Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
STATE
NAIVE OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
New York
Herman Partnaw Saul Levitt
557 West 144th Street 557 West 144th Street
July 6, 1939
Maritime Folklore ON THE BELCH
1. Date and time of interview June ES, 1939
2. Place of interview South Street
3, Name and address of informant Anonymous
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, aocamoan7in you
6. Description of rpor, house, surroundinj, et.
(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 INTERVIEW (UNEDITED)
STATE New York
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
NAME OF WORKER Herman Partnaw Saul Levitt
ADDRESS 557 West 144th Street
DATE July 6, 1939
SUBJECT Maritime Folklore ON THE BEACH
557 West 144th Street
A seaman's a casual labor. He's a man without a country.
Be ain't lookin fer glory because all the patriots are buried in
Concord, IIMms. He's just livin and waitin fer live ones. When
the guys come off a ship you go over to South Street an they throw
out a buck or two. You turn yerself into an excuse artist you
gotta pay yer uncle's poll tax or somethin. That's haw it is when
yer on the beach. There's no way out. The shipowners out yer throat
behind yer back.
Say the union sends ya down to the Grace Line madhouse fer a
job, they turn ya dawn because you got dandruff in yer hair. But
I sailed once with a guy had a wooden leg. He wasn't a beefer. They
gotta lotta tricks like that. Sometimes that outfit'll land in
Galveston insteada Huston Leoause they gotta lotta beefers in Huston.
What we need is a little strike for a cold weather bonus so we
can go and die somewhere and get pensioned off insteada croakin on
the beach.
Stanko the radical, he gets up on the floor and advocates, he's
got the right idea. It's a two watch system, why can't they make it
2--
a four -watch system, then more gusy can get jobs. I'd like to have
a water -tender's job. It's swell, you sit and look at the steam
gauge all day. I like passenger ships too, not the passengers, the
ships.
You think we sailors are bad, the besta them passengers are
none too good. Down South America one time I was washin the sun
deck around midnight. It was dark as hell and I squirt the hose in
a corner two of the passengers run out.
Joe Kane, he's a guy, he's master of arms. He was on watch
one time when 816 jugs of wine was all stolen. While he vas lookin
fer them in third class he makes a date with a broad there and gets
her up on the boat deck in one of the life boats and he's puttin
the blocks on her when I come up and there's the dame crying like hell,
she can't get out. One borad I remember, the watchman, he was a Heine,
and I'm sittin on deck "atchin the gangway when I see her with him,
she's startin to take off her clothes and then she tears alla them
off. He goes out to get a blanket. When he comes back she's stark
nacked. Well, he was no Sloppy Joe, this Heine, he just let her
alone after that. But she was just crazy over him, later on she
committed sewerpipes over him.
We let them passengers alone most of the time. We got plenty
to do. There're plenty of accidents too, Screwy Williams, he was
sittin in the nest once, when his relief COMBS back. He goes out
the wrong way and hits the deck. He got sixty bucks for thsit fall
and it wasn't worth it.
Only time I lived a good life was in Haman*. Iwas on leave
and I got drunk. So I go back to the ship and it's not there. So
I went to work on a couple beers. Sunday morning I wake up and go
to
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to the office of the shipping counsel. He asks me which I preT
fer, breakfast or a coupla beers. I say beers. So he gives me
a slip to a Hotel. I stay there nine days. Like a chump I go
over to the Grace Line. I thought they'd put me on the shippin
list. But I find myself with a big bunch of cops and I'm sent to
a concentration camp prison behind the Morro Castle.