Alan Brown 2

November 15, 1934

Dear Diary,
One day I shuffled through my diary entries and the page turned to September 29, 1929. I just took a moment and read what I had written for that day. I never made enough money to pay the landlord because I couldn’t find a job and got evicted from my apartment.
I started living on the streets, eating garbage as my food and hiding from the police so I wouldn’t go to jail for not having a job. I lost my brand new model T after the stockbroker started saying that he would press charges for not paying the money I owe him. Then one person that I had got acquainted with, told me of how jobless men board the trains and go from one city to another looking for jobs. He used the term “riding the rails” to describe what they were doing.
I decided that this was the only way that I would get a job. I boarded a train going to Vancouver in search of hoping to get a job. There I found a mining job but with very little pay and lots of labour involved with the job. After a few weeks, they had to close down saying that they were going bankrupt and could pay workers.
I decided again to board a train but this time to go to Ottawa to protest about the work conditions and the little pay that we men get. Just a few years ago we were living like Lords with lots of money to spend and jobs were easy to find. But now we are beggars, panhandling and boarding cargo train in search of jobs around the country.
I am writing this entry while sitting on the train to Ottawa waiting to protest about unfair work conditions. I hope that everything goes well and that the government of Canada will give us better pay and work conditions.

Sincerely,
Alan Brown