Letters to the Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.


From Another Mother – The Real Thing.

To the international Brotherhood welfare association: I received your letter to day and was very glad to hear from you as had given up hope of hearing from you again. I have not heard from my son Edward Moira that would hear something about him some day to give mean easy mind it is two years last November  since I heard from him last he was working then in Keokuk iowa he was working at a power house their then two years ago he left for his home then and nothing has been heard since of him I feel that something happened to him on some of the railroads if you would be so kind and try and find out if anything happened to him on any of the railroads you would do me a great facor that I would not forget I payed insurac on him for 8 years and if never hear from him I will loose it all and I am a poor widow without much means of support this is ahard blow to me that I have hard time to try and keep up my dear Boy was allways and was a good worker and this is the firs time he went awy so far I don’t think he wold have went away only he had NO WORK AT THE TIME. He will be gone 6 years this June coming and I have not seen him since I would give the wourld to see him again I think this is all for this time hopeing to hear from you soon an hope that you will find something out I Remain yours truly

MRS. MARY MCFADDEN, Duncott, Pa.

Editor’s note. We print this letter in the absolute verbatim style in which it came to us. Not because it is any joke, but because it is a sample of the tragedies that come in hobo life. Edward McFadden was here some four years ago, but went away for work and has not been seen around here since. His loving mother wants him and if this meets his eye he is requested to go home. Further, if any of our boys meet him, will they please advise the editor, 1111 Clark avenue.


THE FIRST LETTER.

On the Road, East.

April 2nd, 1915.

Dear Comrade:

Here’s welcoming the “Hobo News” and its Editor. What a field you should have, O paper!

What good you should accomplish! What a multitude of sad and lonely lives you should strengthen!

What a world of economic darkness and gloom you should dispel!

Oh, Paper of the Masses of the proletariat. May you ever be true to the highest and the best; generous to the adversary and fearless in the championship of the weak and oppressed.

JAMES EADS HOW.


THIS DID NOT HAPPEN IN RUSSIA

Omaha, Neb., May 11, 1915.

To the Editor “Hobo News,” St. Louis:

Well, Irwin, “old scout,” I had the pleasure, if you can call it “pleasure.” The pleasure of being an unwilling investigator of the City Bastile. I had the pleasure of holding a street meeting in this burg last night at Fourteenth and Douglas.

After the meeting was over I was asked by one of the “plain clothes men” to take a walk to the Police Station, and was charged with vagrancy and thrown into a cell that was full of drunks and “coke heads.”

It is said that when Jesus Christ was crucified he was placed between two thieves; well, I understand how He must have felt for I had to sleep on a concrete floor. The man on my right was maudlin drunk, nearly on the verge of the D. Ts., and the one on my left was so lousie that it was impossible for me to sleep; scratching, then he would scratch some more.

The prosecuting Attorney asked me if I intended to “leave town” and I answered that I was sent here to start a headquarters for the unemployed; that I was sent here by the President of the international Brotherhood Welfare Association to open up a headquarters, and that I would not leave town, and so I was discharged. Secretary McCarty, of the I.W.W., and also tow of their speakers, McNally and Rechwood Bailey, the latter an Indian form the Cherokee Tribe, were also arrested, but were turned loose in the morning.

Realizing that space is valuable, I boiled this article down as much as possible.

Yours for freedom,

JOHN X. KELLY, Omaha, Neb.


To the Editor:

First impressions are the most lasting. Money the essence of the aristocracy.

Bankers are the dollar owners – workers the dollar worshippers. Bankers’ hours from ten to three. The man without a job has full time. Cannibalism subsisted on the flesh taken off his brothers’ bones.

Capitalism subsists by withholding that which puts flesh on his brothers’ bones.

Bankers prefer to finance war – the basis of being gold – rather than to invest in this country hand receive paper currency in return.

The Hobo Banker.

  1. SHMOLL, 2615 Potomac St., St. Louis, Mo.