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<P mce_keep="true">[quote user="Sawtooth500"]So what happened post 1910 that it began to no longer be accepted? And from that American Experience show, it seemed to me in the 1930's when people got caught they wouldn't be charged with a crime - they'd just be shaken down for money and have their money taken, that seemed to be the motivation of the railroad police, at least according to the show.[/quote]</P> <P mce_keep="true"> </P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=verdana,geneva>In the post-1910 era, hobo life became less necessary because of the general decline of agriculture.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>However, there was a resurgence of hobos during the great depression because the hopelessness of finding work led to the illusion that surely something promising waited beyond the horizon.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As I mentioned, in the pre-1910 era, trainmen routinely collected “bo money” as an informal fare for the ride.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And the trainmen were very aggressive in trying to prevent riding by hobos who could not pay or refused to do so.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></P><FONT face=verdana,geneva> <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></FONT> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=verdana,geneva>This collection of money from hobos surely had ended by the 1950s, but I am not sure how common it was during the great depression.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I would not necessarily expect <I>The American Experience</I> to depict this issue of shaking down hobos for money in unbiased and accurate manner.</FONT></P><FONT face=verdana,geneva> <o:p></o:p></FONT> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=verdana,geneva>I would speculate that the actual prosecution of hobos over the entire history of the practice was a very small percentage of the total number who rode trains illegally.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I would further speculate that there has been more prosecution during the last ten years than during all of preceding history.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Perhaps the era of the least concern about hobo trespass was from the 1950s up to the 1980s.</FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT face=verdana,geneva size=2></FONT></SPAN> </P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT face=verdana,geneva size=2>In the pre-1910 era, there were generally two classes of hobos.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>One class were the migrant workers who were generally harmless and of good intent.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The other class, known as <I>yeggs</I>, were parasites that preyed upon the migrant worker hobos, and generally committed crimes as they moved from place to place.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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