Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORMA
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Herman Partnow
ADDRESS .5571. 114th St.
DATE June 14, 1939
SUBJECT Maritime Folklore
Saul Levitt
5571r. 114th St.
1. Date and time of interview June 4, 1939
2. Place of interview bet 12th Street
3. .Name and address of informant Forty Fathoms
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of pE:rson, if any, accom7)anying you
6. Description of rpom, house, surroundings, eto.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms,
each bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material
refers.)
FORM C
TEXT OF INTLICVIEW (UNEDITED)
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Herman Pirtnow Saul Levitt
ADDRESS 557 West 114th Street 557 West 114th Street
DATE June 14th, 1939
SUBJECT Maritime Folklore
AND NO BEROES ABOUT IT
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
The sea is rough it ain't the sailor's home. The sea has her
will since the development of the human race. The sailor's only
think -iv% of the land. Landlubbers like the sea. Four of five days
an fast ships, drinkin highballs. Not a seventh month beat swingin
a coal shovel now it's oil burning and we're movin ahead, but there's
plenty of coal shovels The sailor's thidkin of a chicken fans until
he gets to the first saloon. But it's a chicken fern not the sea he's
thinkin about. He'd like to hear the ssa's toss and the mind's kick,
that Mansfield crap but, Jesus, he must be built of deficient material,
he'd like to see them manifest but he can't see than things. There ain't
no symphonic orchestras on a freighter to encourage him, just a guitar in
the foe' eel. Sams sailors get booms dropped on him, same get poisoned and
some were dropped over the side and even deliberately shot, until they
oommenoed Work on Johnny Q. Shipowner or John Bannanas. They were
havin a swell time with our hides until we got set to have a big bonfire
on the lawn in Washington. We soared them and today we got certificates.
Then we had a tussle with Copeland when he tried to put that fink bill
across. This bird he's dead but he's a bird to ma would have bound
down :the sailor with records, thumbprint in the book, the skipper keeps
that book and woe to Johnny Sailor if he opened his trap, this book was
handed over to the seamen to bind them under ironclad control. Then we
hadda fight Sailor Bill. That's **William Green, he who knows all our
problems and he can solve it. If I was Bill Green I'd move into the
Chamber of Commerce that's where he belongs, he's a disgrace as a
union man, he's a disgrace as a man himself. It's the Sailor Green -o
who's got maggots in his bean-o....It's a case for fight for survival
and no heroes about it. A guy gets notorious for wanting better con-
ditions, he pounds the streets in Battery Park and he's blackballed
and blacklisted, and disgusted with the kinda life he's got ashore.
The sea is the ace in the hole, that's all. War -time we were on the high
seas and we got the news the warms over. One of the guys broke down and
wept. Boy, did we knock the shingles off his damn roof head. Any guy
says he likes the sea that much is a bug, he belongs in a bughouse.