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ried. They were part of a group who came
from Europe, in probably 1908 or 1909,
who defied convention. They were part of
a group of these freethinkers: let's call
them that, because I don't think they con-
sidered themselves intellectuals. They were
interested in politics; they were interested
in changing the world maybe, but there
wasn't that much to change at that time.
They did a lot of reading and they would
discuss. I don't know what they discussed,
but I remember they used to discuss. Then,
of course, when Bolshevism came on the
scene, that's when you began to have splits
in these freethinking ways. Some became
socialists; some became communists."
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Daniel Bell
68, professor, Cambridge, Massachusetts
I am a professor at Harvard University.
My mother and father both came from the
area between Poland and Russia, about 30
miles northeast of Bialystok, the area
which shifted back and forth constantly.
They didn't know each other in the old
country.
My mother came as one of five sisters.
A brother was left behind and died in
Poland. My mother's father was a me-
lamed, a teacher, and he stayed, and I was
named after him. My father came with his
father. My grandfather was the eldest of
about eight or nine boys, most of whom,
as far as I recall, came over, and there was
one sister. His family name was Bolotsky,
but as I found out later that was not ac-
tually the original name. His father or
grandfather, probably his father, had been
named Karlinsky. There was this edict in
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26
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1988
Russia that if you were a younger son you
were eligible for service in the army, so
younger sons were often placed in other
families or moved away and took different
names in order to seem to be only children.
He took the name Bolotsky.
He came over here and for most of his
life he worked, having a small business
which was coal in the wintertime and
seltzer and ice in the summertime. He had
a horse and wagon, and one of my earliest
memories was working with him, riding on
a horse and wagon through the Lower East
Side, saying, "Giddyup." That's the closest
I've ever came to nature. It reminds me of
Bernard Malamud's marvelous story
where he goes out to Eugene, Oregon, and
the character in the story is called Levin.
Levin goes into the fields and looks with
amazement and he says, "It's the first time
a Levin has ever seen a cow, and the first
time a cow had ever seen a Levin."
I grew up on the Lower East Side. I had
an older brother. My mother was a dress-
maker and my father worked as a pattern
maker, cutting dress patterns in shops. My
father died in January 1920, when I was
about eight months old. So when I grew
up, we lived for about the first six or seven
years with different relatives. But my
grandfather also lived nearby on the Lower
East Side, so I would go over there in the
afternoons. My grandparents moved up to
the Bronx when I was about five years old,
but we remained on the Lower East Side
because my mother worked in a garment
factory. I was put in what was called then
a "day orphanage." It was partly a day care
center, partly an orphanage, because there
were many children like myself who came
from families where one or the other parent
had died.
It didn't have any city or state money.
There was no such thing. It was supported
by the local businessmen. It was a peculiar
arrangement in that about three or four
months a year, sometimes five months a
year, I would stay there for weeks at a time.
The other times of the year, I would only
be there for the day, the reason being, of
course, that in the garment industry,
because of the seasons, there are long
periods when you work ten or more hours
a day. So I'd be there in the morning and
I never knew in the evening whether my
mother would come to pick me up. If she
was working late, I'd sleep over. If there
was no work, she would come and pick me
up. So I used to joke, when the revolution
comes I have_ the perfect proletariat
background — both parents were workers,
deprived, broken home, every situation of
that kind.
When I was about ten or 11 years old,
my legal guardian was my father's younger
brother. He was a dentist. His name was
Samuel Bolotsky, and he used to have an
office on the Lower East Side. He was mov-
ing up to Second Avenue and then to the
Bronx. They thought Bolotsky didn't fit
well. A group of the cousins came together
to change their names and they took three
different names. Some took the name Bell,
which is what my uncle Sam took. Some
took the name Ballin. And some cousins
took the name Ballot. That's when • I
became Bell.
Arthur Weinberg
70, writer, Chicago, Illinois
I was a reporter for 33 years for Fairchild
Publications. In later years I did book