Document text
STATE
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
New York
NAME OF WORKER Clarence Weinstook
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
43 Morton Street
June 14, 1939
Doctor's Interview
1. Date and time of interview
2. Place of interview
3. Name and address of informant
Hospital Room
4. Name and address of person, if any, who t you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, acco=an7ins you
6. Description of r -)or, house, surroundins, e
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 INiEhVIEW (UNEDITED)
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Clarence Weinstock
ADDRESS 43 Morton Street
DATE June 14, 1939
SUBJECT Doctor's Interview
REVOLT
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
When I was working at City Hospital we used to have an annual
ceremony called running short on the budget. Then the chief mould
start cutting down on the wonderful meals the patients and doctors
had been having all along and announce that the last few weeks of
the fiscal year mould be celebrated by the eating of a stew.
This time he decided to give out an order that everybody was
to get no more than half a pint of milk daily, including that for
cereal and coffee. Well, I boiled up at that. I promptly sat
down and wrote out a hundred slips for a special increase in the
allowance. So they sent down a special investigating committee and
took away half the allowances and I got a bawling out. Just the
thing to get me still hotter. When the paitents asked me about
the milk I didn't mince my words. I told them just why they weren't
getting any milk. So they got sore as hell and began demanding pro-
per tations. Then I went to the chief and told him I was having a
lot of trouble convincing the patients that half a pint of milk was
a perfect diet for them. He looked at me kind of funny as though
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he wanted to bust me in the nose. Then he began to roar, "If any of
those people think they can behave like agitators here, send them up
to se, me," and so forth, and so forth.
That was all I needed. You know the Beggars Opera. Well I got
the oldest crocks together, everybody who hadn't been out of bed for
the last 700 years, and I explained the situtation to them. I told
them it was the only way. They caught on beautifully. In ten minutes
the whole ward was empty and the halls were full of old men and women
on crutches, and in wheel chairs or staggering down to the big chief's.
In half an hour I get a call from the office. Slimy bill is
yelling, %hat the hell are those people from your ward doing here?
They're disgracing my office. This has never happened before in the
history of the hospital." I told him. I only did exactly what you
told me to do. If you can't take it give them their milk back."
"All right, but for Chrissake get them the hell out of my office."
So I went dawn and told them, "Let's go, boys and girls, you got your
milk." Boy did they let out a cheer for met