Beyond Books - Guest Experts - Errol Lincoln Uys Transcript

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Errol Uys
Riding the Rails
October 13, 2000
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Guest Expert Transcript

BB	It's a beautiful autumn day here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the hometown of Errol Lincoln Uys, author of "Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression." We are conducting a Beyond Books expert session from Rindge and Latin High School in Cambridge, close by Harvard University. Perhaps we can begin with an overview of how you started the project?
Uys	The project started seven years ago, when I was doing research on the Great Depression. I picked up a book, "Boy and Girl Tramps of America," by Thomas Minehan, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. In 1932, as the phenomenon of children riding the rails grew, Minehan dressed as a hobo and rode with the kids. When we study the Great Depression much is statistical -- I was riveted by Minehan's book that connected me to the lives of young people of the time. My son had just finished NYU film school. I told him to read "Boy and Girl Tramps" and suggested the subject would make a great documentary. He agreed. His first step was to contact people who did this. He put a small notice in "Modern Maturity," the AARP magazine, the association of retired people, expecting one or two hundred letters. He received three thousand letters from every state in the country, which was an early indication of what the subject meant to people.
BB	How many teens took to the rails during the Great Depression?
Uys	A quarter million.
BB	What were the reasons, I know there must be many?
Uys	Many, many reasons. The most important reason, of course, was desperation. Their whole home structure collapsed. They had no opportunities. In many cases, their schools were closed. We'll get into that later on. The majority hit the rails because of the effect of the Depression on their families.
BB	Were these boys and girls? Were there girl hoboes?
Uys	Thomas Minehan, because he was out there, did the one estimate we have of the number of girls. He figured that one in ten who rode were girls. For her own safety, a girl was going to dress as a boy, cut her hair short, and travel in disguise.
BB	We are going to be taking questions from our schools now. I have the first question, please. Okay. Who has a question from the studio audience? Yes, sir.
Uys	The youngest hobo? Some of the letters revealed that children of nine years old were out by themselves. You found families, particularly women and their children, on the road. There is a tragic story of a young woman with three kids -- four, six, and nine years old -- She traveled from the Midwest to Sacramento every summer for four years with her kids and a little dog. They rode the freights to work the harvests.
BB	How frequently did people die from accidents and such?
Uys	In 1932, a government study estimated that 5,000 people were killed or injured: Of those 5,000, 1,500 were under 21 years of age. A minister who wrote from New York made an interesting comment: At the time, there were no Social Security cards. These kids rode the rails without any identification: In many cases, a boy or a girl was found dead beside the railroad with no ID. "They were the MIAs of the Great Depression," the minister said. We have several stories of people who rode the rails and were never heard of or seen again.
BB	Errol, did the hoboes have their own jargon or special language?
Uys	Yes. They had signs, for example. This hobo tradition went back long before the Great Depression to the previous century. Before mechanization, migrant workers, many of who were hoboes, harvested crops. Train companies would leave boxcars open so that workers could get to the fields; the harvested crops would be transported by the railroads. So…
BB	We're looking for a special language.
Uys	The older hoboes would scratch signs on fence posts and trees near people's houses. For example, a sign might indicate that it was a good house for a handout, where food was given. Or perhaps the sign warned about a dog or a house where a policeman lived. Over the years, hoboes developed a definitive sign language.
BB	I have heard of hobo jungles. Could you elaborate on what those were?
Uys	Outside the major railroad yards there was a hobo jungle, basically a camp where hoboes got together to cook their food. In many camps, there were older hoboes - "jungle buzzards," they were called - who would build a shack and live there permanently. When the kids came along, the old buzzard would say, "you get me potatoes," "you fetch meat," "you go and ask for coffee." The kids were sent into town: They were young and innocent looking, so it was easier for them to get stuff. When they brought it back, the old hobo would cook a meal: a mulligan stew, the traditional hobo meal. One boxcar boy recalled that if the old 'bo liked the look of you, when he dished out the mulligan, he went deep and fished out bones with meat. If he didn't like the look of you, he gave you flavored water.
BB	You tell a very touching but horrifying story of African-American boys in your book. Tell us what happened to them...
Uys	In the south, if you were African-American it was going to be doubly hard for you if you rode the rails. The case of the Scottsboro boys was notorious and horrific: very briefly, two white women accused eight African-American kids riding the rails of assaulting them. The accusations were false. The boys went through several trials and were sentenced to death. Some spent the rest of their lives seeking to exonerate themselves.
BB	Were there racial tensions among hoboes?
Uys	Most of the letters I have work the other way. A lot of the young white hoboes hitting the rails never had contact with black kids. They were thrown together under these tough circumstances. Many anecdotes relate to the shared experience as a leveling thing. You were suffering together. But there are instances, too, of African-American kids beaten up in racist attacks.
BB	There was a wonderful story by a hobo named John West. Would you relate his journey from Texas to New Orleans?
Uys	John West ran away from home. He headed to New Orleans and ended up in Canal Street. He's walking down the street, terribly hungry, away from the bright lights of Canal Street to where it gets darker and darker. He goes into this small restaurant and sits down to eat. It's near the end of the meal that he realizes he walked into a restaurant filled with African-American people. He gets up and goes to pay the 15 cents for the meal. "I'm glad you enjoyed the food. Keep your 15 cents," the owner said. John never forgot that incident. He wondered for years what would it be like for a black kid if he walked into a white cafe. It affected his entire viewpoint of life.
BB	We have questions from schools now.
Uys	Okay.
BB	This question's from Pennsylvania. After the Depression ended...
Uys	You hit the rails for three or four or five months during the summer. You went back and spent a period at home. In certain cases, children would find the situation at home had not changed or had become worse. They would leave again, in many cases with their parent's permission. There were few instances among the three thousand letters where a boy or girl's leaving caused a permanent rift in the family.Clarence Lee was 16, a sharecropper's son, when he had to leave home. His father turned to him one night and said he had no money. "I cannot feed you. Go fend for yourself." There were many families equally desperate. Rarely was there a total separation between a kid and his family.
BB	From Travis in California. Go ahead. Was there stealing between hoboes? How was order kept between the hoboes?
Uys	Few instances of stealing are revealed in the letters. There was a code of honor among hoboes. For example, in the jungles, there was an unspoken rule that you left the jungle in good condition for the next guy coming along. You cleaned up before you "caught out." If you had coffee, you left the coffee grounds there. One man wrote about coming to a jungle: "If you were lucky, you might be able to get a pot of coffee out of the grains that were left."There is little evidence of theft. One young man does mention though how he landed in a boxcar with two older hoboes. When he was sleeping, they went through his pack and took his belongings, what little he had.
BB	Travis, thank you. Our next question comes from. New York: Lisa wants to know are there hoboes today? Are there similarities and how do they live?
Uys	In August, I went to the National Hobo Convention (Britt, Iowa.) Yes there are hoboes, and many exaggerated stories about them. Such as happened when a man who rode the rails was convicted of murder in Texas. Today's hoboes are a small group: I estimate two to three hundred genuine old style hoboes. - With the term "hobo," you distinguish between "hobo," "tramp" and "bum." A hobo works for a living. -- I have met some of today's hoboes: There's a man from Texas, for example, who has hoboed since he was 22 years of age; he's 47 now. He never begs for a living. He always works. For example, he will come to a small town where he knows someone; he will wash dishes for a couple of days. - In the 1930s, the expression for washing dishes was "pearl diving." There are homeless kids who ride today -- Hopping freight trains is extremely dangerous.
BB	Our next question comes from Tinky in New Jersey. He asks: how did hoboes bathe, clean their clothes, and even go to the bathroom?
Uys	Interesting question. The kids went out of the way to keep themselves clean. In a word, it had to do with keeping their dignity. Besides, you had to keep your appearance reasonably good and clean, if you were knocking on people's doors to ask for food. If you looked relatively clean cut, your chances of a handout would be much easier. They would wash up in the hobo jungles. For the older kid who needed a shave, there would be a razor hanging from a tree in the hobo jungle. The hobo carried his own blade for the razor. They kept themselves clean.
BB	As a follow-up, did they keep themselves up on what was going up culturally, music, sports and read papers?
Uys	Relatively few did, from the letters. With sports, some letter writers recall listening to fights or ball games, standing around a radio in some small town. Interestingly one of the riders said pointedly that there were few in-depth discussions. The number one topic was - "Where are the jobs?" There are poignant tales of kids on one train going west; other kids on a train going east. Sitting in groups on the top of the boxcars. The kids heading west say, "There are no jobs." The kids going east say "No jobs." They still go their ways, in desperation to find something.
BB	Wow.
Uys	Many of these kids' lives were changed by the experience.
BB	I bet.
Uys	You have, for example, the story of John Fawcett, the son of a wealthy ophthalmologist in Wheeling, West Virginia. When he hit the rails, he was running away from home because he didn't like his school. He lands in the Ozarks, in Marshal, Arkansas, a small town battling to survive through seven years of Depression. John was listening to people on the edge of poverty telling him things he never heard in his life. So later, when he went back to school he had great difficulty coping with the lack of understanding or acceptance of what was going on in the country. The end result was that for the rest of his life John became a fighter in civil rights, gay rights, women rights. John says that without any doubt, the period he spent on the rail in 1936 changed his life.
BB	Now a question from the studio audience. Yes, sir.
question	[indecipherable]
Uys	I can't say. It's likely that something like that happened. You would find kids that were often separated. You had two buddies that traveled, say from Boston to the Midwest. You got to one of the huge railway yards late at night and lost each other. It could be months before you saw each other again.
BB	Uh-huh?
Uys	Sometimes, the boxcar kids pulled tricks, too. A kid would go to a house and knock on the door and ask for a handout. He would say, "My dad is waiting back there and he's hungry." That way the kid got two meals. You learned a lot of tricks on the road just to survive.
BB	Todd from Arizona writes in. Did a lot of the hoboes get jobs with the military as the Depression waned?
Uys	There were two major ways off the road. The CCC -- Civilian Conservation Corps -- was established just after Franklin Roosevelt was elected. By the first summer, a quarter million kids were in camps around the country; between 1933 and 1941, 2.5 million young men served in the CCC. They were paid $30 a month, of which $25 was sent home to their families. In many cases this was all the income the families had. … What really ended the Great Depression was World War II. Many of the kids riding the rails went into the military - the "Depression doughboys."
BB	Jo-Jo from El Paso, Texas asks how willing were people to give hoboes food as they wandered through the towns?
Uys	One has to realize there were small towns like Demming, New Mexico, where the population was about 3,000. -- The town would be hit by 125 hoboes a day of all ages. This put a tremendous strain on resources; there was a policy of "passing on" hoboes to the next town. But generally towards the road kids, there was compassion. They were given food. They were helped. And there was an understanding of what this meant to the dignity of the kids. Imagine, all of you sharing in this program -- imagine what it would be like to go out today and knock on someone's door and ask for food. A glass of water or milk? It was really tough. There are countless stories of homeowners, who would say to a kid, "Go and chop that wood." "Go and pull those weeds." Just so the kid wouldn't be begging. We had letters from people who didn't ride the rails: they remember as kids, how their parents treated hoboes coming to their house with compassion.
BB	Sure.
Uys	That stuck with them for the rest of their lives.
BB	Brett from North Dakota asks what kind of crimes were hoboes charged with? Referring to loitering crimes.
Uys	Caught trespassing, you were pulled off the trains and arrested. In particular parts of the country, particularly the Southeast, you were taken to the county courthouse and charged with riding the rails illegally. They would sentence you to a month's work on a farm, where crops needed picking or working on the roads. In many instances, the system of justice was arbitrary. In certain areas, where a county had work that needed to be done, it was convenient to pull hoboes off the trains.
BB	Todd checking with us again. Were there particular regions favored by the hoboes? Did they move south in the winter and north in the summer -- like birds did they migrate?
Uys	Absolutely. There were obviously favored regions in California and the Midwest. They followed the traditional migration of workers harvesting crops from California to the north and the apple fields in Washington. Here in the Northeast there was little opportunity for hoboes. There were places they chose, and places they avoided, like the Southeast, where they knew they would get in trouble.
BB	Annie, who is a biologist from Louisiana, has a question. Was Woody Guthrie a hobo?
Uys	Yes.
BB	We have another question from the studio audience.
question	The question is, were there similarities between hoboes and indentured servants?
Uys	I wouldn't think so. Remember the hobo was free to come and go. Hoboing wasn't contractual. A hobo would arrive at a farm, for example, for the harvest season. A "harvest tramp" would pick the crop and move on. There were no contracts. The romantic image of the hobo's free and easy-going life predates the Depression, of course. -- I think the hobo's life is very different.
BB	On the phone now we have John West who was a hobo. First of all, I would like to open the floor to the studio audience. Any questions for John West? Yes, sir.
question	Mr. West, thank you for participating.
BB	He says, hello, as well.
question	The question is: did you travel by your self or in a group?
West	Always by your self.
question	How come that was?
West	Now, you went from Texas to New Orleans.
question	Can you tell us about that, Mr. West?
BB	I actually have to translate while -- this is a very crude form of technology. Sorry. I have to inform the studio audience of what you're saying. Okay. Let me catch them up with you. Basically, he told of going out from his home in Texas and on his way to New Orleans. Okay. Okay. Let me translate that. He traveled from El Paso to Mississippi where he had family. Okay. What, what caused you to run away from home? Okay. He actually ran away from home. He had two nephews who stole his football and left it in the weeds. That's a good story. Okay. We're going to take some more questions. I'll put you on standby now. Thank you. Tiffany asks what kind of jobs did hoboes have and were some easier than others?
Uys	Not the easiest jobs. Few of the kids got permanent jobs. Most of the work was in the harvest. Those are the main jobs. Maybe they got a small job for two or three days, made a little money and then moved on. Remember, there were no jobs for adults. There were very, very few jobs for kids.
BB	Phil from Philadelphia asks, Was there love found on the rails? Were there marriages made? What did people do in that department?
Uys	There's one particularly great story about a couple who rode the rails in Texas. He would ride to visit his girlfriend. After their marriage, they rode the rails with their six-month-old baby to visit their in-laws. We have a couple of stories of kids who met like that. There are also stories of girls who were forced into prostitution.
BB	Were they paid?
Uys	Yes. The anecdotes come out of Thomas Minehan's book. He tells several harrowing stories.
BB	Tiffany asks, from California, is it difficult to jump off a moving train?
Uys	Difficult and dangerous.
BB	Instances of injury I assume?
Uys	It's in the book. Fatal injuries.
BB	We have more questions for Mr. West. Mr. West, are you still there? Okay. Lisa from Pennsylvania asks: would you recommend the hobo life to kids today? Okay. Thank you. He says, no. There are easier ways to make a living. Don't try this when you get off of school today. I have one for you, Errol. Was there an average time length people spent on the rails?
Uys	Yes, I would say that on average it was three to six months.
BB	Three to six months.
Uys	But some went as long as ten years.
BB	Were the teenagers political at all?
Uys	Some of them were. James San Jule's father was a millionaire in Tulsa, Oklahoma and lost everything in the Crash. James rode the rails and ended up in San Francisco during the 1936 dockworkers' strike. He became involved with this fight. One man from New York wrote that his time on the road made him a life-long liberal. We have letters from people of the Depression generation, who talk of never letting their pantry go empty. They're terrified of bring hungry again.
BB	Alberto from Chicago asks if hoboes had the sticks with handkerchiefs attached?
Uys	This is the Charlie Chaplin, happy tramp image. There was little happiness in what was a really tough life.
BB	Mr. West, Lisa has a question for you. Do you consider the word "hobo" pejorative? ... (On phone) Thank you for that. For the studio audience, basically no. It was not a negative term. The term "homeless" wasn't coined yet. Mr. West is not so happy with the term "bum," however. It's asked, were there particular hobo camps known for their good mulligan stews or hospitalities?
Uys	Yes. Offhand, I can't recall which ones, but there were.
BB	Alberto has a question for you. Why did you think it was important to tell the story of hoboes?
Uys	Involved in the 3000 letters, you began to see an enormous part of history that was not told: Images of the Great Depression through the eyes of teenagers. From the three thousand letters, we concentrated on 500: the book was finally comprised of the stories of about 250 boxcar boys and girls. As we go further away from the Great Depression, it's difficult for young people today to connect to the events. As I said in the beginning, there are statistics and facts, but to actually connect to the people. -- That's one of the marvelous things about this subject.
BB	Mr. West, we have another question for you. Were you ever afraid on the rails? What scared you? ... For those in the audience: Yes. He was scared often. Also, for a hobo, it's physically demanding. I have one for you. Did you do a lot of background reading for knowledge of the era?
Uys	I researched the various government hearings held at the time, such as those on the American Youth Act, the National Recovery Act. Plus other essential sources for the introduction…But the letters themselves give a full picture of the period.
BB	Dan, from the studio audience.
Dan	My question would be: to my understanding hoboes do exist today. Especially between Florida and Maine here on the east coast with the commute between orange and apple picking seasons. As far as I know, the methods of travel are the cheapest possible. I know that some people have vehicles. It may not be the railway, but it's the same style of life. Camping and making ...
Uys	Absolutely. We were talking specifically about riding the rails. You are right. The Mexican migrant workers are probably the closest to the hobo of that period in their lifestyle.
BB	We actually have a question from Moscow. Ed asks, "Did hoboes come from all walks of life or were they a specific people, mainly hoboes?"
Uys	All walks of life. There was no particular hobo group in the Great Depression. There were four million people riding the rails. I concentrated on the 250,000 teenagers.
BB	Sure.
Uys	Is that Moscow?
BB	The former Soviet Union!
Uys	One of the things I write about in the book are the homeless kids left after the Revolution. There were up to 800,000 roaming Russia. The New York Times wrote about these "bezprizorni." There were kids of six and seven years old carrying guns and robbing people in Russia at that time. Their images colored the thinking about the U.S. teenage hoboes. The fear was the 250,000 teenagers would turn into these huge gangs of kids.
BB	Alberto from Texas asks, "There were boxcars and gondolas. What was the preferred way of moving?"
Uys	A boxcar. If it was open, and you could ride inside. The most intrepid kids would ride what was known as the "blinds" on the first car behind the engine. You got in twice as much trouble if you were caught there. Kids also rode the tenders attached to the engine. Sometimes the engineer would drag kids off the tender. "If you want to ride, you have to work." They made them shovel coal for a couple of hundred miles.
BB	Annie from Louisiana has a question: "Did people ever get arrested on purpose to go to jail ... did the hoboes?
Uys	I don't have any record of that. But we have letters of people who went to a police station and asked if they could sleep overnight. In places they would allow to you do that, even give you breakfast. Maybe you had to sweep out the jail. One boy was put into an older section of a police station. They forgot him and left him there for 36 hours.
BB	You have kindly brought some photographs today. Tell us what's going on in the photos?
Uys	These are classic photographs from the Library of Congress and National Archives. They were taken under the auspices of the FSA (Farm Security Administration) and the WPA (Works Projects Administration.) They sent some of the finest photographers in America to chronicle the Great Depression. These pictures come from a collection of 77,000 photographs of the period, one of the most valuable records of the era. This is an interesting picture: It was on the poster for the documentary, "Riding the Rail." Someone walked past it in Washington State and said, "That's my father."

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