King of Hoboes Openly Defends Knight of Road

1914

We Need Doughnuts and Coffee, Not Prayers

St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 5. — James Eads How, a wealthy resident of St. Louis, and who inherited his wealth, has an interesting and not altogether useless hobby — the apologetic advertising of the American tramp. Mr. How is pleased to be called "the millionaire tramp."

At a recent meeting in St. Louis "the millionaire tramp," who by the way has hoboed his way over the United States with the best of them, gave utterance to the following sentiment:

"We need the doughnut and the cup of coffee more than we need prayers. Society is very self-respecting but society is not a necessity and employment is. The cup of coffee and the doughnut are essential to the affairs of life."

The trouble with Mr. How and his fellow hoboes is that none of them cares anything for prayers, and they care nothing for the trouble of earning the doughnut and the cup of coffee. If the doughnut and the cup of coffee were provided for all men and women and all children so that they could be fed without an effort, the world would be far worse off than it is today. Again, if the heavens rained doughnuts and coffee, a considerable portion of Mr. How's following, the professional hoboes, would object to the labor and trouble of picking up the doughnuts and gathering up the coffee. They would insist on somebody else assuming that responsibility and of serving the coffee and the doughnuts to them. Again, a considerable number of the associates of Mr. How would believe that society ought to furnish doughnuts to them because they have been railing at society.

At present the people who work instead of spending their time in idleness and who restrain their passions and appetites have no trouble in securing doughnuts and coffee but as long as the world lasts the people who think only of their own appetites, their own desires, and their own comforts will have to get their doughnuts and their coffee at the back-door of the people who do the real work of the world.

Mr. How does not think much of prayer, because he has not tried it. Perhaps if he knew its helpful and inspiring effect on character, if he knew how it could help sustain and stimulate the soul of a man, and arouse in him new purposes, he would think better of it. Perhaps, too, if "the millionaire hobo" knew how prayer inspired a man to a sense of his own responsibility, and to a realization of his duties to himself, to his neighbors, and to humanity, he might become a useful member of that society which he professes to despise, and so he would be better able to give good advice to his useless and inefficient followers. — Montgomery Advertiser.