Page 87 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

A job in Warsaw

In the old country, when a boy is to learn a trade, primarily as a
tailor, a shoemaker or cabinetmaker, he must work four years as an
apprentice to a master of that trade and then start at a low wage. In
the United States, where mass production is on assembly lines, any
boy can start working in a factory on a certain part of the process and
earn as much as a grown-up person. In contrast, it is a hard and
degrading thing to work four years for a man, eat and sleep in his
house, sweep and wash the floors, do menial labor, and learn very
slowly his trade. My mother would have considered it a disgrace to
the family for me to become an apprentice to a tailor or a shoemaker.
My father had many acquaintances in Warsaw who were in
business or professions and could use an errand boy or clerk in their
office or store. He found a man who had a practice as a sort of
collector or auctioneer, making foreclosures on mortgages, mostly
chattel mortgages. Since I lived in Pelcovizna and my patron lived in
Warsaw, and I had to be at his house early in the morning, it was
necessary to lodge with him. I do not remember the man’s name, but
he was a fine-looking fellow and very nice to me. He lived in three
rooms: a bedroom for him and his small family, a kitchen, and a
dining room which contained his whole office. I did not receive any
salary while I was an apprentice learning to do things, apart from
room and board.
There had been a boom in Warsaw in the building trade. The
world is the same everywhere, and as a rule after a boom comes a
boomerang, giving impetus to collectors to do a lot of business. My
work in this place was of importance, since I had to visit the various
district courts in the city, handing the judge the applications for
attaching properties of people who had defaulted on promissory
notes. The collector brought suit against them for the money, and at
the same time sought immediately to attach anything that could be
found at the debtor’s store or home. I spoke Polish like one of those
immigrants who lands on Ellis Island speaks English, but I always
had the papers ready. I handed them to the court clerk with an

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