Page 202 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Regrets and reminiscences

I have enjoyed two months of idleness, collecting Social Security,
twenty-five dollars a week—which is a good sum of money for a man
like me, who lives frugally and does not overeat or overdrink. But can
one talk of enjoying oneself without a fellow man’s presence? Can
one enjoy a nice scene or fine music without discussing it with
someone? The lonesomeness and ennui almost unbalanced my mind.
I kept telephoning the foreman of the place where I worked before,
asking him every second day if he had work for me, and he dragged
me on until at last he told me to come and he will find something for
me to do. Yes, it was a mental relief for me, but oh, what a job he
gave me: a job that is racking my muscles and every bone in my body,
a job that is hard even for a person much younger than I am. Lifting
and heaving bundles of paper, pushing the six hundred pound cart
into the baler and pulling it out, rolling four hundred pounds of
paper on a hand truck across the yard and stacking them up, takes
every ounce of energy out of my body.
Why do I write this down? To remind you who will someday read
these words to live economically when young, to save every cent that
can be spared for the future and your old age, so you will not be
compelled to work so hard after seventy years of age. Had my wife
lived, she certainly would not have let me go to work and risk my
health on a job like this; but, being alone and dejected, a fellow
becomes fatalistic and does not value his life much. Elections are
coming up in a few weeks, and of course, being a working man and
seeing working people and understanding what labor means, I will
vote for those who are friends of labor. It is a pity that the men who
work so hard with their bodies and produce the wealth of the nation
are kept in ignorance; do not know the value of their vote or who is
for them and who exploits them.
At last I made a change, left my old job and took a job with
Fannie’s cousin Sam Leventhal, in his upholstery factory. After two
weeks there I am not satisfied. It is not a hard job, but beside the
physical exertion—which comes with any work—there is also mental
strain. Not mathematical problems or such intricate machinery that
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