8-30-05, 2:45 pm

The US entered World War II, and Hoke Inc. (a company on Eagle Avenue in the Bronx where I was employed as a machinist, manufacturing small torches for use in the jewelry industry), changed its production to flamethrowers. Flamethrowers shot a gasoline mixture more than one hundred feet and then ignited it, burning everything it doused. It was a horrible weapon, but its justification was that this was a war against fascism.

Hoke grew rapidly to more than one hundred employees, who were represented by the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America—better known as UE of the CIO. I was chief steward of this union, which had in its constitution the rule that no official could earn more than the highest paid employee. The union meetings were very democratic and all were encouraged to voice their opinions. Members helped each other to improve educational and technical skills. Wages were frozen (as were prices), so the main job of the union was to represent the workers in their grievances against the company. It was the most democratic union I’ve ever belonged to, and I’ve belonged to many—the Musicians Local 802, IBEW, IUE, and the Carpenters Union in Tucson. Many called UE a communist union, but it really wasn’t.

Most of the employees were gung-ho and worked feverishly to produce as much as possible with as few rejects as possible. The three shifts vied with each other as to which could produce the most. The few who resisted this point of view were pressured by their peers to go along. I worked as a supervisor, with the union’s agreement, on the third shift as well as a toolmaker on the first shift. This was a war against Fascism, the merging of state and business in dictatorial rule, capitalism’s last endeavor.

With the successful end of the war, I was exhausted and ready to do anything else. My wife had a sister with a son who had just had an asthma attack, and the family decided to move to Tucson, Arizona. I was to be the scout and get a job there and also find living quarters for the family. We had been married about a year and a half. I was 26.

My mother requested that I say goodbye to my uncle before I left. My uncle was my mother’s only brother, a dentist who was very nice to us. He once took our family to a restaurant in Manhattan – the first and only one I ever went to before the age of sixteen. I was only about seven, but I still remember Child’s Spanish Garden decorated with many palm trees and a marimba band with its members dressed in south sea island costumes playing beautiful music. Once he also drove us to Coney Island in his automobile where we had a wonderful experience. My uncle treated my mother’s teeth gratis, as well as seeing me a few times in his office on Third Ave. He was a good guy.

I went to his office and said goodbye. I’m sure my mother primed him because he presented me with a check for a thousand dollars and wished me good luck in Arizona.

I thanked him profusely and told him I’d repay it when I could. He walked me to the subway station on the sunny side of the street, and I again thanked him and said I considered it a loan. He said, “I’m very successful and if someone were to approach me and give me $5,000 to cross the street and walk in the shade, I’d refuse. Don’t worry about the $1,000.” I thanked him again and told him I nevertheless considered it a loan.

Traveling to Tucson on American Airlines in a twin propeller engine plane, taking sixteen hours and fourteen stops, was a wonderful experience never to be forgotten. I was met by a comrade going to the University of Arizona and was temporarily boarded in a dormitory off campus.

I showed up at Austad Inc. as a result of having gotten a job offer through the mail. I thought it was a machine shop but it turned out to be a boiler factory. It had one lathe, one drill press, and one shaper. I was put to work to repair the lathe; although I had never done millwright work before, I had seen it done at Hoke and proceeded to repair the machine. Toward the end of my first day on the job, a man dressed in western clothing came up to me. He had a large police dog held close to his right side, and he kept hitting his left leg with a short whip in his left hand. He walked toward me, said, “I’m Mr. Austad,” looked me over from head to toe and back to head, spit on the ground said, “ you went twice,” then walked away. I soon figured out that what I had done wrong was go to the John twice.

Austad was a cruel man who had his thirty workers working outdoors with a chain link fence around the compound, a shed covering the equipment, an enclosed office and a small toilet in the center of the yard. He directed the welders to work on the exterior of these large gasoline tanks to be buried at gasoline stations. Through the top hole in these 10 to 12 feet high tanks they would lower a welder with a small air hose whose job it was to weld the plates on the inside of the tank. While the man was inside the welders on the outside were directed to knock the slag off the welds making very loud banging noises. The man inside was pulled out after an hour or so and was disoriented, staggered around, vomited on the floor, and when revived, quit. After one month I was the only one left of the original thirty. New recruits were plentiful, and he hired and fired at will. He directed two of us to move a large I-beam to another location. My buddy picked up his end, I tried to lift my end. It would not budge and since I failed at doing what he asked, Austad said, “You, git.” So much for Austad. May he rot in hell.

Jobs were scarce in 1946 Tucson, so I was fortunate to get a job at Standard Stations, essentially cleaning the toilets every hour on the hour and doing my share of vomiting each day. After a few months I joined with two other employees in an effort to purchase a Phillips 66 Station across the street. We worked the station for a few weeks and decided to purchase it, but the seller said he would not sell to a Jew.

Tucson, a small city of 35,000, was very bigoted and racially intolerant. It had signs in all eating establishments stating in bold letters, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” Black people and Native Americans were not permitted to enter. The local movie theater allowed Black people to sit exclusively in the balcony. Black children living a few blocks from a neighborhood school were bused 20 miles to Dunbar, a segregated school. Native Americans were jailed for just being alive. My wife and I and our comrades spent much time distributing leaflets, picketing and speaking up at the City Council meetings. She spent weeks in front of the unemployment office, where she solicited signatures on petitions to increase Unemployment Insurance in Arizona from $13 a week for 13 weeks to what New York had, $26 weekly for 26 weeks. We were met with much opposition and harassment from the police and FBI. Tucson was a tough place to make a living. About 35 of us, organized and politically active and dedicated did our best to protest conditions. We were all good friends, helped each other, actually like family. When my wife and son and I were very hungry, we went to Claire and Lou and always received spaghetti, banana cake, and love. To this day, I think of Claire and Lou every time I eat spaghetti.

We were in our small trailer set-up in the trailer park with toilet and showers in the center of the park. Our son had the bedroom and we slept in the eating area on two small couches which became a four foot wide bed at night. Before moving into the trailer, we had our furniture sold at an auction. Things we bought for over a $100 sold for $8. Never attend an auction of your possessions lest you are cursed with the memory for the rest of your life.

One day we received a letter from my aunt, my uncle’s second wife. He had died and she found an entry in his checking account showing his $1,000 check to me. She assumed that it was a loan and requested that I please return it. I replied that I was in no position to do so but would as soon as I could. More lawyer letters followed.

By 1950, we could not continue to struggle in Tucson knowing I could get work in New York. We left Tucson with all our belongings packed in our Hudson, wife, son and I as well as our dog Spotty, and a friend’s child, for whom we were given $50 to deliver to a relative in New York. We were unhappy to leave but there was no alternative. We were welcomed with open arms by my wife’s sister and our brother-in-law, to live with them rent-free in their three-room apartment in the Bronx until we were able to afford our own apartment. It took us nine months.

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law were both teachers. He was also a vice president of the Teachers’ Union, very active and included in his activity the tutoring of several Black children each year in an effort to get them into New York’s better high schools, such as the Bronx High School of Science. He was very successful in his efforts and we couldn’t go anywhere Without someone coming over and thanking him. He was later fired from the New York school system for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. This was later overturned in the courts and he received back pay but no return to his teaching position. She was also very active and drew praise from many parents of her pupils and the other teachers in her school. They were both loving and giving and treated us with kindness and understanding. Real family.

By that time Senator Joseph McCarthy was riding high and spreading fear throughout the country. I visited my old union, UE, which had been thrown out of the CIO for being communist-led, along with other progressive unions like Mine Mill and Smelters. Many UE shops had been raided and now had IUE and IBEW unions representing them. The CIO was trying to be more super-patriotic than McCarthy. The UE representative I spoke to asked me to try to get a job at American Cystoscope Manufacturers Inc.(ACMI) located in the Bronx with about 500 employees. They recently voted UE out and IBEW in. I applied and was hired as a toolmaker in a 12 -man department where German was the prevailing language. ACMI was composed of approximately 450 German-Americans, 49 Italian-Americans and now one Jew.

Every morning as I walked by hundreds of workers on my way to my department, I turned left and right and said, “Good Morning.” Although I initially got no replies, this changed after a couple of months because at the monthly union meetings I stood and spoke everyone’s shared thoughts for all to hear. The union meetings were held in a long hall with two large members of the Anastasia mob at the front and three each at each side of the hall. They stood while everyone else was seated. The meeting was scripted and practically none of the members ever spoke. I rose at every meeting and pointed out the constantly increasing prices of food and other necessities while our wages remained constant. At the end of each meeting one of the goons would come up to me and tell me, “ you talk too much.” When elections came for the negotiating committee, I was elected chairman of the committee. We demanded a $.25 an hour raise, management offered only $.05. I spoke for a strike and the vote was overwhelming in favor.

We walked the picket line in the cold and rain, while the special police harassed and bullied us. The union rented a hall nearby for the picketers to warm up and meet. My wife went from store to store asking for and receiving food for the strikers, who were getting no help from the union. The IBEW would daily discourage us and call for an end to the strike.

After several weeks, I received a summons to attend a pretrial meeting at the county court house with the attorney for my aunt in the case of my debt of $1,000. I took off from the picket line and went to the courthouse where I was greeted by her attorney with, “Take off your watch and ring, I am entitled to accept them in partial payment of your debt to your aunt. ”I took off my Timex and gold wedding ring and placed them on the table between us. He said “What’s wrong with you, why are you doing this? Do you realize your boss will fire you as soon as the strike is over? I spoke to your union and their enforcers will wring you out before they are through with you. The FBI has had a flyer printed about your past communist activities and it is being distributed now to the strikers. Why are you doing this?”

I answered simply, “We are on strike for higher wages and better working conditions and benefits.” He told me to take my watch and ring, patted me on the back and extended his hand which I accepted. He said, “Good luck and you had better be careful.” And we parted.

I returned to the rented union hall and was told that ACMI management called a meeting. They had an offer to make. The workers were filing out of the hall when two of the goons pulled me to an alcove, threw me against the wall and punched me in the stomach. I, however got even by throwing up on one of them who wanted to kill me but was restrained by the other with, “We were only instructed to keep him from the meeting.” The next day the strike was over, the workers agreed to a $.05 an hour raise and no increase in benefits. I was fired. As I gathered my tools an older toolmaker pulled me to the side and told me , “Karl, when you’re leading a parade, it’s important to look behind you.”

In a few days, I received a summons to appear in a Queens courthouse to answer charges of not meeting my obligations in the matter of the $1,000 I owed. Called to the witness stand, I was asked by my aunt’s attorney if I owed the $1,000 . I tried to explain the circumstances of receiving the money and said that I did consider it a loan. Upon hearing those words the Judge ordered me to repay the loan and closed the case.

My sister, whom I felt knew everyone, had a lawyer friend, and asked him to submit papers of bankruptcy for me, which he did.

I never repaid the $1,000.