in which he was fighting lost three or four men. Retreated to the United States, surrendered to the United States troops. He beat his way across the line. Went to Los Angeles. Was hidden there for a time. Went to San Pedro. Got a steam schooner. Went to San Francisco. Then to Portland. Had little money, about $10. Could steal in Mexico-big money, but did not, the money belonged to his fellow workers. Went to work right away in Portland for the same company as before. Conditions the same. Worked there six months. Job done in winter; $150 saved. All winter there in Portland. Got a job of dish-washing, $8 a week and meals, twelve hours, two weeks. Quit-too long hours, not enough money; out of work two months. Got a secret disease.

In 1913 went to a lumber camp near Seattle, Washington, to drive donkeys, $3.25. Board good. Slept in bunks. One-man bunks in two-layer tiers. Bedding straw, own blankets, vermin. No laundry, washing, bathing, toilet facilities; no screens, no sanitary rules. Worked eleven hours; had one and one-half miles to hike out to the work-place each day. Got up about five o'clock; stopped at five forty-five at night. Worked two weeks. Quit. Long hours. Bad conditions. Went to Portland to work for the same company. Later he worked on a boat of the same company. Joined the new Longshoremen's Union. This fought another union but lost out. Went to work for the Columbia Digger Company. Conditions the same. Work the same. Worked to the first of January, 1914. Got laid off. No work. Took a contract to chop cordwood, 500 cords, $1 a cord. Spent all his money for tools and provisions and shipment out to the place-spent about $100. When he, with his partner, got there, they discovered they were cheated by a crooked contractor. No work.

Returned to Portland. Was broke. Partner got $10 from his father. Took another contract to clear land, two acres, $50 an acre; and to cut 100 cords of wood, $1 a cord; got cheated also; the land was harder to clear than the owner told. It rained and snowed also. Left. Did not earn a cent during one and one-half months of work. Were broke, absolutely-provisions all gone, the farmer did not even take their tools to the depot, because he had not time; he really wanted to have their tools. Got another job on a farm, 20 cents an hour to clear land; got potatoes, apples, and milk free. Made about

$10. Work done. Went to Portland. Beat his way to Seattle. Nothing doing in the woods. In Seattle about a week. Stayed with a friend. Went back to Portland, beat it. Broke. Stayed down on the dredge, even slept there. Went hungry. Went to work for that company-again $60 a month and own board. Worked until the latter part of May. No work. Laid off. Got another job for another company as a deck hand, $45 a month; good board; too long hours, -fourteen to fifteen hours, sometimes only four hours for sleeping; slept in the "dog hole." Worked twenty days. Quit-could not stand it. Went to Seattle, June 21; no work in Seattle. Started for harvest in Montana, beating his way. Got ditched lots of times. Paid to carmen, for the tips, from 25 to 50 cents every time. He had some money, bought some stuff. Made tramp "mulligan" in jungles. No jobs in Montana. Thousands of idle men there; you could not even buy a job there. Came to Aberdeen, then to Redfield; ten days here, out of work. Had money for first two or three days. Now about seven days broke. Begging of farmers, asking for work; these give meals anyhow. Sleeps in box cars and haystacks.

Immediate plans: to work here in the harvest fields, then in North Dakota, then elsewhere to save money, to go home to his mother in Denmark, and to stay there more or less permanently.

In Los Angeles lived with a girl for four months as married people; she got $5 in a department store; he got $13.50 a week. The best time he ever had in this country. Loved each other. Could not marry. Wages were low; were afraid)

The number of casual laborers is growing in this country. More men are falling into the ranks of down-and-outs than in previous years. Criticizes American Federation of Labor-the form of organization is out of date; most of the leaders are controlled by big employers. Criticizes socialists. They have turned from economic struggle to politics. The socialists are politicians for themselves. In fact they have traded the interests of the working people for the interests of the petit bourgeois.

COMMENTS

He is the leader and spokesman of the I. W. W. people and also the harvest hands (about 500) in Redfield. He is quite an intelligent boy, but all signs show that he is going downward. If he

continues to migrate he may become a hobo and afterwards a tramp of the common type. In the jungle of the harvest hands he addressed the crowd. All the men, with a few exceptions, expressed approval of the sentiments of the speech when he called for a show of hands. He did not mention the I.W.W. nor wear an I.W.W. button, and he claimed in private conversation with me that he was not a member. He says that it's too hard to keep up the 50 cents per month dues. Notes taken on his speech are as follows:

The great things that need to be done are to reduce the hours of labor and increase the wages. If the hours of labor are reduced from twelve or ten to eight, more men will be employed and there will be less unemployment. If the hours of labor are reduced enough there will be work for everybody.

You men have got to stand on your own feet and help yourselves. Nobody else will help you-neither Jesus Christ nor anyone else sitting up in the clouds above you can do anything for you. Legislation is bound to fail. What good does the minimum wage law do you? The courts won't stand for such a law being applied to men. Workmen's compensation laws are frauds. If a man gets hurt, what does he get? Only half or two thirds of his wages and that at a time when his expenses are greater than usual. We are not interested in old-age pensions, because we don't live long enough to get old. Labor exchanges won't help much. I've been in England where they have them and where they have old-age pensions, but I never saw such poverty anywhere as I saw in England. We have child labor laws in this country, but they are not enforced. The trouble at Lawrence showed that. Many good bills are introduced by wellmeaning men, but before they become law, if they become law at all, they are twisted all out of shape by the pressure from special interests. President Wilson is a good man. I voted for him myself. But what can he do? You men can trust no one but your own leaders, and even your own leaders sell you out sometimes.

We have no interest or hope in political action. Most of us are disfranchised, because we can't stay long enough in one place to get a vote. We have to keep moving to find work. We don't bum our way on the railroads, sleep and eat in the jungles, and wear poor, dirty clothes because we like to do it. We do it because we can't help ourselves. Our only salvation is organization-one big organization of all workers. When we get that we can take the industries we work in and give work to everybody. Ownership does not amount to anything then. But this can't all be done in a day. It will have to be done gradually and you men will have to do it.

"Industrial unrest?" If a man is treated like a dog he's a fool if he don't bark, ain't he? People accuse us of advocating violence. We don't believe in violence except for self-protection. All societies protect themselves against the unsocial acts of individuals. Men are hanged for murder, for example. So we believe that we have the moral right to prevent a man from working for $2.50 a day when we are fighting for $3.

P. W. SPEEK

VIII

THE MEN WE LODGE1

I. WHO THEY ARE

"O THE citizens of New York City the homeless man needs no introduction. According to a census made by the New York City Police Department for the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics on the night of January 30, 1915, he was here some 26,000 strong, spending the night in the Municipal Lodging House, at the Farm Colony of the Department of Public Charities, at the Ellis Island Immigration Station, in immigrant homes, in cheap lodging houses, in employment agencies, in missions, in the rear rooms of saloons, in bread lines, and on public thoroughfares. No observing person has walked through our down-town parks, through the Bowery or similar streets, without having at least a passing acquaintance with him.

Withdrawn from the activities and responsibilities of a normal family life, he is not unlike many men who, living in hotels, clubs, and boarding houses, might in the strict sense of the word be called homeless. From these he differs, however, in that his loneliness is often accompanied either by unemployment or by a complexity of disabilities which make him unemployable. He is not only homeless but is often without food, shelter, or money, and in most cases, if a worker at all, he is a casual laborer.

To the citizens who come into closer contact with the homeless man than is afforded in a walk through the Bowery or Union Square, such a description as the foregoing, however, proves inadequate and misleading. An investigation of some 2000 men whom New York City lodged at the Municipal Lodging House in March, 1914, indicated that there is no one type of homelessness, and that

1 From Report to the Advisory Social Service Committee of the Municipal Lodging House, New York, September, 1915, pp. 9-22.