A Philosophy of Tramping—Jim Tully

A re-edited version of the original post is now published in Chapter 12 of

The Lives and Extraordinary Adventures of Fifteen

Tramp Writers from the Golden Age of Vagabondage

Published by Feral House February 2020

Preamble

That he was a road-kid for six years (although a tramp in spirit throughout his life) is not the only remarkable fact about Jim Tully (1886-1947). At the age of six, following the death of his mother, Tully was left by his father in an orphanage. Determined to write even at that young age, he would become, among other things, a hobo, a chain maker, a pugilist and a tree surgeon, before becoming a minor Hollywood celebrity and finally a successful writer. But as this series is a profile on tramp writers, it is Tully's tramping and writing that I will focus on here.

Those who wish to discover all there is to know about Tully, should read his remarkable biography, Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover and Hollywood Brawler, written by Paul Bauer and Mark Dawidziak. I am indented to these two writers for much of the insight and chronology about Tully's life not available from his own writings. The researchers were helped and hindered in equal measure (the book was 19 years in the making) by the discovery in UCLA's archives of a never previously opened hoard of 117 boxes. The collection had been donated to the University in 1952 by Tully's third and last wife Myrtle. Incredibly, the boxes were filled with Tully's unpublished works, papers, letters, magazine articles and other memorabilia.

Preamble on Tully's Writing Style

As with most of the other tramp profiles on this site, I intend to rely principally on Tully's published works to get a sense of the man and his philosophy on life. But as noted previously, the magic and the frustration of this approach is the tramp storyteller's natural inclination to fictionalise their life, and insert their life into fiction. And so, to those for whom historical accuracy matters, this biography will be found lacking. I read for the pleasure of the text, not for historical truths—which are in any case invariably treacherous. And in spite of the mountain of archives available to them, even Bauer and Dawidziak struggled to reconcile certain facts about Tully. But that is the price and the delight of engaging with Irish blarney.

I will try and establish some chronology where possible, but no attempt will be made to distinguish fact from fiction in the writing itself. Others have tried to categorise Tully's writings into autobiography and fiction. I consider all his writing to contain an element of both, to greater or lesser degree. As with Trader Horn, the deception is often deliberate and unabashed, and one must allow that, in any case, the truth is often more unbelievable than the fiction. Underneath a certain desire for celebrity, the books also reveal their author's extreme modesty, even self-deprecation. The truth that Tully does engage with, is extreme candidness. The brutal honesty that frightens those with more delicate sensibilities, and threatens those who prefer the lie of idealism to human beings' baser instincts laid bare. Or as H.L. Mencken, Tully's lifetime friend, editor and sometime publisher, said in his Introduction to Nietzsche's Antichrist: ‘The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances.’

It is for this reason that Tully's writing style has been described as 'hard-boiled', and is best defended in the words of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, when he warns us that, 'Those who do not want to admit that they produce refuse . . . risk suffocating one day in their own shit.' Those tramps who chose vagabondage as a way of life—as opposed to those who have it thrust upon them—do so precisely to protect their integrity from what they regard as Mencken's 'universe of false appearances'. To quote Sloterdijk again: ‘In a culture in which one is regularly told lies, one wants to know not merely the truth but the naked truth’. This is Tully's considerable contribution to literature. He presents reality exactly as he sees it, stripped of sentimentality, and, considering the extreme censorship of the times, in the most unrestrained form he can get away with.*

*For responses to Tully's books at the time of their publication, one should read the numerous book reviews he attracted, and which are reproduced in Bauer and Dawidziak's biography. They make fascinating reading and provide much insight into the cultural and literary nuances of the period.

Tully's response to his critics in his Introduction to Blood on the Moon, reveals his contempt for self-appointed guardians of literature and his defiance against conforming to the literary tastes of the time. It also reveals just how aware Tully was that his writing challenged these literary conventions:

'While I am immune to the ink-stained bullets of the moral Social Soldiers who carry Truth as a mask, I have thought it best to change names in "Blood on the Moon" to keep them from shooting at those who are my friends. ... If I have not been able to invent a new medium in my picaresque books, I have at least been strong enough not to conform to one that is outworn.

But Tully's writing style was not entirely unique for the time in which he wrote, even if it did upset literary orthodoxy. Other tramp writers display a similar gloves-off approach. Neither was he the only tramp writer to have engaged in the pugilistic arts (although he probably went further in the professional circuit than most). Jack Everson, W.H. Davies, Trader Horn, Bart Kennedy, Al Kaufman, and Jim Phelan,* all boxed for money at some point in their tramping careers.

*Although one was American and the other European, there are many other parallels between Tully and Phelan. In addition to writing, tramping and fighting, both had poor Irish ancestry, both spent their early lives in steelworks, both wrote about crime and punishment, both where involved with screen plays, both had friendships with H.G. Wells and Paul Robeson (on different sides of the Atlantic), and both had three wives, one son, and one daughter—at least, that they knew about.

Below is a list of Tully's published works (those underlined are linked to free digital publications of the full text):

Emmett Lawler (1922)

Beggars of Life (1924)

Jarnegan (1926)

Black Boy, with Frank Dazey (1926/ play—performed but no published script available)

Twenty Below, with Robert Nichols (1927/ play)

Circus Parade (1927)

Shanty Irish (1928)

Shadows of Men (1930)

Beggars Abroad (1930)

A Man of the New School (1931/ pamphlet)

Blood on the Moon (1931)

Laughter in Hell (1932)

Ladies in the Parlor (1935)

The Bruiser (1936)

Biddy Brogan’s Boy (1942)

A Dozen and One (1943—thirteen profiles of Hollywood actors and acquaintances including his onetime friend and employer Charlie Chaplin, Raymond Chandler, Clark Gable, and lifetime friends, the former world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsy and publisher and journalist H.L. Mencken)

Tully's writing style is further discussed below, but I know wish to turn to the genesis of 

Early Years

Tully was the second youngest of six siblings, two girls and four boys. But after his mother Biddy died aged thirty-five giving birth to her seventh (stillborn) child, Tully's father (also named Jim, and who worked away from home for long periods digging ditches) could no longer care for his 6 surviving children. The two girls, Maggie and Anna the youngest, would go to live with their maternal uncle, the eldest son, Hugh, was able to work, but the other three boys (Tom, Charlie and Jim) were sent to St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum in Cincinnati, over 100 miles distance from their home in St. Marys, at the suggestion of the local priest. There they would learn to read and write and be instructed in the Catholic faith.

Tully was six years old when he entered the orphanage and would remain their for the next six years. Not once did his father write or visit him during his stay at St. Joseph's. 

[...]

Road Kid

Most of the following accounts of Tully's adventures as a road kid come from his second book Beggars of Life. There are also some powerful tales of tramping in his ninth book, Blood on the Moon; a work that includes some of the most unrestrained and ribald episodes of Tully's life, including drinking, whoring, stealing, fighting, as well as begging and tramping. As the New York Post's review of the book at the time states, 'Mr Tully writes with a sledgehammer.' Other of Tully's books that include tales of his life on the road are: Emmett Lawler, Circus Parade, and Biddy Brogan's Boy. A full reading of these books is recommended, as the following summary can only provide a brief account of Tully's seven years on the road, not the total immersion necessary to appreciate the joys and miseries of tramp life......

Full story now available in The Lives and Extraordinary Adventures of Fifteen Tramp Writers from the Golden Age of Vagabondage

Images from the original post retained below:

Tully on the movie set of Beggars of Life with actors Louise Brooks,
Wallace Beery (Oklahoma Red) and Richard Arlen (playing Tully)

Mary Lygo

Tully with Max Baer (left) and Jack Dempsey (right)

Florence with Tilly, Tully and Alton

Tully with Chaplin

Marna

Tully in Way for a Sailor (1930), his only acting role

Tully and Myrtle

Tully with W.C. Field

Bron and Hitch: parrhesiasts par excellence

The premature death last month of Christopher Hitchens at the age of 62, reminded me of the death 11 years ago, aged 61, of Auberon Waugh (son of British writer Evelyn Waugh, to whom Hitchens has also been compared), which similarly surfaced its own share of obituaries from journalistic colleagues. What both these writers shared in common was that they defied efforts by their critics and admirers alike to place them either on the right or left of the political spectrum. They were modern representatives of the community of Cynics, not belonging to any tribe, parrhesiasts and troublemakers par excellence, they spoke their own truths no matter how outrageous; sticking it to liberal whimps and right wing bigots in equal measure. Not that I personally agreed with many of their views, but that is not the point. It is the style and delivery of the message that marked these two maverick journalists out from the mediocrity of many others in their profession. There is nothing much I can usefully add to the miles of column written on Hitchens over the past month, others who new him well have probably said all there is to say. So by way of tribute to Hitchens, I will devote the rest of this post to reviewing the 11 year old obituaries to Waugh. I’ve no idea if Hitchens would have identified with any of these, he might even have been a critic of Waugh, in his own more liberal past, but my instinct is that he would be touched by and smile at the tribute.

     Hailing him as a hero or castigating him as a villain, Waugh made many friends as well as enemies during his controversial career. A career that included working on such diverse publications as The Spectator, Private Eye, the New Statesman, the Sunday and Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror, and the Literary Review of which he was the editor. Often characterized as right wing, Waugh was in fact allied to no political interest group, he was fiercely independent and chose his friends from across the political divide. It was a tribute to Waugh’s contribution to journalism that his death triggered the bloody battle of words it did between journalists themselves: the Waughite tendency supporting the right to say it how it is, no matter how offensive, and the politically correct, idealist tendency who still believe that politicians are fundamentally trying to make the world a better place for us to live in, and how cheap it is of hacks like Waugh to prop up the bar at El Vino’s and pour scorn on their efforts.

     Waugh’s trade mark was to say it like it is, and one of the things Waugh did say, according to Charles Moore, editor of the Daily Telegraph, included being the only person outside of the IRA to publicly voice the opinion that he wished Margaret Thatcher had died in the Brighton bombing. Hardly the sentiments of a right wing bigot, unless the remark was read as misogynistic of which Waugh was also accused. The simple formula that made Waugh’s journalism so uniquely authentic, was that he had the guts and integrity to publish just the kind of heart felt rant that we shoot off to our pals every night in the pub—uncensored. The following comments (from editors and journalistic colleagues) characterise Waugh as a figure in the mould of American columnist H.L. Mencken: someone who always spoke their own mind and was political hostage to no-one:

He greatly disliked morality wherever it came from.  Charles Moore

A writer with a talent for vituperation and a taste for vendettas . . . In his idiosyncratic way, he was part of an authentic mood of revulsion against the bossy authoritarianism from both left and right.   Geoffrey Wheatcroft

The irony is that he was more liberal in his attitudes than many self-proclaimed liberals. He simply couldn’t stand the bossiness of modern society—one group of self-appointed nannies deciding what the rest of us can and can't do.  Henry Porter

One of the reasons I think he was so good was that he never fell into the error of thinking that he was influential. In common with all the best journalists, he knew that what he wrote was here today and gone tomorrow and that its impact was minimal. Richard Ingrams 

By contrast, in Polly Toynbee’s obituary to Waugh published in the Guardian newspaper on January 19, 2001 under the heading ‘Ghastly Man’, we encounter the kind of scorn that Waugh produced in yet other journalists. Toynbee’s characterization of Waugh, once again, opens up the debate about who and what is a cynic. Toynbee casting Waugh as a cynic in the negative use of the term:

The world of Auberon Waugh is a coterie of reactionary fogies . . . Effete, drunken, snobbish, sneering, racist and sexist, they spit poison at anyone vulgar enough to want to improve anything at all. Liberalism is the archenemy . . . While do-nothing conservatism is their mode, they enjoy extremism of any complexion and excoriate the dreary toil of incremental improvement . . .  ‘Political correctness’ is the tired, lazy little label attached to all change for the better. . . . Knee-jerk abuse of any politician was Waugh's stock in trade when he was a political commentator. It was not, as he pretended, a badge of some kind of honesty but quite the contrary, an idle unwillingness to engage with any politician's attempt to make life better for anyone else. Polly Toynbee

That Waugh was a cynic there can be no doubt. However, when one contrasts Toynbee’s posthumous attack on Waugh with the responses her own commentary invited, it becomes clear that the kind of cynic he was, depends as much on the character of the witness as it does on the character of the accused. You either embrace cynicism or are repelled by it depending on your appetite for derision. Examine the case for the defence:

He stood for all the things that attracted me to journalism in the first place, all the things Polly Toynbee most disapproves of—long lunches and gossip and laughter and a mischievous (yes!), and above all irreverent (oh please!) response to pomposity and received opinion.  Lynn Barber

The writer's sense of the absurd would have been equally tickled by Polly Toynbee's reaction to his demise, last week. Writing in just the kind of ‘no laughs please, we're left-wing’ manner he despised, Toynbee bludgeoned the dead man from her high horse for-—sin of all sins—poking fun at the ways of the world. . . . He thrashed bores and left them lying comatosed in a pool of ridicule.  Cristina Odone

There are many left wing people who take things at face value and many liberals who congratulate themselves on their moral superiority when all they are doing is restating the bleeding obvious. The earnestness of each of these groups is a signal that they don't really grasp what's going on. People who live on this level and never travel anywhere else are unlikely to make jokes about plane crashes . . . Their humourlessness is a symptom of their lack of judgment. . . . ‘They’—he enemy—are people whose souls are cold and whose bullet-point priorities close the window on imagination and genuine freedom of thought while increasing their own claims to ethical superiority.  Charlotte Raven

Auberon Waugh (despite a certain hedonistic streak) was a journalist of the Diogenes school: fearless, abusive, and witty. Moreover, the brouhaha following Waugh’s death provides a unique opportunity to study a modern cynic of the Diogenes mould. Not a cynic of Diogenes stature perhaps, maybe in the vast scheme of things a fairly jaded cynic. But a closer examination of Waugh’s public performance underscores, once again, many of the classical features that punctuate Cynic philosophy. Take the easy labelling of Waugh as a right wing bigot. Such a response to Waugh’s cynicism exposes its own form of bigotry, a bigotry symbolic of the kind of superficial objections used against better known cynics such as Diogenes, Nietzsche or Mencken. Such flippant characterization is frequently to be encountered among those made uncomfortable or even fearful of the cynic’s ridicule. In fact, like his cynic ancestors, Waugh’s politics—if he had any—did not shake out along narrow party lines, being entirely unpredictable. True cynics find their meaning outside of the narrow preoccupations of partisan politicking. If they stand for anything at all it is the right to say whatever they want, in whatever way they want, and to hell with people’s sensibilities. In terms of cynical irony, Waugh’s disinhibited remarks are just the kind of strategy used by the Dadaist, Richard Huelsenbeck, when he announced that he was in favour of war because ‘things have to collide’. This is certainly how Charles Moore sees Waugh when he comments that ‘as always with him it was done in a comical way but it was something nobody else would have dared say.’

       In terms of the discussion here, whether Waugh was a good bloke or a sneering snob is entirely irrelevant. It is simply a matter of taste and personal opinion best left to those who knew the man well. Toynbee may be correct that Waugh’s humour was probably pub humour, but that does not diminish its credibility and authority, if anything it enhances it. Toynbee in her denunciation of Waugh and defence of liberalism, attaches herself to the Icarian pose of sincere politics that cynics cannot resist but cast down. Whatever one may feel personally for a cynic—and Waugh may well have presented to some as obnoxious—cannot, and does not, deny the essential role of those who disturb the propaganda of political ideologues from both the left and the right.  In fact, among the comments discussing Waugh’s personal attributes we are provided with a clue concerning what appears to be a common trait among certain cynics: 

I often wondered about this part of Bron’s character. It seemed so odd that a man who hated bullies and vindictiveness was capable of being both. Perhaps it was because he had so little self-pity and assumed that people were as robust as he was. . . . But surprisingly these [his obvious failings] did not actually include snobbery, racism and sexism.  Henry Porter  

There is certainly a robustness among cynics, a disregard for the way others perceive them, which makes them appear brutal and uncaring even when the opposite is actually the case. The mistake that most critics of cynicism make, is to focus on what the cynic says rather than what they show when they say it.

     Focussing on the person rather than on the performance is not the only trap that critics of cynicism fall into. By thinking purely in terms of the politics of left and right, commentators like Toynbee show a complete misunderstanding of what drives their cynical cousins: a basic distrust of all politicians. Whatever else Waugh may have been, he was a relentless cynical thorn in the side of liberal timidity and authoritarian morality. As such, he also bore one of the primary hallmarks of the ancient Cynics. What made his journalistic endeavours particularly unusual in today’s age of media control, was that he was his own person, he spoke on behalf of no one but himself. Contrary, then, to Toynbee’s assessment, the cynicism, as opposed to cynicism, of journalism today does not emanate from dissident’s like Waugh, but rather from those who serve powerful interests, not least their alignment to political interests. It is the Toynbees of this world, not the Waughs or Hitchens, who are the journalists most likely to have a corrupting influence on public opinion. They achieve this by reinforcing the rhetoric: the illusions, oversimplifications and empty slogans of whichever political party currently claims their editorial bias. 
     The negative use of the term cynicism, frequently applied to those hacks who hound celebrities in the hope of snatching a picture of exposed flesh or a story of impropriety, serves to highlight the more common usage of the term today. There are also journalists who display cynicism of another kind: our positive, modern cynic, those who seek to expose the public lies—rather than the private lives—of the rich and powerful. As the cynical journalist intrudes into the lives of the famous simply to titillate a voyeuristic public, so their cynical cousin seeks to expose the great lies with which powerful individuals and organisations hide dirty deals behind a smoke-screen of honest respectability. That is not to say, however, that in the final analysis, one type of journalist has a moral lead on the other. The distinction between cynical and cynical journalism is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish, not least those aspects of the profession typified by the foreign or war correspondent—both types clearly seek a sensational story, that is the business of journalism. As the philosopher Jean Baudrillard puts it, our own insatiable appetite for sucking out the destiny of others; our need to exploit the misery of other people in order to provide media nourishment for our daily lives, is proving a serious challenge for the objectivity and integrity of journalists of all persuasions.