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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

Foner:

It's a store that provides special shoes with arches. They still have them around. I went two years ago to have some things. I remember telling the sales guy, “Hey, you know, this is like a sense of deja vu, coming back here fifty years later.” So Henry had to be taken care of specially because of this physical weakness. He could not participate in sports, he couldn't do a lot of the things we did. He also became a musician, too, but Henry was a very, very able student, very bright and a good student and very clever. When I was the captain of the basketball team, we arranged for Henry to become the manager, and Henry would go with me to all the games we played. I had a closer relationship with him than with my brothers because my brothers were already off and running and were very busy all the time. They had girlfriends and everything, in a fraternity, a real “lebedike” time.

Q:

You mentioned these anarchists that lived in the same building. Were there any other politics in the Williamsburg community that you were aware of? Of course, you were very young. I'm just wondering if there was anything percolating that influenced you.

Foner:

No, the politics were the politics of Democrats. Election meant electing a Democrat. That was a district in which Joseph Lentol was the district leader, and I remember his picture on posters. And to this day, Lentol descendants are in the legislature, Eddie Lentol. It just went right down the line. But that was the politics. You never heard of a Republican. I recall the mayoralty thing because I remember following very, very carefully the Seabury investigation.

Q:

What was that? When was it?

Foner:

Seabury must have been in the late Twenties. That's the Judge Crater thing. You must have heard, “Where is Judge Crater?” That's a judge who was being investigated and disappeared and was never heard from again. But the investigation of the Jimmy Walker regime, then he was challenged, I remember, by McKee. John McKee was the mayor, and other people were mayors, and then La Guardia came. But that's already coming into the Thirties. But that was the extent of it. Following politics was following the exciting things in politics, investigations. But other than that, politics meant very little to us. Let me try to think about some things about that. Political things might be hard to figure out.

Q:

You said that you wanted to comment about Jewish and Gentile relations.





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