Tag Archives: Philip Marcus

Philip Marcus and the Silk Shirt

18 Saturday Mar 2017

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VII

Believe me, us kids used to be on the lookout; we was ready for anything. An’ there wasn’t very much got by us either.

I remember once I was in a one-armed restaurant–the place did a thriving business, an’ along about midnight, ‘specially when it was cold, we used to go in to soak up some heat. They used to kick us out, but sometimes we’d buy some coffee–and, an’ then they’d have to let us stay a while anyway.

Well, as I was sayin’ I was in there one night–it was maybe twelve-one o’clock–when a guy comes in with what looks like a laundry package under ‘is arm, an’ I’m on the make as usual, alert. It looked like a laundry package, but it was all wrapped up nice an’ I figured it wasn’t no laundry. He got him something to eat; and ‘ ‘e walked over to a seat; an’ this package, he sat on it.

Me, I go buy myself a cup of coffee, an’ I sit down in the seat right next to him. I keep dawdlin’ an’ dawdlin’ over my coffee, an’ I almost don’t make it last. I figured maybe ‘ed forget that package. I kept busy readin’ one of my papers. It must’ve been along about one o’clock in the morning.

Sure enough, when ‘e gets up, ‘e forgets to take the package, an’ quick as a flash I grab it an’ put it in between my papers, an’ then I walk out. When I open it up a few blocks away, there’s a classy silk shirt. I figure it must-‘ve cost seven-eight dollars, maybe ten. I couldn’t do much with a thing like that.

But I get a bright idea. It won’t do me no harm, I figure, to be on the good side o’ one o’ the circulation men, an’ I offer it to ‘im. He likes it an’ he says, “what do you want for it?”

I wasn’t figurin’ to sell it; I’d meant to give it to ‘im, figurin’ it wouldn’t do no harm to be on the good side of ‘im that’s all. But when he said that, me, I say, “We’ll call it a hundred an’ fifty sheets.” That’d be about ninety cents. No! – in those days the war was on an’ the price was raised to a penny, to us kids. A dollar an’ a half was all I got for it, in papers.

Philip Marcus on Being Searched for Money

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

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XII

The prize one is the one about the time the two cops searched me for money an’ couldn’t find it on me. I was eight years old then. I’ run away from home.

I was hustlin’ papers; it was on a Sunday, an’ me an’ another kid, we was workin’ a roomin’-house neighborhood. Two guys call me up. One of ’em’s got a Sunday hard-one, an’ he wags it at me. Me, I’m on the make, but not that way, an’ I take a look around. I spy a purse that belongs to one of the lads an’ I take it. When I get downstairs I show it to the kid who’s workin’ with me, an’ he wants a cut. I wouldn’t give it to him. There was about twelve dollars.

I took the money an’ the purse an’ the rest of the stuff that’s in it I throw in an alley. There’s a wind blowin’, an’ all the papers that was in the purse blow away.

Pretty soon, along comes these two lads runnin’ after me, an’ there’s a couple o’ cops with them. “He’s the one, he’s the one,” one of the lads says, pointin’ to me, an’ one o’ the cops, he grabs me, an’ the other cop grabs the kid’s that with me. I play dumb rummy, an’ I don’t know what the hell they’re talkin’ about. But the other kid, he owns up he saw the purse an’ the money on me, an’ they start searchin’ me.

Well, they go through every inch o’ my clothes an’ they don’t find nothin. The two lads, they don’t care so much about the money, they say I can keep that, only they want the papers that was in the purse, papers that was important, and railroad tickets. I just played dumb. But the kid who was with me, he’d seen the money, an’ I called him a liar an’ told the cops, “All right, I took the money, huh? Then I oughtta have it on me? Why don’t you find it then? If I aint got it, then I couldn’ta taken the purse, could I? An’ they couldn’t find the money. So after a while they let us alone, an’ we go about our business selling these papers.

Me, I’m fellin’ pretty smart an’ laughlin’ to myself at this kid. An’ I was plenty sore at him because he’d snitched. So I get back at him. I roll down the sleeves of my shirt an’ pull the money out. I’d flattened the bills out an’ rolled ’em up in my sleeves. Seein’ I was only about eight years old then, I don’t know how the hell I got the idea to do that. “See smarty, “I said, “if you hadn’t been so smart an’ gone an’ snitched, I’d give you a cut outta this. But you know what you can do, don’t ya?” An’ I put the bills back in my sleeves again an’ rolled them up.

While I went in a house to sell a paper, this kid, he runs back an’ gets the cops an’ they pinch me. I was sent to the detention home, the reform school for a while for that.

Philip Marcus on Information

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

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V

The newsboy was always a good source of information in those days. Like the cops are today. Since the automobile come in, you’d be surprised to know how many kinds o’ questions are asked of the cops. But the newsboy was the original. You could find out from us almost anything you wanted to know, where the saloons were—only you didn’t have to ask much about them—, the location of the gambling joints, the whorehouses, almost anything, from the location of the First National Bank to the best place to got a piece of tail cheap.

Philip Marcus & Bathing Suits

06 Saturday Jun 2015

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VI

Did I tell you the one about the time we tried to get the bathing suits, and didn’t?

You know what an island showcase is? This was twenty-twenty-five years ago. You’ve seen these stores with two big show windows outside the door and the door set way back, maybe fifteen-twenty feet or so. Well, in that entrance, between the windows up to the door, the stores used to have high glass showcases—they were almost locked, with a padlock—they they were called island showcases.

They were permanent showcases that stood in the lobby. You still see some of them.

Well, this was in the summer. There was three of us that always palled around together. There was Harry and Benny an’ me. Harry wasn’t around this time though. There was a place about a mile away, in the Italian neighborhood, where we used to go swimming. It used to cost us a penny apiece. It was hot as hell that day I remember, and we wanted to go swimming like all hell. Only we couldn’t, because we didn’t have no bathing suits. In this here island showcase I’m telling you about, Benny an’ me, we saw something that just fit the bill, bathing suits, lots of them, all kinds, and we went over an’ looked them over an’ picked out the ones we wanted—one one for Harry too; Harry wasn’t with us, I think I told you.

The payoff was the padlock on the showcase wasn’t locked; so Benny an’ me, we made out plans, which ones to get an’ everything.

Well, it was a long vigil. All evening and till about four o’clock in the morning. We knew enough not to take any chances. Every time we were ready to raid the case someone would come stragglin’ along, sometimes some cop on the beat, sometimes some palooka out walkin’ the streets—it wasn’t till about four before we got the chance we was lookin’ for.

So we rushes over. The padlock ain’t locked, an’ we take it off an’ go to open the case. An’ I’ll be a son of a bitch! — the goddamn thing had an inside lock, an’ it was locked! We was so mad we started to cry, both of us. We stood there blubberin like a coupla babies. Jesus.

Philip Marcus on Headlines

29 Saturday Mar 2014

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Making up headlines wasn’t just a joke from the movie Newsies. No need for the catch words “love nest,” “corpse” or “nude” here: our friend Philip Marcus used stories from a particular city to push papers on a slow day.

X

When I was sellin’ papers, if there wasn’t anything startling we could yell about to help sell the papers, we always got around it this way: we’d look all over the sheet lookin’ for a story from Washington, anything at all, no matter what it was, an’ then we’d yell like hell, we’d yell:

“Read all about the White House Scandal! All about the White House Scandal! The White House Scandal! Read all about it!”

Philip Marcus on the Christmas Dodge

12 Thursday Dec 2013

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Even Christmas time wasn’t immune from newsboys pulling dodges on their customers. Philip Marcus had this to say about how they would make extra money around the holiday:

III

The big guys thought this one up. We pulled it every Christmas.

They’d have cards printed up, and they’d sell them to us little fellows for a nickel apiece. Let’s see if I remember just what was on those.

Somethin’ like this:

“Christmas comes but once a year,
“And when it comes it brings good cheer;
“So open your purse without a tear,
“And remember the newsboy standing here.”

Well, we paid a nickel apiece for those cards, and whenever we sold a paper we’d hand the card to the customer. Sometimes it was good for as much as a quarter. But this was the payoff. We always asked for the card back. They’d give us something, and they’d expect to keep the card, but we’d ask for it back; we’d use the same card over and over again—it would cost us a nickel to get another one. We called the big guys the “midnight cuckoos”—I don’t remember why.

Philip Marcus on the Newsboy Code

01 Wednesday May 2013

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As part of the Federal Writer’s Project, writers interviewed ordinary people in twenty-four states about life and lore related to traditions, customs, work, birth, death, and everything in between. Notable to Newsies fans is an interviewee in May of 1939—quoted extensively by Susan Campbell Bartoletti in “Kids on Strike!”—Philip Marcus.

The son of a Romanian Jewish restauranteur, Philip Marcus was born in St. Louis around 1900, where he lived until he was about ten, selling newspapers and sleeping in burlesque houses and pool rooms. He finished sixth grade in 1915, in Detroit, and later apprenticed in Chicago, where he settled down as a sign painter. Apparently, Philip had a self-acquired knowledge of Shakespeare and quoted it at length, but also “played the ponies.” (As any respectable newsboy would in order to uphold the stereotype.) By 1939, when he was interviewed by Abe Aaron, he was married and had two adopted sons, the youngest of whom was named after Clarence Darrow.

During the time Abe Aaron spent with him on the job, Philip discussed working as a sign painter, going to the races, things he overheard in taverns, and growing up as a newsboy. Here is what he had to say about the unwritten newsboy code:

VIII

There was a certain code among us kids, an’ the guy who didn’t live up to it, that was just too bad for him. You observed it, or else!

One of the things was, you couldn’t sell on the corners where the big fellows was. There wasn’t stands in those days, they just piled the papers on the curb an’ put stones on top of ’em, an’ every busy corner was held down by some big guy. Us little kids, we ran around the streets, an we wasn’t allowed to sell on any o’ those corners. If we did, we had to buy the paper back from the guy whose corner it was; an’ besides that, he’d boot us a good one.

We were little kids. The women, especially, would buy from us in preference to the big guys, not realizing, o’ course, what they were lettin’ us in for. I remember one time. I sold a paper an’ I had to buy it back. But I got a kick that time that hit the bull’s eye. It was so terrific I felt it for days. But not only that. Every time I saw that guy, I would feel that kick.

IX

This is about that code again. The corners, the good spots, I told you about—the big guys who were on them, they’d make up with one of the younger fellows in the newspaper salesroom before going out on the street to buy them out at about midnight or one a.m. when the final lull begins. One of the big guys would say to one of the little guys, “Hey, punk, wantta buy me out tonight?” An’ the little guy, if he said yes, it was his ass if he didn’t, no matter how many papers the big guy had left over. Only this time, it was the wholesale price, not like when ya got caught selling on a corner an’ had to pay what ya got an’ take the swift kick besides. No matter how often ya sold on the corner, there’d be the big buy standin’ right behind ya, an’ ya got what was comin’ to ya; right then or maybe later—ya always got it.

Well, if ya didn’t keep your promise to buy the guy out, it was too bad. That was the code.

I’d made a deal with a guy; I’d said I’d buy ‘im out. Along about twelve o’clock, when I looked at all the papers he had left, there was more than I thought I could sell. But there wasn’t two ways about it, I hadda buy them, an’ I did. But I started to bawl.

While I was standin’ there cryin’, I sold all them sheets. There I was, bawlin’ like hell, an’ I ended up askin’ all the other kids when they straggled by if they wanted to sell me any o’ their sheets, sayin’ “If you’re stuck I’ll buy some,” and cryin’ like all hell all o’ the time.

Philip Marcus on “Dodges”

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

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As part of the oral history project, in May of 1939, Philip Marcus sat down with a project worker and talked about what it was like to be a newsboy on the streets of Chicago. Here is a little of what he had to say concerning dodges that he and his friends used to use:

I

When papers was a penny apiece was the days when I was selling them. I was a little lad then, and I lived on the streets practically all day, days and nights both. We used to sneak in the burlesque houses or the all-night places on West Madison Street and sleep there. The only trouble with that was the ushers would come around every hour or so and throw the flashlight in your face to see was you awake. You wasn’t supposed to go to sleep. Sometimes they threw us out.

We had a lot of dodges. A penny was a lot of money to us, and a nickel was a hell of a lot. A dime or a quarter was a fortune.

I practically grew up on a pool table.

Here’s one of the dodges us newskids used to have in those days for making money.

You know how a guy is when he buys a newspaper. He’s a fan of something or other, baseball nine time out of ten, and he’s got the boxscore habit. You hand him a paper, and right away he’s looking at the boxscore; he’s holding the paper in one hand, reading the scores, and the other hand’s stuck out for the change; he takes his change by ear, see, by ear and touch if you get it; he’s reading. So me, I lay a penny in his hand if it’s a nickel, say, that he gave me. Then I click the second penny on the first and count two. And the same with the third penny. Each time the penny drops on the other pennies in his hand. But the last penny I hold onto; I click it on the other pennies, but I don’t let go on it, and he thinks he’s got all of his change. Nine times out of ten he sticks the pennies in his pocket without even lookin’ at them, an’ that’s the dodge.

II

Here’s another petty larceny trick we had. We’d pull it at car stops where they had stop lights.

When the streetcar was waiting for a red light to turn, we used to run up alongside the car and the people in the car would stick their hands through the windows for a paper. He’d stick his hand outside the window and maybe he’d have a nickel or a dime in it instead of the change, the penny, and later, when the war started, two pennies.

If he gave us a nickel or a dime, it was just too bad. We’d fumble, we’d try and we’d fumble—boy; we sure had to dig deep for that change —and we’d run along beside the car when it started, but—it never failed—we just couldn’t reach him, the car would be picking up speed and we just couldn’t reach his hand with that change. It never failed to happen. But I’ve had guys got off the car at the next stop and come back and make me give them their change. They were wised up, I guess, or maybe they’d sold papers once themselves. Anyway, I’ve had that happen to me.

XIV

One of our favorite stunts, if a guy didn’t have anything smaller than a nickel or a dime or a quarter or something like that was to plead we had no change. Then we’d go to some convenient saloon—there was always a saloon handy—and these saloons, they all had two entrances. They guy would watch us go in one entrance an’ stand outside it waitin’ for us to come out with his change. But we’d slip out the other entrance an’ go lookin’ for another guy who needed change for a nickel or a dime or a quarter or somethin’ like that.