They say that San Francisco is known all over as the Port o’ Missing
Men. That it is a city where a man may lose himself if he chooses, and
that by the same token it is a good place to look for “my wandering
boy tonight.” I can believe all this especially on Third street. Third
street should be called by some other name or it should have a nickname.
If it were in Seattle it would be known as “skid row.” Third street
doesn’t describe it at all.
When I see a lot of men like that, wanderers, family men out of work,
vagabonds, nobodies, somebodies, “rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief;
doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,” I always get to thinking how once each
one was a tiny baby in a thin white dress, and how before that each
one of them was born of a woman. If I could ever forget that, I could
perhaps sometimes call men “a lot of cattle.” Come to think of it, it
is men who call other men “cattle.” At any rate, I like to think that no
woman would ever see men as less than the sons of mothers.
The Port o’ Missing Men is like the Port of San Francisco, and these men
are like boats in from a foreign port, tramp steamers some of them, out
of nowhere, going nowhere, no baggage, no traditions, men who’ll never
get lost because they are on their way to Nowhere.
Yet, the majority of these men are going to some place, but where I
do not know. What do they talk about in groups down there, tall, young
fellows and strong middle-aged men and reminiscent, old ones down in
the Port o’ Missing Men? If they’re out of work where do they sleep at
night, and what do they have to eat? And have they any women folks?
Not all kinds of men are down there, but many kinds. There are Mexicans,
Sinn Feiners, old American stock, and once in awhile a venturesome
Yankee. There are lumberjacks in from the North, and Chinamen in
shuffling slippers, and philosophers and Swedes, half-breeds and just
plain men. Some are Vagabonds who can’t help their roving, and others
are very tired and would like to lie over in port for or a long spell.
There are Italians, and Portuguese, and many Greeks, and turbaned
Hindus, tall and skinny, always traveling in pairs like nuns. Sometimes
the Port is fairly crowded.
New England is a section of the country where men leave home, and I
have heard mothers sing with tears in their voices: “Oh, where is my
wandering boy tonight?” On Third street down at the Port o’ Missing Men,
I have a fancy that I would like to write back to all those mothers that
here are their boys. But, after all, what good would that do, for who
can tell which is which?