Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAIVE OF VIORKER Mermen Partn.ow Satl Levitt
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FOLKLORE
NEVI YORK
557 *West 144th Street $57 lest 144th Street
July 6, 1939
Maritime Folklore FIRST TRIPPNR
1. Date and time of interview June 29, 1939
2. Place of interview Seamen's Institute
20th Street 11th Avenue
3. Name and address of informant
Casimir L. Konapka
RIIIW 664, Seamen's Institute
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, acoom2anying you
6. Description of row, house, surroundings, etc.
(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 Partnow Saul Legitt
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
657 West 144th Street
July 6, 1939
Maritime Folklore FIRST TRIPPER
There's two ways of lookin at it. The good part and the
bad part. I don't like the gas hounds, the G men, they take
couple' drinks and it gasses them up. But otherwise it's all
right. I like to study things, look around, take an interest
in things and on the ocean I'm able to do that. I worked in a
textile mill, I worked at that a year or so, then I worked an a
farm. I got it on my awn looks, this farm job. It paid fifty
cents a week. Then I got a job on a regular farm for five dol-
lars a week. I didn't have much time to play ball. I ran sway
from an orphanage and started life. I always had my mind set on
the navy. I used to tell the farmers I worked with I'd join when
I grew up. But they wouldn't take me, I was too young. So I vent
to sea.
I never been in no trouble. I'm all alone and I have to take
care of myself. I don't drink, I don't smoke and I don't raise hell.
Sometimes the sailors kid ma about it. Once a feller asked me if I
ever seen the Golden River. I won't say he was a Greek. He just
kept kidding me. I hope you ain't embarrassed by this story. One
night an the 8 to 12 watch I thought I'd take a look. So this old
man, I forget what the heck his namerwas, he took:me dawn and tried
557 West 144th Street
2
to you know. Did I get up that escape ladder fastI
Then there was something about the Iron Might/ They kept
talkin to ma about it until I began to be.curious. There isn't
mnoh about it. I asked what the Iron Might was. It wasn't much.
Insteada steerin by hand it steers automatic. You leave the lever
in such a place, it's just a lever steerin by itself. When you get
out in the open sea you do that. They got the rate up on the bridge.
We used to get a lot of stowaways on board ship. One stowaway,
his name was MoGlustian. It was in September. Be was in the Spanish
war. don't know *if he meta Communist or a Fascist. He was fightin
for a year. It took him six months to escape from the Communists.
He came aboard ship to get somethin to eat. A couple fellers gave
him -a few francs. He was banged up. He had one bullet in his stomach,
in that bloody place below the knee. They clipped the hair off his
scalp. He was a member of a union. We bought him a drink in the Rue
de Gallianne. Then we left him there. Well, when we were a day out,
we found him it the lazaretto under tho poop deck where they store
gear. He comes out and goes up to the old man and tells his story.
We took him to Norfolk, Virginia. When we got paid off we took up
a collection for the guy. They say sailors are tough, well maybe
the gashounds are, but a sailor wouldn't touch a oat. Anyway, we
took up a collection, and took up his fare and bought him dungarees
and a suit.
In Baltimore, I remember, it was some kind of strike. One
feller had a pair of shoes and he was on the picket line. Then he
hadda change places with another sailor and this guy didn't have
no soles on his shoes. So the feller on the line took off his shoes
3
end gave them away and walked home in the bad shoes.
This morning I got off the 23rd street elevator a sailor
picked me up and offered to carry my bags and I gave him thirty
five ce ts. That's nothing. Usually they lower the broom on you,
ask for two bits or more. As soon as you get off the boat. Iwas
on the.Crown City. I've made three tips to Europe. Coming to New
York. I vent to the Far East too. I got yellow jaundice on that
trip. Your eyes turn yellow and underneath your fingernails you
skin turns yellow. You try to throw up but you can't. Everything
bothers you and you can't eat. When we got to shore they sent me
to a hospital and started pumpin me. That was the Mallamek. It
was so full of scavengers and roaches they used to crawl up your
pants isg. I quit on it. There were two inch roaches.
Other animals, too. Sailor pets are on board. Coming from the
Phillipines we had fighting roosters and pigs. A greek picked up a
couple fighting cocks. One flow overboard and a pig one of the A.B's
had disappeared. Canaries? Every ody over there had one. Coming
back from San Pedro off the Mexican coast, I saw black mammals and
turtles six feet across. Lots of them. As if they were all goin
to a convention, all of them were goin in one direction.
I took one dangerous trip. It was up to Hong King. We carried
steel and barbed wire and tobacco and airplanes. We got a fifty dollar
bon= but it wasn't worth it. There was a sign up: "No Shore Leave."
But they all vent anyway and they got dosed up and clapped upl
Some times I feel like gettin a job ashore. I'd like to go to
school some place and learn a trade. But I don't know any rich peo-
ple. There's one guy I know but he lives in Philadelphia and I'm
afraid of him, he looks like a gag to me.