Hobo Logos
About the Hobo Organizations

Tourist Union # 63


 
August 22, 1900: A fife-and-drum corps in silly hobo costumes playing ragtime music were in the Parade at Britt. There were banners; reporters from Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Omaha; horse races; barbequed ox; baseball; roulette; many gallons of beer. In the election ceremony at the fairgrounds, Admiral Dewey was elected to the presidency and Phillipine Red as veep of Tourists' Union No. 63.

Hobos of America


 
 
Jeff Davis - King of Hoboes - corresponded with Robert E. Golden. The Hobo Convention's invitation was for Golden to attend these convention, and he was made Trackwalker for the Eastern District of the U.S. for Hoboes of America.
Goldman repeatedly had been barred from speaking at public lecture halls in Chicago. He met a physician who offered to arrange a speaking engagement for Goldman at a storeroom on Dearborn Street, the meeting place of his Brotherhood Welfare Association, otherwise known as the Hobo College.
Chicago


 
It started about 1870 and was called The International Itinerant Migratory Workers Union. Then in 1906, the name was changed to Hoboes of America, Inc., it was incorporated in 1914. The death of
James Eads How in 1930, the millionaire hobo who had
financed the Hobo Colleges and the IBWA, was also a
major setback. By the 1930's, all that was left on the
organizational level was Jeff Davis and Ben Benson who
were feuding over who was the King of the Hoboes and
staking there claims to a reified authenticity. With this
environment it is of little surprise that the younger
generation of freight hoppers wanted little to do with the
reproduction of the hobo identity.

 
 
 
 

FATHER DEVINE
An Excerpt from FATHER DIVINE'S Message.
Given While at the Banquet Table
1887-9 Madison Avenue, New York City, N.Y.
 Thursday, November 23, 1939 A.D.F.D., Time: 3:00 P.M.

"Today I have been invited to the extension at
Sixty-third Street to serve a special Banquet and
dinner for the Hoboes of America. There are
supposed to be around seventy-five HOBOES of
America and supposed to be around seventy- five
Walkers, better known as Tramps. According to
MY Teaching they have been caught up in the
spirit through their leader and have reckoned MY
Work and Mission as well worth considering. It
has been said they will all be dressed and have
on decent, respectable clothes and will be there
at five o'clock expecting ME to Personally serve
them, of which I AM expected to have the honor
of doing. I did not say I AM expecting to do it,
but, of which I AM expected to have the honor
of doing. I do not say definitely what I AM going to do.

 
May 11, 1944
OLD WARRIOR COMES BACK

"As 90-year-old Jacob S. Coxey stood on the steps of the nation's capitol in Washington, D. C., in a faded blue suit and high, old fashioned collar with a black string tie, there were memories of his celebrated march to the same site at the head of 1,000 unemployed in 1894.

Then, Coxey had intended to petition Congress to issue interest-free government money for erection of public works, but police herded Coxey and his followers to the outskirts of the capital. Fifty years had not changed Coxey's views... As he appeared in Washington, D. C. this time in connection with his attendance at the 36th annual convention of the Hoboes of America, he again shouted for government issuance of interest-free money instead of dependence upon the private banking system for currency, provided through its purchase of U. S. Bonds.

Read Jeff Davis' 1939 Hoboes of America Handbook
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/white/hobo/handcov.html

Read about Dr. John Moore, Hobo Herbologist
http://www.naturalusa.com/ads/TreeofLifeArticles/Dr._Moore_Speaks.html
Dr. John Moore said he was the
   Minister of Cultural and Domestic Affairs
   for the Hobo International Society

Books On Hobo (Hoboes) History
http://www.snowcrest.net/bndlstif/books.html