"GAY-CATS."
Scattered over the railroads, sometimes travelling in freight-cars, and
sometimes sitting pensively around camp-fires, working when the mood is
on them, and loafing when they have accumulated a "stake," always
criticising other people but never themselves, seldom very happy or
unhappy, and almost constantly without homes such as the persevering
workingman struggles for and secures, there is an army of men and boys
who, if a census of the unemployed were taken, would have to be included
in the class which the regular tramps call "gay-cats." They claim that
they are over five hundred thousand strong, and socialistic agitators
sometimes urge that there are more than a million of them, but they
probably do not really number over one hundred thousand.
Not much is known about them by the general public, except that they are
continually shifting from place to place, particularly during the warm
months. In the winter they are known to seek shelter in the large
cities, where they swell the ranks of the discontented and complaining,
and accept benefits from charitable societies. They certainly are not
tramps, in the hobo's sense of the word. His reason for derisively
calling them "gay-cats" is that they work when they have to, and tramp
only when the weather is fine.
Many of them really prefer working to begging, but they are without
employment during several months in the year, and are constantly
grumbling about their lot in the world. They think that they are the
representative unemployed men of the country, and are gradually
developing a class feeling among themselves. They always speak of their
kind as "the poor," and of the people who employ them as "the rich," and
they believe that their number is continually increasing.
As a railroad policeman it was my duty to keep well in touch with this
class of wanderers. Although they do not belong to the real tramp
fraternity, and are disliked by the hoboes proper, they follow the
hobo's methods of travel, and are constantly trespassing on railroad
property. The general manager of the railroad by which I was employed
asked me to gather all the facts that I could in regard to their class.
"The attitude of the company toward this class of trespassers," he said,
in talking to me about the matter, "must necessarily be the same as
toward the tramps, as long as they both use the same methods of travel,
but I have often wondered whether there are enough of those who claim to
be merely unemployed men to justify railroad companies in experimenting
with a cheap train a day, somewhat similar in make-up to the fourth
class in Germany and Russia. At present the trouble is that we can't
tell whether they would support such a train, and I personally am not
convinced that all of them are as honest out-of-works as they say they
are, when arrested for stealing rides. If you can gather any data
concerning them which will throw light on this matter, I should be glad
to have it."
All told, I have met on the railroads about one thousand men and boys
who claimed to be out-of-works and not professional vagabonds and
tramps. In saying that I have met them, I mean that I have talked with
them and learned considerable about their history, present condition,
and plans and hopes for the future. They talked with me as freely as
with one of their own kind; indeed, they seemed to assume that I
belonged among them.
The most striking thing about them is that the majority are practically
youths, the average age being about twenty-three years, both West and
East. Of my one thousand out-of-works, fully two-thirds were between
twenty and twenty-five years old; the rest were young boys under
eighteen and mature men anywhere from forty to seventy.
Youths of all classes of society have their _Wanderjahre_, and so much
time during this period is taken up with mere roaming that it is easy to
understand how many of them must be without work from time to time. It
is also true that young men are more hasty than their elders in giving
up positions on account of some real or supposed affront; life is all
before them, they think, anyhow, and meanwhile they do not intend to
knuckle down to any overbearing employer. In certain parts of the
country, on account of crowded conditions, it must be stated,
furthermore, that it is difficult for a number of young men to get
suitable employment.
There is a sociological significance, however, about the present
strikingly large number of young men who are "beating" their way over
the country on the railroads. There is gradually being developed in the
United States a class of wanderers who may be likened to the degenerated
_Handwerksburschen_ of Germany. They are not necessarily apprentices in
the sense that the _Handwerksburschen_ usually are, although the great
majority of them have trades and make some effort, in winter at least,
to work at them, but they are almost the exact counterpart of the
_Burschen_ in their migratory habits. Years ago the travelling
apprentice was a picturesque figure in German life, and it was thought
quite proper that he should pack up his tools every now and then, get
out his wheelbarrow, and take a jaunt into the world. He had to take to
the highways in those days, and there was no such inducement, as there
is now, to make long, unbroken trips. A few miles a day was the average
stint, and at the end of a fortnight, or possibly a month, he was ready
and glad to go to work again.
This is not the case to-day. The contemporary _Handwerksbursch_ works
just as little as he can, and travels in fourth-class cars as far as the
rails will carry him. In a few years, unless there is some home
influence to bring him back, he generally wanders so far afield that he
becomes a victim of _Die Ferne_, a thing of romance and poetry to his
sturdier ancestors of Luther's time, which for him has become a snare
and a delusion. German vagabondage is largely recruited from German
apprentices. It is the same love of _Die Ferne_, the desire to get out
into the world and have adventures independent of parental care and
guidance, which accounts largely for the presence of so many young men
in the ranks of the unemployed in this country. As I have said, they are
not tramps or "hoboes," but neither are they victims of trusts,
monopolists or capital.
Great public undertakings, like the World's Fair at Chicago, the recent
war with Spain, a new railroad and the attractions of places like the
Klondike, have a tendency to increase the number of these youthful
out-of-works. The World's Fair stranded many thousands, and there are
already signs that the war with Spain has brought out a fresh crop of
them. They have taken to travelling on the railroads because they have
become inoculated with _Wanderlust_ and because they think that it is
only by continually shifting that they are likely to get work. The same
thing took place, only on a larger scale, after the Civil War, and our
present tramp class is the result. Some of the young men who took part
in the Spanish war, and when mustered out joined the wanderers on the
railroads, will eventually develop into full-fledged tramps; it is
inevitable. At present they are merely out-of-works, and at times
honestly seek work.
Let me tell the story of one of my young companions for a few days on a
railroad in Ohio. He was a plumber by trade and had left a job only a
fortnight before I met him. The weather had got too warm to work, he
said (it was in June), and he had enough of a "stake" to keep him going
for several weeks "on the road." He was on his way to the Northwest.
"The West is the only part o' this country worth much, I guess," he
said, "'n' I'm goin' out there to look around. Here in the East
ev'rything is in the hands o' the rich. There's no chance for a young
fellow here in Ohio any more." I asked him whether he was not able to
make a good living when he remained at work. "Oh, I can live all right,"
he replied, "but this country's got to give me somethin' more'n a
livin', before I'll work hard month in and month out. I ain't goin' to
slave for anybody. I got as good a right's the next man to enjoy myself,
'n' when I want to go off on a trip I'm goin'." I suggested that this
was hardly the philosophy of men who made and saved a great deal of
money. "Well, I ain't goin' to work hard all my life 'n' have nothin'
but money at the end of it. I want to live as I go along, 'n' I like
hittin' the road ev'ry now and then."
"How long do you generally keep a job?"
"If I get a good one in the fall I generally keep it till spring, but
the year round I guess I change places ev'ry two or three months."
"How much of a loaf do you have between jobs?"
"It depends. Last year I was nearly four months on the hog
once,--couldn't get anything. As a general thing, though, I don't have
to wait over six weeks if I look hard."
"Are you going to look hard out West?"
"Well, I'm goin' to size up the country, 'n' if I like it, why, I guess
I'll take a job for awhile. I got enough money to keep me in tobacco 'n'
booze for a few weeks, 'n' it don't cost me anything to ride or eat."
"How do you manage?"
"I hustle for my grub the way hoboes do,--it's easy enough."
"I should think a workingman like yourself would hate to do that."
"I used to a little, but I got over it. You got to help yourself in this
world, 'n' I'm learnin' how to do it, too."
The nationality of the "gay-cats" is mainly American. A large number
have parents who were born in Europe, but they themselves were born in
this country, and there are thousands whose families have been settled
here for several generations.
What I have said in regard to the unemployed young men applies also, in
a measure, to the old men; the latter, in many cases, are as much the
victims of _Wanderlust_ as are their youthful companions: but there are
certain special facts which go to explain their vagabondage. The older
men are more frequently confirmed drunkards than are the younger men.
Occasionally during the past year I have met an aged out-of-work who was
a "total abstainer," but nine-tenths of all the mature men were by their
own confession hard drinkers. Whether their loose habits are also
answerable for their love of carping and criticising, and their notion
that they alone know how the world should be run, it is impossible for
me to say; but certain it is that their continual grumbling and scolding
against those who have been more persevering than they is another of the
causes which have brought them to their present unfortunate state. Men
who are unceasingly finding fault with their lot, and yet make no
serious attempt to better it, cannot "get on" very far in this country,
or in any other.
This type of out-of-work exists everywhere, in Germany, Russia, England,
and France as well as in the United States, but I am not sure that our
particular civilisation, or rather our form of government, has not a
tendency to develop it here a little more rapidly than in any other
country which I have explored.
It is a popular notion in the United States that every American has the
right to say what he thinks, and my finding is that the love of speaking
one's mind is exceedingly strong among the uneducated people of the
country. Agitators, who go among them, are partly to blame for this, and
I have observed that a number of the expressions used by the "gay-cats"
are the stock phrases of socialistic propagandists, but there is
something in the air they breathe that seems to incite them to
untempered speech. In Germany, where there is certainly far more
governmental interference to rant about, and among an equally
intelligent class of out-of-works who are not allowed for an instant the
freedom of movement permitted the same class in America, there is no
such wild talk as is to be heard among our unemployed. I have met scores
of old men on the railroads whom long indulgence in unconsidered
language has incapacitated for saying anything good about any one of our
institutions, as they conceive them, and they begrudge even their
companions a generous word. Such men, it seems to me, must necessarily
go to the wall, and although a few, perhaps, can advance evidence to
show that circumstances over which they had no control brought them low,
the majority of those that I know have themselves to blame for their
present vagabondage.
It is furthermore to be remarked concerning these aged out-of-works that
pride and unwillingness to take work outside of their trades have also
been causes of their bankruptcy. The same is true, to some extent, of
all sorts of unemployed men, young and old, but it is particularly true
of "gay-cats" who have passed their thirty-fifth year. I have known them
to tramp and beg for months rather than accept employment which they
considered beneath their training and intelligence.
It has been a revelation to me to associate with these men and see how
determined they are that the employing class shall have no opportunity
to say: "Ah, ha! we told you so!" Many of them have given up their
positions in a pet, and taken to the "road," with the idea that if they
cannot get what they want they will make the world lodge and feed them
for nothing. To bring out clearly their point of view, I will describe a
man whom I travelled with in Illinois. He had been without employment
for over eight months when I met him, and had just passed his
forty-second year. He expected to get work again before long, and was
passing the time away, until the position was ready for him, travelling
up and down the Illinois Central Railroad. He was a carpenter by
profession, and claimed that for over five years he had never worked at
any other occupation, when he worked at all.
"I put in three hard years learnin' to be a carpenter," he said, "an' I
ain't goin' to learn another trade now. For awhile I used to take all
kinds o' jobs when I got hard up, but I've got over that. It's
carpenterin' or nothin' with me from now on. You got to put your foot
down in this country or you won't get on at all.
"If I was married 'n' had kids, o' course I'd have to crawl 'n' take
what I could get, but, seein' I ain't, I'm goin' to be just as stuck up
as any other man that's got somethin' to sell. That's what all men like
us in this country ought to do. The rich have got it into their heads
that they can have us when they want us, 'n' kick us out when they don't
want us, 'n' that's what they've been doin' with the most of us. They
ain't goin' to play with me any more, though. Ten years ago I was better
off than I am now, 'n' I'd be in good shape to-day if it hadn't been for
one o' them trusts."
"Are you not at all to blame for your present condition?" I asked,
knowing that the man was fond of whiskey. He thought a moment, and then
admitted that he might have squandered less money on "booze," but he
believed that he was entitled to the "fun" that "booze" brings.
"'Course we workingmen drink," he explained, "'n' a lot of us gets on
our uppers, but ain't we got as much right to get drunk 'n' have a good
time as the rich? I'm runnin' my own life. When I want work I'll work,
'n' when I don't I won't. What we men need is more independence. What
the devil 'ud become o' the world if we refused to work? Couldn't go on
at all. That's what I keep tellin' my carpenter pals. 'Don't take
nothin' outside o' your trade,' I tell 'em, 'n' then the blokes with no
trades'll have a better chance.' But you know how it is,--you might as
well tell the most of 'em not to eat. I have had a little sense knocked
into me. You don't catch me workin' outside o' my trade. I'd rather
bum."
And, unless he got the job he expected, he is probably still "on the
road."
Enough, perhaps, has already been said to indicate the general trend of
the philosophy of the "gay-cats," but this account of them will fail to
do them justice if I do not quote them in regard to such matters as
government, religion, and democracy. It has never been my privilege to
hear them contribute anything particularly valuable to a better
understanding of the questions they discuss, but it seems fitting to
report upon some of their conclaves, if only to show how they pass away
much of their time. They have an unconquerable desire to express
themselves on all occasions and on all subjects, and it is no
exaggeration to say that two-thirds of their day passes in talk.
In regard to the government under which we live, the favourite
expression used to characterise it was the word "fake."
"Republic!" I heard a man exclaim one day; "this ain't no republic. It's
run by the few just as much as Russia is. There ain't no real republic
in existence. You and I are just as much slaves as the negroes were."
Not all stated their opinions so strongly as this, and there were some
who believed that on paper, at least, we have a democratic form of
government, but the prevailing notion seemed to be that it was only on
paper. The Republican party is considered as derelict as the Democratic
by these critics. Neither organisation, they contend, is trying to live
up to what a republic ought to stand for, and they see no hope, either
for themselves or anybody else, in any of the existing political
parties. When quizzed about our Constitution and the functions of the
various departments of the government, they all show deplorable
ignorance, but it avails nothing to take them to task on this ground.
"They guessed they knew the facts just about as well as anybody else,"
and that was supposed to end the matter.
Religion, which the majority of the men with whom I talked took to be
synonymous with the word church, was another favourite topic of
discussion. Indeed, as I look back now over my conversations with the
"gay-cats," it seems to me that there was more said on this subject than
any other, and I have observed its popularity as a topic of conversation
among unemployed men in other countries as well. There is something
about it which is very attractive to men who are vagrants, as they
think, because of circumstances over which they had no control, and they
sit and talk by the hour about what they think the church ought to do,
and wherein it fails to accomplish that which it is supposed to have
for a purpose. The men that I met think that the reason that the church
in this country is not more successful in getting hold of people is
because it neglects its duties to the poor.
"Here you and I are," a young mechanic remarked to me, as we sat in the
cold at a railroad watering-tank, "and what does any church in this town
care about us? Ten chances to one that, excepting the Catholic priest,
every clergyman we might go to for assistance would turn us down. Is
that Christianity? Is that the way religion is going to make you and me
any better? Not on your life. I tell you, the church has got to take
more interest in me before I am going to go out of my way to take much
interest in it."
"But the church is not a public poor-house," I remonstrated. "You and I
are no more excused than other people from earning our living. If the
church had to take care of all the people who think they're poor, it
would go bankrupt in a day."
"It's bankrupt already, so far as having any influence over the men that
you and I meet," he replied. "I don't see a man more than once in six
months who goes near a church, and he's generally a Catholic. There's
something wrong, you can bet, when things have got to that pass. If the
church can't interest fellows like us, it's going to have its troubles
interesting anybody."
There were others who expressed themselves equally strongly, but I was
unable to get any satisfactory suggestion from any of them as to how the
church may be made either more religious or effective. They all had
their notions concerning its defects and shortcomings, but they seemed
unable to tell how these were to be supplanted by merits and virtues.
Many of them impressed me as men who would be capable, under different
conditions, of religious feeling, and there was something pathetic, I
thought, in the way they loved to linger in conversation on the subject
of religion, but in their present circumstances the most inspired church
in the world could not do much with them. They are victims of the
passion for indiscriminate criticism, and I doubt whether they would
know whether a church was doing its duty or not.
Naturally a never-failing subject for talk was the labour question, and,
under this general head, in particular the importation of foreign labour
by the big corporations. I cannot recall an allusion to their present
circumstances that did not bring this point prominently to the fore, and
on occasions the mere mention of the word "foreigner" was sufficient to
bring out the most violent invectives. In a number of instances they
claimed that they knew absolutely that they had been forced out of
positions to make room for aliens who would work for less money.
"An American don't count for what he used to in this country," an old
man said to me in Chicago. "The corporations don't care who a man is, so
long as he'll work cheap. 'Course a Dago can live cheaper'n I can, 'n'
so he beats me. I don't blame the Dago, 'cause he's doin' better'n he
did in Italy, anyhow, but I do blame them corporations, 'n' they're
goin' to get it in the neck some day, too. I won't live to see it,
perhaps, but you will. I tell you, Jack, there's goin' to be a
revolution in this country just as sure as this city is Chicago. It's
comin' nearer every day. Just wait till there's about a million more men
on the road, 'n' then you'll see somethin'. It'll beat that French
revolution bang up, take my tip for that."
This same man, if his companions told the truth, had had a number of
opportunities to succeed, and had let them slip through his hands. Like
hundreds of others, however, he could not bear to admit that he was to
blame for his own defeat in life, and he made the foreigner his
scapegoat. It is, perhaps, true that some foreigners in this country
have ousted some Americans from their positions, but one needs but to
make a journey on any one of the railroads frequented by "gay-cats" to
realise how small a minority of them are tramping because foreigners
have got their jobs. Corporations and trusts may or may not be
beneficial, according to the way one considers them, but, in my opinion,
they are innocent of dealing unfairly by the thousand "gay-cats" that I
have recently interviewed.