JEWS WITHOUT MONEY—Michael Gold—Liveright ($3).
Not all Jews have money; some, like Author Gold's family, live in the slums, are too poor ever to get away. Says Author Gold: "Bedbugs are what people mean when they say: Poverty. There are enough pleasant superficial liars writing in America. I will write a truthful book of Poverty; I will mention bedbugs."
Gold's parents came from Rumania to a Manhattan East Side tenement in Chrystie Street. They were orthodox Jews, decent, kindly people, believed in dybbuks (evil spirits). Manhattan tenement life shocked their kindliness and decency, did not shake their faith in evil spirits. Chrystie Street was in the red-light district, under the protection of Tammany Hall. Mike Gold never forgot his fifth birthday, for that night two gunmen shot it out in the back yard.
Mike and his gang played in vacant lots when they could, but mostly in the street. Once one of them was attacked by a pervert. Mike's little sister was killed by a truck.
Father Gold was a housepainter, until he fell from a scaffold and broke all the bones in his feet. He was also a wonderful storyteller: some of his tales took weeks to finish. Mike discovered afterward that they came from the Arabian Nights: his father had heard them in Oriental marketplaces, from Turkish or Rumanian peasants. Once his father tried voting. He was taken by a Jewish Tammany man to the polls, voted three times, was suddenly hit over the head with a blackjack. Groaned he to his wife: "Katie, you were right. Voting is only for Irish bums. Never again will I do such a dangerous thing."
Gyp the Blood, famed killer of Gambler Rosenthal, was in Mike's public school class. Some of Mike's pals grew up to be rich; one of them became a gunman. Mike ends his own story at the point where he tired of selling papers and began to look for a job—not because he wanted to be rich (he hated capitalism) but to stay alive.
Forty times he has been chased by cops for taking part in street demonstrations; 20 strikes have had his help. In Boston he became an anarchist; Mexico converted him to Communism. Onetime editorial assistant to Max Eastman of the late great Masses, three years ago he became editor of the only artistic-radical magazine left in the U. S., the New Masses, in which Jews Without Money appeared serially. He has had two plays produced: Hoboken Blues, Fiesta. Says he: "Both were flops." He has also written 120 Million. He is on the board of the New Playwrights' Theatre supported by Capitalist Otto H. Kahn. Last February the New Playwrights gave a dinner, invited Maecenas Kahn, made many speeches attacking capitalism, prophesying the triumph of the workers. Banker Kahn, bland, smiling, replied in the best speech of the evening. Intimated he: I give my money gladly to artistic experiments, am willing to take a chance on thereby upsetting the social order.