Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Be sure and send me a bundle of the “Hobo News” just as soon as you can get them from the Press. It has been raining for ten days and there is but very little in the berry fields. There is as big an army of idle men and women out here as there was in St. Louis all the winter. I am sitting in my tent, writing on a pack of papers, so if this is not plain and spelled right you will have to guess at it. Well, I walked a good deal of the way out here and peddled the “Hobo News.” I stopped and gassed with the Gandy Dancers and the Miners. They all seemed delighted to learn that we realized their condition, and were pleased with the cover, which was such a truth. If you can in the July number give us the Harvest Stiff. It will make a big hit and sell like hot-cakes.
I am giving dancing lessons to the Gandy dancers and they sure do some fancy steps to the tune “It’s a Long Way to Pick Berries, It’s a Long Way to Go.” I can eat five meals a day since I am in the Jungles.
MRS. KITTIE SOLOMON, Sarcoxie, Mo.
Kansas City, June 17, 1915.
To the Editor “Hobo News”:
The Hobo Quartette of Kansas City have not forsaken the firing line for the scrub line.
We, the members of the I.B.W.A., three hundred and seventeen strong, are trying to better the conditions of the working class if we can; trying to show them, that by organization only, can they better their conditions.
The only way to get your demands is to organize. You will never get what you want until you do so.
The class struggle today is to fight for your country and your flag. But the working class has no country or flag. Your country and your flag is the “Right to Live” and “The Right to Work.” That is the only struggle that should appeal to you.
SCOTT MCPHERSON, Local 4. K. C.
Kansas City, Mo., June 17, 1915.
To the Editor of the “Hobo News”:
It gives me great pleasure to drop you a few lines of appreciation of your great paper, which has been read by many members of the Brotherhood, and myself, who has pushed it to the front at our street meetings.
From remarks that I have heard from outside parties, it has a dash, vim and good spirit, anad it has truth as regards those individuals who sometimes become loose from social influences and are placed before the public eye as unworthy members of Society. But they make great mistakes to place the Hobo in that class. There are at present men today, holding high positions in public life, who have at one time been hoboes. Many times you yourself met men in public who have told you that at some time in their life they were down and out. Some men look at them in utter despair and tell you there is no reason why a man should be a hobo.
They tell you that drink has made him a tramp. It is a mistake. Domestic troubles, sickness, are some of the causes of a man’s downfall. A man cannot, at all times, accept a position. Perhaps he knows that he cannot fulfill it. Perhaps his personality prevents him from applying for the job.
In St. Joseph Mo., I was told I was not presentable enough although I could fill the place to perfection. In plain words, my front would not do. My prospective employer was very sorry, but under the circumstances could not accept me.
So there you are.
Thousands of good men today are in my position. But there is a way for me and others to pull ourselves out of the hole and be a credit to our name.
Your issue of the “Hobo News” was excellent and greatly enjoyed by all the members of our Local.
Our secretary, Scott McPherson, Brothers Caton, Moore, Walch, Olsen, and Anderson praised this issue highly and we are for you and your great paper to the last ditch. We are anxiously awaiting your coming issue.
With great success to you and all your brothers,
Fraternally,
JOHN POWERS.
To the Editor:
I have just received No. 2 of the “Hobo News” and I wish to compliment you on the typographical excellence of your publication. As a hobo printer, I have worked from Coast to Coast and then some, and I can truthfully say that the “Hobo News” is one periodical that should have the hearty endorsement and sincere active support of every man.
Especially interesting was the poem, “My Country,” and I will appreciate it if you will send me the address of the authoress, that I may thank her for the sentiment expressed and the encouragement it has given me.
But, most of all, and I nearly forgot it, was the Union Label.
HUGH M. HAYNES, Pittsburgh, Pa.
To the Editor:
I consider the “News” to be quite a surprise to me, and I trust that the journal will get sufficient support to not only keep it alive, but to make it a real agency and a real fighting instrument for the workers and an agency for satisfying in a measure, at least, the hunger for Brotherhood.
NICHOLAS KLEIN, Cincinnati.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Mr. Editor:
I am a laborer and hearing that there was lots of work, in Minneapolis, also good wages, for one who is willing to work, in Minneapolis, also good wages, for one who is willing to work, I arrived here, only to find that I was one of thousands who were up against it.
Now, what I would like you to put in your paper is this: While there are thousands of big strong rugged men out of employment in this city, there is very little for them to do, unless they can make the “Works.” Unless I am mistaken, it is a crim to force a man to go abroad a ship against his will. It is called being shanghaied; yet the City of Minneapolis will Shanghai, the unemployed and force these men to work in a brick yard; also to make cement blocks and railings for the Third Avenue Bridge. What gets my goat is, Why is it a crime to force a man to work aborad a ship against his will, yet it is legal for a city to do so?
There are quite a number of cement workers also brick laborers who would like to get work, also wages.
SAILOR JOE.