EVEN to hear Mr. Hopkins talk about this great army of men and women moving about the country made me restless. My work was fascinating. I heard regularly from Home Colony and mother. Baby Dear was well and flourishing. Now and then I was able to make a little contribution to the colony. I was earning my own living. But the old wanderlust was upon me. It was spring.
I told Mr. Nelson how I felt.
“Go ahead,” he said laughingly. “You wouldn’t be any good to me at all unless you were just like this. Go on out and see what you find. Then come back and help me write about it. And here’s something I want. Bring me back material on transient women who get into the courts, who have records. There aren’t any statistics on those, because prison authorities aren’t interested in the wanderlust in relation to crime and because social workers aren’t smart enough to get any racket details out of the transients. You go see what you can find.”
I spent the next two years in New York, with occasional trips on the road, my journeys repetitions of other trips I had had, nice, friendly casual relations, sordid, stimulating, exciting experiences. But all over the country I stayed in transient camps, finding them more and more comfortable, having better facilities for the quick use of transient women, and having more human and intelligent direction. But still they had a long way to go! Would they ever learn to handle the grifter and the liar and the cheat? Would they ever understand restlessness? Would they ever stop trying to make, without homes, home bodies of women who want freedom?
There were hundreds of petty thieves and “ex-con” women in the comparative safety of the women’s shelters throughout the country. I got story after story from them. Being a government-kept transient was far easier than running the risk of jail, they told me. They were getting all the adventure they needed off the road.
There were some, of course, that would always be in one racket or another, who just used the transient facilities “to sober up on,” they said.
State Street Blondie was one of them. I had worked my way around down to St. Louis. I met State Street Blondie in a shelter there. For her sake I would never dare tell you which shelter it was because she might be traced down. She had far too much publicity in the Chicago papers last year. She was actually what we would call a criminal hobo. She had a little bug for writing, and one day, as we were washing our clothes together in the laundry and she said she was getting restless, I suggested she write the story of her life. And here it is, as she did it for me:
“I was born in Wisconsin. My parents were farmers. Mother bought me a pair of shoes once a year, usually in the fall. She said, ‘These shoes must last till spring,’ and in the spring I went without until the next fall. When I was twelve, father bought me a dress and told me that that was the last money that would be spent on me. I was old enough to take care of myself.
“My first hobo trip was when I was thirteen. I rode from Tomah to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the blinds, after a boy I knew had seduced me. I was afraid of my father and went off with an older man who had been a hobo all his life. I was married just five days after I was fourteen in St. Paul. My husband was twenty-four. He seldom worked and soon after I was married I got a job as a waitress. Then I supported him. Occasionally he would make a little money by playing pool or hustling.
“After we had been married about two years, we came to Chicago and decided to take a hobo trip to California. We started out on the highway from Chicago to Kansas City. From Kansas City we took the Southern Pacific passenger train. My husband and I rode on the blinds all the way to El Paso, Texas, where we were taken off by the railroad dicks. We were taken to the police station. The police questioned me and discovered that I was seven months pregnant. They took me over to the charitable organization and got a ticket for my husband and me to San Diego.
“My baby was born in San Diego—a beautiful eight-pound boy. We had a very hard time after the baby was born. My husband couldn’t find a job and I got most of my money by begging from strangers on the street. This was my first panhandling.
“When the baby was three months old, we left San Diego to go to Milwaukee. We started out hitch-hiking. We got as far as Needles, California, where we were stranded. We didn’t have a cent for any food. We were in desperate straits. We walked out into the desert until we couldn’t walk any further, and had got about twenty miles out when the heat became so terrible that I became dizzy and faint and we couldn’t go any further. We were there two days, from Thursday until Saturday afternoon, when we were picked up by a judge. He took us to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He provided us with food, bought me a pair of shoes, and gave us ten dollars to eat on.
“The next day a salesman picked us up who was going to Denver. When we arrived in Denver we had three dollars left. I worked in Denver for a while. Three weeks later we hitch-hiked to Milwaukee. At that time autos were plentiful on the road, but very few would pick people up.
“For the next three years we didn’t stay very long in any one place. We hoboed from Chicago to New York, to Baltimore, Maryland, to Maine, to Annapolis, to Springfield, Massachusetts, to Boston. The year and a half we were east we had a free and easy time. Sometimes I worked, but often we were just broke and I would panhandle.
“My husband was never content to stay in any place very long. He would get tired of any town, and so we were constantly on the move.
“In 1925 my husband was killed in an automobile accident. We were riding on the highway in a friend’s car and a large car came off a side road and side-swiped us. He died three hours later. I had both legs fractured. The driver was one of those called hit-and-run.
“After my husband died, I went to Portage, Wisconsin, where I tried to obtain steady employment to keep my child. I was unable to find a job. I got acquainted with a girl and two men. One day we were dining in a restaurant and the police came in and arrested all of us. I learned that one of the men was a forger. The police tride to get me mixed up in it, but I knew nothing about the case and because I couldn’t give any information, they took my child away from me and put him in an orphan asylum. They gave me ten days in jail.
“When I got out of jail, I hoboed my way to Sparta to see my baby. Then I hoboed back to Chicago. Things were kind of tough, and before I knew it I was in the racket. While I was rustling around Chicago trying to make a living the best I could, I got acquainted with a group of men who were known as jack-rollers and strong arm men. They told me how easy it would be for me to make big money, and then I started in to work with the gang.
“I’d be walking down the street and some man would accost me and ask if I didn’t want to go to a room. I would say, ‘Yes, but I want to go to my house first. Come along with me.’
“Then I would take him to the rear of an apartment building. I’d take him in, and ‘put the arm on him,’ holding him tight around his neck while my pals would go to it and rob him. We never had any weapons. I’m a very strong woman and usually when I put my arm around a man’s neck, I can choke the wind out of him and make him fall unconscious. When I was unable to do this, my pals would give the man a couple of hard blows in the stomach, which would usually knock him out.
“Any dough we took from the victims we usually split three ways. I saved with the desire to get my baby out of the orphan asylum. In nine months I had saved five hundred dollars and gave it to a lawyer to get my boy out. He was unable to do anything. The principal of the State School where my child was locked up, told me that if I would give him a thousand dollars he would let my boy go to a boarding school. I gave him seven hundred dollars, and I was to pay the people five dollars a week for boarding him, which I did for two weeks. He was placed with a family near my home town, Tomah, Wisconsin. After the child had been there one week, I asked a friend of mine in Chicago to drive me up to Tomah and gave him twenty-five dollars and his gas and asked him to help me get my child.
“My son, Clifton, was ten years old. The arrangement with the State Institution was that I could see the child once a week for three hours and take him to a nearby town. I just told the folks that I was going to take the boy out for three hours. I brought him to Chicago and the first thing I did was to buy him two complete new outfits.
“I was afraid to keep him in Chicago and felt it was wise to get out of town. We started on a hobo trip. I tried to get him to ride the blinds on a passenger, but he was too frightened to get on and we had to hitch-hike. We went to Sioux City, Iowa, to my brother, where I left him.
“Soon after, I came back to Chicago and got in with the old mob. Down on South State Street there was a restaurant where we all hung out. There were all kinds of chiselers, muscle men, and racketeers. I made my money by panhandling, strong-arming, hyping, and by various kinds of chiseling. I never was very much of a crook, and although my friends asked me to join them in burglary and all sorts of things, I always refused.
“I had only one bad ‘fall’ and one conviction. We were going strong-arming in a house over on the North Side and the police got wise and pinched me. I refused to squeal on my pals and they took me to the Bureau and took my fingernails practically off trying to make me talk. I refused to implicate my pals. Although we had a ‘fixer’ and gave the bulls and everybody else money, they gave me ninety days and one hundred dollars and costs. The newspapers took my pictures and ran them for four days. I refused to have my picture taken, but the police compelled me and held me while I posed for the newspaper men.
“I’ve been picked up by the police at least twenty-five times, mostly for vagrancy and on suspicion. I’ve had only one conviction, but I’ve had to hand dough to the bulls a good many times.
“When I came back to Chicago later with my boy, I tried to square it. I wanted to bring my son up to be an honest man and religious and decent. I tried very hard to earn a living and I took all kinds of jobs, housework and everything. Last winter things got so hard we had to stay in the Chicago Women’s Shelter at Adams and Ashland. We stayed there for five days. This is the only shelter I ever stayed in in my life. While at the shelter, my boy always complained of being hungry and I’d go down to the restaurants and ask them if I could do any work to get the child something to eat.
“While I was at the shelter, I got one day’s housework at two dollars. The superintendent knew it and tried to take the money from me. I refused to give it to her and took my son away with me.
“The night we left the shelter a man in an automobile picked us up and when he learned that we were hungry and broke, he fed us and said he would take us to a hotel belonging to a friend of his. We went to sleep at the hotel and at about two o’clock in the morning my supposed benefactor broke into the room. He asked me if I thought I was going to have room and board for nothing. He said if I didn’t want to sleep with him, we could get out of the hotel, which I did, but first I broke a chair over his head!
“I took my son to a girl friend and asked her to look after him and said I’d soon have some money. I was desperate. I realized that the charities would not help me and I could not get a job and I wasn’t going to stand by and let my boy starve. I wanted to be an honest, decent, hard-working mother, but I couldn’t make the grade. So then I went back into the racket again. I do the best I can. When I can get a job, I take it. When I can’t I stay at a shelter until I do enough panhandling to start out again. I’m not going to sit idly by and see my son starve.
“I’d love to have my son with me. I want to see him grow up healthy, but I have so much heat (police record) that the bulls are constantly stopping me and often they take me down to the Bureau. Recently I was held in the county jail for five days. I decided that it was best to send my son somewheres where he’d be looked after. He is now with some of my relatives, going to school. I have to send him five dollars a week for his board and buy him clothes. This is not easy. I have to be very careful of what I do. My ambition in life is to give my boy a good education. I’d like to see him become a doctor or a good musician.
“Since my husband died, eight years ago, I have had two sweethearts. I went with one four years. I’ve knocked around with racketeers, crooks, and chiselers for nine years and I’ve had all kinds of propositions. Men have offered me all kinds of money, as high as fifty dollars a night, in the old days, and I never would sell my body because I always thought that was the lowest thing in the world and I’d rather do anything else. I haven’t any grudge against a girl that hustles. I just feel sorry for her. I think they’re very weak. When I love a man I think a great deal of him.
“I’ve met a good many ‘queer’ women (lesbians). Sometimes they’ve tried to be friendly and make me, but I never have had anything to do with them. I never tried to strong-arm any of them, or any woman. When I’m out working the racket, I usually get a well-dressed elderly man. The average money I get from a guy is about three to eight dollars, and that’s a three-way split. The last five men we made we got fifty-five dollars from one, eighty cents from another (very well dressed), five dollars and thirty cents from another, and the last one four dollars and twenty cents, or a total of sixty-seven dollars and ten cents. This had to be split three ways. My end was twenty-two dollars and thirty-seven cents. I spent the money in the following way: The pinch cost twenty-five. I put up ten and my friends put up fifteen dollars. While I was in the station it cost me eight dollars for food and cigarettes for the other women prisoners and myself. I sent my boy five dollars.
“I’m broke now. I pick up a little change on the street. But I’m not satisfied or happy to be in the racket. I just drifted into it. I used to walk down State Street and go into Thompson’s Restaurant on Van Buren Street. I met a bunch of young hoodlums there and got acquainted with them. All my life I have been attracted towards roughnecks and hoodlums. They always come to me. I always play big sister to them. The boys all respect me. One day there was a little argument in the restaurant and I knocked a big man down. Ever since then the boys call me, ‘Big Sister.’ At first some of the guys would try to make me, but they soon found out there was nothing doing and they left me alone and they are glad to work with me as a pal.
“I’m not satisfied in the racket and I’m always trying to get away, but for some reason or other every man I ever loved was a racket guy. One of my sweethearts is now in Joliet Prison doing fifteen to thirty-five years for bank robbery. I write him every week and send him cigarette money.
“I’m not very religious. I never read my Bible until my boy came back two years ago. I read it to him. I sometimes take him to church. I take him to the Catholic Church.
“The Reds, the socialists and the communists and the I. W. W. never appealed to me. I sometimes have listened to the soap-boxers in Bughouse Square, but they never interested me.
“I don’t drink and I never did drink. And I don’t smoke and I never have in my life. But I’ve bought a lot of drinks and cigarettes for the boys. My favorite recreation is to dress in men’s clothes and to shoot pool. I play pool and billiards fairly well. I often dress in men’s clothes when I am out hustling. Most of the time I was hoboing I dressed in men’s clothes. When dressed as a boy they think I am about twenty-one years old. I am twenty-nine now. I never sleep in a nightgown, always wear pajamas—preferably men’s pajamas. When I was a kid I always used to play with the boys and loved rough games. To-day I like a rough fight. I had a fight just about a week ago. Some man insulted a friend of mine and I gave him a punch in the jaw, knocked him down, and they had to take him to a doctor’s office and put eight stitches in his head.
“I haven’t had much of an education. I finished eighth grade when I was twelve years old. I don’t read very much. My favorite books are Zane Grey’s. I don’t read any movie or any other kind of magazine. I always read the newspapers. The only kind of pictures I like to see are the gangster pictures.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me if things don’t pick up soon. I’m either going to give my boy an education, or else spend the rest of my life behind bars. I’m depending on my oldest brother to take care of the boy if anything happens to me. I don’t think I can continue in the racket very long in Chicago. That’s why I’m laying low now down here in a shelter. I plan to go to Florida within the next week. I expect to continue to do some strong-arming there. Fm going with three of my pals.
“I know it’s wrong to rob people, but I can’t get work. When my boy was with me for two years, I went to the employment agency every day trying to obtain work.
“Surely society has a right to defend itself. Society has the right to send me to jail if they get the goods on me. But I’ve got to eat and sleep and my child has to have his board money. I don’t justify myself. I know I’m wrong. I know my example is bad. But I’m so short on funds I have to. There’s one thing about the police, they’ll take blood money, but they won’t give you a break when you haven’t got that money.
“I’ll never go back to the regular charities again. The shelters I don’t mind. Everybody’s so busy they don’t bother you much if you behave. I’ve been to fifty factories in the last two months and I can’t get work. There’s nothing left for me to do but stay in the racket and if I go to jail or get shot, I’ll know I had it coming and I won’t kick about it!”
While I was working with Andrew Nelson, State Street Blondie blew in to see me in New York. Nelson was to lecture at a Boys’ Brotherhood Republic that night and we took Blondie’s son, Clifton, along. Nelson told the story of Clifton and asked the Boys’ Brotherhood what they could do to help him. The president of the organization took him home, a few days later got him a scholarship in a very fine boys’ boarding school. Clifton stayed there about a week and ran away. Professor Nelson then got the boy in three different homes where the people tried to do something for him, but each time Clifton would run away or his mother would take him away.