12 BULLETIN 1211, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
“Shipped” on “free fares’”’ by employment agencies, and 3.7 per cent 
came in their own autos. Incidentally, only 52.3 per cent of them 
came alone. The others all traveled with one or mere companions. 
OBJECTIONABLE ASPECTS OF TRAVEL ON FREIGHT TRAINS. 
Traveling on freight trains has become a typical characteristic of 
the American wheat harvest; it hardly exists in Canada. From 
every point of view it is one of the most objectionable aspects of the 
Fic. 6.—Ho! For the harvest fields. A truck load of harvest hands leaving Wichita for the harvest fields 
ofsouthern Kansas. Farmersfrequently send trucks from 50 to 150 miles to the labor centers to gather 
up crews and transport them to their farms. Thousands of harvest hands are now taken out to the 
farms by auto. 
harvest. It is dangerous, for freight wrecks are more frequent than 
passenger wrecks. (See fig. 7.) Gunmen, gamblers, and other 
criminals come to the harvest and ride the freights to carry on their 
nefarious activities. Most of the murders, highway robberies, and 
Fic.7.—One of the objections to riding the freights. This train carried harvest hands. 
other crimes that occur during the harvest occur on freight trains 
and in or around freight yards. The railroad officials and police of 
the cities and towns in the Wheat Belt make commendable efforts 
to abate the nuisance, but it is impossible for them to control the 
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