U.S. History – Mr. DeNardo
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“A Salesman Goes On Relief” - Human Impacts of the Crash Summary & Commentary
Ben Isaacs was a door-to-door clothing salesman when the Great Depression hit. These are some of his memories of the period.I was in business for myself, selling clothing on credit, house to house. And collecting by the week. Up to that time, people were buying very good and paying very good. But they start to speculate, and I felt it. My business was dropping from the beginning of 1928. They were mostly middle class people. They weren’t too rich and they weren’t too poor.
All of a sudden, in the afternoon, October, 1929… I was going on my business and I heard the newspaper boys calling, running all around the streets and giving news and news: stock market crashed. It came out just like lightening….
We lost everything. [Until that] time I would collect four, five hundred dollars a week. After that, I couldn’t collect fifteen, ten dollars a week. I was going around trying to collect enough money to keep my family going. It was impossible. Very few people could pay you. Maybe a dollar if they would feel sorry for you or what.
We tried to struggle along living day by day. Then I couldn’t pay the rent. I had a little car, but I couldn’t pay no license for it. I left it parked against the court. I sold it for $15 in order to buy some food for the family. I had three little children. It was a time when I didn’t even have enough money to buy a pack of cigarettes, and I was a smoker. I didn’t have a nickel in my pocket.
Finally people started to talk me into going into the relief. They had opened soup kitchens. Al Capone, he had opened soup kitchens somewhere downtown, where people were standing in line. And you had to go two blocks, stand there, around the corner, to get a bowl of soup.
A lot of people committed suicide, pushed themselves out of buildings and killed themselves, ‘cause they couldn’t face the disgrace. Finally, the same thing with me.
I was so downcast that I couldn’t think of anything. Where can I go? What to face? Age that I can’t get no job. I have no trade, except selling is my trade, that’s all. I went around trying to find a job as a salesman. They wouldn’t hire me on account of my age. I was just like dried up. Every door was closed on me, every avenue. Even when I was putting my hand on gold, it would turn into dust. It looked like bad luck had set its hand on my shoulder. Whatever I tried, I would fail. Even my money.
I had two hundred dollar in my pocket. I was going to buy a taxi. You had to have your own car to drive a taxi, those days. The man said: you have to buy your car from us. Checker Cab Company. So I took the two hundred dollar to the office, to make a down payment on the taxi. I took the money out- he said the kinda car we haven’t got, maybe next week. So I left the office, I don’t know what happened. The two hundred dollar went away, just like that. I called back: Did you find any money on the table? He said no, no money.
Things were going so bad with me, I couldn’t think straight. Ordinarily, I won’t lose any money. But that time, I was worrying about my family, about this and that. I was walking the street just like the easy person, but I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.
I didn’t want to go on relief. Believe me, when I was forced to go to the office of the relief, the tears were running out of my eyes. I couldn’t bear myself to take money from anybody for nothing. If it wasn’t for those kids – I tell you the truth – many a time it came to my mind to go commit suicide. Than go ask for relief. But somebody has to take care of those kids…
I went to the relief and they, after a lotta red tape and investigation, they gave me $45 a month. Out of that $45 we had to pay rent; we had to buy food and clothing for the children. So how long can that $45 go? I was paying $30 on the rent. I went and find another cheaper flat, stove heat, for $15 a month. I’m telling you, today a dog wouldn’t live in that type of a place. Such a dirty, filthy, dark place.
I couldn’t buy maybe once a week a couple of pounds of meat that was for Saturday. The rest of the days, we had to live on a half a pound of baloney. It was cold for the kids, too unhealthy. I found a six-room apartment for $25 a month. There was supposed to be steam heat and hot water. Right after we move in there, they couldn’t find no hot water. It wasn’t warm enough for anybody to take a bath. We had to heat water on the stove. Maybe the landlord was having trouble with the boiler. But it was nothing like that. The landlord had abandoned the building. About two months later, all of a sudden – no water. The city closed it for the non-payment of the water bill.
My wife used to carry two pails of water from the next-door neighbors and bring it up for us to wash the kids and to flush the toilet with it, and then wash our hands and face with it, or make tea or something, with that two pails of water. We lived without water for almost two months.
Wherever I went to get a job, I couldn’t get no job. I went around selling razor blades and shoe laces. There was a day I would go over all the streets and come home with fifty cents, making a sale. That kept going until 1940, practically. 1939 the war started. Things start to get a little better. My wife found a job in a restaurant for $20 a week. Right away, I sent a letter to the relief people: I don’t think I would need their help any more. I was disgusted with relief, so ashamed. I couldn’t face it any more.
My next-door neighbor found me a job in the factory where he was working. That time I was around fifty. They man said, “We can’t use you.” They wouldn’t hire nobody over forty-five. Two weeks later, this same man said, “Go tell Bill (the name of the foreman) I sent you. He’ll hire you,: They hire me. They give me sixty cents an hour. Twenty-year-old boys, they were paying seventy, seventy-five cents an hour. They were short of hands, that’s why they hired me…but in those days, we were all on relief and they were going around selling razor blades and shoe laces.