NEW YORK AGAIN
Taking up life anew in New York City, after many years abroad, is not an
easy game. In my case it was particularly disagreeable, because for a
while I had a homesick feeling for Europe, and I suppose for my
particular house in Berlin. I shall never forget the uncomfortable
feeling I had while my ship was docking as to the outcome of myself and
my affairs in this new country--my country, it is true, but to me a
country which I knew very little about from the beginner's point of
view. That I was a beginner, psychologically and financially, is pretty
plain from what I have before said.
I had one consolation. It was a letter from L. F. Loree, then general
manager of the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg, asking me to go to
Pittsburg and see him on a matter of business, the nature of which his
letter did not reveal. There had been a previous letter from this
gentleman, received in Stettin, Germany, just as I was sailing for St.
Petersburg, suggesting a meeting in Pittsburg. This was a number of
weeks before my final departure from Germany for the United States. At
that particular time I did not give the letter its due attention. Russia
seemed still to hold out promises which I thought more attractive than
those located in other parts of the world.
On arriving in New York City in 1898, with fifty dollars in my pocket
and no more in sight, I naturally bethought myself of the letter
received from Mr. Loree. I notified him of my modest home-coming, and
said that I would be glad to hear more about the business for me that he
had in mind. His reply was to the effect that I should meet him in
Pittsburg, and would there learn about the matter which he was minded to
take up with me. I spent three days in New York City at the home of a
friend. During this time I was "put up" at a certain club by a friend
whom I had learned to know through the writing business. At this club I
met various editors, writers, and, I suppose, publishers. I was so
elated with my sudden elevation into club standing in the writing
business in New York City, that I immediately went back from the club to
the home of my host, and told him in glee what a fine beginning I had
made. Neither he nor his wife seemed to care very much for my sudden
rise in the literary world in New York, _via_ the club end of it. I
remember that they looked at each other very significantly on my telling
them with happiness how I had been so happily received by the writers'
craft.
That look made it very pleasant for me to consider other pastures, and
the invitation to proceed to Pittsburg was accepted with alacrity.
Arriving there, I had a few of my fifty dollars left. But there was no
immediate prospect of their remaining in my pocket.
It is not always easy, even though invited to meet him and expecting to
meet him, to find the general manager of a railroad. In my case, what
happened? I found my man out on the road, seeing to it that certain
repairs were made, and that he personally should know that they were
made quickly, and that I must wait a while, perhaps two or three hours,
perhaps longer. Pittsburg and its gloom did not make any plainer to me,
during this waiting spell, what I was in Pittsburg for. I remember that
I went to a hotel, and tried to write an article on that poor miserable
creature, the Russian workingman. In the course of a few hours I was
notified by telegram that I was to proceed to where the repairs were
being made, and there make the general manager's acquaintance. I
followed out these instructions, and I learned to know a man to whom I
am indebted for my start in life at home after those wonderland years in
Europe and Asia. I remember that I met my benefactor in a signal tower
where he was patiently waiting for confirmation that his instructions
had been carried out. I remember how he looked at me. No chief of police
has ever "sized me up" the way that general manager did. He looked into
my personality as it is not pleasant to have any one's personality
looked into, unless he believes that he is doing the right thing. This
is only a small incident in our acquaintance, but I have never forgotten
it.
Before long the repairs were completed, the required confirmation of
instructions delivered was received, and Mr. Loree and I returned to
Pittsburg in his car. On the car not a word was said about the business
that he had in mind, and I was careful enough not to disturb a man who
had probably attended to ten things to my one during that day.
In Pittsburg, after supper at the club, we went to the theater and there
saw a light play. Naturally, I could not help guessing about the
business that the general manager had in mind for me. The play over, we
returned to the club, and there, for the first time, I learned what the
gentleman wanted.
As I remember his words now, he said to me: "The tramp trouble in the
United States has interested me as a railroad man. I take it that it has
interested you temperamentally and, perhaps, as a student of economics.
"It occurred to me, on taking hold of this railroad property as a
general manager, that I would see whether I could not help to eliminate
the tramp trouble for the railroad as well as for the public. It was not
a question in my mind about the possibility of the tramp being as bad a
man as some have painted him, nor was it the question of doing the
honest but unfortunate and penniless train-rider an injury. The thing I
had in mind to do, and have tried to do, was to clear the property
intrusted to my hands of that riffraff population which has been
infesting American railroads for so many years.
"I feel like this. Taken any way you like it, a railroad in a State is
one of its biggest citizens. My position as general manager did not call
upon me to exercise the theoretical notion of a railroad's position as
a citizen in a State. Nevertheless, I said to myself: 'If I clean up my
property as regards this riffraff population I am possibly contributing
to the fulfillment of my citizenship.'"
At these words I looked at my possible employer pretty carefully. I have
never had any reason to believe that as a citizen he has not struggled
to do what, in his mind, seemed to be the right thing. He then and there
made an impression upon me which I shall never forget. Mind you, I had
just come over to this country. It was my business to find something
that would make money for me as soon as possible. Mind you, I had gone
to a man who knew and managed thirty thousand men.
He said to me: "What I wish you would do is to go over the property
under my management, and make such a report as you see fit about the
tramp conditions."
I said to him: "What do you think that will be worth?"
He said: "Well, what do you think it will be worth?"
I needed the money, there was not much more in sight at that time,
whether I went on tramp or not anyhow, and I replied: "Well, I suppose
that ten dollars a day would be an even price."
The general manager replied: "I think that's fair. I suppose you know
how to proceed?"
"I think that I can get back in the old line without much trouble," I
returned.
The general manager said: "Go ahead, and find out whatever you can.
Whether the police force that I have instituted has been successful or
not in stopping the tramp evil, I do not know. I say that I do not know
because I cannot possibly be personally on every spot, covering five
States, including thirty thousand men. It is pretty hard to keep track
of all that you order to be done. I am speaking to you purely from the
point of view of a railroad manager. It's pretty hard to run a railroad
as you would like to have it run. This tramp business, this riffraff,
this slum population that I find on my lines is, of course, a detail in
the work that has been set before me.
"In my endeavor to keep my lines as clean as possible, not only as a
citizen, but also as a railroader, I have tried to build up a railroad
police. The States through which my lines run protect me only
incidentally. I find that when your friends, the tramps, are arrested by
town or village officials they are easily turned loose. I wanted to know
how the situation could be changed, and I proceeded to look into the
matter. The result was that I made up my mind that the railroad company
_must protect itself_. I found that certain men, called detectives,
were, at times, endeavoring to keep tramps off trains on our lines. I
found, furthermore, that these men, or detectives, were not attending to
their duty as I believe it should be attended to.
"Consequently I got to wondering how this matter could be better
attended to. I looked over the expense accounts for police purposes, and
found that our people were paying what seemed to me an exorbitant sum
for very poor service. It seemed to me that police matters on a
railroad, on account of the negligence on the part of villages and
towns, should be organized and given a standing, which, on account of
our lackadaisical procedure against crime in this country, was
justified.
"You will find on our property a certain number of qualified policemen.
Perhaps I should say 'patrolmen.' We do not use the word detective on
this property. They are divided up according to divisions, and the moral
deportment of the different communities in which they are placed. My
idea has been to try to police our property just as a city is policed.
"What I should like to have you do is to go over our property and see
whether our police force has been successful in ridding our lines, and,
to some extent, the communities which they touch, from tramp
immigration. How do you feel about the matter?"
Here was a problem which led right back into all that land of
_Wanderlust_ which I supposed that I had given up in so far as it
applied to tramp life. However, as so many well-known people say:
"Beggars cannot be choosers," I undertook the job of finding out for the
general manager exactly what the tramps had to say about his lines as
protected by his police. Eighteen years before this interview, the
general manager's lines, to my own knowledge, were so littered up with
tramps, and tramp camps that the Fort Wayne road in particular then was
known as an "easy" road to beat between Chicago and Pittsburg. It was as
bad as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which in those days was called
"The Dope."
These roads were ridden promiscuously by all kinds of men, women and
children who did not pay fare. When they got into a box car they thought
much nonsense. The things that were done and said among all these people
at that time would make too scandalizing reading now. If there are slums
in our cities, there are no greater slums anywhere in the world, barring
no crime, passion, or idiosyncracy, than were found on the "Dope" and
the Fort Wayne roads in my tramp days.
I looked over the general manager's property. Dressed as a tramp, acting
as a tramp, living and sleeping as a tramp, I surrounded his lines until
I knew what the tramp world had to say about his railroad police idea. I
found wherever I went, in Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Wheeling, or
Pittsburg, that tramps said: "There are easier roads to beat than the
Fort Wayne."
It was hard work to go back into tramp life. I had some hard knocks, as
regards storms and other misadventures in various places. Yet, with it
all, it brought back to me a number of remembrances of earlier tramp
days.
At the end of one month on the "Road" I went to the general manager and
told him that I had no desire to ride his trains--that there were so
many other trains and roads that were easier. I believed that, in order
to complete my investigations, if he cared to have me proceed further, I
should have a pass, good on every movable thing that he had on his
property. We discussed this matter in some detail. Eventually, the
general manager consented to my proposition, and I was given a pass,
good over all his lines, and I had with me the moral support of his
position.
I tackled the tramp problem from a new point of view. It was my
privilege to ride on practically every passenger train, every freight
train, and on all engines that it should be my fate to meet. The general
manager also gave me a letter instructing his employees to let me pass.
I now know that it puzzled the general manager's police force to
comprehend my compromising position on the road. The police force said:
"Who is this young fellow out here looking us up?"
I was called to order one night, in Ohio, by a captain of the newly
instituted police force, for riding on a caboose of a freight train. I
was getting off the caboose to find out about something which was a
matter of detail at the time, and had got back to the steps of the
caboose, when the captain stepped up to me and said: "What are you doing
on this train?" I looked at him. He looked at me. We then and there
decided that there was no particular disagreement between us. But I have
to say that during the second month of my investigations for the general
manager, his police force could not make out why I was on the property
with all my credentials, and my confusing diminutive form and face. One
of my best friends to-day, who was then at the head of the police, was
interested in my proceedings.
As an illustration of how men keep track of each other, he had his men
keep track of me. At the same time, I think he must have realized that
our superior officer was behind such an errand as I was on. He had the
good sense to say to himself: "Well, if that is the Boss's work, I'd
better leave it alone." But he kept his men looking out for me, which is
only human nature.
One of the experiences that I had during this second month in the
interests of railroading, so far as its traffic applies to tramps,
occurred in Ohio. During my extraordinary privileges as a railroading
tramp, and with all my credentials from the general manager's office, I
picked up a freight train going west of Mansfield, Ohio, upon which I
nevertheless found myself in difficulties. I saw three tramping negroes
on this train. I saw them get on the train--largely a coal train so that
one could see from the caboose window exactly what was going on--and
went after them, car after car full of coal, until I reached the biggest
of the three. The train was going at the rate of about twenty miles an
hour. I snatched the hat of the biggest one that I could see and said,
with some reminiscences in mind, I must confess: "You have your nerve
with you, riding on this road. Hit the gravel."
The negro looked up at me, as if all the majesty of the law had been
suddenly invested in my humble person, and said, with a truly pathetic
tramp touch: "Cap, the train is going a little too hard." He received
back his hat, and he and his two companions were asked by me, in no
uncertain terms, to leave the train at a certain siding.
I made up my mind that those three negroes should get no train leaving
the siding--a resting place for tramps, and for trains that needed coal
and steam to go farther on. I went to the signal tower and telegraphed
east and west for an officer to get to the signal tower in question and
arrest the trespassers as soon as possible. This may seem a hard thing
for a man to do, who had been through what I had. But I was responsible
to the general manager of that property. I was also responsible to my
own idea of integrity, and I believed in my inmost soul that it was the
thing to do.
The negroes wanted to fight me. I was carrying a toothbrush at the time.
While at the coaling station the negroes lingered around and made every
effort to catch every freight train that was going out their way. I rode
every one of these going in their direction to within about one hundred
yards of their waiting place. Finally, the last "run," as they well
knew, had gone. As I dropped off the last freight train that they were
not swift enough to catch, I walked toward them, and was greeted with
these words: "Do you think you run this road? If you do, you'll get a
bullet hole through you so soon that you won't know what struck you."
I thought of my toothbrush as the only weapon I had. I thought also of
the willingness on the part of those negroes to revenge themselves, and
I thought still more closely about the distance between where I stood
and the coaling station. It so happened that my bluff went. I said to
the negroes: "If there is any shooting to be done here I'll begin it."
The negroes left me alone, and I left them alone. I could not, however,
get over the idea that they had infringed on my territory as
investigator, police officer, or anything else that you want to call it.
The result of the experience was that the police officer that I had
telegraphed for toward the east appeared at the coaling station as soon
as he could, and that we rode on together to the next village. There I
said to him: "I think we will catch those negroes not very far away from
here." He picked up the town marshal and away we went down the track to
find those negroes. We found them.
Dusk was just coming on, and they were sitting alongside the track. The
policeman from the east drew his revolver, went up to them, and said,
much to their surprise: "I place you under arrest." The negroes wilted,
and all of us went to the station house of the nearest village. They
were given an immediate hearing. They said that they had not been seen
on any train, other than a passenger train on which they had paid their
fares, during all the years of their existence. The justice said: "Do
you suppose that that man is going to come here and tell me that he saw
you on a certain freight train when he didn't see you on that freight
train?"
One of the negroes replied: "I never saw that man before in my life."
This was the man whose hat I had taken when I told him to get off the
train. The justice gave all three a thirty-day sentence to the Canton
Workhouse. The next morning, the negroes were prisoners of the local
authorities. By these local authorities they were handcuffed, put on a
train, and started for their destination. Foolishly, I not only followed
them in Canton, but I went up with them, in the street car, to the
workhouse. During that ride I heard all the hard things that can
possibly be said about any one.
This experience and my participation in it may not seem so very
creditable to one who had himself been a tramp. But what did I learn
about those negroes? They had been employees of a circus, had got drunk
and into a row, and had left their positions as circus men. So far as I
have been able to make out, they had no right to have a free ride
anywhere.
This is merely one of the incidents that fell to my lot during the
second month. Of course there were many others, which interested me at
the time, to think over, but which would not interest the reader.
The main thing I learned to believe in and expect in my general manager
was a great efficiency. All through my tramp experiences at his request,
I found, even in _tramp_ life, that the great thing is getting there and
doing something. My report to him about the general ability of the
police force, which he and his subordinates had got together for the
purpose of completely ridding the property of the tramp nuisance, was
that I thought he had at least got the Fort Wayne road so cleaned up, in
that respect, that no "respectable" tramp would ride on it. In making
this report I said to the general manager: "They are stealing coal on
the Lake Shore Railroad. There is a man who told me that on the Lake
Shore Railroad every twentieth train, before it gets forty miles out of
Buffalo, gets dug into." On that same expedition for the general manager
I ran up against two tramp camps at the end of one of the "Short Lines"
at Ashtabula. My interest at that time was not to disturb either camp at
all. I went down to the Lake Shore Railroad, toward their coal chutes,
and there I found two camps. The fires of these were being bountifully
supplied by coal taken from the adjoining railroad company. My position
was peculiar. Tramps, and criminals for that matter, do not like to have
any one approach what they believe to be their property. I went to one
of the camps, and sat down on a railroad tie. Pretty soon a person of
unquestionable importance in his own tramp line, said to me: "Have you a
match?"
"I think I have. I'll see."
"If you find one, go over and build your own fire."
I did so, and was left more or less in peace