Interview with Arthur Kling, June 29, 1977

Dwayne Cox::

I'm really not much of a hand at it, but I think it's picking up all right. Just for the record, this is an oral history interview with Arthur Kling, conducted on June 29th, 1977. My name is Dwayne Cox, and we're at Mr. Kling's home, 1917 Maplewood Place, Louisville, Kentucky, and this is part of a series of oral history interviews that being done in cooperation between the University of Louisville Archives and the Jewish Community Federation on the history of the Jewish community in Louisville. And Mr. Kling is a longtime active member of that community, and his recollections pertaining, I guess, to the Jewish 1:00community in Louisville date back even prior to World War One. At one time we---

Arthur Kling::

Date back to the beginning of the century.

DC::

---yeah, we talked about at one time of your recollections of the Jewish neighborhood, and that might be a good place to start. Or maybe with your parents.

AK::

Well, I'd say that I was born at 607 South Preston Street back in December of 1895. At that time, this was more or less a Jewish ghetto in that it housed in large degree the second wave of German immigrants that came over to this country. You recall that as a result of the revolutions of 1848, there was a 2:00kind of breakdown of the liberal movements over in Europe. A great many Germans came over here in subsequent years, and many Jews amongst them. These were people like the Bernheim's, uh the Coves and some of these people.

AK::

My father and his family came over about, I would say, as far as I can determine, in the early 1880's. He was a native of southern Germany from a town by the name of Hirschberg just outside of Kaiserslautern, and he preceded his family over here by about a year. Lived with a relative, a Judge Oppenheimer up in Cincinnati until the rest of the family came over. There were eight more or 3:00less grown persons, adults and children in the family plus the father and mother.

AK::

They settled here in Louisville and settled in the Jewish neighborhood. As I say this was the second wave of Germans. The first wave came over earlier. Some of the names that I remember were names like Raab Felder, Rosenbaum and Nickersfeld. These people all lived in a block or so of us. Steinfeld and Isaacs and Wildenweiss and Metzler. This kind of person and they were either first generation Americans. Some few of them were second generation. But they were all 4:00gathered within an area of, say from Preston Street to Mount Brook and from Market Street South to about Broadway. Which is a relatively concentrated group of persons. So my early recollections are associated with this ghetto and my grandparents settled at Preston and Walnut Street right in the center of it, in a two story residence. The site is now occupied by the health sciences program of the University of Louisville. And lived there for many years.

AK::

The thing I remember most about, my earliest and most fond recollections are my 5:00grandparents on both sides. My grandmother was, I suppose when I first knew her, maybe 55, 60 years old. In those days a woman of that age was an old woman. She wore black hats with ribbons to hide her hair. She had these dark clothes, everybody wore clothes that touched the ground. She was what the family called the Boss. We had a real clan feeling.

AK::

As I said we were eight adults in the family when I first recollect. Four of them lived at home and the four married couples lived within a block of her home, so that there was a rarely an evening that some of them didn't gather over 6:00there. Her home was the center for the family. My grandfather - I have very faint recollections of because he was a relatively innocuous character. He was a student, I remember, of Hebrew literature and what they call a home bedroom, up at the head of the stairs on the second floor, there was this library and books ... lined with books and he would spend a good deal of his time there. And he never amounted to much, when it came to making the decisions of the family, my grandmother made them.

AK::

And the point I'd like to make is, she didn't need social security. Families in those days, they depended upon their children to maintain them, just as they do 7:00currently in other places like this. So that as the family prospered, and most of them did. They all did, as a matter of fact. They moved up to 2nd Street. She moved along with them. Lived in an apartment out there with one of the spinster aunts. One woman had never married and she loved to play cards in those days it was euchre, and she never had much difficulty getting a euchre game match. She could depend upon her daughters a lot ... friends around there.

AK::

I can recall, when we first moved out, the whole family went out, married people, couples and their families. Almost all of us out to and around 2nd and 8:00Lee. So, there was six or seven families who lived within three or four blocks of each other ... your grandmother. So, this was the sort of ... I guess, the area that you ... or culture that we had at this place ... around us.

DC::

Did you go to Hebrew school?

AK::

No, I never did. I don't know whether you know the difference between the German Jews of the time and the East European Jews. The German Jews were more or less, had been acculturated. Recall, that during the time of Napoleon, Napoleon invaded Germany and he agreed that the Jews should be franchised. This was 9:00during the early 1800s of course - 1845, or thereabouts. And the Jews were more or less integrated into this society and culture of Germany. Even though there was a great deal of antisemitism, contrary to the East European Jews who had to live in the Pale and were banished off from any active participation.

AK::

You know the history of Moses Mendelssohn and these people. They were the leaders of what was called The Enlightenment, which attempted to assimilate the two cultures ... integrate the two cultures. So that, when my parents ... when 10:00my father came to this country, he became immediately associated with a so-called reform congregation. As a matter of fact, he was an active member of the Louisville Turnvereine ... the Local Turner Society. The Turner Society was founded as a free thinking society over in Germany. It was an anthem over there.

AK::

And, for many years ... not for many years, for a number of years, instead of going to religious services on Saturday morning, I was sent to Turner Hall to study German ... speak German under a woman by the name of Mrs. Drevenstein. And so, matter of fact, when I grew up, there was no Hebrew school. As I recall, the Louisville Hebrew school was first established in 1905, as a result of the East 11:00European immigrants coming over to this country. They felt they needed their own Yiddishes and they had grown up in a more restrictive environment. They weren't permitted to associate with gentiles or what have you and Poland is Russia. So, there was this difference.

AK::

I did go to along to the Lampton YMHA, and my father did. And, so I went to the gym there. For awhile we lived on Madison Street, in the 200th Block on East Madison Street. The YMHA was back up ... it was right at the end of that block and Madison Street ended there and Brook Street. You could climb the fence. It 12:00was a wood fence. Go to a gymnasium up there in the YMHA in which I did on a couple days a week.

AK::

But we were a...German-Jews were, according to [inaudible 00:12:07] radical in their religious approach. Most of them, that came to this country associated with the Reform Movement which had been brought over here. Now, the Reform Movement started in Germany about the 1820s. And it was not nearly as radical as those who came over here. Over there it was associated with more, what we call a conservative [inaudible 00:12:58]. But, when they came over here and the older 13:00congregation, which was Adath Israel, which, at that time was at a Synagogue and 6th and Broadway. The building, which after became the Methodists Temple.

AK::

When they moved out to on 3rd Street, just south of the library place there, on York, they sold it to the Methodists and the Methodists continued the main temple. They called it the Methodists Temple.

AK::

So, when my parents and grandparents came over, my father ... the ritual at the Reformed Congregation is too radical for them. So, they devised their own ritual which was more conservative. A very distinguished attorney at that time, Lewis Dembitz, who was the uncle of Albert Brandeis and the rabbi named by the name of 14:00Ignatius Mueller - M-U-E-L-L-E-R - devised this special prayer book which was not Orthodox but wasn't a requirement of the church in those days. I was brought up in this sort of way in the family.

AK::

We observed the holidays. Principally, the ones that were observed at home, like the Passover. Of course, we went to the synagogue, or temple as they call it, on the high holidays [inaudible 00:14:42] Yom Kippur . Our synagogue was then located at 1st and Chestnut. Now, part of the 65 Expressway, right on the outside there. The old YMHA was just three or four doors away to the south of the synagogue. The Male High School was directly across the street from the 15:00YMHA, the old Male High. For the Aaron's Trade School was there.

DC::

That wasn't Adath Israel that you're talking about.

AK::

No, this [inaudible 00:15:19].

AK::

I went to Male High under Professor Howick. This was another story all of its own. You want to go into that? I can go into that.

DC::

Sure, I'd be interested [crosstalk 00:15:40].

AK::

I entered high school at 1910, Male High and I was a member of the freshman class of 13 and a half. In those days, you could enter twice a year. You're a graduate [inaudible 00:15:59] for two semesters and for a graduating class is each semester. My year was 13 and a half. So, it must've been nine and a half 16:00when I entered the [inaudible 00:16:15]. Probably 1909.

AK::

Any rate, Male High - in those days, only the elite went to high school. There were perhaps, at most, 500 boys at Male High. Manual was out at Brook and Oak Street. Manual High School, there are about 450 boys there and Girls High was out on Hill Street, there'd be eight or 900 girls in that school and there was Central High School at 9th and Chestnut and they had, maybe, 150 kids. The only one that was sexually integrated was the Central High School, because there weren't enough kids to maintain seven segregated high schools.

AK::

So, we were the elite. The ordinary youngster went into apprenticeship or became a clerk in the grocery store or whatever occupation was open for them at the age of 14, 15 years of age. There were no compulsory, you didn't have to enter high school. It was no 16 year compulsory education at that time. So, other than kids in the eighth grade, went into some kind of work occupation.

AK::

So, Male High was an academic high school. There were only two courses at the academy, in the school, that was chemical drawing and woodwork, that weren't associated with the academic field. And Male High School, at one time, gave a Navy degree. So, as I say there, this may have got less than 2,000 kids and 18:00Jefferson County are going to high school. There were no high schools around in the county. There was St. X, which was a high school. At that time, they had maybe, I don't know how many boys, maybe 200 boys or something like that. But this was the extent of the high school education.

AK::

Male High had an extraordinary faculty. Howick knew how to choose people that were very well qualified for this sort of things and with teaching, we had to take English for four years with their goal [inaudible 00:18:56]. You had to take Latin for the first two years. You had to take a modern language for two 19:00years, at least, and you had to take physics and you had to take two years of mathematics. There was no option. English history was taught for a whole year period. And I remember the chap that taught it. Went immediately from Male High, and he followed us to the University of Chicago as a professor of history there.

AK::

We had a beautiful opportunity, the reason that I know this, because after I was there two and a half years, I went on to Cincinnati to study to be a rabbi and at that time, you took your academic work in the public school and in University and you took your theological training in the afternoon at the Hebrew Union College. So, I entered Hughes High taking the junior year up there. And the 20:00standards were not nearly as high as the teachings we were taught here. Used here at the university - at the Male High School.

AK::

So, this was another aspect of our society. Sufficed to say, if you were a privileged youngster, you could go to high school. Now of course, if you're under privileged, you can't go into college. So, it was an entirely different story with them.

DC::

So, this was about the ... this was the 19 teens, you were in Male High School and you decided, while you were in Male High School, that you wanted to study to be a rabbi [crosstalk 00:20:51].

AK::

Well, I didn't decide. It was decided for me, really. I have never been that religious at going to services regularly. But the rabbi thought I would make 21:00Mueller, the guy I had spoken about, that I would make a good rabbi. So, he talked to me and I suspected it was with the connivance of my parents.

AK::

Any rate, for me, it was a way to get away from home. At that time, it was 1912, I was 16 years of age when I went out to Cincinnati and so, it was an adventure and this sort of thing. I'm afraid I wouldn't have made a very good rabbi had I completed the course. I didn't of course. I went for six years. Then World War One came along and this gave me the opportunity to get out of theological training. As a matter of fact, I had spoken to a couple of the members of the faculty that'd keep me in the college, telling me, didn't think I ought to go along and they persuaded me to stay. They'd be able to change my mind when I was 22:00graduated and that sort of thing. But then the war came along.

AK::

We got into the War in June 1917 and all the colleges were just highly disrupted. They drafted for the fellas right and left and without any real physical examination ... they just took you. We've built up an army of four million, here in this country in a years time, with about 100,000 men that have been in our standing in our Army and Navy up to that time. And they just grabbed [inaudible 00:22:47]. I was passed up because of my eyes and because I was a theological student.

AK::

I was enlisted in the Army work for the National Jewish Welfare. I took my 23:00training in early 1918. Yeah, orientation courses, for three or four weeks, up in New York. Sent me then out into the camps. But, actually ... the more I remained in HUC, the less I felt like going out a rabbi and I became an agnostic. Still, I am. And ... so, I didn't feel that I was suited for this. I was sent out on holidays and a couple of occasions once to Uniontown, Pennsylvania. And the next time to, Lincoln, Illinois. And I built a pulpit there for 10 days of the high holidays.

AK::

In those days, the rabbis took vacation, during the summer, they laid off for two months and I was a theological student, the only one in town. So, I conducted services out of Adath Israel. And it was one of my obligations to officiate at funerals. I recall, in one week ... at one time, I had five funerals. And this didn't sort of sit with me. People expected eulogies and I knew no one, at least in a couple of instances, people wouldn't deserve eulogies.

AK::

So, in one occasion, I refused to deliver a eulogy and the people's feelings were quite hurt. I just read the ceremony and that was it. But ... so, when the War came along, as I say, went into Jewish Welfare for service. I was sent to 25:00Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. I was down there until the fall of 1918 and the flu epidemic struck there, the Spanish Flu. And I was in the hospital for about a week or 10 days and then I was transferred back here to Camp Taylor, just at the height of the flu epidemic here. And I worked in the base hospital. At that time, there were, out of 60 or 70,000 men, there were about 11,000 men in the hospital.

AK::

Now, in one hospital pitched tents around the base hospital and put a floor in them and there would have six guys in the tent and they were all good men. And the mortality rate was terrific. 50 to 60 to 70 boys dying every day. And there 26:00was also, a great matter ... a great many of them were collected to spy on Japs. As a result, of course then, the mortality rate was extremely high. But, I was spending in those days, 12 to 14 hours in the base hospital. So, I was called upon the men and tried to answer their families' telegrams and all that sort of thing. The Army would immediately send the telegram. A man was committed to the hospital because [inaudible 00:26:46] they would be carried off and [inaudible 00:26:52] Spanish Flu.

AK::

So, I spent 12 to 14 hours a day in there. A million times be walking around the corridor and in those days the Jewish Welfare girl workers and the YMCA and 27:00Knights of Columbus wore sort of a uniform. Somebody would come out in the hall and ask me about it. I would come in and try to console some chap [inaudible 00:27:18]. Then there would be a death rattle or a stroke and couldn't be less interested in what I was trying to do. And nevertheless, this was one of the things we had to do.

AK::

He lived closed to the community. Madison was a very, very crude Army man. He was extremely crude. After a [inaudible 0:00:27:49] ... well educated ... not advanced as Princeton. Down in Oglethorpe they used to, for Syphilis, 28:00Neosalvarsan 606. You ever heard of this?

DC::

Is it a mercury?

AK::

Yeah. Something like a mercury. They would pour a quart of this into a guy's veins. The reaction made them sick. A great deal of the time ... most of the time, the whole process took about four or five hours at least. Theyse guys dad to lie in the hospital bed four or five hours after they took this stuff.

DC::

It's poison, isn't it?

AK::

Yeah. Mostly poison. 606 was a number of the formula that this ... I think ... I forget who developed Neosalvarsan, it was a German and an Austrian. It's called 606 because that was the 606th formula that he had experimented with, and this proved effective with combating syphilis if you followed the treatment. You had to go every week for a number of weeks and it wasn't easy.

AK::

At any rate, this leads me back to something else. This guy was a Jewish physician ... I don't know whether you're aware of it, but, Abraham Flexner, way up on the med school campus was one of the leading Jewish physicians. Or not a physician, one of the Jewish leading medical educators. He set forth the standards for med schools.

AK::

In early days, there were three or four med schools in Louisville. And the standards were very low. I remember one of his brothers, Jacob Flexner, tell me that he slept behind a prescription counter in [inaudible 00:29:55] Drug Store on 2nd and Chestnut and he served his apprenticeship under one of the practicing 30:00physicians who didn't attend any medical school and he got his certificate on this basis. So, Flexners. There were two Flexners, there was Abraham Flexner and there was another brother who set up the General Education Board for the Rockefeller Foundation and there were a number of persons who were prominent in the community and made a real contribution the Bernheim's, [inaudible 00:38:00]...

AK::

The two brothers, they were public spirited persons ... I don't know whether you know anything about the history of W. Bernheim, but he lived to be 97 years old or something like that. But he left his money to establish Bernheim Forest that year. And that's where-

AK::And that's where Ed, not Ed Paul -

DC::

Robert, Robert.

AK::

Robert Paul got his job. There were a number of others. Dembitz, who was a very prominent attorney. First, Alfred Brandeis was a [inaudible 00:31:18]

DC::

That's going a long way.

AK::

There were a number of others. The leading retail merchants in town, Kauffman Strauss and Herman Strauss and Legget Brothers were all Jewish families. They were a generation that came over here after 1848 and had become well established by this time. So that there was a Tackau family, which was related to the Brandeis family that started to found a Neighborhood House, which in those days was located at first just north of Walnut Street, which was a settlement house. 32:00Which was intended to help the immigrants coming over to this country to . . . become assimilated into the . . . to learn English, and so on, become assimilated into our society. And the . . . we had here, I don't know if you're aware of it, but the idea of a United Way or United Chest or United Fund was a Jewish invention. It was started in Boston, I forget when, in the 1880s and became adopted by the general community some years later.

AK::

It started here I guess as late as 1926 or thereabouts. What we called in those days is a community chest. And I'll get the exact date from [inaudible 33:0000:33:06]. But the Jewish community already had its Federation of Jewish Charities.

AK::

A number of years before that time I can recall my dad going out on a Sunday morning, trying to collect money for them. He collected maybe $20-25,000 in a year. But this was, y'know, a considerable amount of money in those times. But they would use this to help people get established and, to do [inaudible 00:33:40] some kind of a hardship.

DC::

So the date we've gotten up to, 1919, the Spanish Flu epidemic. You're working with the Jewish Welfare Board.

AK::

Yeah.

DC::

Working at Camp Taylor.

AK::

Yeah

DC::

Had been born in Louisville, raised in a reformed background, not really too much associated with the . . . real Jewish identification of the later immigrants, is that . . .

AK::

Well there weren't' any . . . At that time when I was growing up there weren't any, uh, there wasn't any considerable number of Eastern Europeans in this country. Don't forget, or I don't know whether you're aware of this, the May laws, which were issued by the Russians in 1881, which set up the Pale over there, did not really take effect until it kind of influenced emigration out of 35:00Russia and Poland until a number of years later.

AK::

Going back to the war I can recall when I was sent down to Oglethorpe, which was a medical replacement camp. Doctors were given a couple of weeks of orientation in the military. But there's where they were sent, drafted into the army. On the day before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in 1918, when I was down there, we were notified by our office in New York that we would receive 4,000-5,000 Jewish men from the East Side of New York.

AK::

Well there wasn't 10 percent of these persons who could speak English. They were Yiddishes. They had just come over as a result of this wave during the early 1900s.

AK::

So when I grew up in Louisville there was no conservative element. There were a 36:00couple of small orthodox congregations, very small, but the majority of the population was German, and it was only later in the early 1900s and up until we got into the war in 1917 that immigration came in, there were as many some years as 500,000 Jews that entered this country in the early 1900s and practically all from East Europe. The wave of Jewish immigration came later, say, when I was away at school in 1912 in this country.

DC::

That's interesting. You went to Male High School, and you went away to Cincinnati to study to be a rabbi. You worked in the war. And then you came back 37:00to Louisville.

AK::

Excuse me, I'm gonna have to go back here. You wanted me to use . . .

DC::

Well, I was, Let's see . . . You were back in Louisville in World War I, and I guess the logical question is . . .

AK::

We were talking about the, as I recall, the East European immigration. I think I said, in October of the 1918 a Fort Oglethorpe, we got in between 4,000 and 5,000 men from the New York East Side. Very few of them could speak English, so that the rise of the East European Jew in this country was relatively late. I'm trying to recall what else might be pertinent.

AK::

I served . . . From Camp Taylor I was moved to Camp Brannon, Rockford Illinois. And this was in early 19, late . . . I don't recall. It was 1919. And I stayed at Camp Brannon until about April of 1919. One of the things that happened during the first war-that the immobilization of the troops was very fast. They just marched them down Broadway and gave them their discharge papers and, go on, you're on your own. And another thing . . well, well get to this later.

AK::

I think it was in April, 1919, one of my supervisors in Jewish Welfare Board. . . I forget his name, but . . . lived in Chicago, and I wasn't ready to go home at that time. So I went into Chicago, and he got a job for me at the Yellow Cab Company, and I drove a cab for seven months, night run. And during the day, this was during the summer, I went to [inaudible 00:39:45]University [inaudible 00:39:50]. This was my place for about four months, maybe a little bit longer. And then I . . . had a falling out with a floor boss at the main garage at the 40:00Yellow Cab Company.

AK::

In those days, cabs were very crude. You had to put in a fresh battery every night. There were no generators. There was a mag needle and you cranked it up. That produced a spark.

AK::

There were no non-skid tires, and it rained even during the summer. We had to put on tire chains. There were no windshield wipers. The windshield was divided horizontally in the center, and if it rained you had to pull it down, let it rain in on you.

AK::

The cabs in those days, the bodies were so ill-designed that there were no doors in the front. There was a glass partition between the driver and the passengers in the back. It was a movable . . two glass . . . pieces of glass that you could 41:00move. But there was no heater, nothing of that sort. And the rule was that you had to carry a raincoat, and of course you picked up your battery. I had to[inaudible 00:41:25] mine at the garage maybe around 4:00. You had to carry tire chains. And you had to carry a whole bunch of wires because the chains were made of such a soft metal that very often the links broke and to keep them from slapping against what we called the mudguards in those days you had to wire them back . . . wire them so that they didn't slap against them.

AK::

Well, I had not taken my raincoat out that day. I had two lousy cars in addition that they'd given me. One of them had a hole in the radiator and I [inaudible 42:0000:42:06] and I went back and the other car had something, the third car. I'd gotten up into Lincoln Park and it started to rain, and I was about to put on the chains, and I had a brand new pair of glasses in my pocket and, uh-lost them. But I came back and I was bawled out by the floor boss because I didn't have my raincoats. I took a tire iron and lit out after him. Of course, he could've handled me without any trouble because he was a tough guy.

AK::

This was in the days, by the way, when the gangsters were beginning in Chicago. I stayed in a hotel where Jim Colosimo's night club was at 22nd and Raleigh. The Yellow Cab Company was deep in politics. They were in with in those days the 43:00mayor was Wild Bill Thompson. Maybe you heard of him?

DC::

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

AK::

Whenever the Chief of Detectives' car or a police car got wrecked by the Yellow Cab Company, they'd fix it up. I'm sure without charge. The Yellow Cab Company was a non-union company. The other cab companies were being unionized and Yellow Cab resisted it, so they brought some gangsters over from New York to prevent the unionization. This was what I think happened. The Yellow Cab Company-the gangsters came from New York, at any rate, Jim Colosimo I think was the uncle who was the famous gangster . . . in Chicago.

DC::

Capone's . . . [crosstalk 00:44:05]

AK::

Nah..well that's not... I don't recall. But this was the beginning of . . .

AK::

Another thing that I recall, in New York, which is quite the significant . . . I was there during the race riots. In the summer of 1919 there were about 39 persons killed. All blacks. This happened because on weekends, and I witnessed this myself, four or five negroes, black persons, would come in every Sunday from the South through the BNL Station at Illinois Central, both of which had seven routes. And they were flooding into Chicago looking for decent jobs, and the area that they lived in was around 32nd and Michigan, 32nd and Grant, and 45:00they necessarily had to expand their housing, and they would move into housing on the fringes and four or five dynamitings a week, where people would dynamite in this apartment. And this stirred up a lot of people, and one Sunday afternoon it ended in a race riot, where they beat you at 32nd and Michigan. Unless you was called up because they called[inaudible 00:45:30]. This was quite an experience.

AK::

So I stayed in Chicago. I took another job with an outfit called Locomotive Crane Company of America, employed about 150-200 men. They made walking cranes, very small ones compared to the smallest.

AK::

In November, I received a letter from my father saying that our mother was quite 46:00ill and that you need to come back to Louisville. I didn't come back immediately. I went back to Cincinnati where I'd lived with the same family up there for six years. There were no dorms in those days either at the University of Cincinnati or the Hebrew Union College. If you lived out of town, you lived with a family or in a boarding house situation.

AK::

At least this family happened to be distantly related to my father on his mother's side. And they were pronounced [inaudible 00:46:49]. So a month before I went to Cincinnati to live and go to school, they arranged for me to live with them, and I lived with them for six years. I was their border, but really I was 47:00accepted . . . more or less accepted . . .

DC::

Yeah.

AK::

As a matter of fact, they'd lost a son, a little bit older than I just before I went up there. So I visited them for a few days, and then I had this Aunt and Uncle in Aurora, Indiana, which was my mother's hometown, and I walked from Cincinnati down to Aurora the day before Thanksgiving, about 25 or 26 miles. We were used to hiking because when I was in school, we didn't have any money. Students in those days . . . my father used to give me an allowance of two dollars a week, which I had to pay my meals at the university and keep my shoes in repair or anything that came up. And I managed to go to a show on that once a week. I even went to [inaudible 00:48:06] when he came to Cincinnati. It cost 50 48:00cents in the gallery. Regular shows were a quarter . . . and managed to go to the symphony concerts. Student tickets in those days for the Cincinnati Symphony cost three dollars a year for sixteen or seventeen concerts.

AK::

I used to get the free tickets for the chamber music concerts that people would get. So it didn't require much money so we didn't have much to spend, certainly not on girls, and they didn't expect much. Every Sunday there were six of us who went hiking when the weather was not too bad. I remember going hiking in weather below zero. There were six of us, all students at the University of Cincinnati. So it was nothing to walk down to Aurora as we had on a number of occasions. I 49:00would take these guys down to visit, and we'd stay overnight with my aunt and uncle. By that time my grandparents had died.

AK::

So I stayed there, got there-walked down the day before Thanksgiving, stayed there Thanksgiving, and the next day I crossed over to Kentucky on what was called - was the Two Horse Ferry, you think this would be of interest?

DC::

Yeah.

AK::

The ferry . . . there were no automobile engine or no propulsion in those days except these two horses. On either side of the ferry there was this little paddle wheel. These two horsed walked the treadmill, and their weight when walking this treadmill caused the paddle wheels to turn and that got us across the river. And for years this was the normal propulsion for this ferry. 50:00Incidentally, I knew the family that ran the ferry, and I used to play with the kids up there, Smith Family, so they didn't charge me on the ferry across the river.

AK::

I walked up to Florence, Kentucky, and I got there about 3:00 that afternoon, and it began to snow very heavily and I tried to get . . . talked to a number of persons about taking a room overnight, and I couldn't get in so there was a train came through, L&N at about 8:00 that evening, and I took the train to Louisville, never did, never had intended to walk along the road.

AK::

When I got home I found out my mother had cancer, and didn't have long to live. As a matter of fact, she died in May of 1920.

AK::

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, I started to work for my father. We had a 51:00business that was called. Kling's Stationery Company that he had founded. I became a salesman, and he gave me a couple of sample cases. I called on our accounts using the street car to get around from one place to the other.

AK::

I had, during my, JWB days. They had a Ford at my disposal. They furnished a Ford. Jewish Welfare Board when I was out here at Camp Taylor, and of course, further North, and down at Camp Grant. Incidentally, if a set of tires lasted a thousand miles in those days they were getting around.

AK::

I recall when the first 5,000 mile guarantee came out. For a tire that was quite an event. Up at one of the prominent Goodrichs, somebody started this thing.

DC::

Was it the tire or the road that caused them to wear?

AK::

It was the tire, the tires weren't built. They didn't know how to build tires in those days. They were fabric tires with a leather coating, a little rubber on them. We had here in Louisville, paved streets, yes, sir. They were paved roads. The roads that I drove these cars over were all paved, so it was just the fact that the tires were so inferior.

AK::

A car in those days . . . you could buy a Ford, what they called a Roadster for $295. It was a [inaudible 00:53:08] car with no appurtenances, but it got you 53:00there. You got 25 or 30 miles out of a gallon. It was relatively . . . .foolproof. The only thing you had to do is to renew the bands, the brake bands, every couple of months, depending on the distances that you drove.

AK::

My dad started me out as a salesman, and I remember the first thing he did was send me down to 25th and Market Street. We were then at 7th and Main, to collect a bill from a druggist down on 25th and Market by the name of Essie May. They called him Dr. May. It took me five or six minutes to get up the courage to go 54:00in and ask the man for his money. And I went into see him and I introduced myself, and I said, "Dr. May, my dad's sent me down here to get a check from you." And he was more embarrassed than I. He was bald-headed and flushed all the way back to the back of his head that I can remember. But that was my start with my father. And I grew up in the business. My dad became incapacitated in 1931, just before the depression.

AK::

We had, at that time, a very severe bank failure here . . . In Louisville, it involved four or five banks. There was the National Bank run by a chap by the 55:00name of Brown, I forget his initials, that set up a holding company and sold what they call Banker's stock. This holding company bought out the bank down in Nashville and three or four banks here, and the banks, his bank crashed, before the banking holiday in 1932 and early 1933.

AK::

And my dad had a lot of money in banker's stock, and his money, business money that was deposited in the trust company was tied up and he couldn't get to. In addition, he had invested his money in utility stock, instant stock, and this guy was a promoter and [inaudible 00:56:01] and my dad suffered a very severe coronary. I guess at that time he was about 61 or 62 years of age. He'd been a 56:00very active businessman. He'd been active in Democratic politics here. He was at that time treasurer in the Democratic County Committee and had run for the school board on two occasions, the board of education which was a non-partisan thing.

AK::

But it's an interesting thing. I was going to Hebrew Union College, studying to be a rabbi, and one of the things that defeated him was they spread the rumor around that Dad was a Catholic, and he had a son that was studying to be a priest, and the anti-Catholic feeling was such that that killed him as far as the election went.

AK::

At any rate, Dad in 1931 suffered this coronary and he was out for about six or 57:00eight months. He couldn't do anything, and when he came back he still couldn't function. And my brother and I had to take on the business, we were the Depression team, because it was during the very depths of the Depression. We had to . . . keep the business going and eek out a little living.

AK::

During this period from 1919, when I returned to Louisville, to '31 when we took over the business, I had been active as a club leader at the YMHA. That's a predecessor of Jewish communities center. And I had been scoutmaster of Troop 30, which was basically the YMHA. I was scoutmaster from 1926 to 1932. I was 58:00active in programming, and . . . was generally accepted in the community as one of the younger persons . . . one of the younger leaders, I guess.

AK::

But in '32 I identified with the Socialist Party and became the State Secretary at the Kentucky Socialist Party. I was active as State Secretary from 1932 to 1939, when the war broke out.

AK::

I split with the Socialist Party when Norman Thomas, Norman Thomas was a pacifist and was opposed to our entrance into the war in 1939, or anything, we didn't get into it, of course, until 1941. But at that time we became as 59:00Roosevelt called the arsenal of democracy. I couldn't see the [inaudible 00:59:16]movement, or the Nazi movement, or the Fascist movement in Italy. I remember Mussolini took power then. Soon after 1926, I think it was [inaudible 00:59:29].

DC::

Why did you join the Socialist Party?

AK::

Well . . . the best reason was, I remember having gone through what they called a couple of panics. We didn't have depressions, we had genuine panics . . . There were no provisions for persons who were unemployed, no relief of any kind, no provision of any sort, to maintain these programs for those people who were unemployed. I thought this was a pretty cruel way of handling persons. It made a 60:00very drastic impression, particularly in 19-, I think it was 1908, or thereabouts. We had several million persons without . . . no way of sustaining themselves.

AK::

The socialists, to me, offered government ownership. I was not a Marxist. I knew very damn little about Marxism in those days. I never studied it in school. But it appeared to me that we ought to be able to direct our resources better so that this sort of thing, if it happened, people would have some sort of a safety net, now as they call them, in the way of money and social services [inaudible 01:00:53]. . .

AK::

We didn't have until about 1933 or 34, after Roosevelt came in. Roosevelt copied many of the programs which the Socialist Party had been advocating. For 61:00instance, we had child labor when I was a kid, you know what I mean? You say child labor, kids are working in cotton mills and stuff like this for 8, 10, 12 hours a day. People who worked in the steel mills worked 10 hours a day seven days a week, and it was only until the late 1930s that this . . . well the argument with the strikes at little steel . . . until this sort of thing was stopped. The whole system didn't make sense. We had, what I would call, Laissez-Faire capitalism. People didn't feel responsible for people who were unemployed. It was a pretty crude sort of society. Roosevelt of course changed-

AK::Roosevelt, of course, changed all of this. As they say, he adopted a great 62:00many of the claims found in the socialist platform and this was one that [McGillister 01:02:16] had started because he liberalized the democratic part of that. It was taped during the early days of the Depression. Families in this town were given-

AK::

So at any rate, there was no other way in those days of rebelling against the system. The democratic party was just as conservative, or more conservative, 63:00than republicans. So, there was no other way of rebelling against the system except to join a party like the socialist party. Don't forget, there was no communist party yet in this country. When I was a youngster, the communist party didn't develop here until the early 30's, late 20's or early 30's. So, as I say, we had a very crude capitalist system.

AK::

So I worked and when I joined the communist Party ... Not the communist but the socialist Party, I felt that I ought to get out of the scouting movement because this was a purely bourgeois movement in those days. You had to have a uniform in 64:00those days, and poor kids couldn't join, really. It was meant for middle class children. I just didn't feel that the scout movement and my activities in the socialist party could fit together. So, I resigned my scout master over the protests of the scout executive here and the board. They thought I could continue on but I didn't feel I could.

AK::

Any rate, scouting was taking up a hell of a lot of my time. When I first started out with a scout troop, there were four boys. They didn't know what an overnight hike was. By 1932, it was every weekend on overnights and I was 65:00leaving Mrs. Kling here over weekends, and that just didn't sit well with either of us. So, I continued working for my father. As a matter of fact, my brother and I had taken over the management of the business because of his heart attack in '39. And people were looking for answers, middle class persons. In those days, the capitalist system seemed to have failed. There were about 25% of the population was unemployed, without any real means of support.

AK::

During the heart of the Depression it was said that $40 billion could have 66:00bought a major interest in every big industry in the country. Stock prices were depressed and people were on bread lines and all that kind of stuff. So, we did what we could to try to help ameliorate things.

AK::

We organized the first Unemployed Council in Kentucky. We had a hall down on 4th and Main, which had been a store room and our members worked on this thing, built a little stage in the back of it. We paid $40 a month's rent and had a hard time getting that much together. We had about 200 members there at one point. But we managed to be a thorn in the side of the orthodox politicians and 67:00the orthodox parties. They knew that we were there because when we called a meeting and normally 200 or 300 persons went through.

DC::

Who were some of the other people who were active?

AK::

What is it?

DC::

Who were some of the other people who were active?

AK::

Others? A man by the name of George Gibson, here. There was another chap by the name of Matt [inaudible 01:07:28]. There was a Jewish family by the name of Lerner. They were in the wholesale business and they had a number of dry goods stores around the state. I'd have to sit down and think about it. There were members of the Unitarian church who were liberals who joined. And of course a number of members that were in reformed congregations, Jewish reformed congregations.

AK::

We were active and as I said, I remember on one occasion Norman Thomas... I guess this was about 1936, was coming to Louisville. This was on one of his presidential campaigns and he was driving down from Cincinnati on what we used to call the River Road that was on Route 42, US Route 42. And we were going to meet him in what was called the Cut Off Bridge here right on, those days where Beargrass Creek entered into the Ohio River. And we wanted to have a parade for him, parade him around town to advertise the meeting that night. He was due in about two o'clock in the afternoon.

AK::

So I went to the chief of police who's name was Callahan and asked for a couple 69:00of motorcycle men to head up the cavalcade. He said to me, "What's your name?" And I said, "Arthur Kling." He says, "Are you Ben Kling's son?" I said, "Yes." He says, "What are you doing in the [damn 01:09:24] socialist party?" I said, "Colonel, I didn't ask you what you're doing in the democratic party", because he was a party in point.

AK::

So he did furnish the motorcycle men. He furnished four instead of two. So we paraded Norman Thomas up and down Fourth Street and Fifth Street, and he held his meeting out at the Wilmington Club, out at Fourth and Ormsby.

AK::

The flood of '37 came along and I worked out at City Hall for a couple of nights, helping get refugees out of the west end, and I remember on one occasion 70:00they sent me out to the highlands there out near Bowman Field, which was the only airfield that we had. The only access to Louisville at that time was by airplane. All the rooms were blocked off and they rubbed bread in on the wings of the airplane, strapped their wings on the bi planes. The bakers, there wasn't enough bread because the power had been turned off and there was gas in the... The water mains were flooded with gas at that time, so the bakers couldn't bake.

AK::

What I was sent down to get was a barrel of... Trying to think what it was. Anyway, it was used in hospitals. Some form of lime to sanitize the floors and 71:00this thing. But an incident happened in this prior to the flood, in December 1936. Two of our members, young fellows... You'll remember in 1936, I think it was, the Wagner Act was passed, which provided the charter for the unions to organize.

AK::

Two of our members were young fellows down at the Louisville Refining Company. They had to sign up a number of fellows and they were dealing with management to try to get a contract. The flood came along in January, '37 and the Louisville Refining Company was flooded out. Their negotiations were interrupted, so immediately after the flood they called all of these men back. There were just 72:00about 30 outside of the employees, and worked them day and night. After about a week, after they got the place cleaned up, they fired every one of them because of the union negotiations.

AK::

Well, we had this headquarters down at Fourth and Main and Louisville Refinery was out on Algonquin Parkway, right off the steel Ford plant out there. These fellows set up a... Used the Ford plant parking space to build a bonfire. This was in February, they had no shelter and chap came through from the southern Illinois; a fellow name of Pat Ensberry. Pat had been a member of the progressive miner's union, which imposed John L. Lewis. John L. Lewis organized 73:00the united mine workers. Progressives were a liberal group amongst miners. John L. Lewis was a real autocrat in those union persons. He broke no opposition.

AK::

So Pat had been blacklisted over in southern Illinois and he was on his way to eastern Kentucky when he was caught here by the flood. He had a young son, about 12 or 13 years of age. He happened to pass this picket group; it wasn't a line. It was during the night and he saw this bonfire and he stopped by to see what it was about. They had their signs and he had a tarpaulin in his car. They strung it up on the clothes lines and was the only shelter they got. Well, Pat's 74:00activities as a union man became, he was living in a Red Cross camp here. Red Cross set up a number of camps during the flood for refugees. When they found out he was a union man, he was kicked out of the camp and he came to us know if he could sleep down by our hall. He and his son Vince.

AK::

So we said sure, so he slept down in our hall for a number of months. A little hot plate down there and he cooks his meals. We had a small branch out on Taylor Boulevard. One of our members came in one day and said, "Arthur, there are a small group of truck drivers out on Taylor Boulevard. They have a little local out there and they want somebody to come out and speak to them, meeting on Sunday mornings." So I was, as I say, state secretary at that time. The chap and 75:00his wife, by the name of Frank Qwallick who put me employed at the magnificent sum of $40 a month to do organizing work. $40 a month and whatever meals I could scrounge.

AK::

So I said to Frank, "Why don't you go out and talk to these boys and see what you can do. They want a speaker." I said, "Take Pat with you." Pat was, as I say, living in the socialist hall. Well, Pat went out there and Pat was a natural rabble rouser. He could speak their language; he was Irish, had a very definite Irish rogue, but he really talked their language. So they invited him another Sunday and another Sunday and after about a month they had a business agent by the name of Mud, and Mud's name became Mud and they hired Pat as their 76:00business agent. Pat Ensberry.

AK::

Well, Pat wouldn't take any money from them. By that time, he'd gotten a job as a hod carrier who were building the Clarksdale housing project. There was a man in his mid-30s who carried... In those days, you really carried bricks on a hod, up and down. He carried these bricks and he wasn't used to this sort of thing and it really was pretty hard on him.

AK::

Any rate, Pat asked if the local 89, that's what it was... It's now local 89 with teamsters, could meet down at our hall. I said sure, so they met down at our hall for a while and after they met there for a number of months, Pat called a couple of strikes and his membership grew by leaps and bounds. Then he started 77:00paying us $40 a month for the meetings there. Then the local got so big that they couldn't meet in our hall. [inaudible 01:17:17] He had to move down to Seventh Street.

AK::

Pat claimed he was an anarchist; that was his political philosophy. In Kentucky, you can get on the ballot still today for a county wide office if you get 100 signatures to petition. As a statewide officer, 1000 signatures. Run for governor or any statewide office. So, we lacked the number of signatures enough to nominate somebody for the senate or the governor's race. I would go to Pat and he'd get me a bunch of signatures, and he'd say, "You son of a bitch. You 78:00better sign this." That's the way he ran his local, so we could always rely on Pat on enough signatures and be able to sleep.

AK::

As long as Pat was in Louisville, he built a tremendous local. He was the first local in the city of Louisville to integrate the blacks with the whites. Always insisted on this and we were always on good terms with the local 89. Local 89 was a union that participated in the senate affairs. Sorry to say it isn't that way now, but Pat... Another side light, Mrs. Kling at that time was the chairman for the Committee for New Americans with the German refugees and the other 79:00refugees that came over during the '30s and '40s. Her responsibility, she represented the Council of Jewish Women. Her responsibility was to meet persons when they came in on the plane. They would enter the United States usually through New York, sometimes [inaudible 01:19:26].

AK::

At Boston, they would be immediately shipped out of New York because a lot of them wanted to stay in New York and New York was over flooded with these people. They'd be shipped down here and she would meet them at the plane with somebody else. Usually it was someone who could speak Yiddish; she couldn't. She would find apartment for them and quarters. Beg furniture to furnish them and find a tutor to teach them the language. Buy some groceries for them, take them around and show them how to shop in America. All the customs.

AK::

So, Mrs. Kling also worked with the Americanization process in the federal court and people would be naturalized. Pat had never taken out the citizenship until very late in his career. Because of his union activities, they turned him down a couple times. On his third attempt, I went down there and testified for him and this time... He got a number of other persons and he was accepted as an American citizen.

AK::

Another thing that we did, we held in the Louisville Refining Company case, when our people were locked out we instituted the first labor relations case in the 81:00state of Kentucky. National Labor Relations board had been formed in '36 or thereabouts, that process.

DC::

A court case? Is it a court case you're talking about?

AK::

Yeah. Well, the labor relations case is where they appoint an umpire. It follows court procedures and was handled down at the federal building at Sixth and Broadway, in one of the federal courtrooms, but there are special labor relations personnel that hold these hearings.

DC::

Now, you did all this through the socialist party, right?

AK::

Through the socialist party. Not only that, did we institute this, but these people were broke and we would march them through Sixth and Broadway back to Fourth and Main and the women prepared a meal and while they were on the picket 82:00line at midnight down there, we would send out soup to them there. For the pickets.

AK::

It took about two years to resolve this labor relations case, but all of these guys got back pay; $2000 or $3000, which was a considerable amount of money in those days. But this was the first labor relations... Remember a chap by the name of Emanuel Boggs; called him Slim. He was tall and thin. Was the chap that herded these people around. He took them over to the courthouse, to the federal building, and brought them back. They had to walk, we didn't have any cars in those days. This was '37, so we didn't have the money to pay for cars. Our members didn't have them and certainly the employees of the Louisville Refining 83:00Company didn't.

AK::

So we would feed them and their wives and children and families. This went on. Trying to recall; there was something else that I thought might be interesting. Escapes my mind at the present time. In 1934, I ran for mayor on the socialist ticket. I opposed a chap by the name of Miller.

DC::

Neville Miller.

AK::Huh?

DC::Was it Neville Miller?

AK::

Neville Miller, yeah. He was a democratic candidate. Of course, Neville Miller was elected and I received 399 votes in Louisville and I'll always as a joke say 84:00that I almost made the 400. But people that voted for me voted for me because they knew me, not because of my ideology.

DC::

I'm sure. That's great.

AK::

When the war broke out, I could not go along with the policy of Norman Thomas and the socialist party, so I broke with them. I resigned as state secretary. For a while, I remained a member and then I dropped my membership, but I still would remain active in the community. I joined, four or five years later, the union for democratic action, which was a liberal movement and later became the 85:00Americans for democratic action. I organized a chapter of the Americans for democratic action here.

AK::

In 1948, this is the year that ADA... Let's say going back, Wilson Wyatt was the first chairman or vice chairman of the ADA. The Bingham's were interested, put some money into it. Mark Ethridge gave $1000, but I had through my socialist activities, I'd gotten to know a great many of the men in the labor movement here and when we were organizing the chapter of ADA, I got good many of them to 86:00join. I also went to Mary Bingham, who was Barry Bingham Senior's wife, and I asked her to join. And I asked Barry Senior and assuming that Wilson Wyatt was interested locally, we solicited him.

AK::

One day Barry senior called up; at that time he was running the paper and asked to know who the sponsors were. I read off the list of sponsors, there were about 30 of them. Most of them were ex-socialists or labor persons. He decided - he and Wyatt decided they didn't want to become a part of us. We were [arpins 01:27:02] when we organized the local chapter. We were these national figures 87:00out of Louisville that had organized it nationally, but didn't want to become associated with us on the local scene.

AK::

I recall that Anna Roosevelt made dinner, maybe in '49 or '50. We brought Senator Keith [Olmer 01:27:25] here and without consulting these people. Hell, they had dinner down at the Seelbach Hotel. Well, at this point, Wilson Wyatt stepped in and preempted Mr. Keith Olmer and took him over the Courier. He was then on his crusade, I guess the prices of medicine. We didn't see Mr. Keith Olmer until the dinner that night. This didn't create any good feelings between 88:00us and Wyatt, and this sort of thing.

AK::

Also, during this period and beginning in 1934, as a result of my liberal activities, I became a member of the Urban League Board. I was the only white person on the board and I was active on the Urban League Board from then until about five or six years ago. Now I'm a life member. The statue of this head up here was given to me when I became a life member. It's a black, negro scientist. I forget what his name is, but at any rate... we held the only integrated meetings, ADA. We had at that time, the socialist party had what you call the 89:00League for Industrial Democracy, which was a branch like the Fabian Society and we used to bring a series of six lecturers here during the winter for the magnificent sum of $300 total for these six lecturers.

AK::

We had an integrated committee that we formed and one of the men on the committee was a chap by the name of Julius Thomas. Excuse me. Julius Thomas was the director, executive of the Urban League at that time. Through my acquaintanceship with him, he asked me if I would serve on the board. As I say, I was the only... There was one other white man; Colonel BH Callahan. Ran a 90:00little varnish company, but he didn't attend meetings. I was the only one on their nine or ten older members of the board, all black persons. We met up at the Mammoth Light Building at Sixth and Walnut.

AK::

It was a pretty ineffectual group, I felt. One of the first things I tried to do is to really integrate the board and bring in some community leaders. I was able to do this and a man by the name of Charles W. Morris was a prominent attorney. One of the founders of the Jewish Federation. Agreed to come on the board and Barry Bingham agreed to serve on the board; a number of persons like this. Mrs. 91:00Carl Lang, who was the Aaron's family people that founded the American Radiator [inaudible 01:31:19], their father had. People like this. Got some social and political [inaudible 01:31:29] on board and stayed on the board, as I say, until four or five years ago.

AK::

I recall in what context I brought this in, but any rate... Trying to think what else do you want to know.

DC::

You mentioned the League for Industrial Democracy and that was part of the socialist-

AK::

Yeah, it was sponsored. It's still in existence. It was an appendage of the socialist party to perform the same function as the Fabian Society did over there.

DC::

This is my own curiosity. Did you know Ellis Freeman?

AK::

Who?

DC::

Ellis Freeman; the professor out at the University of Louisville.

AK::

Yeah, sure. Knew him quite well.

DC::

Can you talk a little bit about him and about the-

AK::

I have some suspicions as to his political inklings, as to his political leads. Let me say this; sometime during the heart of the Depression, the editor and foremost physical culture-

AK::First and foremost the physical culture list, the physical culture magazine. Guildings was one of those who subscribed, who was sponsoring a youth meeting over here, bringing youth from all over the south. We suspected these people of having varied reactions or leanings. It was backed by the American Legion, they sponsor, in addition. So this chapter [Inaudible 01:34:03].

DC::

Let's just go ahead with it.

AK::

Yeah. We found out that they invited[inaudible 01:34:16] and Mrs. Roosevelt, and another person. Another prominent person who's name I can' remember at the present time. But, we were suspicious of him. So we alerted the [inaudible 01:34:31] socialist party works around this area. And tt this meeting that we were going to just overwhelm the meeting with our persons. Take charge of it. In the meantime there's a chap here by the name of Hamilton who had been a prominent attorney, had been in bankruptcy preferably. Probably was staying here in the years when the banks were going broke. And he was being considered for federal judge and he had the . . . had appeared at some of our [inaudible 01:34:59] socialist party. A liberal capitalism socialist.

AK::

We were on friendly turns with him and we knew he was going to Washington to see about his appointment. We asked him to see Mrs. Roosevelt and tell her about this. I don't know whether he did see Mrs. Roosevelt, but not that she cares about it. [inaudible 01:35:19]. We had a person planted in this group that the American Legion sponsored. We found out through our spy that they were going to raid Elvis Franklin's home on Friday night. We usually have our meeting out of his home [inaudible 01:35:32]. This was [inaudible 01:35:37] a family-oriented organization. Some of the boys [inaudible 01:35:39].

DC::

Let me ask you a question. This is all fascinating stuff and as a historian I have to say that you're getting your recollections and you're telling me all of the other people [inaudible 01:36:42] I just want to ask you a question. If I came to you next week and said, "Mr. Kling I want to write a history on the socialist party and the socialist movement In Louisville during the 1930s, who are the people you would tell me to see, where are the records?" -

AK::

There are records that I can say. I don't know where the records are, I have some of them. [inaudible 01:36:59].

DC::

So it sounds to me like [inaudible 01:38:46].

AK::

[inaudible 01:38:50].

AK::

... was in your price, and I guess you could look at the records to substantiate the dates.

DC::

They weren't allowed to-

AK::

[crosstalk 01:47:27]. As I say, they did applaud them.

DC::

Yeah.

AK::

So, some of the other leaguer's, well you have a pretty good list. Mrs. Blanche Chatman I heard, who was at that time the president and council of Jewish women, was very in the community, in the general community. And Charlie involved her. Mark Goldsmith I think is still a living. He must be damn near 100 years old. He 97:00was an attorney. I don't know whether he's living or not. Maybe Clarence [inaudible 01:48:11] can tell you, but I don't recall having seen his death notice here, having died.

AK::

Maurice Flexner, who was one of the Flexner family. Dr. Rauk, Dr. Joseph Rauk. Another rabbi by the name of Bazelle. Joseph Sulliman, who had been on the board of Alderman for a number of years. He and his brother Bernard, and one of them had been the president of the board of Alderman. People like this were able to give direction in the early stages I think. Tackau, whom I had mentioned. Damiel 98:00S. Tackau, whose family by the way, are now either Episcopalians or Utilitarians. I've seen it happen to some of these early Jewish members. Like, the Brandies family here. There was a Brandise machine company. This is the brother of Alfred Brandise. They were all converted too. I think they're mostly Episcopalians. That was the thing to do, it was a step up.

AK::

So Charlie Morrison, going back, was I think the statesman in the Jewish community and set the pattern for a good deal of the following. As the time 99:00moved on, the base of the federation was broadened and took on more functions. Its first purpose was to raise money for what was called the United Jewish Campaign. It's second function was to act as an anti defamation organization. Charlie, for a while, was national head of the, what was it called? The Joint Defense Appeal, which included the American Jewish Committee and the [inaudible 01:50:47] anti defamation league. He was the national head of this during the time when the Nazi movement in this country was gaining force.

AK::

So, he was a real statesman, but he had his faults. He stayed on for too long. 100:00He was unwilling to give up the reigns, and he was never very willing to keep records. He thought minutes and all that sort of thing was for the birds. So I don't think you'll find many minutes of the federation during the time that he was alive. Clarence Judo has been associated with the federation as you know for many years. He was the second executive, and a fellow by the name of Handmaker was the first executive, and he died a young man. Very capable. Clarence had applied for the position of direction at the old YMHA and a friend by the name 101:00of Lawrence Cook and Lawrence was chosen. I was on the committee that chose him. Lawrence was chosen, so Charlie applied Clarence as director of the federation.

AK::

Clarence at that time, he couldn't draw much salary, continued some of his law practice. After a while he had to give it up. Clarence is a very capable person as a money raiser, fund raiser. Very public minded, public spirited. About three years ago, the United Negro College Fund was in his [inaudible 01:52:54], and Jack Hardwick and the Level of Trust company was the downtown president, persuaded Clarence to take over as the campaign chairman and he ran this thing 102:00up from $30,000 a year to about $70,000 a year in two years out of the community. Incidentally I was the first organizer of the United Negro College Fund in this community.

DC::

That was when?

AK::

Oh gosh, I don't remember. 15 years ago. I remember a chap by the name of Fisk University - he was the president of Fisk University - came here and we met down in a basement room at the Holiday Inn at Second and Breckenridge. I think I was maybe, and Louis Cole Junior, were the only white persons there. I volunteered to do some work and one of the first things I did was to ask this man to come back and rile some people up. Mary Bingham, some of these people down and meet 103:00with her. I know the strength of this [inaudible 01:54:11] Mary gave us an annual donation of, at that time, $500 a year, but then they would have to solicit it because they said [inaudible 01:54:24].

AK::

This is one of the things that I helped start in the Negro, black community. They had had no experience in putting on an organized campaign, the blacks. In the black community, the churches are the principal instrument, expression, of anything that they do. The church is very often laid in white, literally. They get to the church out of all proportion, and the first campaign that they 104:00organize, we organize it. After they close solicitation the first time, I simply solicited a few persons and got $3500. They next year we organized, we set up a regular campaign and we collected about 14 or $15,000. From there on, then I got out at the time for somebody else to take it over, and involved Frank Judd, George Gibson and John - father was president of the First National Bank. I can't recall the name.

AK::

Milbourne Moffit, it was in the principal in the high school, now Associate principal. We managed to involved some few blacks, but they aren't good 105:00solicitors. Or good givers, generally, except anything in the church. So the monies that are raised here, and this is being done consciously, are raised mostly from banks and corporations. Black community does not contribute very much to the United Negro College fund. They're trust is toward the white community, and they still don't know how to raise money. It was an interested book written by a negro psychologist by the name of Clark called the "Black Bourgeoisie," in which he comments on the inability of black community to mobilize its forces towards syndicates.

DC::

Let me ask you this. This is my impression, just this is a personal impression, and I'd like to see how accurate you think it is. You grew up in Louisville and you went to Cincinnati and studied to be a rabbi. Decided that you didn't want to do that, in fact that you were an agnostic. You couldn't in good conscience be a rabbi, but at the same time, at the same time you seem to of had a commitment to-

AK::

Jewish things.

DC::

Jewish things and to-

AK::

You'll see in Judaism you can be a skeptic or a cynic and still be a Jew. A prime example of this is a philosopher, the Dutch philosopher, what's his name?

DC::

Spinoza?

AK::

Spinoza, who was excommunicated by the rabbis over in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam they have his statue, one of the main squares, and a high school named after him. He is highly regarded. In Jewish traditions there is no, except amongst the Orthodox, there is no tied bound rules that stipulate that you have to believe so-and-so. As a matter of fact there is a Jewish word and it occurs in [inaudible 01:58:58], "epikoros," epicurean, a cynic this is what it means. So 108:00there are two phrases in Hebrew that are common [foreign language 01:59:13], which means a man of the earth or a farmer a [inaudible 01:59:17] what other people called it, and the other is "epikoros", which is an intellectual who is skeptical and doesn't believe, but these are both accepted concepts in Jewish tradition.

AK::

The only person to my knowledge in all of Jewish history that was ever excommunicated was Spinoza. We don't have this process, and now these guys over in Amsterdam manage to do it, and I don't know. There is a movement in Judaism, which we don't hear much of, which is called Reconstructionism, which doesn't 109:00place an emphasis on the deity. So Judaism is a culture and that sort of thing. It's not anti-religious but neither is a pro-religious, and this was organized 40 or 50 years ago by a very well-known Jewish scholar very revered, by the name of Mordecai Kaplan. And there are Reconstructionist congregations in this country, and some of the more intelligent rabbis have associated themselves with this. There are a lot of rabbis that are agnostics who won't admit it. There are a hell of a lot of Catholic priests that are agnostics and don't admit it. I've been told this by some good Catholics in the priesthood.

AK::

As I say in Judaism, there still is to be value of the ethical teachings of 110:00Judaism and the prophetic teachings of this sort of thing. After all, we have met at the oneness of God and that sort of thing. Oneness of the universe, in other words, it's not the oneness of God, it's the oneness of mankind is what it really means. So it's nothing to me. And the rabbis all know that I'm agnostic. I've never made any bones about it. I guess the general community knows. I still belong to a congregation, I wouldn't sever myself from that sort of thing, but I don't go very often in that sort of thing.

DC::

Can you talk for a few minutes about, for lack of a better term, change and 111:00continuity in the Jewish community and in Louisville in general since you were growing up here until today.

AK::

Well, as I said right along when I grew up this was a German Jewish community. My father was the first generation to America. My mother was the second generation in America. She grew up in Aurora, Indiana. Her family grew up in East Prussia. East Prussia is one of those countries at that time belong to Germany, but at other times belonged to Poland. This is one of the things that was originally the Germans and the Poles and the Russians always fought - East Prussia. So her parents grew up there.

AK::

I didn't hear any Yiddish when I was a kid, but we didn't know Yiddish. We knew 112:00a few German terms, but I didn't hear Yiddish until I went away to Hebrew Union College. So the predominant Jewish culture in those days was the German Jewish culture. It was only beginning with or after World War I, when the East European Jews became more numerous or more vigorous parts of the community, that we see any kind of change in the Jewish community, and the flowering of the Jewish community. The Polish East European Jews had very definitely had a very brilliant influence on American Jewish community.

AK::American Jewish community. A great many of the institutions came out of this 113:00group, they had modified because the old German Jewish community, they'd become more conservative religiously. It's no longer as radical as it was when I was a kid. When I was growing up, Adath Isreal held their services on Sunday, not on Saturday. They had a Friday night service and they had a Sunday morning service. It was only about, I guess, 35, 40 years ago that they abandoned their Sunday morning services. In the meantime, they had emphasized their Saturday morning services. There was what was called a Pittsburgh platform of the Central Conference of American rabbis, which was a radical platform.

AK::

Today, there is many cases, very little difference between the original and reformed congregation and the conservative congregation. As a matter of fact, there are all numerous proposals for these to emerge. This is liable to happen because of what's happening over in Israel, I don't know if you're aware of this.With the orthodox over there gaining power. Under [inaudible 02:05:30], they're begging, whatever they call it, they hold a balance of power, they're becoming more religious and the state of Israel is becoming more and more dominated by the orthodox element.

AK::

The reform and conservative are being excluded from any significant part in the religious picture in Israel. They can't perform marriage ceremonies, which are recommended, which are accepted by the state, and can't convert people to 115:00Judaism and this sort of thing. They're excluded from any part of the state that supplies the funds for the orthodox element in there. They only recognize the state religion. The reform and conservative have been able to ... They've gotten a foothold, but aren't always surreptitiously. This is liable to react in this country in my opinion, but you might see it or closer collaboration between the conservatives and the liberals.

AK::

The conservative movement has grown primarily out of the Eastern European movement in the United States. It became more affluent for reasons of social prestige. A great many of them went over to reform and joined the Adath Israel 116:00and that sort of thing. This is a matter of ... We're a middle class group. We have some of the worst characteristics in middle class cooperation. We're materialistic in a large degree, and our kids are spoiled. I think, this is my opinion about it. We have to put on a big front. Right now, the two reform congregations have merged and are building a new edifice over on Brownsboro Road, out just beyond the juncture according to 71. What's the name of that road? Any rate, these are the younger elements and they're all affluent. They're 117:00attorneys and doctors.

AK::

These people are moving over to the Brownsboro Road area, they're leaving the older persons that are less affluent over here near the Highlands and around the Highlands area. They're moving into what is known as Glenview. Glenview is now covers a vast area. It used to be just a small settlement of prestigious Protestants. Now it's become infiltrated by Jewish families. I'm using the word infiltrated purposefully. We are a middle class group, particularly in mid-America.

AK::

Now, in New York, until recently, there was a Jewish Proletariat. The people are mainly iron workers unions, [inaudible 02:09:15], national workers, they grew up in factories and they're still workers. There are still Jewish police in considerable number on the New York police force. Look for a Jewish policeman in this town, and I don't recall - there was one maybe 20 years ago, but ... Or look for Jewish mechanics, Jewish laboring persons, there aren't any. There aren't any ... Well, there are Jewish sales persons, but Jewish entrepreneurs or owners of small businesses, there are Jewish contractors, Jews in the distillery industry, this sort of thing. There's Jews in the movie industry, we invented the movies, as far as the industry part goes.

AK::

Again, this is the result of historic circumstances. Jews are speculators. In Russia, and in Western Europe until relatively recently, there were two things: we weren't allowed to own property, and we couldn't run a business. In addition to which, during the late to middle ages, the early modern age, the Jews were the only educated class other than the priesthood, the Catholic priests. They were the managers of the noble's estates, they were the people that ran, were the tax collectors, they had the tax concessions, they were the physicians, they inherited this from the Arabs. The Arabs were the early physicians that 120:00developed the heart of medicine and Jews took it up so that the, a lot of the physicians to the courts were Jews.

AK::

Because they couldn't own land, they couldn't settle and become permanent settlers, they had to resort to speculation. They had to keep their money in gold and jewelry because there were liable to be kicked out of a country at any time. They never knew whether they could stay there.

DC::

Yeah.

AK::

They were speculators. They got into the distillery business because they were ... This was a business which was a state control over there, in Russia and in Germany, and they were the only ones that were educated enough to organize a business. The nobility had no traits, the priests couldn't organize, weren't 121:00permitted to organize business, they were the traders. They were the people that were merchants. That's the reason all of the original big merchandise houses in Germany were normally by Jews.

AK::

When it came to this country, we brought these with them. One of the few things that the Jews could do was to become tailors and this sort of thing. This required no capital. All the work was done by hand, and in order to serve their own persons, they developed into shoe makers and tailors and this sort of thing. When we came over here, we were tailors. Now indeed the two Jewish socialists, working place unions, and then we got into movies because this was a very high speculative business. Other persons didn't see it, the possibilities in it. Same way with the broadcasting. Every darn one of the three broadcasting companies 122:00was dominated by Jewish interests. I don't know whether you know this or not.

DC::

You're saying ... That's an interesting theory, and it's a challenging idea because someone who wanted to take an antisemitic line might say exactly the same thing.

AK::

Yeah.

DC::

You're saying-

AK::

It's a natural phenomenon. It's because of two circumstances. First, that they were practically the only educated class in Europe, except maybe in England then. You take amongst, where ever there was a hierarchy or where there was a monarchial set up, where the nobility depended on the moderate for favors, as 123:00they did in France, as they did in Germany, as they did in Austria and these places, they had ... They were the only people they could turn to, to run their parish, they were people that were literate, they were Jews, because we have this tradition of having continuously set up schools no matter where we were and insisting on our people being educated, if only in [inaudible 02:14:32] and what we call [foreign language 02:14:34], which is the study of the five books of Moses.

DC::

You were saying a while ago that ... You were talking about the merger of the two congregations.

AK::

Yeah, excuse me. But, I have to put this ...

DC::

What I was going to ask you was, you talked about the two congregations that were moving in the-

AK::

In the Brownsboro Road area.

DC::

And said that because of these traits and circumstances that you've been 124:00discussing, historical circumstances, that the Jews had inherited the strengths and the weaknesses of the middle class, which included-

AK::

Wait. We've always, let's say, we've either been middle class or we've been what the German's call [foreign language 02:15:31] is a man who lives on the periphery of the economy, lives by his wits. Literally, it's an air man because we've had to. We've been expelled from so many countries, we've had to be traders, we've had to be prepared to move on from one place to another, and this sort of thing. We've been prohibited from becoming integrated into the economy of the country.

AK::

Let's take the why are the Jews the early bankers? They were the bankers of the 125:00middle ages, they were the early bankers in our modern age. The Rothschilds and this sort of thing. They had to keep their fortunes originally in liquid form. The Rothschilds grew up in the ghetto, somewhere down in Austria I think. They became the bankers in Europe. They financed the Suez canal, for instance, and this sort of thing. They were the traders, they were the peddlers, they had to go around and the early peddlers in this country were Jews. Got themselves a horse and buggy and went out in the country and sold the goods to the farmers.

DC::

Can you talk about the strengths and weaknesses in terms of specific examples that you've witnessed, and that maybe you even continue to witness?

AK::

You mean in terms of personalities?

DC::

Well, in personalities or episodes or whatever. Not necessarily individual people, just that-

AK::

Yeah, I understand. Well, I think I can point out any number of Eastern European Jews whose children went into medicine, that they were permitted, went into chemistry, went into teaching, university teachers, teaching this sort of thing. We were typically middle class. They were middle class - way of looking at things.

AK::

Their training, that they saw the possibility in this ...

AK::

One of their ways of [inaudible 02:18:34] the Yiddish theater was very [inaudible 02:18:41] 25, 30 years ago. Some of the guys like [inaudible 02:18:48] and these people... they were [inaudible 02:19:14] that were on the move, but a great deal of your [inaudible 02:19:31] stuff came out of the Jewish population, and particularly the Eastern Europe people. [inaudible 02:19:53] taught us one thing that the Jews never permitted in their sort of their Army. [inaudible 02:20:02] conducted the service, and what's his name was kind of ... Al Johnson was a camper, Robert Marrow was a camper. Who was the other one? [inaudible 02:20:18] Brothers that were campers that came out of this field.

AK::

[inaudible 02:20:26] back in the days when I grew up [inaudible 02:20:45]