Chapter XX: Appendix: A

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This study has pictured the life and the problems of the group of homeless migratory and casual workers in Chicago. It now remains to sum up the findings of the investigation and to outline the recommendations which seem to flow from the facts.[72]

FINDINGS

1. The homeless casual and migratory workers, while found
in all parts of the city, are segregated in great numbers
in four distinct areas: West Madison Street, Lower South
State Street (near the Loop), North Clark Street, and Upper
State Street (the Negro section).

2. The number of homeless men in these areas fluctuates
greatly with the seasons and with conditions of employment.

3. The concentration of casual and migratory workers in
this city is the natural result of two factors: (_a_) the
development of Chicago as a great industrial community with
diversified enterprises requiring a variety of unskilled
as well as skilled laborers, and (_b_) the position of
Chicago as a center of transportation, of commerce and of
employment for the states of the Mississippi Valley.

4. The homeless men in Chicago fall into five groups: (_a_)
the seasonal laborer, (_b_) the migratory, casual laborer,
the hobo, (_c_) the migratory non-worker, the tramp, (_d_)
the non-migratory casual laborer, the so-called “home
guard,” (_e_) the bum. Groups _b_, _c_, _d_, and _e_
constitute what are known in economic writings as “The
Residuum of Industry.” In addition to these groups of the
homeless casual and migratory workers are the groups of
seasonal laborers and the men out of work, which expand and
contract with the periods of economic depression and of
industrial prosperity.

5. The causes which reduce a man to the status of a
homeless migratory and casual worker may be classified
under five main heads as follows:

_a_) _Unemployment and Seasonal Work_: these
maladjustments of modern industry which disorganize the
routine of life of the individual and destroy regular
habits of work.

_b_) _Industrial Inadequacy_: “the misfits of industry,”
whether due to physical handicaps, mental deficiency,
occupational disease, or lack of vocational training.

_c_) _Defects of Personality_: as feeble-mindedness,
constitutional inferiority, or egocentricity, which lead
to the conflict of the person with constituted authority
in industry, society, and government.

_d_) _Crises in the Life of the Person_: as family
conflicts, misconduct, and crime, which exile a man from
home and community and detach him from normal social ties.

_e_) _Racial or National Discrimination_: where race,
nationality, or social class of the person enters as a
factor of adverse selection for employment.

_f_) _Wanderlust_: the desire for new experience,
excitement, and adventure, which moves the boy “to see
the world.”

6. To satisfy the wants and wishes of the thousands of
homeless migratory and casual workers at the lowest
possible cost, specialized institutions and enterprises
have been established in Chicago. These include:

_a_) Employment agencies.

_b_) Restaurants and lodging-houses.

_c_) Barber colleges.

_d_) Outfitting stores and clothing exchanges.

_e_) Pawnshops.

_f_) Movies and burlesques.

_g_) Missions.

_h_) Local political and social organizations, as “The
Industrial Workers of the World” and the “Hobo College.”

_i_) Secular street meetings and radical bookstores.

7. Chicago as the great clearing house of employment
for the states of the Mississippi Valley naturally and
inevitably becomes the temporary home of men out of work
for the entire region. The following appear to be the facts
in regard to the workers and the conditions of employment:

_a_) Fluctuations of industry, such as seasonal changes,
and of unemployment, force large numbers of men into the
group of homeless migratory and casual workers.

_b_) At the same time, the homeless migratory and
casual worker develops irregular habits of work and a
life-policy of “living from hand to mouth.”

_c_) Employment records indicate that the lower grade of
casual workers prefer work by the day, or employment by
the week or two, to “permanent” positions of three months
or longer.

_d_) The Illinois Free Employment offices, efficiently
administered with simple but well-kept records and
with courteous treatment of applicants, placed 50,482
persons in the year ending September 30, 1922, mainly in
positions in and near Chicago.

_e_) The private employment agencies dealing with the
homeless man, about fifty in number, which are, in
general, poorly equipped, with the minimum of record
keeping required by law and with inconsiderate treatment
of applicants, place about 200,000 men a year in
positions, for the most part, outside of Chicago.

_f_) The law relating to private employment agencies as
approved June 15, 1909, in force July 1, 1909, and as
amended and approved June 7, 1911, in force July 1, 1911,
appears not to be enforced in two points:

i) the requirement that sections three (3), four (4),
and five (5) of the law be posted in a conspicuous
place in each room of the agency; and

ii) the return to the applicant of three-fifths of the
registration and other fees upon failure of applicant
to accept position or upon his discharge for cause.

8. The health and hygiene of the homeless migratory and
casual worker is of vital concern not only for his economic
efficiency but also because of the relation of his high
mobility to the spread of communicable diseases.

9. The homeless migratory and casual workers constitute a
womanless group. The results of this sex isolation are:

_a_) No opportunity for the expression and sublimation of
the sex impulse in the normal life of the family.

_b_) In a few cases, the substitution for marriage of
free unions more or less casual, usually terminated at
the will of the man without due regard to the claims of
the woman.

_c_) The dependence of the greatest number of homeless
men upon the professional prostitute of the lowest grade
and the cheapest sort.

_d_) The prevalence of sex perversions, as masturbation and
homosexuality.

10. The attraction for the boy of excitement and adventure
renders him peculiarly susceptible to the “call of the road.”

_a_) Hundreds of Chicago boys, mainly but not entirely
of wage-earning families, every spring “beat their way”
to the harvest fields, impelled by wanderlust, and the
opportunity for work away from home.

_b_) Of these a certain proportion acquire the migratory
habit and may pass through successive stages from a
high-grade seasonal worker to the lowest type of bum.

_c_) The boy on the road and in the city is constantly
under the pressure of homosexual exploitation by confirmed
perverts in the migratory group.

_d_) Certain areas of the city frequented by boys have
been found to be resorts and rendezvous for homosexual
prostitution.

11. While the majority of the homeless migratory workers are
American citizens of native stock:

_a_) They are in large numbers for practical purposes
disfranchised because they seldom remain in any community
long enough to secure legal residence.

_b_) They constitute a shifting and shiftless group
without property and family, and with no effective
participation in the civic life of the community.

_c_) According to statements from police authorities they
contribute but slightly to the volume of serious crime.

_d_) Both on the road and in the city, they are at all
times subject to arbitrary handling and arrest by private
and public police and to summary trial and sentence by
the court.

_e_) The attitude of Chicago, like that of other
communities toward the homeless man, has been a policy of
defense intrusted to the police department for execution.

12. Social service to the homeless migratory and casual
worker has for the most part been remedial rather than
preventive; unorganized and haphazard rather than organized
and co-ordinated.

_a_) Professional beggars and fakers exploit public
sympathy and credulity for individual gain to the
disadvantage of the men who need and deserve assistance.

_b_) The missions and certain churches feed, clothe,
and provide shelter for several thousand men during the
winter months.

_c_) The Dawes Hotel, the Christian Industrial League,
and the Salvation Army hotels provide lodging at a low
charge.

_d_) The Salvation Army maintains the Industrial Home with
workshops which accommodate a limited number of men.

_e_) The United Charities and the Central Charity
(Catholic) Bureau, although concerned mainly with family
relief, give certain forms of assistance to the homeless
man.

_f_) The Jewish Social Service Bureau maintains a
department for homeless men, which acts as a referring
agency to two shelter houses.

_g_) The American Legion and other patriotic organizations
have provided assistance of various types to the ex-service
man out of employment.

_h_) The Municipal Lodging House, which closed its doors
in 1918, has not been reopened, despite the evident need
of the winters of 1920-21 and 1921-22.

_i_) The Cook County agent provides free transportation
to non-residents to place of legal residence and refers
residents to Oak Forest Infirmary.

_j_) The county and city hospitals and dispensaries provide
free medical care.

_k_) Unco-ordinated effort of the organizations for
service to the homeless man has resulted in duplication
of activities, a low standard of work, and the neglect of
a constructive program of rehabilitation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The findings of this study indicate conclusively: (_a_) that any fundamental solution of the problem is national and not local, and (_b_) that the problem of the homeless migratory worker is but an aspect of the larger problems of industry, such as unemployment, seasonal work, and labor turnover.

NATIONAL PROGRAM

The committee approves, as a national program for the
control of the problem, the recommendations suggested
by the studies on unemployment and migratory laborers
contained in the _Final Report of the Commission on
Industrial Relations_ (pp. 114-15; 103):

1. The enactment of appropriate legislation modifying
the title of the Bureau of Immigration to “Bureau of
Immigration and Employment” and providing the statutory
authority and appropriations necessary for--

_a_) The establishment of a national employment
system,[73] under the Department of Labor, with a staff
of well-paid and specially qualified officials in the
main offices at least.

_b_) The licensing, regulation, and supervision of all
private employment agencies doing an interstate business.

_c_) The investigation and preparation of plans for the
regularization of employment, the decasualization of
labor, the utilization of public work to fill in periods
of business depression, insurance against unemployment
in such trades and industries as may seem desirable,
and other measures designed to promote regularity and
steadiness of employment.

2. The immediate creation of a special board made up of
the properly qualified officials from the Departments of
Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, and Labor, and from the
Board of Army Engineers to prepare plans for performing the
largest possible amount of public work during the winter,
and to devise a program for the future for performing,
during periods of depression, such public work as road
building, construction of public building, reforestation,
irrigation, and drainage of swamps. The success attending
the construction of the Panama Canal indicates the
enormous national construction works which might be done
to the advantage of the entire nation during such periods
of depression. Similar boards or commissions should be
established in the various states and municipalities.

3. The Interstate Commerce Commission should be directed
by Congress to investigate and report the most feasible
plan of providing for the transportation of workers at the
lowest reasonable rates, and, at the same time, measures
necessary to eliminate the stealing of rides on railways.
If special transportation rates for workers are provided,
tickets may be issued only to those who secure employment
through public employment agencies.

4. The establishment by states, municipalities, and,
through the Department of Labor, the federal government,
of sanitary workingmen’s hotels in which the prices for
accommodations shall be adjusted to the cost of operation.
If such workingmen’s hotels are established, the Post
Office Department should establish branch postal savings
banks in connection therewith.

5. The establishment by the municipal, state, and federal
governments of colonies or farms for “down-and-outs” in
order to rehabilitate them by means of proper food, regular
habits of living and regular work that will train them
for lives of usefulness. Such colonies should provide for
hospital treatment of cases which require it.

THE CHICAGO PLAN FOR THE HOMELESS MAN

For the local situation and for such action as lies in the
hands (_a_) of the citizens of this community, (_b_) of the
city of Chicago, (_c_) of Cook County, and (_d_) of the
state of Illinois, this committee recommends:

I. AS A PROGRAM FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION--

1. _The establishment of a Municipal Clearing House for
Non-Family Men._

_a_) _Purpose_:

i) To provide facilities for the registration,
examination, classification, and treatment of
homeless migratory and casual workers in order, on
the basis of individual case-study.

ii) To secure by reference to the appropriate agency
emergency relief, physical and mental rehabilitation,
industrial training, commitment to institutional
care, return to legal residence, and satisfactory
employment.

_b_) _Organization_: The Clearing House will maintain
the following departments:

i) _Information Bureau_: to provide information in
regard to employment, public institutions, social
agencies, indorsed hotels, and lodging-houses, etc.

ii) _Registration_: by card, giving name, age,
occupation, physical condition, reference, residence,
nearest relative or friend, number of lodgings,
disposition, and all other information.

iii) _Vocational Clinic_: to provide medical,
psychiatric, psychological, and social examination as
a basis of treatment.

iv) _Records Office_: to record findings of
examination, to clear with other agencies, local and
national, and to enter recommendations and results of
treatment.

v) _Social Service Bureau_: to provide for both
immediate and after-care service for the men under
the supervision of the Clearing House.

_c_) _Personnel_: to consist of director, clerical
force, interviewers, social workers, and experts, as
physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, and sociologist.

_d_) _Intake of Clearing House_: registrants to be
referred to the Clearing House by:

i) _Citizens_, to whom homeless men have applied for
relief.

ii) _Missions_, where food or lodging have been
received by homeless men.

iii) _Charities._

iv) _Travelers’ Aid Society._

v) _Local organizations._

vi) _Police Department_: closing of police stations
to lodgers and provision for supply of such
applicants with tickets of admission to the Clearing
House; direction by police to the Clearing House of
persons found for the first time begging.

vii) _Courts, police stations, House of Correction,
and county jail_: provision to every homeless man
or boy upon discharge with ticket of admission to
Clearing House guaranteeing three days’ liberty
with food, lodging, and an opportunity for honest
employment.

_e_) _Classification_: As a result of examination in
the Vocational Clinic the men will be divided for
treatment into three groups: (1) boys and youths,
(2) employable men, and (3) unemployable men. The
unemployable will be further divided into: (i) the
physically handicapped, (ii) the mentally defective,
(iii) alcoholics and drug addicts, (iv) the habitually
idle, (v) the untrained, and (vi) the aged.

_f_) _Treatment_: Upon the basis of the preceding
examination and classification, the men will be given
the following services:

i) Those in need of emergency relief, temporary
lodging, meals and bath, by the agencies in the field
and by the Municipal Lodging House (when reopened).

ii) Those in need of clean clothes, free laundry work
at the Municipal Laundry (to be established).

iii) Those who are proper charges of other
communities and who may be better cared for there,
transportation from relatives or from Cook County
agent.

iv) Those in need of medical service, treatment at
the Cook County Hospital, Municipal Tuberculosis
Sanitarium, or dispensaries, and observation at the
Psychopathic Hospital.

v) For the unemployable physically disabled,
education as provided in the Chicago plan for the
physically handicapped (under consideration by the
state in co-operation with private agencies).

vi) For the unemployable but physically able-bodied,
individual arrangements for industrial education.

vii) For the aged and permanently physically
disabled, placement in the Oak Forest Home.

viii) For the employable, references with vocational
diagnosis and recommendation to the Illinois Free
Employment offices and other employment agencies.

ix) For persons under the supervision of the Municipal
Clearing House, when desirable, individual case work
and after-care.

x) For incorrigible vagrants and beggars for whom no
constructive treatment is provided in the program
for immediate action (see constructive treatment in
“Program for Future Action”) commitment to the House
of Correction.

_g_) _Administration_: The Clearing House to be
administered by the city of Chicago under the City
Department of Public Welfare; the director of the
Clearing House to be also superintendent of the Lodging
House and of the Municipal Laundry and the Municipal
Bath House, a physician on full time to be assigned by
the City Department of Public Health, a psychiatrist
and psychologist by the state criminologist of the
State Department of Public Welfare.

_h_) _Advisory Committee_: Under the auspices of
the Chicago Council of Social Agencies, an advisory
committee to the director of the Clearing House be
organized to be composed of public and private agencies
and civic, philanthropic, commercial, industrial, and
labor organizations, co-operating with the Clearing
House.

_i_) _Financing_: An appeal to be made at once to
the city council for funds to equip and maintain the
Municipal Clearing House, Municipal Lodging House,
Laundry and Bath House, to provide for the following
budget:

TENTATIVE ANNUAL BUDGET FOR CARING ADEQUATELY FOR HOMELESS TRANSIENT MEN IN CHICAGO

================================================================
Clearing House | Maximum* | Minimum
---------------------------------------+------------+-----------
Rent of headquarters, including light | |
and heat | $ 2,500.00 |
Heat and light in free quarters | | $ 1,000.00
Equipment | 1,000.00 | 1,000.00
Office supplies, stationery, printing, | |
etc. | 500.00 | 500.00
Staff: | |
Superintendent | 6,000.00 | 4,000.00
Assistant | 2,500.00 |
Six interviewers and field workers | 9,000.00 |
Two interviewers and field workers | | 4,000.00
Two stenographers | 2,400.00 |
One stenographer | | 1,500.00
Physician (part time) | 1,800.00 |
Psychiatrist (part time) | 1,800.00 |
Director of vocational guidance | 4,000.00 |
Janitors | 1,800.00 | 1,800.00
| ---------- | ----------
Total | $33,300.00 | $13,800.00
----------------------------------------------------------------

* The maximum budget represents expenditures in the event
headquarters cannot be secured free of rent, services of physician
and psychiatrist cannot be secured from city and Institute for
Juvenile Research, and at a time when a full staff will be
necessary.

2. _The reopening of the Municipal Lodging House_ under
the following conditions (adapted from “Program for Model
Municipal Lodging House,” by Raymond Robins):

_a_) _Administration_: under the City Department of
Public Health in close affiliation with the Clearing
House for Homeless Men.

_b_) _Purpose_: to provide free, under humane and
sanitary conditions, food, lodging, and bath, with
definite direction for such permanent relief as is
needed for any man or boy stranded in Chicago.

_c_) _Registration and preliminary physical
examination_: made in Clearing House a condition to
admission.

_d_) _Standard of service_:

i) Sanitary building.

ii) Wholesome food.

iii) Dormitories quiet, beds comfortable and clean.

iv) First-aid treatment: vaccination, bandages and
simple medicaments furnished free.

v) Isolation ward for men suffering from inebriety,
insanity, venereal diseases, etc.

vi) Fumigation of lodgers’ clothing, including hat
and shoes, every night.

vii) Nightly shower bath required.

3. _The establishment of a Municipal Laundry and a
Municipal Bath House by the city of Chicago_: to be
operated in close affiliation with the Municipal Clearing
House.

4. _Utilization of existing facilities for industrial
training_: Co-operation with existing educational
institutions for the vocational training of boys and
youths and of the physically handicapped, mentally
defective, and industrially inadequate who are
unemployable but willing to work. (See “Program for
Future Action.”)

5. _Employment agencies_:

_a_) The extension of the service of the Illinois Free
Employment office.

_b_) The enforcement of the law relating to private
employment agencies: the requirement that sections
three (3), four (4), and five (5), of the law be posted
in a conspicuous place in each room of the agency;
and the return to the applicant of three-fifths of
the registration and other fees upon the failure of
applicant to accept position or upon his discharge for
cause.

_c_) The further study of private employment agencies
and of labor camps in order to provide the homeless man
with adequate protection against exploitation.

6. _Public health and housing_:

_a_) The further building of sanitary workingmen’s
hotels with low charge for accommodations.

_b_) The maintenance and raising of standards of
cheap hotels in Chicago through rigid inspection and
tightening of requirements.

_c_) Medical examination, inspection, and supervision
of men in flops, together with vaccination and
hospitalization of needy cases.

7. _Vagrancy Court_: the reorganization of the Vagrancy
Court for the hearing of cases of incorrigible vagrants
and beggars on the basis of the investigations of the
Clearing House.

8. _Protection of the boy_:

_a_) Prevention of aimless wandering through the
provision of wholesome and stimulating recreation,
through the extension of all activities for boys, and
through the further development of vocational education
and supervision. The Vocational Guidance Bureau of the
Board of Education should be removed to an area of the
city free from unwholesome contacts.

_b_) An educational campaign organized through the
Mid-West Boy’s Club Federation should be carried on
in all the boys’ organizations in Chicago showing the
danger of “flipping” trains and playing in railroad
yards. The National Safety Council has a great deal of
material which could be used in such a campaign.

_c_) Co-operation with such organization as the
Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, the special police
organizations of the railroads, the Lake Carriers
Association, and automobile clubs, in a program to
prevent boys wandering away from home. Pamphlets should
be prepared for distribution, asking for co-operation
and enforcement of working certificate regulations in
this and other states, child labor laws, juvenile court
laws, etc.

_d_) The enlistment officers of the army, navy, and
marine should demand the presentation of a birth
certificate in all cases in which they doubt the age of
the applicant.

_e_) The co-operation of the managers of the hotels
and lodging-houses in an effort to keep boys under
seventeen out of the hotels in the Hobohemian areas, or
at least to use their influence in preventing boys and
men from rooming together.

_f_) Because most of the contacts the boy has with
tramps are unwholesome, the police should not permit
boys to loiter or play in the areas most frequented
by the tramp population; namely, West Madison Street,
South State Street, North Clark Street, and adjacent
territory. Parents ought to be made aware of the nature
of the contacts the boy has with the tramp in these
areas and in the parks.

_g_) The assignment of special plain-clothes policemen
experienced in dealing with vagrants to the parks and
other places in which tramps congregate. They should be
instructed to pick up and hold in the Detention Home
any boy under seventeen years found in company with a
tramp.

_h_) More strenuous effort should be made to occupy
the leisure time of boys who frequent the districts in
which the tramps congregate. It is the boy with leisure
time who is the most susceptible to the unwholesome
contacts. Supervised recreation should be carried on to
an extent that boys who play in Hobohemian areas might
be attracted to other sections. When school is not in
session a more extensive program of summer camps might
help.

_i_) Since the Juvenile Court of Cook County is
equipped to investigate the cases of vagrant boys under
seventeen in Chicago, and return them to their homes,
all vagrant boys apprehended by anyone in the daytime
should be reported to the chief probation officer,
Juvenile Court. Vagrant boys over seventeen should be
directed to the Clearing House.

_j_) After five o’clock vagrant boys under seventeen
should be turned over to the police who will take them
to the Detention Home, from which home they will be
taken to the office of the chief probation officer the
first thing in the morning.

_k_) Whenever a boy under seventeen is taken in custody
by the police, because of contact with tramps, or
whenever a boy is held as a complaining witness against
a tramp, he should always be reported to the Juvenile
Court. It is the responsibility of the court to put the
boy in touch with some proper individual or agency, so
that he will be adequately supervised and befriended in
the future.

9. _Publicity and public co-operation_: the education
of the public through news items in the daily press and
editorial comment; public co-operation through tickets
of admission to the Clearing House providing food and
lodging in the Municipal Lodging House constantly to
be distributed through societies, institutions, hotels,
business offices, churches, clubs, housewives, and other
citizens.

II. A PROGRAM FOR FUTURE ACTION--

1. _That a bond issue_ be submitted for approval to the
voters of the city of Chicago providing for the erection
of adequate buildings for a Municipal Clearing House,
Municipal Lodging House, and Municipal Laundry and Bath
House.

2. _That an Industrial Institute_ be established by the
state of Illinois in Chicago for the vocational training
of the physically handicapped, mentally defective, and
industrially inadequate, who are unemployable, but
willing to work.

3. _That a State Farm Colony for Industrial
Rehabilitation_ be established by the state of
Illinois for the compulsory detention and re-education
of unemployables, such as beggars, vagrants, petty
criminals, who are unwilling to receive industrial
training.

4. _That a Department of Industrial Training of the House
of Correction_ be opened, pending the establishment of
the State Farm Colony for Industrial Rehabilitation, for
the commitment and re-education of unemployables, such as
beggars, vagrants, and petty criminals.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] The findings and recommendations of this study were prepared by the Committee on Homeless Men of the Chicago Council of Social Agencies and its report accepted by the Council.

[73] The United States Employment Service established in 1918 requires adequate appropriations for its efficient functioning.

APPENDIX B

DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS