paid for a week), and were reported by the Salvation Army as trying to sell sheets for gas. A few days later they met a family in the camp with $50, who staked them to Las Vegas, Nevada. Reason for going to Nevada, none; a good winter home in Colorado turned down. The men in these families appear to loathe work. If they work at all it is only until they make sufficient to go elsewhere. Denver reports twenty out of forty men refused work in return for help asked. Likewise, they frequently refuse help if that means investigation, and many will not answer any questions. Experiences of this kind seem to be quite general with all the agencies, and have certainly been common in Salt Lake City. Some of these families wander indefinitely. Oakland reports a man and wife who started twenty-five years ago with a team and have been going ever since. Walla Walla reports a family who said they rented their home and had been traveling for years-it was cheaper. In the summer they could just help themselves to all kinds of eatables from gardens and fields on the way. They borrowed gasoline whenever anybody was kind enough to believe their story of need. When they stayed the limit of time in one auto camp they went to another, and then came back to the same ones, over and over again, until they decided to go on. These families resort to all sorts of expedients and frauds to keep traveling. Boise reports an ex-service man who arrived last summer from Chicago in an old Mercedes car, with wife and two children, en route to his parents in Nevada. He appeared badly crippled, could not walk straight, and used two canes. He first appealed to the American Legion, having letters from prominent Legion officers in other states urging others to help. In other places this had produced support, and he was quite surprised when the agency explained their method of giving aid. About six months later the man called at a garage in a small town near Boise to have his car repaired. When he said he could not pay the bill, the owner told him he would keep the car till the money was paid. The man pulled out a roll of bills of large denominations and paid up like a millionaire. He had saved all the money given him and begged his expenses. He had not been to Nevada. .... These families have a decided tendency, also, to get along by exploiting their children. Los Angeles says: "If a family stays long enough for the compulsory education department to get after them, they move on. The children develop a wanderlust and restlessness ; are much excited at the prospect of moving on to a new place, and plainly show the love of adventure which a roving life... presents. They work along with their parents in the fields, gathering cotton, walnuts, picking berries and fruit. They are considered an asset. . . . . It is not infrequently that the parents tell us they could not 'make a go of it' without the help of their children." The health and education of the children of these auto families are often seriously impaired, and there is frequently a moral phase involved which is very difficult to get hold of, much less control. Independence, Missouri, reports: "We have been morally certain that couples were not married, that some of the children did not belong to the group, but had been picked up in some unexplainable manner and were being used to provide meal tickets." Oakland reports: "This winter we have had to care for forty families quarantined with smallpox in one of the local automobile camps." Boulder reports the case of a man who sold his farm at a good price and for seven years practically lived in the car, spending an average of two months in one place, three nice little girls getting no satisfactory schooling. "One child needed glasses, which served as an excuse to keep her out of school. We told the mother she had to go to school or get out of our jurisdiction. The glasses were purchased, and the child entered. The father sells honey or something that gives him the whole country to scour, and the family seem too willing to tell their troubles when his remittances do not come." In the coast cities and sometimes in the South the situation differs slightly. The autoists go there to settle, the auto camps sometimes housing as many as a city. These camps usually consist of one-room tent houses, providing practically no privacy nor opportunity for cleanliness. Los Angeles reports that some families, after establishing a residence, continue to live in the camps, although many come to hibernate and some come for the seasonal work. Pasadena and Tacoma both report that families come there with the idea of staying. They arrive penniless and are dependent upon the communities until they find work. What are we doing about it? Tourists take up collections for needy autoists, public departments give them gas and oil and pass them on, the public generally becomes much excited and does the same thing, even family agencies halfheartedly follow suit. Of thirty-nine agencies, six make a practice of giving gas and oil, one even repairing cars; four do sometimes, if they establish a residence for the family and have some guaranty that they are going home; one gives gas and oil if the family leaves a deposit for security. As a result, they have collected watches, jewelry, and various articles which remain unredeemed. Two have given gas and oil formerly but have stopped this beggar-producing method. Twenty agencies do case work, and five try. A few attach the cars before relief is given, or insist upon their not being used. As an excuse for passing on, they say that somebody will anyhow; that it is cheaper; that it is useless to do case work when the families are here today and gone tomorrow; and that their funds are given for local dependents. Wichita thinks they make a snap judgment 90 per cent of the time, and call it a "holdup game." Other terms are: "veritable pests," "bête noir of our lives,” “ "dangerous citizens," "menace to national life." Sante Fe decided "to let the auto fiends sell their cars or push them out." One agency says, "Let's annihilate the breed"; another suggests that Ford open up a loan department where every indigent purchaser who cannot pay to run his car can apply for repairs. All find the auto migrants very trying and difficult problems to handle, out of all proportion to their number. All feel they make little progress, even with case work methods. A few feel the need of constructive work. Tucson has written to other places in Arizona and Texas in an endeavor to formulate a united policy of treatment. Pueblo and Reno suggest clearing-houses for their states. Fort Dodge reports a clearing system by which all agencies report transients to Des Moines and notify possible places of contact. Reasons for wandering point the way to remedies. Undoubtedly the movement is partly due to race restlessness since the world-war, to the increased ownership of the automobile, to the improved highways, to railroad and commercial club propaganda, "See your own country first," and to the lure and romantic urge of the West, which has always been held up as the place where fortunes are made. Auto migrants journey also for health, for work, both permanent and seasonal, for new homes, and sometimes they are "just traveling." We can do nothing about the race restlessness, nor the automobiles, nor the highways. Probably we can do nothing in the matter of traveling for health, unless the medical profession would institute an educational campaign among its own members. It is possible, however, to do something about advertising. Salt Lake agencies, like other western cities, have felt that the railroad and commercial club advertising is not wholly beneficial to their sections. We can still advertise our beautiful country and climate, but warn the people that a prospective job or sufficient capital is necessary before a move is made. We might even have a national educational campaign on foresight. On the subject of work we can do much to change our wasteful and idiotic methods of letting people wander aimlessly in search of it. During the worldwar we had a system of state employment bureaus. We moved labor about the country as needed. Now many of these have been discontinued. In Utah there is neither state nor city employment bureau. Let us labor for their re-establishment and efficiency. A movement started in Portland might well be copied by other sections. A seasonal employment commission was appointed, following a survey conducted by the office of the labor commissioner covering several seasons' inquiry into the seasonal employment periods. They collect and broadcast employment information, establishing connections in each section of their state with other agencies, and thus anticipate the needs of growers and provide suitable help for the handling of crops as they rotate. Portland also tried an interesting experiment in 1923, and claims it has saved thousands of dollars through a few hundred invested in a health and recreation service on a ranch during the hop harvest time. Through this means they held more than one thousand workers until the end of the harvest, in contrast to an experience in 1922, when the force dropped from one thousand to three hundred at the end of the first ten days. This was followed by six similar projects in 1924. We can educate our own communities. It is difficult, but possible, to teach them not to give to the auto migrants. We have taught cities to pass up tramps on the street. We can teach them through the newspapers and other avenues of publicity to pass up auto tramps on the road. In spite of the difficulties presented by the auto migrants, it seems to me the family agencies should handle them individually by case work methods. State clearing-houses for transients would help. National organizations might assist in their establishment. The transportation agreement may have to be modified, but should be followed. Certainly an effort should be made to stabilize and settle the wandering family or else return them to their residence. Atwood tells us that this automobile migration has developed the country, improved the roads, and reduced sectionalism; that it provides an outlet for the gypsy complex, that it is the boiling process of the melting pot of America, that it shifts the population and shakes it down so that it finds its proper grooves. Nevertheless to us family agencies it seems that part of this wandering is due to a pioneer spirit gone to seed, and that in truth it may prove a national menace unless controlled. From our experience we have the vision to see the end from the beginning, and it is up to us to start the ball rolling to curb and guide this restless groping so that through case work and the education of the community, the state and the nation, and an efficient system of moving labor about the country as needed, the auto tramp will settle down and find a place of usefulness instead of degenerating into a traveling parasite. We may say the transient problem has never been solved, but these transients differ from our old homeless men in that they are families and should take root more easily. And in our effort to stablize them, let us keep in mind that, to quote Atwood again, “A gypsy temperament, having found its proper environment, takes a very keen interest in civic duties and creative work." GOALS FOR WANDERERS Ruth Hill, Secretary, Committee on Transportation of the The history of mankind is one of spiritual and physical travelings over the face of the earth. In early times, when whole tribes migrated because there was need for new pasturage, better water, or richer hunting grounds, no doubt grave complications arose among the people. I trust there were on hand on such occasions a few appointed travelers' aid workers to answer questions. But the plan was clear and life depended upon the moving. The goal was definite, if not located, and the trip but a means to that realization. It is well to pause and consider the great quests of the ages and what they have brought beside another problem of the homeless. Think of the Crusades, of the coming of the Pilgrims to these shores, and of the American pioneer as he pushed westward. Was the spirit of adventure the greatest of the gifts these travelers brought? Each sought کچھ in his own way to find the place in which his soul could live most fully. And yet this spirit of adventure is a great gift too, and may be used to lighten paths at any time. Deep in the heart of everyone is the love of change. The unknown beckons ceaselessly. We are most of us explorers, and enjoy keenly taking journeys-even to the National Conference. A winding road in the country, far on and over the hills, can set our imagination dancing with the dreams of traveling new highways, finding new experiences, meeting new friends, and being on our own. So it is that we view with a degree of sympathetic camaraderie the boy who has run away from home seeking the hidden treasure his ambition or daydream has conjured up before his eyes, the patient trying to beg his way to a distant section because a "change of air" he believes will do him good, or the family which has packed its pathetically few belongings in a trailer and is "touring" westward or southward to try its luck in some unknown place. The very romance of the desires of such travelers proves a strain on the nerves of the plodding and earnest social worker appealed to for help. What a temptation it is to join this faring forth, to throw in a few dollars of relief by way of being in the game ourselves, as it were, and to say goodbye gaily to anyone so adventurous. A sharp reaction comes whenever a worker or agency has had much experience with transportation relief, has caught these errant journeyers, and has observed the devastating effect upon the character of the person thus continually passing or being passed on. One's enthusiasm over such wildcat investing soon wanes. Three little children and their feebleminded mother were once suddenly deposited in my office. This small family had traveled far and wide, the mother said, no poor official being willing to refuse a simple request for fare to the neighboring county to any mother so evidently handicapped by the youngsters from regular work. The children showed at first a shrewdness away beyond their years, and when left alone fell asleep upon their chairs, worn-out waifs who had served their mother valiantly, and now quite consciously, whenever she begged for. food, shelter, or a railroad ticket. A revulsion against thoughtless transportation aid finds practical expression in a unique case-work practice convenant called "The Transportation Agreement." Back in 1902 a committee on transportation was appointed by the National Conference of Social Work, two years after the National Conference of Jewish Charities, as it was then called, had a working agreement among its members as to responsibility and procedure in cases having to do with migrants. The chief purpose of this committee was to stop the then prevalent habit of "passing on" clients into the neighboring communities, which meant "passing on" your responsibility when it became troublesome to you. Some rules were drawn up about when to give, and when not to give, relief for travel, and the committee endeavored to secure signers who would pledge themselves to be governed accordingly. This committee functioned until 1921, was vigorous in building up a |