For Hoboes

To the vast surprise of a Manhattan police court last week, a mussy little prisoner informed the judge that the issue at stake in his case was not whether he had been caught peddling in Times Square without a license, but whether or not the U. S. people were to enjoy the rights and privileges of a free press.

With all the vigor of a Roy Howard or Robert McCormick, Associate Editor Benjamin ("The Coast Kid") Benson of the Hobo News indignantly declared that things had come to a pretty pass when a journalist could not sell his own paper on the sidewalks of New York. Ready to back his editor to the limit of his resources, the News's Publisher Patrick Bernard ("The Roaming Dreamer") Mulkern and his associates furnished $10 bail when the judge refused to see the case in its broader aspects, issued a ringing statement:

"As a newspaper with a large circulation, containing all the features of a regular newspaper, we cannot understand how the judge's verdict can be upheld by a higher court. . . . We intend to take our case to the highest court if necessary to uphold the Freedom of the Press. It seems to us the judge did not give the Hobo News a square deal."

The journal which was thus defended is like no other paper on earth. It is a peach and saffron tabloid full of hand-me-down line drawings and photographs of celebrated sundowners, sentimental verse, advertisements of rabbits' feet and "surprise novelties." personalities and good advice. Founded last winter as a quarterly, the Hobo News was soon converted to a monthly. It is distributed in Manhattan by its editors, elsewhere by itinerants at 5-c- a copy-- 10-c- "if we can get it." Current edition: 50,000 copies. In an effort to avoid just such an embarrassing situation as Editor Benson found himself in last week, on the back cover appears the legend: NOTICE TO POLICE--This is a Bona Fide Newspaper.

Bona fide news in the current News warns the fraternity to stay out of the South now that chain gangs are out on the roads; felicitates Chicago's Billy Whiskers on his release from a Florida work camp; recounts that Smokehouse Eddie is vacationing in Pittsburgh; records that Big Baby Bum has now set his initials on the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Queen Mary and the late Hindenburg. Features include the running autobiography of Editor Benson; an itinerary of the best free rail route from Manhattan to the West Coast (Pennsylvania, Chicago & Alton, Missouri Pacific, Union Pacific, Denver & Rio Grande, Western Pacific) ; some fatherly counsel from Dean Danny O'Brien of the inter mittent New York Hobo College to incipient boes : "It is dangerous when bumming a lump [begging a handout] to tease or provoke the dog. . . . When through with cans, pans, etc. in jungles [hobo camps] always leave them clean. . . . Don't mix too much with tramps or bums,* or you'll be demoralized. ..."

Next to the editors of the New Yorker, publisher and staff of the Hobo News are probably the most picturesque group of journalists in the U. S. Editorial offices--and living quarters for some contributors--are in a cluttered cellar on Manhattan's noisy 17th street. Here Publisher Mulkern is surrounded by an editorial board which includes "Crown Prince Bozo," Dean O'Brien and Otis O. ("The Boomer Poet") Rodgers. Press, linotype and paper, bought on credit by the Roaming Dreamer in 1935, are paid for out of profits on the installment plan. Over all sounds the shrill chatter of "Shorty," the office marmoset. With the founding of the Hobo News, Mulkern & Co. stepped on the toes of "King" Jeff Davis of Cincinnati, head of the Hoboes of America, Inc. (TIME, April 26) whose Hobo News Review formerly had the field to itself.

*A hobo will work-a tramp won't work-- a hum can't work."

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