Preprint, Where I Stand: The Record of a Reckless Man, by Hank Greenspun with Alex Pelle, 1966

? W here I Stand THE RECORD OF A RECKLESS MAN by HANK GREENSPUN with ALEX PELLE DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC. New York ? ? WHERE I STAND C o p y r i g h t (c) 1966 b y H a n k G r e e Ns p u n All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce-this book,-or parts .'thereof* in-, any -form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. ? Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-24423 MANUFACTURED IN TH E . UNITED STATES OF AMERICA VAN REES PRESS ? N EW YORK ? ? For my wife Barbara, who stood with me through the/most difficult times And to Edward V. Morgan of Washington, D.C., great advocate and loyal friend n Preface Voltaire once wrote that injustice can flourish in the world only as long as there are men who can hear of it, have their supper, and go to bed. Hank Greenspun, crusading editor-publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, is not that kind of man. ?He is an editor-publisher of a type popularly supposed to have gone out with derringer pistols and the Gold Rush,?' commented A. J. Liebling, writing for the New Yorker. Lucius Beebe?s prose gave off the gunsmoke aroma when he wrote a story on Hank Greenspun entitled ?In the Best Fron?tier Tradition.? Beebe described how ?Greenspun unhorsed Nevada?s snorting senior senator, the magnificent Pat Mc- Carran, turned in a crooked sheriff, exposed as vicious a group of thieves and rancid officeholders as ever existed since the days of William Marcy Tweed and probably saved gambling as a Nevada institution .. Beebe , summed up, ?. . . if Pulitzer awards were made for real old-time newspaper achievement (let us retch slightly at the word journalism) instead of concerning their prizes with the cloud-cuckoo land of international affairs, Hank Greenspun and his Las Vegas Sun would have prizes to throw at the birds.? An almost legendary figure, he has been at the center of. endless controversy. ?His friends say he?s a fearless enemy of corruption,? True magazine reported in August of 1960 under the title Hank Greenspun: Gut-Fighting Newsman. ?His enemies call him a power-hungry tin god. But all agree that this former combat officer, undercover agent and gunrunner is one of the last of America?s fighting editors.? This is his story. Although a writer, he has long refused to write it himself. For Hank Greenspun doesn?t consyier anything he has done during the fifty-odd years of his life to be either heroic, courageous or righteous. He woflld probably say, ?Well, some?body had to do it.? At most^ie might express it in the classic U.S. Army phrase, ?The buck stops here.? It was?and still is?a/life filled with excitement, adventure, and risk. In his willingness to act, to take responsibility, to nut it oh the line, heGias not only dared to battle against Las um elements, but he has taken on an; high places: the despotic ?EmDerorlof McCarran; the venom-spei n- ; and the most dangerous] Demagogue ; witch-hunting Senator Joe(McCarthy. He fought those battles, and others, as an American deeply dedicated to the democratic principles that keep our nation alive./As a Jew, he joined in the epic struggle to keep the new S ta t/ of Israel from dying. Menaced by seven implacable foes?Egypt, Trans-Jordan, 'V^emen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia?the infant homeland of the world?s homeless Jews seemed destined to perish even before it came to birth on May 15, 1948. Under attack by Arab tanks, planes, and heavy guns, the men and women of Israel?s volunteer army, the Haganah, gamely fought back. They had only a few antiquated weapons; sometimes, to vu Vili X It give the impression of heavier fire, those who went unarmed used sticks to beat on empty tin cans. So that his desperate fellow-Jews might fight with something more effective than tin cans, Hank Greenspun embarked on an incredible odyssey, plundering a naval depot in Hawaii, seizing a private yacht at gunpoint near Wilmington, California, and posing' in Mexico as a confidential agent of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek?s government. A single driving purpose generated over the span of seven months all those seemingly unrelated events: to fill the holds of a ship?the Kejalos, berthed at Tampico Bay?with six thousand tons of contraband rifles, machine guns, howitzers, cannons, and ammunition, destined for the port of Haifa and Israel?s beleaguered Jews. In so doing, Hank Greenspun had violated the United States? Neutrality Act, the Export Control Eaw, and Presidential Proc?lamation 2776. Twice, during th e /e x t two years, he would be tried in a federal court. At the/close of the second trial, he would be convicted and strippedof his civil rights. From then on, many would/seek to hold him up to public shame as an ?ex-convict,? s/me of them hinting like West?brook Pegler that Hank GiZenspun had looked for financial Profit in the Jews? historiy struggle. None of them paused to notice the statement made/by Shimon Peres, Director General of Israel?s Ministry of Defense: ?The State of Israel owes a great debt to Greenspun/whose courage, imagination, and self-sacrifice rendered a considerable and honored service to the war of liberation at a/most needed period and most difficult front.? Premier David BerfGurion put it more simply. He acclaimed Hank Greenspun as /?a man who rendered noble service to the State of Israel during the war of liberation.? On October 18, 1961, eleven years after Hank Greenspun?s conviction, President John F. Kennedy showed his own recogni?tion by granting the fighting editor a full and unconditional pardon. A year later, Hank Greenspun ran for Governor of Nevada. Today/in his Sun column, he continues a lifelong war against injustice, prejudice, inertia, and deceit, striking out wherever he finds them. His pen is always at the disposal of the weak, the victimized, the unfortunate?in short, the/underdog. IX Stand. / / A l e x P e l l e I . AS V eg a s,..N e vada- M a y , 1966 x (?C ? ? C ontents StA? s,u n Author?s Note 1. The Early Rough-and-Tumble 2. Of Lawyers and Law 3. Up from the Ranks 4. A Battlefield and a Temple 5. Life Among the Lamisters' 6. Next Year in Jerusalem 7. Aloha and Shalom Aleichem 8. The Mutiny on the Idialia 9. Meet the Chinese Colonel 10. From Chapultepee Park to Tampico Bay LI. The Wake of the Kefalos L2. The SUN also Rises L3. Duel in the SUN .4. Of Senators, Brazen and Silver .5. ?Is Senator McCarthy a Secret G6mmunist?? .6. ?In Las Vegas, Everyone Reads the SUN? .7. On Trial: The United States Constitution .8. Out of the. Frying Pan l/ito the Fire Epilogue xi 000- 000- 000- 000--" ^0 0 0 ? ? Author s Note v v k o Nobody has ever accused me of being shy or humble. Yet, this telling of my life story compels at least a pang of humility. I know something of what J. M. Barrie meant when he wrote: ?The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he hoped to make it.? _ This is my story as/it actually happened. I am, necessarily, at the center of it, With all the grammatical selfishness of th e . first-person pronovm. I make no apologies for it. Given the same circumstances, I would probably have done most of what I did, said most of what I said, all over again. Yet, I think I would have liked to tell another story, in a world where there was no Depression, no war, no Nazi terror, no vicious persecu?tion of those were-were different or weaker, no demagogues, no corruption, no venality. But that was not the world into which I was aom, and I suppose, as I reflect on it, a large part of what 1 have done and said, has been a kind of automatic re?sponse to what I have felt was the assault on human dignity ang freedom. The humility comes when I consider that I could have done (ore, and might have done it more effectively. That much I xiii C 42 earn ewfy day as a newspaperman. It is the-nature of my business to respond to causes. Even if I do not seek them, they seek me out. And I am compelled to take a stand. With .each stand, there are other commitments that follow. Perhaps the deepest humility comes when I recognize the measure of assistance and loyalty which I have had in my lifetime. For it is easy to drift into the assumption that a man has stood alone against injustice and wrong. The most en?couraging thing about life is that there is always someone willing to stand at your side. Most consistently there has been and is my wife, Barbara, and my children. They are family and this is to be expected, but the degree of support and as?sistance they have provided has gone beyond the call of all familial! obligations. There are others and many of them are named in this book. Edward P. Morgan of Washington, D.C., chose to stand with me at a time when it was unpopular to be associated with me, and in doing so he risked serious damage to his career. Ruthe tleskin, my able assistant at the Las Vegas Sun, did much of the research and compilation for this book. Ed Reid and Martin Dibner contributed their special talents.. Then there are the people of the Sun whose/skill and initiative give the paper its identity. And, I should acknowledge the work of Alexandra Pelle whose skill ^nd patience brought this book to compl?te fruition. Finally, I must place in/perspective my activities in behalf of the State of Israel. In this endeavor I was only one of count?less thousands who contributed their time, their energies, and some, their very lives( so that a harassed and driven people could once more have a nation of their own. In the following/pages I tell my'part. And I wish to stress that whatever it Xvas, it was minimal compared to the valiant efforts of Al Sonwimmer and the group of young Americans associated witja him. Their role, touched on only insofar as it is connected wjth mine, is a story far greater than I could pos-xiv sibly indicate h?re. Their courage in flying/equipment and arms to thelsraelis, under the most difficult and perilous con?ditions, matched the heroism of the Israelis on the firing line. I tell my story. It is up to Schwinimer to record the full measure of the sacrifice and even th^r deaths that were the fate of many Americans who volunteered in that epic struggle. H a n k G re?e n s p u n L as V e g a s , N eva da A u g u s t i, 1966 > y i XV 1?WHERE I STAND (5804) Joel Cohen June a 11 .0. S. 7 24x13 -No.11 1 The Early Rough-and-Tumble ?h e n I was a boy in New Haven, Connecticut, during the first World War, my family lived in the Negro section of town and I attended the predominantly eolored Ivy Street School. Every day, before classes started, the pupils were obliged to sing a solemn religious hymn. I remember it well.; ??Onward, Jewish so-o-ldiers, Marching as to war, With the Shield of Da-a-vid Going on before!? At least those were the words the Jewish kids sang. The Gentiles had a spurious version of their own. After classes, we staged our schoolyard fights without benefit of music, yelling ?nigger? and ?kike? with brainless abandon while we pummeled, kicked, and bit. As a sawed-off runt of a kid, I wasn?t a star performer for the Jewish cause: I fought, lost, and usually retreated with the Negro boys chasing after me. Sometimes the running battle carried us past the windows of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. It was here that my father, Samuel Joshua Greenspun?a diminutive, almost saintly Talmudic scholar with an insatiable passion for learning? tooled wooden riflestocks to produce weapons of war. Winches?ter paid him nine dollars a week for performing this, the |irst and only manual labor of his life, but money wasn?t his motive. Having decided that prayer alone wasn?t going to win the war, he was working at the arms-plant as a patriotic gesture toward his adopted country. Pop was profoundly disturbed to see the young of two sub?merged minorities, Negroes and Jews, repeating the follies of an ancient cycle. ?The anger of the tormented,? he would explain to fellow workers, ?is sometimes expressed in tormenting others?? ?Kill ?em, white boy!? they yelled, rushing away from his words to hang out the factory windows, cheering. That was all I needed. Infuriated, the Negro kids redoubled their efforts, chasing me all the way to the front door of my house, an old frame building with chicken coops and an out?house in the back yard. I usually went through the doorway walking backwards, flailing out with arms and legs like an upended beetle. Once inside, I joined forces with older sisters Millie and Alice, younger brother Dave, or Aunt Betty, who lived with us until she got married and started a family of her own. My dark-haired, vivacious, and often volcanic mother, Anna Bella Greenspun, was usually busy at her establishment next door. It was supposed to be a grocery, but ?Momma Annie? also sold furniture, coal, insurance, and secondhand books. When Prohibition came, she even tried her hand at bootleg liquor, without my father?s knowledge. Installing a gallon jug under the counter, she sold its contents at fifteen cents a shot. At midnight, after her first day of peddling hooch, I was roused from sleep by a tremendous banging at the grocery?s front door. ?I gotta get a shot!? screamed a lusty female voice. ?I gotta get a shot!? Mom rushed outside. I followed. We found ?Fat Ethel,? the huge prostitute who lived across the street, still pounding away at the grocery door. Hoping to quiet the shrieking woman, Mom took her inside and gave her two quick shots. ?I feel so good I could make love all nighth? Fat Ethel? shouted. ?And for free!? ?Go love in your own house,? Mom implored. ?What is going on here?? a stern voice demanded from the doorway. It was my father, glowering like an indignant, pint-sized prophet. Deeply shocked by his wife?s disregard for the law, Pop actually threatened to tell the Prohibition agents unless she immediately abandoned her new career. Thus, my mother?s challenge to the Capone dynasty?s sway began and ended with a single jug. She soon found a new sideline, selling encyclope?dias. They were l?gal but far less popular. Most of the grocery?s profits went to establish and maintain a series of ?Art Picture and Framing Shops? which my father ran?and ran down?in a quixotic, highly uncommercial fash?ion. He dabbled away, passing the time with his cronies or poring over the Talmud, selling a picture or two every other day. To my mother?s scandalized horror, he often refused to sell, turning away customers who showed by their disrespectful remarks that they merely w?nted to cover a hole in the wall. Sometimes he even gave pictures away to ?sincere but im?poverished lovers of art.? It was. a noble, stand. As a natural consequence, the Art 2?WHERE I STAND (5804) 11 O. S. 7 24x13 Joel Cohen June -No. 11 Picture and Framing Shops invariably failed. Responding to .Ijhe successive financial -blows, my mother supplemented her grocery receipts by sitting up half the night to stitch vests for -tailors. She was the driving force in the family and always had been, even at age fifteen when she met and married my father in London. He was seventeen at the time but already on his own, an itinerant peddler selling notions and jewelry while he strove to gather knowledge. His parents, like her own, had fled the endless pogroms of Russian-dominated Poland, traveling across Europe and finally reaching England. There my grandfather, Aaron Isaac Greenspun, had settled down as cantor for the Limehouse synagogue in London. _____ - Pop peddled his way through England and Wales, where my sister Millie was born in Swansea. Then, looking for wider horizons, he took his growing family to Canada, where Alice was born in Montreal. Meanwhile, grandfather was on the move again, crossing the Atlantic to settle on a small farm in Marlboro, Massachusetts, where he served the Jewish com?munity as a Shohet?a person officially licensed by rabbinic authority as slaughterer of animals for use as food in ac?cordance with Jewish laws. Hearing his father?s glowing reports of life in these United States, Pop decided to see for himself. So, gathering up the family, he wandered southward until he reached the corner of Flatbush and Nostrand Avenues in New York?s Borough of Brooklyn, at that time largely farmland. There, on August 27, 1909, I was born and given the name Herman Milton Green-spun. No one ever used it, not until six years later when I was first registered in school. Then it came as a shock: I had al?ways thought my name was ?Hymela.? Before long, Pop established one of his least successful Art Picture and Framing Shops, failing to rouse any deep aesthetic appreciation among the local paisanos. They were too busy growing broccoli and tomatoes. The business staggered along for four lean years; then, as a new baby arrived?my brother, Dave?Pop gave up on it, moving to New Haven, Connecticut, one state closer to his father?s farm. Grandfather Greenspun responded by driving down from Marlboro in his battered Chevy, converted into a flatbed truck, with a load of chicken-coops on top. From that point on, we were at least sure of fresh eggs. Whenever my family visited the Massachusetts farm, I liked to curl up in grandfather?s bed, listening to his stories. There was a large portrait hanging over the bed. He often spoke of its subject: a dreamer obsessed with the grand idea of gathering the world?s persecuted Jews into a country and nation of their own. I knew every wrinkle on the painted face of Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, before I could even identify a picture of George Washington. Growing up with the Greenspuns was an exhausting adven?ture. My mother, sisters, and I had to earn money at fever pitch to support Pop?s sporadic Connecticut versions of the Art Picture and Framing Shops. Millie worked at the Public Library; Alice sat with Mom in the evenings, stitching vests; and I delivered their work to the tailors, roller-skating from shop to shop. I Went into business for myself at the age of eight, selling papers at the corner of Church and Chapel Streets. Then, deciding to expand, I started a paper route. After seven days I ran into trouble: everyone read the paper, but at the end of the week when I came around to collect, nobody wanted to pay the newsboy. They wouldn?t even answer the door. I came home dejected, making lame excuses. Pop sympa?thized, quoting the ancient sages, but Mom took a firm stand: ?You know they?re in there?so go and collect!? In our house, her orders were law. I went. The front doors were still locked, but putting an ear to their panels, I detected furtive sounds of life on the other side. I hesitated; then, remembering the tone of my mother?s voice, I trotted around to the backs of the houses and climbed in through the windows, surprising many shamefaced customers who were still listening at the front door. Most of them paid without further protest. Once, as I climbed through a back window, an angry client saluted me with some foul anti-Semitic abuse. I ran to the grocery and told my mother. ?You let him insult you?? she cried. ?And you didn?t even insult him back? What?s the matter with you??! She was right and I knew it. On various occasions, I had seen her defend the family honor with a teapot, a rolling pin, or a rock. ?When you let people walk over you,?|lshe used to say, ?you might as well be dead.? Eyes blazing, she led me back to the anti-Semite?s house and banged on the front door. It opened abruptly and we were both deluged with a pitcherful of hot water. I recoiled, but the sudden shower didn?t stop my mother. She sprang forward at the astonished man, slapping and clawing. Gathering courage I joined in, kicking at his shins. In the end, he not only paid for his newspapers but apologized. I doubt that he was sincere, but he never gave me any trouble in the future. The episode taught me a lesson I would never forget: cowards generally avoid a target that hits back. Later I worked for Harry Franzman??Harry the Milkman? ?who owned the Liberty Dairy. In winter, when the Con- 3?WHERE I STAND (5804) Joel Cohen June 11 O. S. 7 24x13 No.11 9 necticut snow was high and cold, we used a sleigh. Going to bed at nine, I would leave my window open. Arriving at three ,in the morning, Harry or his son, Louis, would reach in, shak?ing me gently and calling my name. Their horse, Mwllit^Tpulled us through a silent, snowy New -Haven, halting without a command at every stop along the route. Then Louis and I delivered the milk from the sleigh, trotting back and forth to the darkened houses and stores. My wages were three quarts of milk per night. School followed milk deliveries, and after school I worked for two hours delivering meat for one of the local butchers. I doubt that I ever had more than five or six hours? sleep as I worked my way through grammar school and started, in 1922, at New Haven High. A year later, when I was fourteen, grand?father was offered a job as cantor in a Brooklyn synagogue. He moved to Brooklyn and bought a house. Pop decided to follow. Life in pastoral New England was starting to pall on his adventurous spirits; in spite of past troubles, he had grown more and more wistful for the hustle and bustle of suburban New York. We moved into a large red brick building at the corner of Flatbush and Gravesend Avenues. Predictably, Pop launched another art shop; to keep it going, Mom started another grocery. As for me, I landed a new job on my first day in New York. I had ridden on the truck that hauled our furniture from Connecticut; then, without waiting for the family to arrive in our stop-and-start Durant auto, I hopped a Gravesend Avenue trolley, rode to Coney Island and found a dignified position in the field of public speaking. ?RRRed Hots!? I yelled. ?Get your RRRed Hots! Hygrade frankfurters?once tried, never denied!? I sold hot dogs all night, collected two dollars in wages and went home at dawn to a grief-stricken mother and father, a roomful of police, and a stalwart grandfather who had main?tained all along that I would turn up alive and under my own power. My parents greeted me with cries of incredulous joy, ; followed by melodramatic, almost Biblical wrath. I found it hard to understand why they were so upset: I was simply doing what I had always done, making money for the family. Enrolling at Bay Ridge Evening High School, I found a daytime job as errand boy for the Alfred Friedman Company, Manhattan glove importers, becoming in rapid succession stock boy and salesman. As a condition of employment, they made me trade in my knickers for a pair of long pants. When I was fifteen, the pants grew suddenly longer: as a ? unty kid, I had resigned myself to being a physical duplicate of iny 5'5" father; now I shot up with incredible speed into a hulking six-footer with rugged features that reminded most people of Jack Dempsey. In fact, ?Dempsey? soon became my nickname^ =-frT'i928, after completing five years of daytime gloves and evening high school, I entered St. John?s University for three years of pre-law studies. I had never really decided to become a lawyer. I had simply been told from earliest childhood that I would be a lawyer when I grew up. That was, and remains the way in many Old World families. The parents, enamored of higher education, dream of seeing their sons become profes?sional men?above all, doctors or lawyers?and push them steadily toward the predestined goal. By now, as a result of the family?s pooled efforts (subtract?ing Pop?s), we had saved enough money to buy a two-family house on 59th Street in the^Sgg^Park section of Brooklyn. T5 We lived on the upper story and rented out the ground to Irish tenants. One day, alarmed by the sound of loud sobbing; Mom rushed downstairs, only to find a distraught Mrs. McDonald. A little coaxing brought out the whole story. The evening before., she and Mr. McDonald had gone to a party in the Bronx. With a few drinks under his belt, ?himself? had grown contentious, starting an argument with another guest. Brought to the end of his reasoning powers, he had resorted to a dif?ferent kind of weapon?a beer bottle over the head. Unfortu?nately, the battered loser had proved to be a plainclothes detective of the New York Police Force. Now Mr. McDonald was reposing in a Bronx jail, scheduled/for an appearance in day court. My mother pointed a swift, decisive finger at me. ?Go to the Bronx and get Mr. McDonald out of jail. Defend him!? ?How the heck can I defend him? I won?t even start law school for another two years??fit ?Don?t quibble!? she shot back. ?Just go and defend him.? I sighed, threw up my hands, took the subway to the Bronx, and tried to dream up mitigating causes during the long ride. There were none. Then, as I brooded over my first case, a man came into the subway car and sat down in the seat facing my own. He was wearing a green tie. Seeing it, I decided to base my plea on emotion rather than reason. Since the Bronx judge was also wearing a green tie under his black robes, he nodded in gruff agreement when I stood up in open court, declaiming that it wouldn?t be right to put such a fine, high-spirited Irishman in jail?not on St. Patrick?s Day ?which he had celebrated just a trifle prematurely. Mr. McDonald received a stern lecture instead of a jail sentence. I escorted him home, where he at once resumed his interrupted toasts to the great Hibernian sainLand my mother^ f 4?WHERE I STAND- (5804) 1-1 Q, S, 7 Joel Cohen June 24x13 No.11 /beamed in triumph. ?I knew you could do it, my lawyer, Already you know as much as Mr. Justice Brandeis. Continuing pre-law studies at St. John?s as the great Depresr sion started to engulf the nation, I took a job as ?runner? for- Leblang-Gray?s Theater Ticket Agency, one of the wildest, most colorful institutions in the long history of Manhattan. Joe Leblang, its founder, had known nothing of show busi?ness until late in life. He had owned a little cigar store on 37th Street and Seventh Avenue in the heart of New York?s garment district. Then a theater representative had brought some show cards for Joe to display in his window, giving him free passes, in return. Joe sold the passes for a quarter apiece, and soon he was touring the neighborhood, buying up all the theater passes ing diamond in a concrete stickpin. When I first entered Leblang?s turbulent basement, I was interviewed by the general manager, Mattie Zimmerman, a hefty German fan of the German fighter, Max Schmeling. He took one look at my mug, exclaimed ?Schmeling!? and hired me on the spot. From then on, despite my protests, ?Schmeling? superseded the nickname ?Dempsey.? In my new evening career as a ?runner,? I sprinted through the theater district picking up blocks of tickets that looked as though they wouldn?t be sold and bringing them back to Leblang?s on the double. Speed was essential since the theaters would sometimes call only a few minutes before the curtain was scheduled to rise. In really desperate cases, the other runners and I hurtled along Broadway, snatching tickets on the run and rushing them back to crowds of eager purchasers. That started them off on their own wild run to the theaters, hoping to catch the beginning of the show. To avoid delaying jams and collisions, Leblang?s had set up 1 a system of one-way traffic, shunting customers down the front stairs, past the ticket counters and up the back stairs which led into the Fitzgerald Building. Like all infallible systems, it frequently broke down. So, on my second day as a runner, Zimmerman yelled ?Hey, Schmeling, come here!? and ordered me to enforce the one-way regulation. I took my station at the worst trouble spot, the top of the ?Up? stairs, and began shooing ?Down? people away to the other side. All went well until a group of five, led by a limping man, attempted to sneak past me. I jumped in front of them. ?I ?m sorry, but you?ll have to go around to the other side. This is the exit, not the entrance.? The man with the limp gave me a sour look and told me to get lost. ?You?ll create utter chaos if you try to force your way through the crowd,? I warned him. ?Someone might even get hurt. You could figure that out for yourself?if you had any brainsjl??, He glared at me, reddening. ?Do you know who I am? I ?m Joe Leblang?I own this goddamned place.? I glared back, convinced that I had just lost my job. ?If you?re really Joe Leblang, you should know better than any?one else why you can?t use these stairs. You?ll keep your customers from coming up and they?ll miss the shows they paid you good money to see.? He turned and limped away to the other staircase, followed by his four companions. They were all prominent figures in th^ Broadway world, among them Dr. Grover vits,^fluUZlof the Theater Authority, and the famed producer Patterson McNutt, I watched them leave. Then, after the crowd dis- 5?WHERE I STAND Joel Cohen June (5804) 11 O. S. 7 24x13 No.11 persed, I heard Zimmerman?s booming cry??H ey, Schmeling!?* ;?and went down the controversial stairs prepared for the worst. ?I just spoke with Joe Leblang,? Mattie said ominously. ?What the hell are you trying to do, get us all fired?? ?What else could I have done?? ?I don?t know . . Mattie hesitated. ?But you?d better stop running.? He hadn?t really said I was fired, so I sat in the runners? room for a week, poring over my school books while everyone pointedly ignored me. Then, once again, I heard the familiar cry ?Hey, Schmeling!? rumble out of Zimmerman?s office. I answered it, and Mattie handed me a pay check. ?You mean I ?m not fired?? ?Go up and see Leblang. The boss wants to talk to rvou.? Joe Leblang was a man in pain when I walked into his office. He was still suffering from a gangrenous infection of one leg, the cause of his limping gait, but he didn?t show it as he stared at me with appraising eyes. ?So you?re the young man whq wouldn?t let me down my own stairs? ?I meant no disrespect, Mr. Leblang.? He smiled. ?Say, why don?t you get me a Swiss cheese sand?wich and a chocolate malt-B?' Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a five-dollar gold piece and flipped it into my palm, ?I might have trouble getting it changed.? ?Well, here?s a half-dollar for the sandwich and the malt. You can keep the gold piece for yourself.? To my surprise and profit, Joe Leblang repeated that little act of atonement every day for a week, during which time my only job was to get his lunch and collect a five-dollar coin. Then, his conscience satisfied, the golden shower ceased and I was reinstated as a runner. When spring came, I was promoted to the ticket counter, parsing my running job to brother Dave, just beginning his studies for a degree in pharmacy. A year later, having com-pletecKmy own pre-law courses, I enrolled at St. John?s Law School^still following my mother?s dedicated plan. Fortunately, there were many slack periods at Leblang?s when I could spread my[books on the counter and study classic courtroom decisions. / ?D oift bother the barrister!? a fellow ticket-seller, Jack -/Arra, used to say, shooing away girls who were looking for talk rather than tickets. Jack theorized that they were lured by my eyes, light blue in color, and he would often warn, ?Look, girls, he?s closing his eyes. You can?t see them any more. So go away?and don?t bother the barrister!? It was hard enough to concentrate on legal tomes without the added distraction of girls. I was growing more and more in?trigued with the colorful life of Broadway, the whole gallery of Damon Runyon types, the lamisters?a word derived from their habit of making a fast buck and taking it on the lam?? who bounced in and out of Leblang?s basement. Among them, there were petty crooks, pickpockets and hookers, who scuttle down our steps like medieval riffraff seeking sanctuary in the cathedral. The cops never invaded Leblang?s?they were on the free ticket list. Watching that bizarre human parade, I often wished I had taken up journalism rather than law. The urge to write became even stronger after I met the great Heywood Broun. Broun, then a columnist for the old New York Sun, was a