Document text
Accession nor'
Date received
"fr- Ai
Consignment no.
Shipped fro?
Wai-A
Label
Amount
1. 13,
(r1S±-731 4% itilit4Af
WPA L. C. PROJECr. LAI
UNIT
Form -3
i0"-i.11¢11A„ Collection (or Type)
Title 1
._t_t_ee_6La.c...3.e... -01./.
Place of origin Date*2 _37.
Project worker
Project editor
Remarks
Forms to t)e Filled out for Each Interview FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Terry Roth .;am Sdhwurtz
ADDREE;S 47 W. 69th Street
DUE April 24, 1939
SUBJECT Cause For Separation
1. Date and tint. .,_nterview April 19, 1939
2. Place of interview
Furriers Union
3. Name and address of informant Izzie Prevalsky
152 W. 13th Street
4. Name and address of parson, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accomiJanyinL you
Sam Schwartz
6. Description of room, 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
NEVI YORK
NAME OT '...i0RnR Terry Roth Sam Schwartz
ADDRESS 47 W. 69th Street
DATE April 24, 1939
SUBJECT Cause For Separation
152 W. 13th Street
"I went in to the fur business in 1922 and I started to
work for a dresser and dyer. It was when I came to this country.
My first experience. I started to work there from 7 o'clock in
the morning and we worked till 12 at night. Outerwise you get
fired. Once I stopped about ten at night, I as tired from work-
ing. The boss comes over to me and asks me. "What's the matter
you going home?" I told him I'm tired. "Are you sick?" "No.
Just tired." "In this place you have to work as everybody else,
or not, you're fired."
On account of that he made me come out six o'clock the next
morning, till 12 at night. I started off with 18 dollars a week.
The place was full of spies there, most of them Italians. And
everytime you vant to say anything about the union, out you go.
Everybody used to spy on you. The foreman came over to me, speak-
ing English. That time I couldn't understand. I told him. "Speak
Jewish or Russian. Only those two languages I know." He said Some-
thing I didn't understand, in English, and I answered him in Russian.
So he took a skin and he threw it at me. I went and took a plate
of dye and threw it at his face. So I got fired. The boss sees
me. "here are you going?" "I'm fired." So he puts me back to work.
About six months it got slow in the trade. I was very slim
then. it:very six months the inspector comes in and cleans out the
boiler. So they couldn't pick another man, but they pick me out.
To get inside the boiler and chop off the steam from the water
that's boiling. I laid there about two weeks from seven to five
o'clock and I had an hour for lunch. And I got twenty a week for
that. He was doing me a favor for that. Villen the strike broke
out, I figure it's my chance to get in the line and I went in
first."
"Once I had an argument with the leadership here which I
was very soory on that. I though,::: 'Vdhy should I have to suffer
so much. I'll do the same thing the others are doing. I'll go
to the right union.' I went up there and one fellow comes over
to me and said, 'hello' to me. I took a sock at him and I walked
right out. I had a few fellows there they knev me, so they pro-
tected me. And I came back to the left union."
I had a good experience with my boss. Working with him,
this guy used to be afraid of me an awful lot. So when he wanted
to do something dirty, he'll come ovcr and rat me on the back.
"You're a nice fellow." So I used to do the same thing to him.
So he asks me. %hy do you do that to me? "I'm doing this be-
cause you are doing it. You are looking for a place to stab me
and I'm looking for the same place."
"Yes," he says, "we both have the same feeling for each
other."
3
"I got married in 1931. My wife knew some furrier and she
went over to him to get me a job because I was out of work a lohg
time. So I came up there the next morning and he asked me for the
union book. I took out the Industrial union book which I had all
the time. And I show it to him. "No, you'll have to get a book
of the Right wing union." So I told him. "Since when are you a
chairman in the shop?" "We have an agreement," he says, "we couldn't
hire anybody except from the Right union." I told him to push his
job up somewhere, and I came home. My wife asked what happened.
I told her what happened. "I'm not going to take the job." On
account of this here, I had to split up with my wife. She said.
"If the union means more to you than me I told her. "I'm
not going to sell my principles for you or anybody else."
She was a real reactionary. When it used to cane election,
I want to vote for Amter or for Foster, and she hollers for some-
thing else. Her brother was a Zionist and we used to have fist
fights in the house used to come election."
"I got myself a job about a month ago. I knew the owner
of the place very well. I ask him for a job and he wouldn't re-
fuse me a job for two aays a wekk. Thursday and Friday. I used
to call it W.P.A. a job Thursday and Friday. Then, after I worked
a couple Jays, he came over to me. "Listen, I want you te de me
a favor. See that the union stays away from my shop. That the
committee don't come up." He wants to have the Shipping Clerk
doing mechanical work. Instead of saying something to him, I
took my hat and coat and walked out. I came right back to the
office with a complaint to theorganizer."
4
During the General Strike we had a telephone call here.
There's a Shoe shop on strike on 28th Street and we had a call,
gangsters are there. We don't like gangsters should be in the
fur market. So we went out to chase them from the market and
we had a fight with them. A policeman gets ahead of me and he
wants tc hit me with a club. Well. I was faster than him and
I hit him first, and he had me locked up on 000 bail. We come
into the station house, they ask my name. He says to me. How
do you spell it? I didn't want to give him the satisfaction
so I told him, "I don't know haw to spell my name, I know only
how to sign my name." I was going to put up a fight with him.
I told him, "After all, you're supposed to protect me." So I
did not spell my name. I came over in front of the Desk Lieu-
tenant, he asks me to spell it. "I don't know how to spell
my name." I was brought up to court and they locked meAD there.
I had a bad case that time and I tried to straighten out with
the judge in a nice way. I told him. "I made a mistake. I
didn't mean to do it, but instead, the cops wan -;s to lock me up."
The policeman was so nervous he couldn't speak. The judge asked
him whether he feels sick. He said, "Yes." So he postponed the
case, He had an understanding with my lawyer to change the chargts.
Then, on the witness stand, he started to testify against me that
I hit him. So the judge told him. "What did you do about it?"
"I couldn't do anything." he had witnesses. The two gangsters
from the shoe store which we had them locked up too. And the
judge wouldn't accept that as good witnesses because they had
records, and the case was thrown out. After, the cop want over
to my lawyer and. he asked him I dshouldn't bother him on the
market if I see him."
Accession new•
Wki 1,
Date received
/1//4fr°
Consiginment no.
Shipped from
Li).
Label,
Amount
-iivue—•
S %if% 1-Itilit.d.udi
WPA L. C. P 0 UNIT
Form -3
Title 1. esdadati421Ce...
Place of origin
Project worker
Project editor
Remarks iist,"Pri/A
Collection (or Type)
Date.