Newspaper Page Text
poor man. He can certainly use
an overcoat.
(MUSIC: Tag and Bridge)
NARR: In February of 1915,
Maxwell Abbell reached the age
of symbolic responsibility. He
read his portion from the Torah
in a Chelsea Synagogue, joined
with a few friends and his family
in celebrating his Bar Mitzvah,
and declared in two speeches—one
in English, one in Yiddish—that he
had reached the state of manhood
... A few days after his thir
teenth birhday, he asserted the
power of his newly-won status . .
MAX: (COMING ON) Ma! Pa!
I got it! I got it!
MA: Quiet, Max, Your father is
studying.
PA: (SLIGHTLY OFF) It’s all
r'ght Freda. You got what Max?
MAX: The license, Pa. The
working papers. I can sell news
papers now. You have to be
thirteen to get the license. Pa.
And I got it.
PA: To get a license to sell
newspapers you have to be Bar
Mitzvah?
MAX: Well—not exactly. Pa.
But—Well, I guess you’re right.
You have to be thirteen anyway.
MA: That’s wonderful, Max.
You should use your license in
good health.
MAX: Thanks. Ma.
PA: And when will you sell
these newspapers, Max?
MAX: Early in the morning,
Pa. And on Sundays. It means I
don’t have 10 work in the fac
tory, Pa. I can go on studying.
PA: You can go on studying?
Wonderful . . . Wonderful I’ll call
the Rabbi right away.
MAX: The Rabbi?
PA: So you can start to study
Talmud.
MA: (DIFFERENT PERSPEC
TIVE) Moshelye ... he doesn’t
want to study only Talmud.
PA: (NOT UNDERSTANDING
AT ALL) He just said he wants
to go on studying - -
MAX: I do, Pa. But I don’t want
to become a rabbi - -
PA: So you won’t become a rab
bi. You can still study Talmud.
MAX: But Pa, I want to go to
a regular high school. And then—
then—
PA: And then what?
MAX: Then I want to go to
Harvard. I know it sounds crazy,
Pa. But I can do it.
Miss Prescott says I can do it.
PA: Freda, what’s he talking
about?
MA: He’s talking about what
Miss Prescott says—his teacher.
MAX: Miss Prescott, Pa—She’s
descended from General Prescott,
the one who commanded the
troops at Bunker Hill.
PA: And she thinks you should
go to high school, a regular high
school? She’s an authority?
MAX: And then to Harvard, Pa.
PA: Max, I’m also descended
from someone—
MAX: I don’t understand, Pa.
PA: I'm descended from Moses,
who stood on a much bigger hill
than Bunker Hill—on Mount Si
nai, and received the Torah from
the Almighty. Maybe that makes
me an authority, too. (PAUSE)
You’ll do what you want to do.
To study anything is better than
not to study anything, and I
won’t stop you. But—
MAX: But what, Pa?
PA: But couldn’t you consider
me as good an authority as Miss
Prescott? (PAUSE) Think it over.
Maybe you’ll go to the Yeshiva.
MAX: I’ve thought it over, Pa.
PA: (AFTER A PAUSE) All
right. All right. (PAUSE) It’s a
funny place, this America.
MAX: What do you mean, Pa?
PA: A funny place ... In
America—only in America—Gen
eral Prescott knows more than
Moses.
(MUSIC: Tag Into Narrative
Theme and Down)
NARR: It is a funny place,
America ... A funny place in
which a child of immigrant par
ents, fired by ambition, spurred
on by the dream, can work ten
hours a day delivering newspapers,
supporting himself and his fami
ly ... A funny place, America,
in which a newsboy can bank a
thousand dollars by the time he
graduated from high school, win
a scholarship, and sit in the ivy-
covered lecture halls of Harvard
University, next to the sons of the
wealthy and the long-secure . . .
In which a Harvard student works
as a waiter, a tutor, a football
usher, to acquire an education
which his father, an impractical
man, but a man of wisdom, can
see only as incomplete . . (PAUSE)
It is a very funny place, America.
(MUSIC: Out)
PA: Max—
MAX: (NOW A YOUNG MAN)
Yes, Pa.
PA: Max, I can see how you’re
studying, you’re a good student.
You’re learning a lot at Harvard?
MAX: Well—yes, Pa.
PA: And when you’re finished?
What will you know when you’re
finished.
MAX: Well—I should know a
good deal about economics and
business administration. At least
I hope I will.
PA: And with this economics
and business administration—what
will you do?
MAX: Well, Pa, I’m not sure.
Get a job in someone’s business.
Or in a bank somewhere, maybe
PA: (CONSIDERING IT) Mm-
mm. In a business or a bank . . .
MAX: (AFTER A PAUSE)
(THEN, WITH SOME INSIGHT)
Pa—You still wish I’d studied to
be a rabbi, don’t you.
PA: Well—if you’re asking, yes.
MAX: Pa, I just wasn’t cut out
to be a rabbi.
PA: I’m not saying you were.
MAX: Then what are you say
ing? It’s as if you didn’t want me
to be a success. It’s as if working
in a bank or a business is a dis
grace—
PA: No-one said it was a dis
grace, Max. Far from it. But may
be—you don’t really know what
success in life really is—
MAX: Pa—I don’t want to be
mean, but—
PA: I know, I know. But I’m
not someone you think is qualified
to know what’s success. All right
—maybe it seems so. But maybe
success isn’t being famous or mak
ing money. Maybe success is who
is first in the service of God, or
who is first in helping others.
MAX: Pa—you make it sound
as if all I want to do is make
money. I don’t want to make
money—I want to make good.
PA: I hope you do, Max. I think
you will. But to make good—real
ly to make good—to create good
—it’s not money in the bank it
takes. A little wisdom in the
spirit, in the soul, that’s what it
takes. (PAUSE) I’m not so sure
you’ll find this wisdom in those
books on economics. (PAUSE)
You know, Max sometimes I
think those books you’re study
ing were written by that—that—
MAX: That who, Pa?
PA: That man who lived here
in Chelsea- that Horatio Alger.
(MUSIC: Narrative Theme and
Down)
NARR: In the winter of 1921,
while Maxwell Abbell continued
to work his way through Harvard,
the Abbell family moved to Chi
cago, joining Maxwell’s older mar
ried sister, Rose. And it was in
Chicago, after he had graduated
from Harvard magna cum laude,
completing the four year course
in three years, that he met—and
promptly fell in love with—Fan
Edelman.
(MUSIC: Fading) In the spring
of that year of 1923, they walked
hand in hand along the shores
of Lake Michigan, drinking in the
world around them through young
eyes . . . Getting to know each
other . . ,
(SOUND: Register a Gentle
Breeze and Down)
FAN: Oh, Max. What a gorgeous
day! I think I could walk for
ever!
MAX: (WITH AMUSEMENT)
We’re doing pretty well, Fan. If
we walk another half hour we’ll
be in Wisconsin!
FAN: (ALSO AMUSED) All right,
Max. There’s a bench. Let’s sit
down. (PAUSE) I’m not going to
have it said that I made you hike
to the Canadian border.
MAX: You know—I wouldn’t
really mind that at all.
FAN: You wouldn’t?
MAX: No. I don’t think I would
. . . Not if it were with you.
FAN: (AFTER A PAUSE) Good,
Max. Now that that’s settled—
let’s sit down on that bench.
(MUSIC: A Brief Bridge)
FAN: Max—Look at that beauti
ful sailboat!
MAX: That’s a pretty one all
right. (PAUSE) When I was a
kid I used to watch them in the
Charles River. I used to say to
myself, sometime I’m going to
have a boat like that.
FAN: Oh, Max—Every time you
talk about Boston you tell me
about something else you prom
ised yourself you were going to
have.
MAX: Well—I guess that’s be
cause there were a lot of things
I didn’t have.
FAN: And now, Max?
MAX: You want an honest ans
wer, Fan?
FAN: Of course.
MAX: Well—to be honest—when
that sailboat went by just now,
what I said to myself was—Who
needs anything when he has love
in his heart?
(MUSIC: Narrative Theme and
Down)
NARR: Sometimes it seemed to
Fan Edelman that, in certain
ways, she was older than the in
tense young man whom she had
come to love. And from the be
ginning she shared with him his
constant process of self-discovery.
She was, from the very first,
what she would be throughout
Maxwell Abbell’s life—the sensi
tive sounding before (MUSIC
FADING) on which he would try
the emerging nights of his own
experience ....
MAX: About that sailboat, Fan.
I want to talk to you about that
sailboat.
FAN: (AMUSED) In so serious
a tone, Max?
MAX: Well—it’s not just about
the sailboat.
FAN: Then what it is about,
darling?
MAX: What people want, and
how they go about getting it.
Once I wanted a sailboat. Now I
don’t want a sailboat. (PAUSE)
It’s a very important fact.
FAN: It is?
MAX: I think it is. Suppose a
man spent his whole life trying
to own a sailboat—and then found
out that wasn’t what he wanted
at all.
FAN: You mean a sailboat
named success, Max.
MAX: Yes, I think that’s just
what I mean, Fan.
FAN: Wouldn’t it depend on
how the man used the sailboat
once he had it? Wouldn’t that
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The Southern Israelite