THE TRAMP'S POLITICS.
As a political party the tramps cannot be said to amount to much.
Counting "gay-cats" and hoboes, the two main wings of the army, they are
numerous enough, if concentrated in a single State, or in a city like
New York, to cast, perhaps, the determining vote in a close election,
but they are so scattered that they never become a formidable political
organisation. They are more in evidence in the East than in the West,
and in the North than in the South, but they are to be met in every
State and Territory in the Union. On account of their migratory habits
very few of them are legally entitled to vote, and the probability is
that only a small fraction of them actively take part in elections. In
large cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco,
and during fiercely fought political struggles even in some of the
smaller towns, they are collected into colonies by unscrupulous
electioneering specialists, and paid to vote as they are told, but
otherwise they make very little effort to have their voices count in
political affairs. Two of their number, Indiana Blackie and Railroad
Jack, have achieved some notoriety as stump speakers, and Blackie was a
man who might have secured political preferment,--a consulship,
perhaps,--if he had understood how to keep sober, but he broke down
during a campaign in West Virginia, and was drowned not long after in
the Ohio River. In Wheeling, West Virginia, I heard him make one of the
wittiest political speeches I have ever heard anywhere, and his hearers
listened to him as attentively as a few evenings before they had
listened to a famous politician. The speech was no sooner ended,
however, than Blackie went off on a terrible "jag," and I saw him at
noon the next day, looking for a wash-boiler. He was splattered all
over with mud, and did not know whether he was in West Virginia or
Indiana. He finally concluded from the colour of the mud that he was out
in Wyoming.
Although the tramps have no comprehensive political organisation, and
take but little interest in voting, except when their ballots bring in
hard cash, they are great talkers on political questions of the day, and
are continually championing the cause of some well-known political
leader. As a class, they may be called _Geister die stets
verneinen_,--they are almost invariably in opposition to the party in
power. Since the last presidential election Mr. William Jennings Bryan
has been their hero, and they expect of him, if his ambition to be
President is ever gratified, a release from all the troubles which they
think are now oppressing the country, and particularly themselves. They
have, without doubt, misconstrued a great deal that Mr. Bryan has said
in his speeches and writings; they have pinned their faith to him
without carefully considering his promises; but in something that he
has said or done, or in his personality, they have discovered, they
think, the elements of leadership, which, for the nonce, at any rate,
they admire. There is not a man in the country at the present moment,
for whom they would shout as much, and in whose honour they would get so
drunk, as for Mr. Bryan. They know very little concerning his theories
about silver, beyond the expression, "The Cross of Gold," and they are
very scantily informed in regard to his notions about expansion and
imperialism, but he represents for them, as probably no other political
leader ever did, upheaval and revolution, and it is on such things that
they expect to thrive.
The place to hear them talk and to get acquainted with their political
views is at the "hang-out." Practically any nook or corner where they
can lie down at night is a "hang-out" to them, but as most of their life
is spent on the railroads their main gathering points are little camps
built alongside the track. Here they sleep, eat, wait for trains, and
"chew the rag." Much of their conversation is confined to purely
professional matters, but every now and then, at some large camp, a
roadster will make a slurring remark about this or that political
leader, or a paragraph in a newspaper in regard to a "burning" question
of the hour will be read aloud, and the confab begins. The topic that
started it is soon smothered under a continually accumulating pile of
fresh ones, but that does not matter, the "hang-out" never settles
anything; it takes up one thing after the other in rapid succession, as
fancy dictates, and one must listen carefully merely to catch the drift
of what is said. The sentences are short and broken, and a word often
suffices to kill what promised to be a lengthy discussion. The old men
speak first, the young men next, and the boys are supposed to keep quiet
and listen. Sometimes, when "booze" accompanies the talk, the age
distinctions are temporarily overlooked, and all speak together; but
this kind of a conclave finally ends in a free fight, to which politics
and everything else are subordinated.
The burden of practically all the palavers is "the way the country is
going to the dogs." It comes as natural to the average tramp to declare
that the United States is in dire peril as it does to the German
socialist to say that Germany is a miserable _Polizei-Staat_. He does
not honestly believe all that he says, and it needs but a scurrilous
remark about our country from some foreign roadster to startle him into
a pugnacious patriotism; but in the bosom of his "hang-out" he takes
delight in explaining what a bad plight the country is in. This is
really his political creed. Free trade, protection, civil service
reform, the currency question, pensions, and expansion are mere side
issues in his opinion. The real issue is what he considers the frightful
condition of our "internal affairs." From Maine to California the tramps
may be heard chattering by the hour on this topic, and they have singled
out Mr. Bryan as their spokesman because they think that he voices their
pessimism better than any other man in public view.
It came as a surprise to me, when first getting acquainted with tramps,
to find that they were such grumblers and critics,--such _Noergler_, as
Kaiser Wilhelm says. I had pictured them as a class which managed to
live more or less successfully whether any one else got on or not, and
had imagined that they were, comparatively speaking, at peace with the
world. That they troubled themselves with public questions and political
problems was a thought that had not occurred to me. The fact is,
however, that they are as fierce political partisans as the country
contains, and in talking with them one must be careful not to let an
argument go beyond what in polite society would be considered rather
narrow bounds. They are quick to resort to fists in all discussions, and
in my intercourse with them it has paid best to let them do most of the
talking when politics has been the topic of conversation.
It would take a book, and a large one at that, to report all the
evidence that they advance at "hang-out" conferences in support of
their statements concerning the evils from which they believe the
country is now suffering, but no account of their political notions, no
matter how short, should fail to take note of their rantings against
capital, and what they consider the political corruption of the country.
Nearly every conversation they have on politics begins with some wild
assertion in regard to one of these topics, and Mr. Bryan's name is
invariably dragged into the discussion. They believe that he hates the
man who has saved money and understands how to make it earn more, quite
as much as they do, and they will be very much disappointed in him, in
case he is ever elected President, if he does not suggest legislation by
which the rich man can be made "to shell out his coin." On no subject do
the tramps use such violent language as on this one of the capitalist.
They think that it is he who has imported all the foreign labour in the
country,--another eyesore in their opinion; who has made England the
real "boss" of things on this side of the Atlantic,--a notion which
they claim to have dug out of Mr. Bryan's speeches; who has reduced the
wages of the "poor workingman" and increased the cost of living; and,
worst of all, who is now trying to take away from them what they
consider their inalienable railway privileges.
They hold him answerable also for the trusts and syndicates, agitation
against which they require from any political party in which they take
an interest. They have thought seriously over these matters about as
much as a ten-year-old child has, but that does not matter. They do not
propose to think hard about anything. Mr. Bryan is for the present doing
all the thinking which they consider necessary, and they are content
merely to repeat in their own jargon statements which he has made, or
which they think he has made. He has become for them an infallible
oracle, who understands them and their position, and whom they
understand. In the bottom of their hearts they know that they are
deserving of precious little championship, that they lead despicable
lives, and commit some very reprehensible deeds; but it is a
consolation to them which they cannot let go, to think that Mr. Bryan
includes them in his classification of victims of the "gold bugs," so
they try to make propaganda for him.
The time was when many of them shouted for Henry George and "General"
Coxey as vociferously as they now shout for Bryan. They expected from
George and Coxey the same overthrow of their imaginary oppressors and
general upheaval of things that they now look forward to from Mr. Bryan.
They were once also enamoured of Mr. Blaine, but for a different reason.
They admired the way he championed the cause of Americans who got into
trouble in foreign parts. When he was Secretary of State it was a
temporary fad among them to scold about the way Americans were treated
abroad, and on one occasion, the details of which I have forgotten, Mr.
Blaine pleased them immensely by insisting on the release of an American
who had been falsely arrested in some foreign port.
They are particularly entertaining when talking about the corruption in
the country. They discuss this question with all the seriousness of
professional moralists and reformers, and it seems never to occur to
them that there is any inconsistency in their attitude toward the
matter. An amusing instance of their lack of perception in this
particular came to my notice in Columbus, O., where I was temporarily on
duty as a railroad police officer. One morning, word came that Mr. Bryan
was expected to arrive about noon. He was to give a talk to his local
admirers. There were about two hours between the time I received notice
of his coming and the hour of his arrival, and I put them in strolling
about the streets, seeing whether there were any light-fingered gentry
in the town whom I knew. In the course of my wanderings I dropped into a
saloon in one of the side streets where a man, whom I recognised as a
"hobo gun,"--a tramp pickpocket,--was holding forth in loud language on
the "poleetical c'rupshun" in the country, and in Ohio in particular.
He made the usual platitudinous remarks about this matter, to which his
drunken hearers listened with approval, and wound up his harangue with a
eulogy on Mr. Bryan, who was "the one honest man in the land." When Mr.
Bryan arrived at the railroad station, my companions and I had to be on
watch to see that his pockets as well as those of the people crowding
about him were not picked, and whom should I find prowling about
suspiciously in the throng, but the loud-mouthed reformer of the saloon!
He was looking hard for a pocket to "nick," but some one must have
"tipped off" the "fly cops" to him, for he disappeared before long as
mysteriously as he had appeared, and without any plunder, for no
"leather" was "lifted" on that occasion.
Not all of the tramps' political talk is merely negative and critical;
some of it is also positive and constructive. They think that they know
what they want in the way of government, as well as what they do not
want. Speaking generally, they favour a crude kind of state socialism,
to be prefaced, however, by a general cataclysm, in which existing
conditions are to be entirely revolutionised, and out of which the poor,
and more particularly the outcast, are to come victorious. They make no
attempt to elaborate in conversation the details either of the
convulsion, or of the new order of things which is to follow;
generalities alone interest them, and they scorn inquiries as to how
their theories are to be put into practice. That Mr. Bryan is in
sympathy with their notions of the extensive powers that the government
ought to have is proved for them by the fact that he believes that
silver can be given its rightful place in our monetary system merely by
an enactment of Congress, or by command of the President. They recognise
no laws in politics other than those which man makes. That there are
natural laws and economic facts, over which man has no control, is a
matter which they have never taken into consideration. I refer to the
rank and file of the tramp army. There are individual men who do not
subscribe to what I have given as the political philosophy of the
majority of the tramps,--men, indeed, who laugh at the thought of a
tramp having any political notions at all,--but they are exceptions. The
average roadster considers himself as justified in stating his political
beliefs, and working for them, if he is so inclined, as does the
workingman,--even more, because he thinks that he has time to formulate
his ideas, whereas the workingman is kept busy merely earning his bread.
As agitators and propagandists the tramp is mainly in evidence at big
strikes. In the last fifteen years there has not been a notable railroad
strike in the country in which he has not taken part either as a helper
in destroying property, or as a self-elected "walking delegate." The
more damage the strikers achieve, the more he is pleased, because he
believes, as said above, that it is only upon ruins that the government
he desires can be founded. When a train of cars is derailed or burned,
he considers the achievement a contribution to the general downfall of
the rich and favoured classes. He also has the antiquated notion of
political economy, that when a thing has been rendered useless by
breakage or incendiarism the workingman is benefited, because the thing
must be replaced, and labour must be employed to do it,--hence it pays
the poor to effect as much destruction as possible. It would be unjust
to Mr. Bryan to say that the tramp has got this notion from him, but the
trouble is that Mr. Bryan preaches from texts so easily misunderstood by
the class of people to which tramps and criminals belong, that he does a
great deal of harm to the country, and materially hurts his own cause.
Not only the tramp, but thousands of workingmen expect of him, in case
he is successful in his ambition, things which he can no more give than
can the humblest of his admirers; yet both the tramp and the workingman
believe that they have promises from him which justify them in expecting
what they do. He is a victim of his own "gift of gab," as the tramp dubs
his oratory. He has talked so much and so loosely that the tramp has
read into his words assurance of changes which he can never bring about.
Of course it is not to be expected that he or any other man in his
position should put much store by what such a constituency as the tramps
thinks of him, but the tramp's exaggerated notions of his policy are
symptomatic of the man's influence on people. What the tramp
particularly likes about him is his doctrine of discontent; they would
drop him like a hot coal if he should admit that the country was in a
proper condition. A great many other people, who are not tramps, tie to
him for the same reason. He is the idol _par excellence_ of persons who
have nothing to lose whether he succeeds or fails. He has promised them
great benefits if they will help him to office, and as in the case of
the tramp, it costs them nothing to shout and vote for him.
His tramp admirers, however, he can hold only so long as he represents
what they deem to be the most radical doctrines going. If another man
like "General" Coxey should appear, with more attractive propositions,
they would flock to him as readily as they now rally around Mr. Bryan.
They are a volatile people. Just before war had been declared with
Spain, while everybody was discussing our chances in the approaching
struggle, a great many of the tramps were sure that the United States
was going to get the "licking" of its life. One tramp was so positive of
this that he declared that "Spain had forgotten more than we ever knew
about naval warfare, or ever would know." To-day the same man, as well
as the majority of those who sided with him, believe that the United
States can "knock out" any nation in existence, and they are
dissatisfied because we don't do it. So it will probably go with Bryan,
so far as they are concerned. At the next presidential election, if he
is defeated again, the majority of them will look around for some other
man for whom they can talk. Even successful leadership bores them after
awhile. They love change, and are continually seeking it in their
every-day life as well as in their politics. It is this trait of theirs
which would defeat any attempt at permanent organisation among them.
Two friends were recently discussing the relative power and influence of
the man who writes and the man who organises and leads. The late George
William Curtis was cited as a man who must have wielded great power with
his pen, and Richard Croker was set over against him as an organiser and
leader. The argument ran on for some time, and one of the friends
finally made this statement: "I wouldn't care if they were nothing
better than tramps, provided a thousand of them would follow my
directions in everything that was undertaken. Why, I could be king of a
ward with such a following. Take the East Side, for instance. The man
over there who can vote solid a thousand men on all occasions, beats any
writer in the country in influence." Perhaps he does, but no man in the
country, be he writer or organiser, could hold a thousand tramps
together in politics. For one election they might be kept intact, but a
defection would take place before the second one was due. As men to
manipulate and direct, they could be made to do most in battle, and I
have always regretted that a regiment of them did not go to Cuba during
the late war. With a regiment of regulars behind them to have kept them
from retreating, and some whiskey to inspire them, a regiment composed
of fellows such as are to be found in "The Lake Shore Push," for
instance, would have charged up San Juan Hill with a dash that even the
Rough Riders would have had trouble to beat. They are not good political
philosophers, or conscientious citizens, but in desperate circumstances
they can fight as fiercely as any body of men in the world.