The Family by David Laskin

spoke of the lousy wages, endless days, aching muscles, head-splitting racket. He never spoke of strikes—and those were banner years for protracted, ferocious strikes among Lower East Side garment workers. He never spoke of any of it, but the facts and circumstances speak for themselves. Sam was a born salesman. He had a salesman’s voice—as warm and enveloping as chicken soup and so richly guttural that even his English sounded like transliterated Yiddish. He loved being out on the street, wheeling and wheedling. He loved to schmooze, to kibitz, to hear the talk of the trade. But necessity trumped love in those years. The family could not live without the eight dollars a week that Sam added to the twelve that Harry made and the ten that Abraham and Hyman each pulled in. So Sam, who had missed out on the apprenticeship in Smargon that boosted Harry and Hyman into the watchmaking business, gritted his teeth, pushed his spectacles up his low-bridged nose, and worked a machine in a leather factory.
    â€”
    Sooner or later everyone got a break—sooner if they kept their eyes open and their head down. Sam’s break came in the shape of a clock. Actually, it was Harry, the smooth, smart oldest son, who came up with the idea that made it happen. Harry figured that with so many shop fronts vying for attention on the Lower East Side, the way to stand out was to put a clock in the window. Anice big display clock would make people check the time—time is money, they were always saying—and once they stop they’ll want to take a look at what’s for sale, maybe step inside and spend a little money.
    A clock is like free advertising, Harry told the brothers. And we’ll be the ones to sell them. Or rather Sam will. Sam who could sell a cross to the Pope, water to a drowning man, a razor to a rabbi. Sam will peddle display clocks to all the shops on Hester, East Broadway, Ludlow, Essex. No cash down—payable on the installment plan—twenty-five cents a week. Who’s gonna say no?
    So Sam started out to sell. One morning he turned up on East Broadway with a bulging sack swinging from his hand. Eyeglasses gleaming, shoulders squared for battle, he pushed open the door of a candy shop and strode to the counter. The sack was opened and a big electric clock was extracted and set down on the counter.
    A lot of guys tossed him out, but that never stopped Sam. Nothing stopped Sam so long as you didn’t insult him, laugh at him, or call him a greenhorn. The word
no
was not in his vocabulary. Throw him out the door and he’d climb in the window. Bar the window and he’d come around the back.
    Sam was good. But the business model was crappy. The average sale was ten dollars—which at a quarter a week meant forty weekly trips to collect. Forty trudges up East Broadway or dodging the pushcarts on Hester Street’s Pig Market. It was a punishing routine and the cash barely trickled in. No way to make a living. So the brothers put their heads together again and came up with a better idea. Kienzle Clock Company, the German-based manufacturer where Hyman worked, was starting a new line of quality alarm and musical clocks. Hyman could buy the clocks in bulk from Kienzle at the wholesale price and Sam could sell—
for cash
—to select outlets and peddlers.
    So Sam set out with a sack of chirping clocks, and at the end of the day he returned home with an empty sack and ten dollars of profit in his pocket. The same thing the next day, and the next. Sam quit peddling the display clocks altogether. The brothers had something better.
    They called a family meeting. The Cohens were a distinguished family, bearer of an ancient name—and now for the first time in hundreds of yearsthey had an opportunity within reach that matched their ability and ambition. It was time to stop working for others. It was time to make a success of themselves, American style. Harry knew jewelry. Hyman knew