#hobos

They talked volubly. They seldom laughed and never fought - too far gone for laughing or fighting. When they could drink no more or buy no more, they staggered or crawled to a bare space on the floor in the back of the room where they lay on their backs in a row with their heads to the wall, each with his hat over his hideous, bloated, purple face. The porter-cook-wino watched the sleepers carefully. When he thought they had “slept it off” enough to stand up, he roughly kicked them to their feet and herded them out into the streets to beg, borrow, or steal enough small silver for another bout. Too often they failed to respond to his kicks; he would lift the battered hat, take one look at the purple-blue face, and ring for the morgue wagon.

This pitiful crew, gathered from the four corners of the earth and from every stratum of society, whipped beyond resistance by that mysterious and irresistible craving for alcohol, drank themselves purple in the wine dumps and died on the floors or under the city sidewalks. The wine dumps are gone; can any man regret their passing? And so are the winos gone. In their places have appeared the Jamaica ginger fiend, the canned heat and wood alcohol drinker. It is difficult to study and classify them; their lives are too short.

The most disreputable wine dump in the city was in Clay Street, below Kearny, and I never failed to visit it when in the neighborhood. I had no more than stepped into the place one night when a wino at the door shouted, “Here comes the wagon, “ and dashed out wildly. Some of the soberest ran out the back and disappeared. I started to the front door, but the cops were coming in. I was the first one they got, and as the cop threw me into the wagon, in the middle of my explanation, he said: “Oh, tell the judge about it, I’m no court. I’m a hundred-dollar-a-month cop, and it serves me right for being one if I get lousy throwing all you wine bums in and out of the wagon.”

He seemed discouraged."

Getting To Be a Terrible Country-For Him

August 2, 1909

A hobo looks at an Employment Agency Map of North America, which shows work available across the country, due to a large wheat harvest. "'Saskatchewan wheat crop good and men will soon be needed.' 'Alberta harvesters wanted soon for big crop' 'Manitoba wheat fields - crops good - men needed' 'Pacific Northwest - Good wheat demand for men' 'The great wheat fields of the northwest needs hundreds of men at once' 'Good crops of rye and barley' 'Harvesters in demand' 'California winter wheat - big crop also barley' 'Corn and oats - crop very good - men wanted' 'Big hay crop men wanted' 'Winter wheat area good crops - men wanted for harvesting and threshing.'"

The caption reads "Mr. Hobo - 'Where's a poor able-bodied man to go in this country, this year, to get away from work?'"

There were large crop yields across the country with need for temporary workers.

From Hennepin County Library

Spotted at Michael's.