No Sweets on the Big Rock Candy Mountain

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

Back in the Great Depression days, Harry McClintock wrote a song immortalizing the hobos riding the rails, called the “Big Rock Candy Mountains.” In the second stanza he wrote:

“In the big rock candy mountains, there’s a land that’s fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes, and you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty, and the sun shines every day,
On the birds and bees and the cigarette trees,
The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings.
In the big rock candy mountains.”

I was a very young boy about five years old in the heart of the Great Depression, growing up on a sand-rock farm near Little Falls. But I still remember the scarecrow men, often from just getting off the rails, coming to our farmhouse door, expressing a desire for work first and food second. They often gave the impression they had seen Hell just over the ridge and had barely escaped. Their eyes did not show desperation. They showed resignation. But most of them were very proud men. They were not begging. They were not cleaning clean windshields at stop signs and then demanding payment. They wanted to work for a living. My mother would ask them to hoe the garden or move straw into the barn for bedding the cows. It was always necessary work that was not insulting.

Then she would fix them a good meal and not watch them while they ate. They would then leave with a “Thank you, ma’am,” and trudge down the road to the next farm or to the next railroad station. One of my uncles was depot master at Little Falls. My mother would often tell the transients that he had only one eye. That was code for he would turn a “blind eye” if they hopped the trains at Little Falls. Hobos used lots of signs. They “marked” the houses where they were welcome and where they might be shot at.

“Where the Barns Are Filled With Hay”

In the third stanza of his song McClintock tried to paint a surrealistic picture of the life of the hobo:

“In the big rock candy mountains, all the cops have wooden legs,
the bulldogs all have rubber teeth, and the hens lay soft boiled eggs.
The farmer’s trees are full of fruit, and the barns are full of hay,
Well, I’m bound to go where there ain’t no snow,
Where the rain don’t flow and the wind don’t blow ,
In the big rock candy mountains.”

For a time during the Great Depression over a million men and thousands of women, boys, and girls risked their lives, morals, and sanity to get to better places by hopping the rods and boxcars of a railroad system that crisscrossed the country. About 25 percent of the labor force had no work. There were virtually no “safety nets” for workers or for investment bankers who leaped through 30-story windows. No unemployment insurance. No Social Security. No severance pay system. No plans to reduce mortgages. No labor contracts. No food stamps. No significant welfare programs.

“Hobo Bonus” Means “Good Man”

Many hobos were not drifters or ne’er-do-wells. In fact the term “hobo” probably comes from the Latin “hobo bonus” which translates to “good man.” There have always been hobos in developed societies. In poor medieval times, hobos walked all over Europe seeking jobs and food. They also were very common in the U.S. recessions of 1873 and 1893. In the 1873 recession most of the hobos were Civil War veterans from both sides. By 1930, the U.S. had over 230,000 miles of railroad track so there were many opportunities to hop the boxcars. Many who experienced the privation of the rails and boxcars later contributed immensely to an empathetic society that cared deeply for their fellow men.

In the August 1998 issue of the Smithsonian magazine, James Chiles in his article “Hallelujah, I’m A Bum” named many hobos who learned valuable lessons communing in boxcars and riding the rails inches from death if they fell asleep. In “Call Of The Wild,” Jack London said he had learned to tell stories from the many men who told them while bouncing on the rails. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas always supported “the common man” instead of business interests because of his experiences riding the rails. He constantly fought for the constitutional rights of all Americans regardless of their position in life.

Novelist Louie L’Amour of Jamestown, North Dakota, learned of the West and men from his travels with hobos. His Western stories always seemed to have a touch of the hobo in them. His heros earned their own way. They fought their own battles. If I remember, he is translated into more languages than any other writer, and at one time had more books printed than all except the Bible. I’m sure he was better-read. Another North Dakotan, Eric Sevareid of CBS radio and TV, gained insight by riding the rails.

Art Linkletter, of “Kids Say the Craziest Things” fame, often rode the rails during the Great Depression. Remember the wealthy Hunt brothers from Texas, oil and mineral tycoons who attained billionaire status when it was rare? H.L. Hunt wandered the country for years by hopping trains. The poet Carl Sandburg of “Chicago” fame also took his turn as a hobo.

The Jungles of Hoboland

Not all hobos were “good men.” In the two recessions prior to the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of men were thrown out of work quickly with no other means of support. They did turn to crimes against their fellow men to survive. National magazines warned the populace in dramatic tones that hobos were demented vagrants who stole from gardens and pastures, assaulted men and women, derailed trains, and were communists and socialists.

Most of the hobos at the beginning of the Great Depression were veterans of the road who had eventually learned to like the life they had first experienced during the 1893 recession. Hoboing across the South in winter and across the North in summer did not seem like a bad life when times were good. Temporary day jobs supplied them with enough money for essentials such as cigarettes and booze, while the hobo jungles in cities were ramshackle “motels.”

When the Great Depression hit, the older hobos who liked the lifestyle taught the young unemployed the subculture of the “jungle.” Just like good real estate, the jungles depended upon location, location, location. Hobo jungles were always on the sunny side of hills if possible. They were always near a good source of water, whether lake or river. It was helpful if railroad switchyards and coal storage dumps were close by. Jungles near town dumps were popular because one never knew what the middle class would throw out. Scavenging among dumps was an entertaining pastime.

There were lots of unspoken rules about living in and sharing the facilities of a jungle. No real names were ever used in case the railroad “bulls” or the regular police were looking for one of their own. Jungle names were direct and simple. Boxcar Bertha, Fry Pan Jack, and Toledo Red were three of the most famous.

The first stanza of the song created a rather idyllic picture of the jungles:
“One evening as the sun went down, and the jungle fire was burning,
Down the track became a hobo hiking, and he said boys I’m not turning,
I’m headed for a land that’s far away, beside the crystal fountain,
So come with me, we’ll go and see the big rock candy mountain.”

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