LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
Sometimes, I wonder, what people will say about a hundred years from now. They will dig up our skulls to find out if they were ivory clear through.
Perhaps, some of our poor skulls will wind up in a museum as relics of the days when working men and women fed the world and starved themselves, and built houses but slept in lumber yards and box cars.
I believe it is right for those who have work to feed, house and clothes every single person out of a job, who will refuse to work, unless he gets higher wages and shorter hours.
Now, or course, a few can’t do this alone, but they could buy breakfast for one or two.
The man on the job can give a jobless man a meal every day and help to find shelter for him, if he refuses to go to work at a lower rate of wages.
The Casual Migratory worker in the City of Chicago was up against it last winter, and I hope he learned a lesson. He was not allowed to go to work for any of the big corporations, or for contractors, if he could not produce a blue ticket. The blue ticket showed that you were a resident of Chicago and if you didn’t have one, “Nothindoin.”
The Jungles along the railroads are full of discontented, wageless, wage-workers, who are hungry, half-naked and shelterless. A few are Mission-stiffs who, to get by, will sell their souls, their manhood and their principles for a suit of clothes and a bowl of soup. To get a suit of clothes, it is necessary to change their Religion; and in the Jungles, you will see Methodist coats, Baptist pants, Presbyterian suspenders, Episcopalian hats, Volunteer neckties and Salvation shoes.
JOHN X. KELLY.
The Hobo papers came duly to hand and are selling tonight on the streets. We think they look good to the crowd and we favor a larger paper for the next issue.
CORA D. HARVEY, Baltimore.
The “HOBO NEWS” is all to the good.
JOHN X. KELLY, Chicago.
Baltimore, April 15, 1915.
Dear Editor: We have sold quite a bunch of the “HOBO NEWS” at our open-air rallies. We expect to ship ourselves out per freight early next week and carry the doctrine of class solidarity, Brotherhood and Fraternity to our disemployed Brothers in Wilmington and Chester on our way to Philadelphia. I trust that your future issues will be written down to the level of your first edition, by the Hobo, for the Hobo and in the every-day virile and simple language of the Hobo Worker. Yours for solidarity, WILL, QUIRKE.