HIRSH ROTH'S THEORY
The Bronx, between Claremont Parkway and Bronx Park, has known Hirsh Roth of the firm of Hirsh Roth & Co., wholesale and retail liquor dealers, for the last twenty years. He was there, a believer in the Bronx, when it was yet all rocks and farms, with a few scattered wooden shacks. He was there when the downtown people moved to the Bronx because the doctor said they needed country air and higher ground.
Roth saved up a few dollars sewing pants the whole day and eating herring with bread at night. His wife died of tuberculosis on such a diet after she gave birth to a man child, to Joseph, who is now the anonymous "& Co." of the father's business. Hirsh Roth moved to the "country" to save his own and the child's life. But, as he is a man with proselyting tendencies, he came downtown to the local of his union every Saturday night to persuade people to move to the Bronx.
He was at that time affiliated with a real estate firm, and sold lots and parcels to his former friends and co-workers. Many a fashionable house is now raised on ground he sold. Former pants operators own them. Half of Bathgate Avenue and Brook Avenue was populated by Hirsh Roth's efforts—ere he formulated a new theory: "The Bronx was becoming too populated." He then changed his business from selling real estate to selling liquor.
Many a man changes his business for material interest only. Not so Hirsh Roth. He always requires a theory. He went into the family liquor business to prevent drunkenness. "When a man has a little something at home he does not go to a saloon, that's the idea."
And all those years he boarded with his child in the house of a friend, a house builder. Hirsh Roth did not remarry; he had a theory for that also. "Marriage is a foolish thing a man should commit only once."
The builder, Feldman, had a daughter the same age as Joseph, Roth's son. Before either of the tots could utter an intelligible word, the parents had already affianced them. Dowry and everything else was settled between the two men, and a special glass of wine drunk to the health and happiness of the future couple. Then each went about his business with the feeling of a man who has cleared his mind of earthly cares.
The Bronx grew up in his arms, so to say. Early mornings he went to see how his "baby" developed. Every house was built under his eye. It mattered not whether it was his building or not. If he thought the style or the material was not what it ought to be he gave no peace to the owner or the builder. Many an architect's blue print had to be changed at his insistence. The depth of a foundation or a brick not properly fired had caused him many a sleepless night.
"Mazel Tow, Feldman; Josephson's house is finished"; or "They broke ground to-day on Berger's lot near Washington Avenue," were frequent greetings when he came home.
Fanny Feldman and Joseph Roth grew up together like brother and sister. They fought and quarrelled, and Mrs. Feldman made no distinction between her own and the stranger when she administered a deserved spanking. Then came the period when the high school boy hated even to speak to a girl. Joseph Roth refused to be seen with Fanny on the street, "because I am not a sissy," and thereupon received a beating from his father.