Home Photo Gallery Classroom Documents
The CHAIRMAN.
| Is Samuel Friedberg present?
| (Mr. Friedberg came forward.)
| The CHAIRMAN.
| Give your name to the reporter.
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| My name is Samuel Friedberg.
| The CHAIRMAN.
| Where do you live, Mr. Friedberg?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I live in Birmingham, Ala., 1516 Fifth Avenue North, Birmingham, Ala.
| The CHAIRMAN.
| Congressman Osmers will examine you, Mr. Friedberg.
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| All right.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Where were you born?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| New York City.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| When?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| 1910.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Where did you receive your education?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| In New York City, at the College of the City of New York.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Did you graduate?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I did.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| What, if anything, did you specialize in?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I took history.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| When did you leave college?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I left college in the fall of 1932.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Will you tell the committee what you have been doing since that time?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I worked in New York City for a year and a half.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Doing what kind of work?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I obtained a position in a laundry, one of the larger laundries in New York City.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Were you doing manual labor?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| No; as office manager.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| I see.
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| When that job gave out I obtained a job in West Virginia and I worked in West Virginia for 6~/2 months. When this place closed down--
| Mr. OSMERS.
| What line of business was that?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| That was in the clothing business.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Was it in a factory or in a retail establishment?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| It was in a retail clothing store. And when this work gave out, I went to another State and I tried to find employment there and I succeeded, and I stayed in that line of work for 8 or 9 months.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Where?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Illinois.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| And what kind of work were you doing there?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| The same kind of work. I stayed in Illinois for 8 or 9 months, and I lost that job also and finally my money gave out and I went over to Indiana, to Indianapolis--I believe it was the Indianapolis Unemployment Committee--and I enrolled there. I was given a blank, and I filled it out, and I was told to stay there and that they would subsequently find me a job. | I explained to them that it would be rather hard for me to remain in the city as I didn't have too much money. Thereupon, they said, "There is nothing we can do about it." Finally, I was forced to go on what they call the "bum." I went from one State to another in search of employment, one city to another. If I did find employment in one city, the job would be of short duration. Mr. OSMERS.
| What was the nature of the various jobs that you had when you were on the road or on the "bum," as you put it?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| They were odd jobs of all types, all descriptions, all kinds of jobs that a fellow could take to keep him going and to keep him alive.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| What are you doing now?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I am with the Salvation Army in Birmingham, Ala. I have been there for only a short time.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| What is the nature of your job there?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I am employed in the salesroom, I suppose you would call it, as foreman.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Is that a regular job?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Yes, sir; that is a regular job, they have from 20 to 30 men who are regularly employed there.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| How did you happen to end up in Montgomery?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| You mean in Birmingham, don't you?
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Yes, sir.
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I was working for the Salvation Army in New Orleans and when the adjutant in charge of the social service branch there was transferred to Birmingham he asked me to accompany him to Birmingham. And that was about 8 weeks ago that I went to Birmingham, and I am down here today.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Do you have other men working under you?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I have eight men immediately under me. These men are employed in various capacities. They have the job of baling, handling, and disposing of and selling the materials that come in to the Salvation Army there, such as waste paper, rags, furniture, and any other commodities.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| In your travels around the country, have you met a great many others in substantially the same position that you were in?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Well, any person traveling around, traveling on the road, is bound to come in contact with hundreds and hundreds of these men. Primarily, they are all in the same circumstances.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Would you tell us what you found as the major factor that contributed to these men taking to the road--traveling from place to place?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG
| Well, I believe I can best explain that by saying that most of the men on the road today are men who received a haphazard sort of trade training--you might classify them as semi-skilled men. They did have a job, and when that job gave out, they found it impossible to find employment in that line; they were lost.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| When they were on the road, were they looking for work in their own line, or were they looking for work in any line at all?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| In the main, they did try to get work in their own line because it was the work that they knew best, and they did have the best chance of getting a job if one arose, but on the road, these men must take what is offered to them and where it is offered to them.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Now, presuming that a man is in Montgomery this afternoon, what would persuade him to go from here to New Orleans, for example--if he were unemployed, I mean?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Let us suppose that this man is entirely destitute, he has no funds--he probably doesn't have even the dollar that is required in some States to enable a man to stay in that State and still not be arrested. If he is entirely destitute, he must leave. He faces being arrested and being given an indeterminate sentence on a charge of "vagrancy," ranging from 8 to 30 days depending upon the discretion of the court.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| That is just a partial answer to what I had in mind. The reason that I mentioned the two specific places that I did was that I wanted to get your opinion as to why would a man leave here and imagine that there would be employment available for him in New Orleans, for example? How would he hear about it?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| He would either hear about it by word of mouth or else by just a hunch, a hope that when he got to New Orleans there would be a job there for him.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Would you say that the great majority of those men that you met on the road were honestly seeking work or trying to find employment or would you say that they were permanent floaters?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I would say that at least 55 or 60 percent of them are men who are honestly trying to find work, and that the remaining percentage are just floaters.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Why is it that they don't locate permanently some place and take up a regular job and stay with it?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| That would, of course, entail the necessity of having a regular job, and then they have no security of jobs. They don't know that they will be able to keep a job. They have no resources in case that job played out. They have no classification. They must drift because they can't stay in one place if they are without funds.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Would you say that it was the scarcity of jobs that explains their continual traveling?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| The scarcity of jobs is the main reason.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| In the course of your own travels, have you met a great many men who were regular migrants, and I use that term to mean those who migrated with the seasons and with the crops.
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Yes, sir; I found quite a few men who traveled from one place to another, from one part of the country to another, following their trade or their line of work. Some of these men--well, you have your agricultural workers and they would travel, let us say, from the Southeastern part of the country over to the Midwest in pursuance of their trade.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| You mean following the crops?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Yes, sir; I mean following the crops as they come up. And then you have your mine workers who travel from the mine fields in West Virginia and come down South in the hope of finding work down here, and then you have your hotel and restaurant workers who travel from up North down South-they stay there in the summertime, in the North, and then they come down South in the wintertime.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Now, this group of people who travel with the crops or who travel with the resort season, do they have or do they claim a residence in any one particular place?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| No; they don t.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| The committee has spent quite a little time on that subject. Have you had any experience at all with either the city, State, or United States employment offices?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| In my own experience, I have been to a few of them. In each instance, I have registered with the local office and hoped thereby to get a job. But, in the main, it didn't work out for one very good reason--you couldn't stay in a city long enough. I have found this, if there is any chance of a job, they do give a bit of preference to these men who are in need, if you will explain to them about the circumstances.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| You think that they are generally of help or assistance.
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Yes, sir.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| But not generally as good to the man that travels as to the man that is located in one place.
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I think that is right.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Can the relief agencies help with these migrant workers?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| They can help a great deal, but it would come down to this--that they would, in some manner, have to maintain a place or an institution of some sort where they could keep these men of the road as much as possible. The inclination of a man to travel is due to his inability to find employment--for the most part, anyway. If they could keep him in one place until he could rehabilitate himself, until he could find a job, then they would be doing a great service.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| What are your annual earnings now?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| My annual earnings now, taking into account room and board and wage comes to about $250 a year.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| About $250 a year?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Yes, sir.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| What would you say your average annual earnings were when you were on the road moving from place to place and getting temporary employment?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| It might vary anywhere from $100 a year to $150 per year depending upon your luck.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Are you married or single?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I am single.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| That's all the questions I have, Mr. Chairman. Just a minute. Did you have any difficulty crossing any of the State lines?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| No, sir; you don't have difficulty in crossing State lines. As a matter of fact, the police are always glad to have you leave one State to go to the other.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| How about the police of the State that you are going into? Are they just as glad to have you come in?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| As a rule, they don't see you when you come in.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| Do you have a legal residence in any State?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| Well, I suppose right now I wouldn't, because I have come from the State of Louisiana, and I had been there for 2 years or a little longer, but I have only been in Alabama for 8 weeks now. That wouldn't give me a legal residence.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| And Louisiana wouldn't again receive you as one of her own citizens?
| Mr. FRIEDBERG.
| I don't know just how long it is that you are allowed to stay away, but I know that it is a certain period of time.
| Mr. OSMERS.
| That's all that I have with this witness.
| The CHAIRMAN.
| You are excused.
| (Thereupon, Mr. Friedberg was excused.)
|
| |||