Kitabı oku: «Notes of an Itinerant Policeman», sayfa 9

I have been asked whether he ever voluntarily reads the Bible. It is an easy book to get hold of, and in prison it is forced upon the tramp's attention, but it has no marked fascination for him. I have known a roadster to beg a New Testament from a Bible House agency in order to settle a dispute about religious doctrine, but this is a very exceptional case. The average tramp knows no difference between the Old and New Testaments, and bases any religious convictions that he may have on personal revelations of truth rather than on inspired Scripture. In one respect, however, he conforms to conventional customs, – he likes to sing hymns. In jail or out, if he happens to be in a singing mood, it is only necessary to start such hymns as "Pull for the shore," "There were ninety and nine," "Where is my wandering boy to-night?" and this tattered and uncouth creature breaks forth into song. There is a grin on his lips while he sings, for he appreciates the ludicrousness of the situation, but he sings on at the top of his voice. At night, on a Western prairie, where he and his pals have built a "hang-out" near a railroad track, there is no more picturesque scene in all Hoboland than when he stands up, starts a tune, and the others rise and join him.

Equally amusing, if not so harmless, are the tramp's improvised schools. In the autumn, when the weather gets too cold for sleeping out, the country schoolhouse becomes one of the tramp's night shelters. He gets in through one of the windows. A wood-pile is near by, and what with a good fire and benches to lie on, he makes a very cosy nest. Let a crowd of ten or twenty appropriate such a place, and there is always a frolic before bedtime. One of the tramps is elected teacher, the scholars' books and slates are taken from their desks, and school begins. "Moike, oppen yer mug 'n' see if ye kin read," the teacher commands, and the burly pupil begins to paw over the leaves. Later comes a turn at spelling, writing, and "figgerin'," and a wild hobo song ends the session. A keg of beer sometimes helps to enliven things, and then ink-bottles, readers, and spelling-books are scattered about the room in great confusion. The wood-pile also disappears, and sometimes the building itself goes up in flames. I have often wondered whether the real pupils were not glad to find things so topsy-turvy in the morning. It must take time to put the schoolhouse in order again, and the boys and girls have a vacation meanwhile. The taxpayers grumble, of course, but, as the tramp says, "they ought to fasten things tighter," and until they do he will continue, I fear, to entertain himself at their expense.

An experience that I had not long ago illustrates the tramp's unwillingness to have his reading matter regulated by outsiders. I was making an investigation of the tramp situation on certain railroads in the middle West at the time, and one night, in company of some fellow roadsters, I went for shelter to the tramp ward of a poor-house. The room we were sent to was in the cellar, and we all passed a very miserable night. In the morning we were given our breakfast in the common dining-room of the institution, and while we were sitting at the table the wife of the keeper gave each one of us a "tract," which we carefully tucked under our plates and left there. When we had finished, one of the tramps asked our hostess whether there was a place in the building where we could wash; the hole we had had to stay in over night was so dirty that our clothes and hands were covered with dust, and the tramp knew that any stream we might find outside would be frozen over. The woman looked at him severely, and said: "There's a brook at the foot of the hill." The tramp's anger was aroused. "Madam," he said, "I have always been taught that cleanliness is next to godliness. You have given us all tracts, but you won't give us a place to wash. Your religion and mine don't jibe. You'll find the tracts under the plates." We all got another severe look, and the next batch of tramps probably got the tracts.

Of the newspapers that the tramp reads there is but little that is novel to report beyond the fact that he begs for them in the same systematic fashion characteristic of him when looking for his meals. Not all tramps are anxious to keep up to date as regards the world's doings, but a fair proportion of them look for their morning newspaper immediately after breakfast. They go to stores and barber-shops, and do not hesitate to ask even newsdealers. In summer the newspapers which they get also serve them as beds in railroad box-cars; they spread them out on the floor of the car and lie down on them, their shoes and vests doing duty as pillows, and their coats as covering. Their favourite papers are of the yellow kind, but I doubt whether they take them any more seriously than other people do who buy them merely for particular items of news and then throw them away. They like spicy articles and glaring pictures, and scramble with one another for first chance at the Police Gazette, but this taste is not unnatural; their life is rough, vulgar, and sensational, and the wonder is that they can appreciate and care for the high-class literature which many of them read.

I have said that they get enjoyment out of writing as well as reading. There are a few well-educated men in tramp life, and they have been surprised attempting to make literature as well as to read it. In Germany it is quite a custom among the Chausseegrabentapezirer to keep diaries in which they jot down notes and comments on their life, and in this country, also, journals and essays by tramps have been discovered. One of the most intelligent criticisms of my tramp papers in The Century came from a Boston tramp, hailing for the time being from Texas. Excepting a few mistakes in grammar which many persons who are not tramps are guilty of, it was a very creditable production.

Once upon a time, not to be too particular, two tramps were shut up all alone in a jail in Michigan, and their sentences wore so heavily upon them that they found it very difficult to be patient. Their stories gave out, the jail fare became tiresome, there was very little to read, and they were by nature very restless. At last things looked so gloomy that they decided to spin a coin for a choice of two suggested pastimes, – writing a story, or planning and carrying out an escape. It was "heads" for the story, and "tails" for the escape. Heads won. True to their contract, these two men, one fairly well educated, and the other with a big imagination, sat themselves down to the task, pencil and paper being furnished by the sheriff. For ten days they wrote and wrote, then rewrote, until, as the man with the imagination said, their "poor brains seemed squeezed to death." Indeed, they had worked so hard that the man with a little education thought it would be worth while to try to sell the story; so, after it had been read to the sheriff and his wife, both of whom it pleased, sufficient postage was collected to send it to a periodical thought to be looking for such contributions; and off it went, and with it the solemn prayers of the authors. Three weeks later, lo and behold! a letter arrived in care of the sheriff. The two men opened it tenderly and fearfully, each tearing a little of the end off and then passing it to the other, saying, like silly girls: "I don't dare." But what was their surprise, the terrifying little thing once laid bare, to find in it a check for ninety dollars, payable to them jointly or severally, as if the editor had fancied that they might be turned loose at different times. Unfortunately, they were freed together, and two hours afterward the man with the imagination had so inflated it with whiskey that he wanted to storm the jail and free the sheriff. His story, however, was not disgraced. It is still quite readable. He, poor fellow, would probably like to toss up again for pastimes; when last heard of he was "doing" solitary confinement.

CHAPTER XII
POLICING THE RAILROADS

Engineers build railroads and are largely represented in their management, but both in building and operating them they are dependent, at one time or another, upon some kind of police protection. Indeed, there are railroads that could not have been constructed at all without the aid of either soldiers or policemen. The Trans-Caspian railroad was built largely by soldiers, and is still superintended by the war department at St. Petersburg rather than by the minister of ways of communication. The Siberian line is, in parts, the result of the work of convicts, who were carefully watched by police guards, and the Russian civil engineers in Manchuria have needed the protection of Cossacks merely to survey that end of the road. In Germany, practically all the railroad officials, from the head of the engineering department down to the track-walkers, have police power. The conductor of a train, for instance, can put an obstreperous passenger under arrest without waiting until a station is reached, and resistance to him is as serious an offence as is resistance to the ordinary Schutzmann.

In Europe, it was seen, when railroads were first coming into use, that police efficiency, as well as that of the technical railroader, would be required, if the properties were to be well managed, and it was secured at the start. Before the railroads were built it had been made plain, after long experience, that even on the public turnpikes policemen were indispensable, and the authorities decided to employ them on railroads as well. The protection of life and property is a very serious matter in Europe, where precautions are taken which in the United States would seem superfluous. It avails nothing in Germany, for example, for a director of a company to excuse the loss of money intrusted to his care on the ground that he thought he was acting in a businesslike manner. Inspectors, or commissioners, are appointed to see whether his transactions come up to the standard of what is considered businesslike, and if they find that he has not exercised good judgment, although there may have been nothing intrinsically dishonest in the way he has managed, his bondsmen frequently have to reimburse the stockholders for the loss that his mistakes have brought upon them. It is the spirit of carefulness behind such a precaution as this which goes to explain why the Germans have the systematised police surveillance of railroad property referred to. Much of this surveillance is in the hands of the municipal police and rural constabulary, but the fact that the majority of the railroad officials have police authority shows how much protection was considered necessary to manage the properties carefully.

In the United States the idea seems to have been that the engineers and managers could be relied on to get out of railroad investments all the profit that was in them, and that the assistance of policemen could be dispensed with except as watchmen. It is true that, for a number of years, railroad companies have had on their pay-rolls what are called "railroad detectives," but up to a few years ago there was not a well-organised railroad police force in the United States, and yet there is no country in the world, at the present moment, where railroads are more in need of such auxiliary departments. A great deal of money would have been saved to investors, and not a few lives would have been spared, had the American railroads seriously taken up this police matter in the early days of their existence, and until they do, say what one will about the luxuries to be found on American trains, and the speed at which they run, American railroad properties, in this particular at least, are inferior to those of Europe in management.

The purpose of this last chapter is to call attention to the inadequateness of the police arrangements now prevalent on nearly all railroad systems in the United States, to show what has resulted from this inadequateness, and to interest railroad men and the general public in police organisations which will be equal to the work necessary to be done.

To bring out clearly the defects of the prevailing railroad police methods in the United States, it seems appropriate to take a concrete case, and describe the situation on a railroad which I have been over as a passenger and as a trespasser. It employs about sixty men in its police department, and is one of the most tramp-infested roads in the country. The maintenance of the so-called detective force costs the company about forty thousand dollars a year.

By way of illustration, I will give a résumé of conversations that I had respectively with a detective, a tramp, and a trainman that I encountered on the property. Each of these men was representative of his class, and spoke his mind freely.

The detective had started out in life as a brakeman, but his eyesight became faulty after a few years, and he got a position on the police force. He had just passed his fiftieth year when I met him, and was heavy, unwieldy, and inclined to be lazy. His beat consisted of forty miles of track, and he generally went over it in a passenger train.

I asked him whether he found many tramps on passenger trains. He was not supposed to devote all of his time to watching trespassers, but they were so obviously a nuisance on the property that it struck me as peculiar that he did not ride on trains where they were more likely to be found.

"No," he replied, in a drawling voice, to my query, "I don't find many tramps in passenger coaches; but I know where their camps are, and several of us raid 'em every now and then."

"I should think you would want to ride more on freight-trains," I went on, "and catch the trespassers in the act, so to speak."

"I'm too heavy to fool around freight-trains; besides, I don't want to have a knife put into me. Some o' them tramps are mighty quick on their feet, and if I went at 'em they'd have a razor cut in me before I could turn round."

I asked him why, in view of his age and heaviness, he did not try to find employment in some other department of the road more suited to his abilities. Railroad companies are often very lenient with employees of long standing, and give them easy positions in their old age.

"This is the easiest department the road's got," he returned. "Besides, I'm my own boss."

"Don't you have to make regular reports to any one?"

"I go to the trainmaster's office every morning for orders, but he don't know much about the business, and generally tells me to do as I think best. We men haven't got a chief the way the regular railroaders have."

"Who is responsible for what you do?" I inquired.

"Nobody, I guess, but the pres'dent o' the road."

"How do you spend your time?"

"Well, I go to the trainmaster in the morning, and if he hasn't heard of anything special, like a car robbery or an accident where there's likely to be a claim for damages, I stay around the station a while, or go down into the yards and see what I can see. Sometimes I spend the day in the yards."

"What do you do there?"

"Oh, I loaf around, keep the kids away from the cars, chin-chin with the switchmen 'n' the other men, keep my eyes open for fellows that there's rewards for, eat my dinner, an' go to bed."

"Why don't you try to break up the tramp camps?"

"We do try it, but they come back again."

"Don't you think you would probably be more successful if you raided them oftener?"

"Yes, I guess we would; but, you see, there ain't any one who's running the thing. When an order comes from the superintendent to make raids we make 'em, but he don't send in that order more'n once in three months, an' the rest o' the time we do pretty much as we like."

"How do you think things would go if you men were organised and had a chief? Would better work be done?"

"Better work would be done, I guess, but it would be a darned sight harder work," and he smiled significantly.

My tramp informant was an old roadster of about forty, who had "held down" the railroad in question for a number of years. I asked him how long it had been an "open" road, – one easy for trespassers to get over.

"As long as the memory of man goes back," he replied, with a suggestive flourish of his hand.

"Are not some divisions harder to beat than others?"

"Once in awhile a division'll get a little horstile, but only fer a few weeks."

"How many tramps are riding trains?"

"I don't see all the trains, so I can't tell you; but I never seen a freight yet that wasn't carryin' at least five bums, 'n' I've seen some carryin' over a hundred In summer there's most as many bums as passengers."

"Is there much robbing of cars going on?"

"Not so much as there might be. The blokes are drunk most of the time, 'n' they let chances go by. If they'd keep sober, 'n' look up good fences, they could do a nice little business."

"Do the police trouble you much?"

"When they round up a camp they're pretty warm, but I don't see much o' them 'cept then. 'Course you wants to look out fer 'em when a train pulls into division yards, 'cause 'f yer handy they'll pinch you; but they ain't goin' to run after you very far. I've heard that they have orders to let the bums ride, so long as there ain't too much swipin' goin' on. The company don't care, some people say."

The trainman that I interviewed was a freight-train conductor who had been in the employ of the company over twenty-five years. I asked him whether he had instructions to keep trespassers off his trains.

"I got the instructions all right enough," he said, "but I don't follow them. I'm not a policeman for the road. I'm a conductor, and I only draw a salary for being that, too. When I was green I used to try to keep the bums off my trains, but I nearly got my head shot off one night and stopped after that. It's the detectives' business to look after such people."

"Do you see much of the detectives?"

"Once in awhile one of them shows up on my trains, but I've never seen them make any arrests. One of them got on my train one day when I was carryin' fifty tramps, and he never went near them."

"What do you think ought to be done to keep tramps off trains?"

"Well, what I'd like to have done would be for the United States government to let all us trainmen carry revolvers and shoot every galoot that got on to our trains. That'd stop the thing."

"Do you think the company wants it stopped?"

"I don't know whether they do or not, but I wish to God they'd do something. Why, we men can't go over our trains at night any more, and be sure that we ain't goin' to get it in the neck somewhere. It's a holy fright."

I have quoted these men because their testimony may be accepted as expert. They know the situation and they know one another, and they had no reason to try to deceive me in answering my questions. In addition to their remarks, it is only necessary, so far as this particular road is concerned, to emphasise the fact that the forty thousand dollars a year which the company spends for protection of the property are not protecting it, and are bringing in to the stockholders practically no interest. The police force is entirely lacking in system; many of the men are too old and indifferent, and the property is littered up with as miscellaneous a collection of vagabonds and thieves as is to be found in a year's travel. This is neither good management, nor good business, and it is unfair to a community which furnishes a railroad much of its revenue, to foist such a rabble upon it.

A more or less similar state of affairs exists on the great majority of the trunk lines in the United States. They are all spending thousands of dollars on their "detective" forces, as they call them, and they are all overrun by wandering mobs of ne'er-do-wells and criminals. There are no worse slums in the country than are to be found on the railroads. Reformers and social agitators are accustomed to speak of the congested districts of the large cities as the slums to which attention should be directed, but in the most congested quarters of New York City there are no greater desperadoes nor scenes of deeper degradation than may be met on the "iron highways" of the United States. A number of railroads are recognised by vagrants and criminals as the stamping ground of particular gangs that are generally found on the lines with which their names are connected.

Every now and then the report is given out that a certain railroad is about to inaugurate a policy of retrenchment, and the newspapers state that a number of employees have been discharged or have had their work hours cut down. The best policy of retrenchment that a number of railroad companies can take up would be to stop the robberies on their properties, collect fares from the trespassers, and free their employees from the demoralising companionship of tramps and criminals. To carry out such a policy a well organised railroad police force is indispensable, and as I have made use of a practical illustration to indicate the need of reform, I will advance another to show how this reform can be brought about.

There is one railroad police organisation in the United States which is conscientiously protecting the property in whose interests it works, and I cannot better make plain what is necessary to be done than by giving a short account of its organisation and performance. It is employed on the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg, and in inception and direction is the achievement of the general manager of that system.

As a division superintendent this gentleman became very much interested in the police question, and organised a force for the division under his immediate control. It worked so successfully that, on assuming management of the entire property, he determined to introduce in all the divisions the methods which he had found helpful in his division. There was no attempt made, however, to overhaul the entire property at once. The reform went on gradually, and as one division was organised, the needs and peculiarities of another were studied and planned for. Suitable men had to be found, and there was necessarily considerable experimenting. The work was done thoroughly, however, and with a view to permanent benefits rather than to merely temporary relief. To-day, after six years of preparatory exercise, the "Northwest System" has a model police organisation, and the "Southwest System" is being organised as rapidly as the right men can be found.

The force on the "Northwest System" – and it must be remembered that this part of the property takes in such cities as Pittsburg, Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago, where there is always a riffraff population likely to trespass on railroad property – is made up of eighty-three officers and men. The chief of the force is the superintendent, whose jurisdiction extends to the "Southwest System" also. He reports to the general manager, and is almost daily in conference with him. For an assistant to manage things when he is "out on the road," and to relieve him of road duty when he is needed at headquarters, he has an inspector, a man who has risen from the ranks and has demonstrated ability for the position. Each division has a captain, who reports to the division superintendent and to the chief of the police service. This captain has under him one or more lieutenants and the necessary number of patrolmen and watchman, who report to him alone. An order from the general manager consequently reaches the men for whom it is meant through official channels entirely within the police department, and the same is true of statements and reports of the men to the general manager.

Practically everything is run according to a well-understood system, and this is the secret of the department's success. Day in and day out every man on the force knows what he has to do, and expects to be called to order if his work does not come up to what is desired. Hunting down trespassers and thieves is but a part of the routine. The property is patrolled almost exactly as a large city is, and the men are expected to make reports about such matters as the condition of frogs and switches, switch-lights, fences, and station-buildings, to do preliminary work for the department of claims, to keep the property free from trespassers, to protect the pay-car, look out for circus and excursion trains, and generally make themselves useful. They are all picked men, and have to come up to the requirements of the United States army as regards health and physical strength. Their personal records are known for five years previous to being employed on the force. They constitute for the general manager an invaluable guardianship. He has but to press the button, so to speak, and within a few hours the entire police force is carrying out his instructions. Through it he can keep in touch with a thousand and one matters which would otherwise escape his notice, and he can order an investigation with the assurance that he will get an exact and trustworthy report within a reasonable time.

Such is the organisation. Its performance, up to date, has consisted in cleaning up a property that, seven years ago, as I know from observation, was so infested with criminals that it was notorious throughout the tramp world as an "open" road. To-day that system is noted for being the "tightest shut" line, from the trespasser's point of view, in the country, and the company pays seventeen thousand dollars a year less for its police arrangements than it did in 1893 for its watchmen and detective force. These are facts which any one may verify, and it is no longer possible for railroad companies to explain their hesitation in taking up the police matter in earnest on the ground that it would cost too much. It costs less, not only in the police department's pay-rolls, but in the department of claims as well, than it did when detached men, without any organisation and direction, were employed, and the conditions at the start were very similar to those on railroads now known to be "open." It is to be admitted that the rabble which formerly infested this property has in all probability shifted to other roads, – gangs of this character naturally follow the lines of least resistance, – but it would have been impossible for it to shift had other railroads taken a similar stand against it; it must have vanished.

The time must come when this stand will be taken by all railroads. For a number of years there has been no more valuable contribution to the business of railroading in the United States than the demonstrated success of a railroad police force, and it is difficult to believe that the benefits it brings can be long overlooked. The question of methods to be employed will naturally occasion considerable discussion, and it will doubtless be found that an organisation which suits one railroad is not available for another, but I believe that the general plan of the police organisation described above is a safe one to follow. It is founded on the principle that the men must be carefully selected, thoroughly trained, systematically governed, and the scope of their work sharply defined. No police force, railroad or municipal, can do really good work unless due regard be given to these very important matters.

For the benefit of railroad police forces which may be organised in the future, the following suggestion seems to me to be worthy of consideration.

The title "detective" should not be given the men. They are not detectives in the ordinary sense of the word, and to be so called hurts them with the public and with their fellow employees. Railroading is a business done aboveboard and in the public view, and its police service should stand on a different footing from that of the detective force of a large city, where, as all the world knows, secret agents are necessary. They may be necessary at times on railroads also, but there already exist reputable agencies for furnishing such service.

The superintending officers of the force should be superior men. In Germany a police patrolman has not the slightest hope of becoming so much as a lieutenant until he has passed a very severe examination, which practically implies a college education, and he consequently realises that his superior officer is entitled to his position on other grounds than mere "pull" or "seniority," and learns to have great respect for him. A similar dignity should be attached to authoritative positions in the railroad police, and to secure it able men must be employed.

The superintendent of the service should be as supreme in it as is the superintendent of a division. If he has been chosen for the position on account of his fitness for it, the supposition is that he knows how to fill it, and there should be but one superior to whom he must answer. I bring up this point because on most railroads the police arrangements are, at present, such that almost every head of a department gives orders to the "detectives." On some roads even station agents are allowed to regulate the local police officer's movements.

Whether an American railroad police can be organised on as broad lines as in Germany, where practically all the railroad officials have police authority, is a question which cannot yet be definitely decided. The conditions in the United States are very different from those in Germany, and it may be that the sentiment of the people would be against giving so many persons police power; but I think it would be advantageous to experiment with the track-walkers, crossing-watchmen, and gatemen, and see whether they can be incorporated in the railroad police. Great care must naturally be exercised in picking out the men to possess patrolmen's privileges, but an examination, such as all German railroad police officials have to pass, would seem to be a precaution which ought to secure safe officers. If such an arrangement were made, the railroad police would admirably supplement the municipal police and the rural constabulary, and the requirements, physical, mental, and moral, of the examinations to be gone through would have a tendency to elevate the morale of the men, not only as patrolmen, but also as railroaders.