One American Dream

by Bernard Beck

  “As far as pregnant and unmarried goes, that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to discuss, but as long as you mentioned it, here’s something interesting. I looked it up, and according to Jewish law, even though your baby will be born to an unmarried mother, it won’t be any different from every other Jewish baby, except that, if it’s a girl, she can’t marry a Cohen.”

  “That’s it? What about all that stuff about being a mamzer? Doesn’t that mean bastard?”

  “Not really. According to Jewish law, a mamzer is a child who is the offspring of a father and mother who could not legally or morally marry, like a married woman who is having an extramarital affair, or a child who is the result of incest. In all other cases, from a legal point of view, the child of an unmarried Jewish woman inherits from his natural father just as if he were the product of a marriage.”

  For the first time that morning, Ruthie smiled at me. “What’s the second thing you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked with a relieved smile.

  “This is more about me than about you,” I said with growing confidence. “In the past few months, I have had the opportunity to expand my real estate holdings, and I anticipate that this expansion will continue. It looks like I will have to hire an assistant to help me manage the new properties, and I was wondering if you would be interested in the job after the baby is born.”

  Ruthie’s smile, one of the most radiant that I had ever seen, seemed to well up from the inner depths of her body and spread across her face and neck and even her hair. She was, at that moment, more beautiful than I could ever remember.

  “Thank you” she said, although it wasn’t clear if she was thanking me, or Harry, or God.

  “So you’ll take the job?” I asked.

  “Let me think about it.”

  __________

  Rose and I dealt with Ruthie’s increasingly obvious pregnancy in the most matter-of-fact manner. Ruthie continued to live in her apartment in New York City and to attend classes at City College, although she now spent many of her weekends in Borough Park with Rose preparing for the baby’s arrival. At first, Ruthie’s presence was difficult for me since some people in the synagogue considered her brazen and whispered behind my back that she should be hidden out of town until the child was born. I passively absorbed their criticism. I honestly believed that I had no reason to make excuses for my unmarried and obviously pregnant daughter. The choices she had made were her business, and I was proud to defend her right to choose. For a while, the gossips gossiped, and the yentas speculated, but once they had tired, Ruthie’s pregnancy became “old news.”

  Ruthie’s son, my grandson, was born in the fall just after her twenty-first birthday. He was named for his grandfather, Ben-Zion, and we called him Bentzy. The bris was held in the main sanctuary of the synagogue, which was packed with local Jewish dignitaries and politicians. After her baby was born, I arranged for Ruthie to move to a larger apartment, and I paid for a nanny to take care of the baby during the day so that Ruthie could continue her studies.

  To be perfectly honest, I had not done all that well as a father, so now I went overboard in my role of grandfather. I lavished praise and presents on Ruthie and the baby, and perhaps—no, not perhaps—I went too far. Ruthie was uncomfortable about accepting all the generosity from me, and so, not long after the baby was born, and she was settled into her new apartment, she sat me down for a “talk.”

  “You can’t keep giving us things,” she said in what she hoped was a light-hearted tone.

  “Why not?” I challenged.

  “Because I am an adult, and I have to take care of my baby on my own.”

  “How are you going to do that? You’re by yourself, and you’re still in college,” I said.

  “I’m going to try to get a job with Mr. Davis, the publisher.”

  “That sounds like a good idea, but what makes you think he will give you a job?”

  Surprisingly, Ruthie hadn’t considered the possibility that Mr. Davis would reject her, but now that I had mentioned it, she wasn’t so confident. “I don’t really know,” she replied hesitantly.

  “Would you let me go with you?” I offered. “I’m a pretty good negotiator, and I promise that I won’t butt in.”

  “If you insist on going with me,” she said with a grateful smile, “then you might as well butt in. There’s a better chance that Mr. Davis will listen to you than to me.”

  We planned our approach and Ruthie made an appointment with Mr. Davis. She told him that she wanted to talk about Harry, “among other things.”

  __________

  “Mr. Davis,” I began aggressively, as soon as we entered his office, “I think you owe my daughter something.”

  “Owe her?” he asked.

  “Yes. You led her to believe that if her book was satisfactorily written, you would publish it. You never said anything about any sort of contingencies. It is true that you and she never signed a contract, but the very fact that you provided an editor to work with her can be construed as a contractual arrangement with the implied conclusion that at the end, if the product was satisfactory, you would publish her book. Now I do not want to accuse you of breach of contract, but I am sure that you can appreciate the validity of her position.”

  Mr. Davis still had not returned to his desk, and we stood awkwardly facing each other in the middle of the room. He made an attempt to reach the security of sitting behind his desk, but I aggressively stood between them. It was almost as if Ruthie and I were the interviewers and he, Mr. Davis, the interviewee.

  “What exactly would you like from me?” Mr. Davis asked, directing his question to Ruthie.

  “As you know,” Ruthie replied confidently, “I’m still a student at City College. As you may not know, I now have a small son. I would like you to suggest a way that I can work in the literary field and continue my education, and also take care of my son.”

  “Can’t your father help you?” Mr. Davis asked, sensing an opening.

  “I am not even going to dignify that question with an answer,” Ruthie replied with new confidence.

  I looked at Ruthie, impressed by her tone and self-assurance, and this time Mr. Davis was able to maneuver around me and return to his desk.

  “Please sit down,” he said as he assumed his position behind his desk.

  I ostentatiously held a chair for Ruthie and then I sat down. I had a feeling that my initial advantage had passed.

  “Fortunately,” Mr. Davis said, focusing all his attention on Ruthie, “I think there is a way that we both can benefit from this experience. I can offer you a position as a screening reader. What that means is that you will be the first line in the editorial process. Authors, and their agents, send us books all the time that they would like us to publish. We employ screening readers to act as the first filters in the selection process. We pay each reader a fee for reading the book. It is not a large fee, but it is nevertheless a fee. In this manner, you will have some income to supplement the money that your father must be giving you. And you can do most of the work from home.”

  “What happens after the reader recommends a book?” Ruthie asked.

  “Then it is assigned to an editor who determines if, with proper editorial input, the book can be made commercially viable.”

  “And then?” Ruthie persisted.

  “And then, we have an editorial meeting and we decide, as a group, whether or not to offer the author an advance and whether or not to begin the long, tedious process of bringing the book to market.”

  “Mr. Davis,” Ruthie said with a brief glance at me, “I do not want to be a reader. I would like to be an editor.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think you are qualified for that. My editors have worked their way up to that position and bring years of experience to the task.”

  “Well, Mr. Davis, you might consider my situation in the opposite d
irection. I would like to have the opportunity to prove myself as an editor, and if, after I have been at the job, you feel that my work is not up to your editorial standards, then I will leave and not ask for any other position.”

  “But Mrs. . . . I’m sorry I don’t know your married name.”

  “Ruthie is just fine.”

  “But Ruthie,” Mr. Davis said, obviously flustered, “you have no experience as an editor.”

  “Yes, but I have been a successful short story writer for quite a few years, and I have written a novel which, by your own high standards, was considered good enough to invest in and publish.”

  “You make a good point, and you drive a hard bargain, and so I agree. I’ll have to run it by my board, but I don’t think there will be any objection. The only question that I think might come up is the legal ramifications of your doing the work at home.”

  And so, completely without my help, Ruthie became an editor at Davis and Hart. Her skill was apparent from the moment she started, and eventually she specialized in a new category of novels that targeted young women—the same market that had read her steamy short stories.

  After she graduated from college, Ruthie moved to a two-bedroom apartment on West End Avenue, on the far west side of New York City. The year was 1929 and she was twenty-three-years-old. She had been working for Davis and Hart for two years. Perhaps it was her age, or perhaps it was her experience as a pulp magazine writer, but within her first two years at Davis and Hart, she had established a reputation as a rare editor who was able to recognize and develop new, raw talent. She had also resumed her career as a short story writer, but this time she was targeting college age girls rather than teens.

  __________

  And then, on October 24th, 1929, on a day that would be known throughout history as Black Thursday, the stock market crashed. And nearly everything in the world changed.

  Less than a year earlier, when Ruthie’s son was still an infant, unemployment in the United States had been 4.2 percent and the economy was booming. Four years later, unemployment soared to 23.6 percent, the stock market had crashed, and many banks had gone out of business, stranding their depositors. Nearly one out of every four available workers in the country was unemployed, and many of those who were able to keep their jobs were now working at a small fraction of their former salaries. Typical annual income of the average American family declined by forty percent, and the Gross Domestic Product—the value of all goods and services produced in the United States—tumbled from 103 billion dollars in 1929 to 58 billion dollars in 1932.

  It was a painful time in America, and, although the income statistics were shocking, they did not come close to describing the complete horror of the time, especially for the middle class. In the roaring twenties, as the stock market and the real estate market had soared, many people had borrowed more and more money on their homes and businesses in order to have sufficient cash to invest in the booming stock market with the hope of “making it big.”

  Commercial banks, life insurance companies, and mutual savings banks encouraged this borrowing by offering tempting, five-year balloon mortgages which allowed the speculating public to borrow against their home’s value and just pay the interest on the loan. Many homeowners refinanced every year, continually borrowing more and more. The suckers borrowed on every one of their assets, and they invested that money in the inflationary dream that they were fueling through their own borrowing. They dreamed that they could earn enormous profits on their investments, but as a result of their speculation, stock prices rose rapidly, and the carrot of easy money constantly loomed just out of their reach. So they borrowed more. And, in an irrational, nearly maniacal dream of their potential future wealth, they spent their anticipated profits lavishly. And that lavish spending, plus their increasingly risky speculation, fueled the “boom.” And so, with optimistic abandon, and caught in the powerful inflationary spiral, they borrowed more, hoping to make more.

  As in a poker game where there are a few big winners and many big losers, American wealth was becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few players, and the other players had to continue to borrow aggressively to stay in the game. They borrowed against all of their assets, and they even borrowed against their future income, and the more they borrowed, the fewer assets they had left to borrow against. When they ran out of assets and were no longer able to borrow, the game ended. And with the end of the game, came the end of their dreams.

  Sharp warning price breaks had occurred several times during the boom, and each of these price breaks gave rise to dark predictions of the end of the bull market and the end of easy, speculative profits. But until that fateful day in late October of 1929, these predictions turned out to be wrong. With blind faith, the suckers continued to believe that stock prices would continue to rise indefinitely, and they invested with greater and greater abandon. In March of 1928, for example, 3,875,910 shares, the most ever, were traded in a single day on the New York Stock Exchange. A few months later, five million shares being traded in a day was a common occurrence.

  There was a feeding frenzy in America as the suckers tried to get on the bandwagon of the rising stock market. Unfortunately, by the end of the decade, most of them had fallen off and had been seriously injured.

  The real estate partners with whom I had purchased my tenement houses after Rose sold her shop were caught up in the easy money frenzy and were among the most seriously injured. Fortunately, I had been too timid to join them, and I cautiously gave them loans which were secured by their real estate. When they were not able to repay the loans, I became the sole owner of a number of attractive apartment houses on Ocean Avenue, just across the street from Prospect Park. I was now in the uncomfortable position of having benefited from another’s grief.

  As an immigrant, I had always looked up to the real estate developers with whom I had invested, and when they became involved in the soaring stock market, I was painfully ambivalent. On the one hand, I wanted to participate in their investments, and to be part of the “American Dream,” and on the other, I still had the poor immigrant’s fear of losing. I chose to be “safe, rather than sorry,” and I justified my position by pointing with pride to my role in growing Rose’s business.

  “We didn’t have the proverbial pot,” I liked to say, “but we were tough, and we did whatever was necessary to survive. And with hard work and cautious investment, we survived just fine. I never borrowed a penny,” I told them, “never in my life. Not when my mother and I were struggling, not when Rose and I were building her business, and not even when we bought and furnished our house, and I’m not about to start now. I can go anywhere with my head held high,” I liked to say, “because I don’t owe anybody anything.”

  As The Depression deepened, Rose and I continued our life in our beautiful house in Borough Park, and although my term as vice president of the synagogue had expired, I remained one of its primary financial and moral supporters. My studies of ancient Jewish texts now occupied most of my day, and I increasingly enjoyed the seclusion of becoming a scholar.

  Rose, who was much more social than I, had become active in Zionist causes and spent a large portion of her time at meetings in New York City. She was enthusiastically involved in the development of the Mizrachi Women’s Organization, which was a women’s organization that was especially devoted to the needs of religiously observant Jewish girls in Palestine. They were working on the creation of the first vocational high school for girls in Palestine, which was opened in Jerusalem in 1933. Rose’s generosity and business experience were important factors in its development.

  I had invested the proceeds from the sale of Rose’s store wisely and conservatively, and while others had made and eventually lost fortunes speculating in the stock market, I had continued to upgrade our properties, which were now considered prime locations. I had installed every modern convenience as soon as it became available, and my buildings
were now especially attractive to the former “millionaires” who had fallen on hard times and were now grateful to have an affordable and attractive place to live.

  Ruthie was living in a beautiful part of New York and was supporting herself. Bentzy, our grandson, who was now a toddler and our great joy; he was walking and talking and said he that he loved us very much.

  Chapter 25

  It was almost embarrassing to be living comfortably in such terrible times. I had my nice clothes, and my jewelry, and my mink coat, and we still had a maid although we no longer had a chauffeur. We remained the same as we had been, but the world around us had changed.

  It happened so fast. There was the stock market crash—that was the big news. But for a few weeks, or even months afterward, although the newspapers were filled with reports of impending doom, nothing seemed to have happened. And then, slowly at first, and then with gathering speed, the economy started to go downhill. Within a matter of months after the crash, businesses and banks across the country tumbled into bankruptcy and closed their doors, and unemployment soared. In New York, and all across America, formerly employed workers now wandered the streets looking for day jobs and begging for handouts. Farmers abandoned their farms and migrated to the cities hoping for hourly employment in the factories. But there were very few jobs and too many applicants. Families were shattered as husbands could no longer provide for their families and fathers could no longer feed their children. Many of these men were veterans of the First World War who had married and entered the labor force during the great boom decade of the 1920s. These veterans, who were now in their thirties with young families, had never experienced difficulty finding work, until the Great Depression.

  From all over the country, from all walks of life, families who had lost their jobs and their homes, migrated to the cities. Out of necessity, they joined together to establish cooperative communities which they called Hoovervilles in repudiation of President Herbert Hoover, who had, for the most part, stood by submissively and watched his country descend into abject poverty and depression. These rapidly growing ramshackle communities, which were located on the outskirts of major cities, were filled with despair and desperation.