Crisis Drives Hordes on the Road as Nomads
McCausland, Elizabeth
By Elizabeth McCausland Crisis Drives Hordes on the Road as Nomads Vivid Impressions of the Homeless Nomads Observed By the Writer During a Recent Trip to New Mexico AM ERICA is on the road. ...
...most have none...
...Bui what of my country which has 'no- homes for its children, no' shelter for its-old' men and Women f Be Worse...
...i "Granted," said the barber, having taken advantage of the interruption to mop up the coffee spilled from the cup which had been bounced on the tile-topped table...
...his supper, a Kansas farmboy with large patches on the seat of his pants,, a middle-aged woman in khaki knickers, a girl alone: bumming : rides, a grotesque unemployed chambermaid who asks...
...Rids from New England to New Mexico* and the reality of the depression comes boms ss never before, This ceaseless march of men and women, who hare no Jobs shd therefore no homef la jike a- diabolically olympjaft MBsnce devised for a'society which Is unable (or has refused) to care for its citizens...
...an industrial holocaust' whose random gales are blowing them hither and yon like scraps of paper...
...What of the adolescents whose awakening to life, in short, in which there is no humaneness, no pity, no sense of the importance of the humblest existence ? No wonder these single walkers and these walkers in pairs, hundreds of thousands of times multiplied, walk with a tread which strikes terror to the heart...
...The war's over...
...Tho younger set snd all the smart, chic debutantes from back ef the yards and the gas house districts were'present...
...The Important thing is to avoid the usage of terms which imply class distinctions, not to say divisions...
...From New York to the Mississippi the new nomads tread the highways.- Back and forth they shuttle, some bound for a fixed destination,, some the helpless victims, of...
...If I had but one wish to make, One wish that would not be in vain, • I'd beg {or happiness and take The road tltat leads to youth againf -{Douglas B. KronlMOf...
...You'll never get rich you son—" "Aw, can it...
...Young lads, walking singly or In pairs, a young boy and a. young, girl out to see the world from the asphalt's superior vantage point, families bowed before the storm, crippled by time and adversity, an ancient...
...They musts throwed >some party...
...Rich, rich," murmured another who had been gassed during the late unpleassntness...
...They have their good points too," he added generously...
...Their footbeats are mighty and dreadful music, the tramp of doom, the aweful trump of destiny...
...If these hundreds of thousands of homeless, jobless men and women, old and young, should unite forces and march on Washington, they could not be turned aside as easily as a mere handful of 25,000 bonus-seekers...
...Can you picture the Meet ef- an observation of that nature in an assemblage such as has been described...
...Suppose Hoover were t< come out for' a Merry Christmas 1 a a t Politicians go so fsr In their an tics to capture blocks of racial voter, thjt I shMldrt be surprise* to Icar^f f pjUUchp...
...i * » Up at Albany, Frank made a bi| kit in his role as aa "old potato.' He waa very realistic ss he laj there in the dirt with the Tarn, many henchmen, conferring on pa tronage and the pork berroL - * * * While up at Buffalo, the Stati Republicans got up a slate thai looks as though it was dictated bj the Executive Council of tlx League of Nations...
...i ¦ "I...
...Quite so...
...Tact and understanding Is what is needed," said Baldy pensively...
...Ych make more fuss than the unknown soldier...
...Our city...
...was cuitains then, eh...
...If ever that misery should crystalize and the movement take on form and goal, again there would be a different tale to tell...
...Truly, the cultured *<<<•': I life of our city was mirrored on this occasion...
...But Roosevelt has laid himself Wide open...
...Ah, the repartee of the young sophisticates...
...It's simply devastating...
...Think of thai, my country, whfn you set tht nation marching on yotir highway...
...I speech one stee and the •d as from ereatened us *f economic <*eitmg the • bla Dee Irsaklin D. * New York *hk changes ¦ N b N JOT»PstlpV Fsunuet'l daughter on hie Southern tour Frank wont have time to -plaj the villian act until after' Elee tion Day...
...Koot.evr.it, for vi tit a nee issued Ntw Peers greetings to tht Jewish people about two month* before the date of their Near Ytar Ho wanted to bt turt he'd do it be fort Hoover...
...a cup of coffee, the great migration sweeps by like a dream procession by Done out of Dickens...
...The great migration, the great exodus, the great exile, so may the year 1932 be known in history, jf enough of bur civilization survives for it to have a further recorded chronicle...
...I never ssw a more brilliant assemblage of charming matrons, gallant eligible bachelors and representative < tubmen...
...A,National Panorama Or rather it Is the procession that stands still while the observer sweeps on, impotent to put tho nomads back into a stable and happy way of life, helpless before the misery for which he has no cure or aid...
...Thry seem so carefree, and so glad To great the hours of the day...
...That's something like the line the spieler handed us during the I will-share campaign," said one of the auditors...
...Some of the marchers have friends or relatives to whom they are going...
...tomtnt from aw *7 have ho need for and legt...
...Where once a few thousand might have summed up the nation's migrant population, now more than 300,000 adolescent boys and girls are on the highways...
...Day and night the procession moves...
...I saslsra and m% The porn...
...Why be snobbish or caddish in our attitude towards those whom circumstsnces have placed in grooves different than those enjoyed by our set...
...Observers may have noticed that towels in printing shops behave in similar fashion, without, of course, possessing the final gracefulness of the kind of aprons worn by cafeteria employees...
...If every citisen and every leader of the people had to speed down the Lincoln Highway at 60 miles an hour, passing the migrants, turning a deaf ear to their need, leaving them to walk as he rides, there would be a different tale to tell of the year 1032...
...commlttln, blga^^jgr^^,T«rkls| Baldy, The Barber, Urges Tact in Use of Language to Avoid Any Hint of Classes in This World of Clubmen By BEN BLUMENBERG (Batting (or Samuel A. DeWitt, who when last heard from was still fighting likt the very biases for the party ticket on four or eleven fronts at once...
...Just as Clear as Crystal "Clear as crystal," said one of the listeners While others nodded...
...That footsore akd w'etping nomads whist fleas and tsars you how ignore' will have their revihge then...
...But tht Demon at n were tidi asleep on tht 1 racial qutttion either...
...G'wan...
...You'll admit there is a difference between the worthy rich and the deserving rich," said one...
...Gawd, they're good for another hour," thought the boss...
...The bus boy, doorman for the nonce, turned the lock in the door and fidgeted...
...Up and down the highways, on the main arteries of transcontinental traffic, on the wide road bearing the name of the Great Emancipator, wherever the automobile goes, there are these suppliants by the wayside, these mendicants of the motor age, the new nomads, the migrants who are not hoboes because what puts them to tramping und hitch-hiking is not a disinclination to work but a dreadful inability to find any kind of work to do...
...Well,-our part of it...
...Still others dozed, A few snored...
...Throw away that can of gooey and put some real coffee in mine," said one...
...Granted that there are those to the, pent-house born while others have the background, the esprit, the finesse of say, a movie star or a political heir to a magic box...
...It is the nation in flux, a people stirred up to meaningless motion by their misery...
...Or again, assume no drastic violence results from this migration, no great overwhelming destruction like that of Genghis Khan, what of the human beings who have seen their homes vanish in a great economic debacle, who have been cast precipitately out into1 a world in which life has no sacredness or rights...
...Notwithstanding the lateness of the hou., for it was past eleven o'clock, the patrons of the Elite Cafeteria, the most exclusive dining place on Railroad Avenue, were reluctant to adjourn the spirited confab...
...The use of different terms by various members of that family tends to make for discord...
...Never let us forget that our nation is one big family...
...One Wish Little children, main ma sad When I obtervt them in their play...
...The Repub lican bosses deliberately set out t< And a Catholic, a Jew, a Protestant, an Italian, etc...
...luen should Mte for him, is contention i still worse...
...Several of the diners noted the proposed flight of the host and sang out for coffee...
...The affair was In the nature of a coming out party for the youngest of his five daughters...
...Add to these the men and women of mature years, the old married couples tramping the hard concrete pavements, the families uprooted from their homes, veterans besieging Washington, starving farmers marching on the cities they think the cause of all their ills, snd one cannot help but know that a great migration is on foot in this country, a migration greater than that which set the nation moving westward with relentless tresd, greater than the great movements of population in western Europe, greater than the historic migration headed by Genghis Khan...
...What of the children led by the hand down hard roads where the motor cars whiz by at 50 miles an hour...
...Rtnttmbtr-thai, my America, when tht hour of reckoning hat come...
...As Baldy Sea "As I was saying," said Baldy the barber, "we must strive to eliminate from the language words and expressions which connote the existence of social groups or classes...
...What of Human Life...
...The manager of the Elite undid the strings of his apron, throwing it on a chair where It stood for an instant, swaying before gracefully collapsing...
...Suppose these walkers, whose mt.rch is as if in a sleep, came to the crossroads of fate, and one way led to destruction and one way to a new world, would they have eyes to see and strength to take the right road, these men and women, these children, these young boys and girls in whose ears have rung only the sound of passing motors, and the weary tread of their own feet...
...One can huve one's memories, can one not...
...But, due d from only It aa«« died ipkkmtion of men's Nome •art Hoover...
...It could not have been otherwise," said Baldy the barber as he folded np (holly Knickerbocker's society page in the .Journal at the same time Inquiring of his auditors, "Who can let me have a buck until pay day...
...Homes Destroyed Homes destroyed and families driven out into the great world with no roof1 to shelter therh, economic security gone and with it spatial security, lost all the dear roots and ties that little souls live by, irretrievably severed, the present sheared off from the past...
...TPHE talk had turned to ideals in a political democracy...
...Negro Joan and Darby, pitiable in their rags, their bands gnarled and twisted by toil, their worldly wealth in a gunnyaack, a weary faced woman leading a child by,the hand, a cowboy fiddler from Albuquerque singing for...
...Oh, yes...
...And if the Tartar conqueror's migration was indeed a storm over Asia, the migration of the year of Our Lord MCMXXXII is storm over America —and more...
...Our Cultured Social Life "Ah, one of the noveau rlche...
...It was until the host Injected a sordid note of class distrust by declaring that the present distribution of wealth may be open to criticism...
...Do I make myself clear...
...Back and forth across the continent it passes...
...I recently attended a function given by one of those climbing upstairs whose success lateaback to the time when three day a week work tickets we.s given to the Influential...
Vol. 14 • October 1932 • No. 15
