total rent for nine rooms forty dollars of which nearly a third was paid by the I.B.W.A.
As national secretary of the I.B.W.A. I was supposed to have my office there, but I could do most of my work at home so I turned the room rented for office over to the club for a sitting room. The I.B.W.A. contributed fifty-eight dollars to buy furniture. Some other furniture was also bought by money contributed by the men. The place was to be operated on a fifty-fifty basis. All the profits and the expenses were to be equally shared. Everyone agreed and the organization was effected.
Now the funny part comes. Quarrels soon arose over trifles, and the members began calling each other grafters, and parasites. I was even called a parasite though the only part I played was to start the project and to encourage it to operate smoothly. Before six months had elapsed the co-operative flat was a thing of the past. The men sneaked away all of the furniture, that of the I.B.W.A. as well as some that belonged to the members of the group. They hauled it all away to furnish two small flats. They also left an eighteen-dollar gas bill which the amateur promoter had to pay.
The fifth and last experiment is not a case of co-operation but it illustrates what might be expected from the hobo.
During the winter of 1916 a St. Louis lady, Dr. Innis, conducted a free dispensary for the “bos” who could not get hospital treatment. Dr. How paid the bill for conducting the place. Dr. Innis took a great interest in the migratory worker and co-operated with us in working out a scheme by which the hobo could save some money during the summer to hold him over the winter months. She agreed to receive and hold in trust all the money that any man would send to her and in the fall when he came to town turn it over to him. We got out a lot of letters and cards by which this correspondence banking could be carried on and about a hundred and fifty men agreed that it was a good scheme and that they would take advantage of it.
The result was amusing. Out of all the men who approved the plan only one sent in any money. That one man sent in one dollar. Shortly after Dr. Innis got a letter from this man. He said he was “broke” and would like to have his dollar back.
My conclusion is that it is impossible to accomplish anything along co-operative lines and in a democratic manner. I know the hobo worker fairly well and I tried patiently to put over schemes that they have, for the most part, favored, and I worked with fair representatives of the group, but they will not co-operate. They are suspicious and selfish when it comes to the final test of their pet ideas. Co-operative schemes may work but I don’t think they will be a success along democratic lines.
Hobo organizations have never been a success in this country. It is proverbial that conventions of the I.W.W. and the I.B.W.A. have always been veritable battle grounds of contending interests. The I.B.W.A. has had four conventions during the winter of 1921-22 and the summer of 1922 and they all failed to accomplish anything because of jealousies and bitter feelings. The convention in Cincinnati on May Day, 1922, continued in session for three days and did not get any farther than to argue about the power of the convention to act in the name of the I.B.W.A. One whole session was spent in a quarrel about the election of a chairman.
Between the M.W.U. and the I.B.W.A. there is considerable antipathy, yet the M.W.U. cannot stand alone and will not co-operate with the parent organization. The I.W.W. is against both, but even in the I.W.W. there is a perpetual clash between the migratory workers and the “home guards.” Active and zealous organizers usually find room for complaint against the office force.
The hobo, like other egocentric types, is suspicious. The I.W.W. at its inception spent days arguing whether the name of its chief officer should be that of president. Some felt that to model the organization after others would be a step in imitation that might lead to other forms of imitation. Some reasoned that most presidents of organizations they had known were “parasites” and their head officer might become one also if given the name. The hobo’s suspicious attitude toward all organizations and persons in power is not altogether without ground. As a group the migratory workers usually get the “short end” of every bargain they drive with organized society. Every contractor they work for “does” them for something. If he does not charge them for tools they lost or destroyed he may charge them for rent on a pair of boots or a blanket they may have used. They may buy a job from some private agency and later lose the job because the agency and the contractor have an understanding to sell as many jobs as possible. The hobo gets the opinion that most officers in most organizations are playing the game for what they can get out of it and he concludes that it is the natural thing to do.
The mobility and instability of the hobo or tramp, which is both cause and consequence of his migratory existence, unfits him for organized group life. Moreover, he is propertyless, and therefore the incentive of fixed ownership and fixed residence to remain faithful to any institution is gone. While the man of property secures himself best by associating with his neighbor and remaining in one locality, the hobo safeguards himself by moving away from every difficulty. Then, too, the hobo is without wife and child. His womanless existence increases his mobility and his instability.
In pointing out the repeated and seemingly inevitable failures of hobo organizations, the fact must not be lost sight of that they are absolutely necessary to his social existence. Only in these social and political organizations can the migratory worker regain his lost status. Only in association with his fellows can he again hope and dream of an ideal world of co-operation. These organizations will either survive repeated failures or take new forms, because they satisfy this fundamental need of the social outcast for status. Then, too, in these groups, his rebellious attitudes against society are sublimated into a radical idealism. Were these organizations destroyed, the anti-social grudge of the individual would undoubtedly be reflected in criminality.