The Pushcart War Read online

  Maxie Hammerman knew the license number of almost every pushcart licensed to do business in New York. If you said to Maxie, “Morris the Florist,” Maxie would come right back at you, “X-105,” which was Morris’ license number.

  Also, Maxie was very nice about giving business advice. If a peddler came to Maxie and asked him to build a pushcart for a fresh-vegetable line, Maxie would think the matter over and then he would ask the peddler where he planned to push the cart.

  If the peddler said, “East of Tompkins Square, north to 14th and south to Delancey,” Maxie would run over his license list in his head and say, “Already there are thirteen carts in the fresh-vegetable line in that territory. Maybe you could push some other line?”

  Maxie’s advice was usually very sound, and he was known to his friends and to the peddlers who bought their carts from him as the Pushcart King. Very few people except Maxie’s friends and the pushcart peddlers even knew there was a pushcart king.

  CHAPTER IV

  The Summer Before the War

  Certainly there had been trouble coming. Anyone who had had any experience of wars would have seen it coming long before the afternoon that Mack ran down Morris the Florist.

  There had been general grumbling. New York had become so crowded with cars and taxis and buses and trucks that traffic was very slow.

  At first, everyone blamed everyone else. People who drove their own cars grumbled about people who rode in taxis. If there were no taxis, said the automobile owners, there would be room to drive in the streets.

  Taxi drivers, on the other hand, complained about people who drove their own cars. If private cars were kept off the streets, people could get where they wanted to go in a hurry, the taxi drivers claimed.

  The bus drivers suggested that both the taxis and the private cars should get off the streets. And the people who liked to walk found fault with everything on wheels.

  But what irritated everyone were the trucks. There were so many of them, and they were so big that they did not have to get out of the way for anyone.

  Most of the businesses in the city hired trucks to carry their goods from one place to another. To get an idea of how many trucks there were on the streets at the time, one may turn to the telephone book for that year.

  In the classified section, for instance, if one opens to the “P” listings, a few of the products one will find advertised there are:

  Package Handles

  Paint

  Pajama Trimmings

  Pancake Mixes

  Pants

  Paper Plates

  Parachutes

  Park Benches

  Parking Meters

  Parquet Floors

  Party Favors

  Paste

  Patent Medicines

  Patterns

  Paving Brick

  Pawn Tickets

  Peas

  Peanut Butter

  Pearls

  Pecans

  Pencils

  Pen Knives

  Penicillin

  Pennants

  Pens

  Pepper

  Perambulators

  Percales

  Perfumes

  Periodicals

  Permanent Wave Machines

  Pet Shop Supplies

  Petroleum

  Pewter

  Pharmaceuticals

  Phonographs

  Photographic Supplies

  Piano Stools

  Piccolos

  Pickle Barrels

  Picnic Tables

  Picture Frames

  Picture Post Cards

  Picture Windows

  Pies

  Pigskins

  Pile Drivers

  Pillows

  Pins

  Pipe

  Pipe Organs

  Pistol Belts

  Piston Rings

  Pizza Pie Supplies

  Place Cards

  Planetariums

  Plant Foods

  Plaques

  Plaster of Paris

  Plastics

  Plate Glass

  Platforms

  Platinum

  Playground Equipment

  Playing Cards

  Playsuits

  Playthings

  Pleating Machine Parts

  Plexiglass

  Pliers

  Plows

  Plugs

  Plumbago

  Plushes

  Plywood

  Pocketbooks

  Podiums

  Poker Chips

  Poisons

  Poles

  Police Badges

  Polish

  Polo Mallets

  Pompoms

  Ponchos

  Pony Carts

  Pool Tables

  Popcorn Machines

  Porch Furniture

  Postage Stamp Affixers

  Posters

  Potatoes

  Potato Peelers

  Pot Holders

  Potted Plants

  Pottery

  Poultry

  Powder Puffs

  Precious Stones

  Precision Castings

  Premium Goods

  Preserves

  Pressing Machines

  Pressure Cookers

  Pretzels

  Price Tags

  Printing Presses

  Propellers

  Projectors

  Prunes

  Public Address Systems

  Publications

  Pulleys

  Pulpits

  Pumice

  Pumps

  Punch Bowls

  Puppets

  Purses

  Pushcart Parts

  Putty

  Puzzles

  One must keep in mind that the products mentioned above are only a few of the things listed under the letter “P”. Consider, too, that the phone book lists not only pile drivers, for example, but forty-three different firms in the pile-driving business (not to mention the 7234! different firms in the plastics business). Then, if one remembers that each of those forty-three firms employed on the average of seventeen and a half trucks a day, one will begin to get an idea of the number of trucks that there must have been in New York just before the Pushcart War.

  The worst of it was that during the period that more and more trucks had been appearing in the city streets, the trucks had been getting bigger and bigger. The truck drivers had it all figured out.

  At least, that is what Professor Lyman Cumberly, of New York University, said when he was writing about the Push-cart War some years later. Professor Cumberly’s notion was that the truck drivers had gotten together and figured out that in crowded traffic conditions, the only way to get where you wanted to go was to be so big that you didn’t have to get out of the way for anybody. This is known as the Large Object Theory of History.

  CHAPTER V

  Wenda Gambling Sees the Danger Signs

  It is a matter of historical record that the average truck in New York City at the time of the Pushcart War was so big that no one driving behind it could see around it to check the names of the streets he was passing. Wenda Gambling, a well-known movie star, on her way to 96th Street to visit her ninety-year-old grandmother, once got stuck behind a gasoline truck.

  For all her experience in the movies, Wenda was a timid driver and was afraid the truck would explode if she tried to pass it. It had big red DANGER signs painted all over it, Wenda recalls.

  Since Wenda did not dare pass the truck, and since she could not see any street signs, she not only went past 96th Street, but was at Bear Mountain, some fifty miles beyond the city limits, before she had any idea where she was. By then, of course, she was so frightened that she had to spend the night in a log cabin in Harriman State Park.

  A search party did not find her until 6:30 the following morning. She had not had anything to eat but some dry oatmeal that someone had left in the cabin.

  This kind of thing kept happening. Wenda’s case is remem
bered, because Wenda’s activities were always reported in the headlines. But other people ran into similar troubles.

  More and more the truck drivers crowded other drivers to the sides of the street. They hogged the best parking places. Or, if there were no parking places, and a truck driver felt like having a cup of coffee, he simply stopped his truck in the middle of the street and left it there, blocking the traffic for miles behind him.

  The heavier the traffic, the ruder the truck drivers became. At busy intersections, they never let anyone else turn first. If anyone tried to, a truck driver had only to gun his engine and keep on coming. Few automobile drivers cared to argue with a twelve-ton truck, even when they were in the right.

  Even the taxi drivers began to lose their confidence. For a long time the taxis had been considered a match for the trucks because of the daring, speed, and skill of their drivers. When the taxi drivers grew cautious, many people were alarmed.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Peanut Butter Speech

  One of the first people to speak out against the growing danger was a man named Archie Love. Archie Love was running for Mayor at the time, and he promised to reduce the number of trucks in the streets.

  It looked briefly as if Archie Love might be elected on the strength of this promise alone. But that was before Archie’s opponent, Emmett P. Cudd (who was already Mayor and did not want to lose his job), made his famous “Peanut Butter Speech” in Union Square.

  Mayor Cudd repeated the Peanut Butter Speech ninety times in one week. It went more or less as follows:

  “Friends and New Yorkers: New York is one of the biggest cities in the U.S.A. We are proud of that fact.

  “What makes a city big? Big business, naturally.

  “And what is the difference between big business and small business? It is this: If you order fourteen cartons of peanut butter, you are running a small business. If you order four hundred cartons of peanut butter, you are running a big business.

  “Fourteen cartons of peanut butter, you can get delivered in a station wagon. But for four hundred cartons of peanut butter, you need a truck. And you need a big truck. Big trucks mean progress.

  “My opponent, Archie Love, is against trucks. He is, therefore, against progress. Maybe he is even against peanut butter.”

  Naturally, all the truck drivers voted to re-elect Mayor Cudd, and so did a lot of other people. Very few people wanted to be against progress. No one wanted to be against peanut butter. And everyone wanted to be proud of their city, because they always had been. Thus, Archie Love did not get elected, and the trucks kept getting bigger.

  As the trucks increased in size, traffic—as Archie Love had predicted—grew steadily worse until, in the spring before the Pushcart War, the city was one big traffic jam most of the time. One day it took a taxi four hours to drive five blocks.

  The passenger in the taxi was Professor Lyman Cumberly, who did not complain because he was working on his Large Object Theory of History and found the situation interesting from a scientific point of view. During this ride, Professor Cumberly fell into conversation with an impatient young man from Seattle who was trapped in an adjoining taxi.

  The young man was shocked that so many New Yorkers accepted the terrible conditions in their streets without protest, and Professor Cumberly recalls that the visitor had very definite ideas what should be done about the trucks. In fact, encouraged by Professor Cumberly’s interest, the young man flew back to Seattle and wrote a book.

  The book, called The Enemy in the Streets, was a fearless attack on the trucks. However, as the author was unknown, the book did not receive much notice at the time it was published. It is remembered today largely because the author is now President of the United States.

  CHAPTER VII

  The Words That Triggered the War (Wenda Gambling’s Innocent Remark)

  What finally brought matters to a head was a television program called “The Day the Traffic Stopped.” The day before the program, the traffic had stopped entirely, and one of the television stations had hurriedly called in a panel of experts to explain why.

  The members of the panel were:

  Robert Alexander Wrightson—Traffic Commissioner of New York

  Alexander P. Wolfson—head of Wolfson & Wolfson, specialists in traffic coordination

  Dr. Wolfe Alexander—a traffic psychologist

  Wenda Gambling—a well-known movie star

  Wenda Gambling was hardly an expert on traffic. But as the three other panel members were elderly men (one stout, one bald, and one near-sighted), the moderator of the program felt that the panel would be more interesting to the audience if Wenda were at the table.

  In introducing Wenda, the moderator of the program said, “As we all know, Miss Gambling’s new movie, The Streets of New York, is being shot on the streets of New York, and as the streets of New York are the subject of our discussion tonight, it is very appropriate that she should be here.”

  Wenda tactfully left most of the talking to the experts. Each of the three men had a different theory as to why the traffic had stopped.

  Robert Alexander Wrightson said that there was no cause for alarm, that the whole thing was a simple matter of what he liked to call “the density of moving objects.”

  Alexander P. Wolfson disagreed. He said the problem involved nothing more than “a predictable increase in the number of unmoving objects.”

  Dr. Wolfe Alexander said that it did not matter whether the objects were moving or unmoving as the whole thing could be easily solved by “a more thorough conditioning of drivers to hopeless situations.”

  “And what do you think, Miss Gambling?” asked the moderator, as the three experts began to argue with each other.

  “I don’t know what they are talking about,” said Wenda Gambling.

  “Well,” said the moderator, who was not quite sure himself, “I believe our subject this evening was traffic.”

  “Oh,” said Wenda Gambling. “Well, I think that there are too many trucks and that the trucks are too big.”

  Since most of the television audience had been watching Wenda Gambling rather than the experts—and since everyone watching did know what Wenda was talking about—this one remark received more attention than anything else that was said on the program. Before the program was off the air, over five thousand viewers had called the station to say that they agreed with Wenda Gambling.

  Professor Lyman Cumberly has suggested that except for Wenda Gambling’s innocent remark, there might never have been a Pushcart War. Instead, says Professor Cumberly, the trucks would have simply gone on taking over the city, crowding out the taxis, buses, cars—and finally the people themselves. No one would have challenged them until it was too late.

  It would, Professor Cumberly believes, have been the end of life in New York as we know it. But once Wenda Gambling had stated the danger for all to hear, war was inevitable.

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Secret Meeting & The Declaration of War (Excerpts from the Diary of Joey Kafflis)

  The truck drivers themselves were the first to grasp the meaning of the widespread response to Wanda Gambling’s remark. The day after the television program, representatives of all the trucking firms in the city held a secret meeting.

  The meeting was organized by “The Three,” as the owners of the three largest trucking firms in the city were called. The Three were Moe Mammoth (of Mammoth Moving)—or “Big Moe,” as his drivers called him, Walter Sweet, of Tiger Trucking (who preferred to be known as “The Tiger”) and Louie Livergreen of LEMA (Lower Eastside Moving Association).

  The plotting of the Pushcart War and the truckers’ strategy throughout was, for the most part, the work of The Three.[1] Big Moe generally served as spokesman for The Three, and it was Big Moe who presided over the secret meeting.

  The meeting was held in an underground garage owned by Mammoth Moving. It was at this meeting that a young truck driver named Joey Kafflis had the nerve to stand up and say,
“People are right. Traffic is lousy, and there are too many trucks.”

  Joey, who worked for Tiger Trucking, was fired shortly after this meeting. Fortunately, Joey kept a diary. The diary was something that he had started to pass the time when his truck was stalled in a traffic jam. It is from this diary that we have a first-hand account of what happened at the first secret meeting and in the days that followed.

  Here are some excerpts from Joey Kafflis’ diary, dated the day after the secret meeting:

  February 15. 9th Avenue and 66th Street en route to 9th and 86th with two dozen pipe organs. 11:15 a.m.

  It looks like a long tie-up ahead, so I may as well put down a few more facts about the meeting last night. After I have said, “Traffic is lousy,” there is a big silence. Everybody looks at me very surprised, and several guys look as if I have hurt their feelings.

  Then Big Moe, who is running the meeting, gets up and growls. By that I mean that he clears his throat in a particular way Big Moe has of clearing his throat. It is as if you were racing your engine a little bit to test whether you have the power and the engine is warmed up.

  “Now maybe traffic is not so good,” Big Moe says. For a minute I think he is going to agree with me. But instead he glares at me and says—and he is nicely warmed up by now—“I say, Mr. Kafflis, that is all a question of who is to blame for the traffic situation. Why pick on the poor trucks?”

  When Big Moe says “poor trucks,” I laugh out loud. But nobody hears me, because everybody is cheering for Big Moe . . . .

  12:15 p.m. 9th Avenue and 69th Street.

  I thought I was going to make 86th Street by lunch time, but there is still trouble up ahead. So I will continue.

  After Big Moe says “poor trucks,” a trucker named Little Miltie stands up. Little Miltie says, “I agree with Big Moe. Why blame the poor trucks? If you ask me, it is all those pushcarts that are blocking the streets.”

  Nobody likes this Little Miltie too much, as he is known as a very mean driver. By that I mean that Little Miltie would crowd out another truck as soon as he would a taxi. But for once Little Miltie gets a big hand, and about ten different truck drivers then begin to tell how slow the pushcarts are, and how pushcarts are always sitting by the curb where a trucker wants to park, and how pushcarts should not be allowed to take up space in a modern city like New York.