The Family by David Laskin Page B

landlady needed twice as much flatware—one set for meat, another for dairy. They set their sights on the Lower East Side’s huge Italian population, second only to the Jews. The neighborhood’s Italian groceries, in addition to purveying salami, olive oil, canned tomatoes, and parmesan cheese, also carried cheap housewares—vases, candlesticks, clocks, and bowls—that were exchanged for coupons collected by loyal customers. Some wholesaler had to supply these housewares—why shouldn’t it be A. Cohen & Sons? It was pure Lower East Side: Jewish boys wholesaling the tchotchkes that Neapolitan shopkeepers used to entice Sicilian housewives to part with their money. Sam was soon doing so well on the salami circuit that he quit peddling alarmclocks. The end of an era for him—and the start of a new one for the company.
    Inevitably, they brought their familiar roles and rivalries into the business and then back home to the flat on Madison Street. Harry, though diplomatic, had a fuse. Sam’s skin was the thinnest. Hyman liked to claim credit for whatever succeeded and assign blame for what failed. It was an explosive mix. The boys had always bickered, but once they were in business together their fights became epic and operatic. Soon their father’s primary job was to keep his sons from one another’s throats. Abraham was not a tyrant, a bully, a ranter, or a table banger—he didn’t need to be. In the family, his word was law; and in the family company, his word brought the sons to order and guaranteed that business was conducted honestly, equitably, and humanely.
    But how the hell did they figure out how to run a business in the first place, these jumpy young men and their otherworldly father? The Cohens had left a small faded market town at the margin of Europe for “the capital of capitalism, the capital of the twentieth century, and the capital of the world.” What made them swim to the surface so fast? Commerce seethed in every crevice of the Lower East Side, but most of it was two-penny trading, a peddler’s sack, a candy shop, a sewing machine whirring by a tenement window. What gave the Cohen boys the chutzpah to start a wholesale business and the shrewdness to succeed? Money might, on the face of it, seem to be the obvious motive, but judging from the choices they made later on when they all had some dollars in their pockets, money was not central. The brothers liked to be comfortable and openhanded, but none of them was hounded by the plutocrat’s craving for bottomless coffers. They didn’t care all that much about power either, at least outside the confines of the family. They wanted to win, but not crush the competition. They didn’t live large, run after women, hobnob with famous people or politicians. Nor did they work to please God. God was their father’s concern. The sons started a business because in America
they could
. In Russia, a Jew had no choice. Except for the most exalted or brilliant, there was no possibility of owning land, joining a profession, securing a place in government or academics. But in America, by law, a Jew was the equal of anyone (even if the law was often subverted or skirted by family wealth, social connections,schools, clubs, churches, and codes). In America, as long as your skin was white, industry and energy were rewarded no matter what your last name was, and imagination could make you a fortune. The American playing field was far from level, but at least Jews were allowed on it. Which may explain why some Jews, the Cohen family among them, were determined to play like gentlemen. Nothing pleased Hyman more than to hear a gentile corporate executive praise him for his “attitude.” Meaning, he did not act like a grasping, uncouth immigrant jobber. Hyman made it a matter of pride that he would be
more
upstanding,
more
rigorous,
more
square and scrupulous and clean-cut and aboveboard than the next