..inte: Harry Rosenzweig ..intr: Evanne Kofman ..da: 1984 ..cp: 1993.036.257 Rosenzweig family trip to Roosevelt Dam. L-R: Newton, Annie, Rosa, Isaac and Harry. Ca. 1915. ..ca: ..ftxt: Interview with Harry Rosenzweig August 9, 1984 Interviewer: Evanne Kofman Arizona Jewish Historical Society Harry Rosenzweig Log Pages 1 Introduction. Isaac Rosenzweig came to Phoenix in 1897. Gave copies of written biography of Dean Smith Isaac and Harry. Harry's birth date, 1907. Paul Pollock 1- 2 Mother (Rosa Gross) came to U.S. New York David Rosenzweig address where Rona lived. Rosa and Isaac Jenny Gross marry in 1902 or '03. Birth of Newton in Newton Rosenzweig 1905. Charles Korrick Isaac Goldwater 2- 3 Trains to Arizona from the East. "Arizona Eastern" was a local train. 3 Boarding house in Phoenix where Rosa stayed. Steinniger family First mention of Rosenzweig's Jewelry Store 3- 4 Marriage of Rosa and Isaac by a Justice of Judge John G. Phillips the Peace and then a Jewish ceremony by a lay person. Harry Friedman Blanche Friedman 4 Their first home was at 504 N. Central; then moved to 1020 N. 2nd Street. 5 Three first department stores in Phoenix: Korrick's, Goldwater's and Diamond's. The cigar-making trade and cigar stand in Harry Baswitz Los Angeles. 6 In 1897 Isaac opened a pawn shop/jewelry store in Phoenix at 3rd Street and E. Washington. 6- 7 First National Bank (First Interstate) Oberfelder family Hildebrand Hege Newton Rosenzweig Anna Rosenzweig 8 Sunday School. Barnett Marks Carrie Lewkowitz 9 Christie's Music School. Harry played a saxophone and Newt a violin. 9-10 Phoenix Union High School band and ROTC. Rosenzweig Log Pages 10 On board of Temple Both Israel. "Founding Steinberg Fathers" of the Temple. Charles Korrick I. Rosenzweig Lewkowitz 11 Loan from First National Bank. Split into Charles Korrick two congregations: forming of Beth El Rabbi A.L. Krohn synagogue. Max Reiter Barry Goldwater Bob Goldwater Kelly family 12 Hired a rabbi. Rabbi Lichnitz Newton Rosenzweig Ben Herzberg Trudie Lewkowitz Alfred Solomon 13 Recalls first Jewish wedding he saw. Pearl Newmark Goldberg-Melczer wedding at old Woman'& Joe Melczer Club. Ed Melczer Joe Melczer, Jr. Hazel Goldberg 13-14 High Holy Day services at Knights of Isaac Rosenzweig Pythias Hall. 14-15 Attitudes toward Jewish citizens. Barry Goldwater Sandy (Pollock) Rosenzweig Rabbi Plotkin Joe Melczer, Jr. Baron Goldwater 15-16 Character of Isaac Rosenzweig. Dinner Korrick family parties at Rosenzweig home on Monte Vista Diamond family in Phoenix. Sitkin family 16 Summer vacations in California. Population Newton Rosenzweig of Phoenix when Isaac arrived. 17 Early restaurants in Phoenix. 17-18 Attended Flagstaff Normal School in the summer. Played saxophone with an all-girl orchestra in Flagstaff. Rosenzweig Log Pages 18 Associates of Isaac. Charlie Korrick Abe Korrick Ike Diamond Bill Hart 19 Story about a customer. Justice Baker Alex Baker Robert Baker 19-20 Early neighborhoods. 20 Toll road on Central Avenue north of McDowell Road. 20-22 Isaac bought ranch land in Liberty, Arizona, and in 1914 traded it for 13 1/2 acres on N. Central Avenue. Planned to build a home but could not obtain a gas line, so he planted cotton on it. The boys picked cotton there. Barry Goldwater Bob Goldwater Newton Rosenzweig 23-24 Dance hall on the N. Central Avenue land. Sciot family Ray MacKinney Del Webb Grosso family Donofrio family Bill Hart 24-25 Land turned over to Newton and Harry. Partnership with Del Webb in 1961. Greyhound Corporation 25-26 Early dance halls; Sciot, Riverside, Jimmy Matlock Mirador; Red Nichols and His Five Pennies. 26-28 Harry's first job at Commercial National Bank Oberfelder and how he joined the family jewelry business. Melczer Mr. Foster 28 Newton and Harry took over Hege & Company. 29-30 Relationship with Rosa and Newton's marriage. Betty Rosenzweig Harry's first marriage in 1938 to Margaret Burke. His second marriage to Sandy Pollock. 30-31 Parents encouraged Newton and Harry to have their friends visit. 31 European relatives. Rosenzweig Log Pages 31-32 Activities: 20/30 Club (Rotary); Junior Chamber of Commerce. Newton Rosenzweig 32-33 On Board of Temple Both Israel. Ida Maisel 33-35 Jewish Federation and Jewish Welfare Drive. Charlie Korrick Harold Diamond Ida Maisel Rabbi Zuesman Nat Silverman 35-36 Israel became a state in 1948; Harry in Charlie Korrick charge of the Drive. Harold Diamond Eddie Cantor Nellie Diamond Chet Goldberg Melczer family Newton Rosenzweig 36 The Federation rented a house on 4th Street that became the Jewish Community Center. Bonds for Israel. Yale Stuart 36-37 Involvement in the Republican Party. State Barry Goldwater chairmanship. Jack Williams John Rhodes Sam Steiger Paul Fannin 37 Fund raising for Goldwater presidential and senatorial campaign. 37-39 Republican State convention. Gus Greenbaum Bill Nelson (Willie Bioff) 39-40 Elected to Republican National Committee. 40 Republican Selection Committee. 40-41 Phoenix City Council in 1950. Barry Goldwater 41 Corruption in city government. 41-44 Story of how the jewelry store used to be Newton Rosenzweig run. Reminiscence of Phoenix. Harry Rosenzweig, Jr. Rosenzweig Log 44-45 Arizona State Sun Angels and the Sun Angel Jim Coles Foundation. Ed Carson 45-46 Arizona Normal School, Tempe. Bob Creighton 46-47 Lerner's store and early downtown Phoenix. 47 End of interview. Harry Rosenzweig Interview Today is August 9, 1984. I'm in the offices of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. I'm interviewing Harry Rosenzweig. This is Evanne Kofman. Kofman: The first question I'd like to ask you, Harry, is would you tell me a little bit about how your father, who I think was the first one of your family out here, decided to come to Arizona? Rosenzweig: My father came in 1897. He didn't know anybody here. I brought a little biography of him written by Dean Smith. He's the head of the Arizona Historical Society out at ASU now. There's a fellow by the name of Pollock who puts out these books, if you pay him enough, but I never would pay him. The guy kept after me and I said, "I think I've given you enough people to go see that you've sold," so he finally ended up doing one on me. Dean Smith wrote it. It sounded like they wanted to get rid of me in a hurry, so I had them get Dean Smith. Kofman: I was really curious about some of the earliest memories that you would have of your family and things that you would remember. Rosenzweig: Well, I don't remember them coming here. He came in 1897 and I arrived ten years later. Kofman: How did your mother come out? Rosenzweig: This is a true story. I told it when I was "Man of the Year." My mother came from a little village close to where my dad lived but he never knew her. In the early days, I think they had an underground when these immigrants came in from the old country. There was always somebody down at the boat to see if there was anybody they know, sort of a "lantzman" looking for people who might have come. About 1901 or '02, my father had a note from a cousin of his, Dave Rosenzweig, who said that Mrs. Gross and her daughter, Rosa, and another daughter, Jenny, had just arrived in New York. I never met my grandmother. I remember this--I can tell you the exact address where my mother lived in New York, which I went down to see--217 E. 7th Street. Kofman: And that was your mother; Rosa Gross was her maiden name. Rosenzweig: My dad was about ripe for marriage. Kofman: How old was he then? Rosenzweig: Oh, let's see. They were married in 1902 or '03. I have to stop and figure when Newt came along. Newt was born in 1905. I would say that my dad was probably around 26 or 27. He wrote to Cousin Dave and said, "If you will bring Rosa out here, I have two prospects for her." One was Charlie Korrick and the other was Barry Goldwater's father. Kofman: I take it they were all determined to find Jewish girls and there weren't any. Rosenzweig: I think he was determined, too. They were raised that way and he just felt he was going to be happier. So, to make the story short, he gets a letter that Dave is bringing Rosa out. Now, she doesn't even speak English yet. it took five days and four nights on the train to get here. The trains didn't come through Phoenix. You had to go to Maricopa to meet the train. So this Sunday morning, he took the Arizona Eastern which was the local that went to Maricopa and he met my mother and he liked what he saw. Kofman: Did she come out alone? Rosenzweig: No, my dad financed his cousin, Dave. He had ties to New York. He brought her out and my dad liked what he saw but he wasn't going to jump too fast, so he put her up at a boarding house with a family called Steinniger--a German family that he had gotten to know. Every night after he closed the store he'd go by and pick up my mother and take her to dinner--I guess he was trying to know her a little better. After about eight or nine months of this he decided this was for him. They were going to St. Louis because there were no rabbis around but my father had a very small operation. He had himself and a girl and a watchmaker and the watchmaker took sick and the girl couldn't run the store by herself. He didn't feel it was secure. Not that he worried about it but she just wasn't capable of running the store. So they got married by Judge Phillips, who was the Justice of the Peace in those days. But to really seal the marriage, we had a chap by the name of Harry Friedman, who was an old-timer and a great friend of my father's - - a bachelor who always showed up around dinner time--who performed, as a layperson, the Jewish ceremony. My mother said that as soon as the wedding was over-- Kofman: Where did the ceremony take place? Rosenzweig: It took place at the Friedman home on North Central. In fact, my dad got married in his home and they had a falling out later and he never talked to him again in his life. He was in the jewelry business, too. Harry, (Blanche Friedman's father) was in the jewelry business, too. He was a peddler. He used to go to the mining towns and sell his wares. My father and mother bought a home at 504 N. Central. There's a drug store there now--right across from APS. I was by there the other day and up in the corner of it it's got Zweig's United Drug Store. Kofman: It's still there, then. Rosenzweig: The drug store is--the sign is. I guess the house was destroyed. Remember where the post office used to be on Central, the Westward Ho--it was a couple of doors down from that. Kofman: That was not your drugstore? Rosenzweig: That was our home. We sold the house to a Mexican family from Mexico City. That was a time when they were having problems down there and this couple wanted to get out of Mexico. We moved over on 2nd Street - 1020 N. 2nd Street. Kofman: But your parents were married at Mr. Friedman's house on Central. Rosenzweig: Mr. and Mrs. I'm trying to think of his first name. Kofman: Harry? Rosenzweig: No, that was another Friedman. He was sort of a cattle buyer. Kofman: Was this other Friedman related to Harry? Rosenzweig: No, he was a bachelor and came out in the early days just like my dad did. You know, Phoenix was originally started by Jews. All the businesses, I mean. The three department stores were Korrick's, Diamond's and Goldwater's. Goldwater's always closed on Rosh Hashana and Yon Kippur until the father died. Kofman: How did your father happen to land in Phoenix? Something must have convinced him to come this way. Rosenzweig: My dad landed in Montreal and in Montreal he was met -- he wasn't met--but some man picked him up there who was from his village. In those days, they could always make room for another person. If they had nine, they'd squeeze in ten. This fellow taught my dad cigar making. There was no machine making; they were all handmade cigars. My dad learned the trade and after some months he decided to start looking around and he left Montreal and went to Winnipeg and from Winnipeg he went to Duluth. This was probably after two or three years, he was living in Duluth making cigars and making a living and he read about sunny California. He was unencumbered so about a week or two later he left for sunny California. From my recollection he went up the coast towards Seattle and Portland, but he finally came back and settled in Los Angeles and he opened a cigar stand somewhere around Main Street where the city hall and everything is today. And, there was a fellow by the name of Harry Baswitz who was selling him the leaves to make the cigars. He came in and said to my dad, "Ike, I'm going over to Phoenix. It looks like it's going to got water over there." My dad said, "Well, if you like it, write me, and maybe I'll come over." Every immigrant, anybody who was coming over was looking for a place to get roots, so about a year later he wrote my dad and he sold his cigar stand for four hundred dollars and came to Phoenix. He said he figured if he was going to get married at some time and have a family he wasn't going to raise a family off of cigars. He had four hundred dollars and he decided that he liked the jewelry business. He opened up a jewelry and pawn shop. Kofman: About what year was that? Rosenzweig: 1897. He landed in this country - he was about seventeen or eighteen. I ran across one cousin - not on my father's side; the cousin on my father's side just died. He was going to give me the name of the town my dad came from but he got sick--he was one of the underground in Poland--and he never got around to doing it. But I talked to his wife the other day and I said I'd like to get a little information about my dad, so she's going to try to put it together for me, which I'll pass on to you. I think he was about seventeen or eighteen when he left Europe and came over on a boat which he said he was down in the bottom of it. Kofman: Steerage. That's the way my grandmother came, too. Rosenzweig: He said he was sick for three weeks coming over. As I said, he opened this pawn shop down on E. Washington about 3rd Street. He was trying to expand. There were two jewelers ahead of him. He just didn't have the money. The First Interstate Bank was owned by Jews. Kofman: Who was that? Rosenzweig: Oberfelder. In fact I just saw that name in one of these books I was looking at. I'm going to get these books and you can look through them if you'd like. There are about five volumes of them -- pictures and history. He liked the look in my dad's eyes, so he loaned him two thousand dollars. And my dad said he kept progressing and he bought out the two people ahead of him. Kofman: Who were the two people who were ahead of him? Mr. Friedman? Rosenzweig: No, no. He wouldn't buy him out. Hildebrand. Friedman came after my dad, about 1905 or something like that. Hildebrand and a store by the name of Hege. Hege's store was where we are now, today, and my dad was on Washington Street, on the south side between Central and lst Street. Kofman: So he bought these two out. Rosenzweig: (inaudible). When I went to work I was always running across somebody's box in there. (inaudible) - '50s we'd get the boxes out they'd have the name on them. Kofman: So he had already started the store by the time your mother came out? Rosenzweig: Yes. Kofman: I'm a little curious. Did your mother ever make any comments to you about how she felt about coming out West as a young girl? Rosenzweig: No. She never did. The only thing she used to say was that they got married he took her to this house and said, "Now, we go to work." He bought an electric fan when I was born so she'd be a little more comfortable. I was born at home, and I think Newt was, too. I had a sister, Anna. My father sent my mother to California with a practical nurse to take care of her until my sister came along. She was born in Los Angeles. Kofman: Was that so she'd be more comfortable and out of the heat? Rosenzweig: Yes. You know, there was no cooling or anything then. Kofman: Even I was under that. Rosenzweig: No, she never had much comment. She always said that my dad was always good to her and anything she wanted she got. Kofman: Then she must have known she was coming out here to get married to somebody. Rosenzweig: Well, I think she had that idea. I think they all had some suspicion. I mean, I don't think they had to go through any wooing stage. Kofman: No. It was very common, I understand. Let me ask you what you remember -- one of the things that I think a lot of people would be interested in knowing in the early structure of truly Jewish organizations. Rosenzweig: There were none. I've had no formal training. I had to get to be 77 before I-- Kofman: Then there was no religious school training or anything? Rosenzweig: Oh, they'd get together. There was a fellow by the name of Barney Marks, Barnett Marks, who was really sort of looked to. He was a lawyer and he tried to keep things together. We had a Sunday School that used to be at the old Phoenix Elementary School Administration Building on N. 1st Avenue. We would meet there on Sunday and Carrie Lewkowitz was one of our teachers. Carrie and Barnett used to teach. I remember being in a play once--the lead. At Christmas time I was King Mordecai. Kofman: That's Purim. And you were Mordecai? Rosenzweig: I was drafted at the last minute. It was at the School of Music. Do you know where that was? That was on Central Avenue. You could go there and take any -- Kofman: It was down on McDowell? Rosenzweig: No. It was about three doors south of us on Central Avenue. A Mrs. Christie used to run it. If you wanted to play a fiddle, they'd teach you to play a fiddle. Kofman: I remember the name Mrs. Christie. Rosenzweig: If you wanted ballet, you could take ballet dancing. if you wanted to take ballroom dancing, you had to come back at night and take it. I played a saxophone, so I used to get saxophone lessons. Newt played a fiddle and he'd take violin lessons. Kofman: How old were you when this was happening? Rosenzweig: When I got my first saxophone, I would say I was around twelve or thirteen. The saxophone was bigger than I was. I used to march in the band and I had an awful hard time marching and carrying the saxophone. Kofman: Which band was this? Rosenzweig: Phoenix Union band. See, I went to high school right after World War I. We had to take ROTC, so we had to wear uniforms every day to school and the girls wore middies. I always liked Friday. We didn't have to wear our uniforms and the girls didn't have to wear their middies. Kofman: In your home, speaking of Friday-- Rosenzweig: We didn't have anything. Kofman: You didn't have anything like that? Rosenzweig: No, we didn't--which I regret--but Mother never kept-- Kofman: And yet your father, I think, was very active in helping the Temple get going. Rosenzweig: He was a founding father. I mean, I've never been active in, for instance, the Jewish Community Center. I belong to it, I don't use it. The activities are too late in my life. But I got backed into doing the Drive for them and I'm helping them. I just know that it's a necessary thing in a community that's going to grow and have a good strong Jewish community. When I was 21 I went on the Board of the Temple because my dad said he was tired of going. So every year they were going to start me as an officer but I told them I wasn't ready for it. Kofman: How did they finally get around to really getting a Temple started? Do you remember some of those early-- Rosenzweig: When you look at the founding fathers--there were ten or twelve of them -- Steinberg and Korrick and my dad and Lewkowitz. Well, I'd have to look at the book--I can't remember them all. Kofman: This was for Temple Beth Israel? Rosenzweig: Yes. They all got together and they made their pledges. They'd call somebody to make pledges. The whole thing only cost $25,000. Everybody pledged and the thing got built and nobody came up with the money. Kofman: No one come up with the money? Rosenzweig: No. So my dad and Charlie Korrick went to the First National Bank and borrowed enough money to pay the contractor off. And they paid the interest on it. They never paid the note off, but they finally, after about seven or eight years--I think it was 1920 when the -- (Interruption) Rosenzweig: I can remember when they put the cornerstone in. So after about seven years of paying the interest and nobody would do anything about it, my dad and Korrick finally decided they were tired of it so they had a meeting and said, "You can either have the Temple or lose it." By that time there were quite a few people like Rabbi A. L. Krohn and Royal Marks' father --Max Reiter came into town and he was quite a religious man. I can't think of all of them, but there was quite a group came in and the congregation was a mixture of conservative and those who wanted reform. My dad, when the split came, to decide who was going to got the Temple. Kofman: You mean when they split to form Both El congregation? Rosenzweig: Yes. And my dad said to my brother and I, "Which way do you want to go?" Well, the thing is that in my early youth, I used to go to church with Barry and Bob one weekend. And I remember there was a family by the name of Kelly there and I'd go to the Catholic church. It always used to sort of bother me that we wore hats. They never wore yarmelkes, they wore their hats. So when Dad said, "Which way would you boys like to go?', we said we thought we'd rather be Reform and sort of Modernized. He said that was fine with him and that's the way we went. Kofman: What happened though as far as Beth Israel? Rosenzweig: They went out of our church. Kofman: They hadn't paid them off. What happened? Rosenzweig: They got a group together and finally paid it off. They thought they were going to lose it. They then hired a rabbi, earlier than that, a guy by the name of Lichnitz. His picture's in the back room, the holding room for you? Kofman: Oh, you mean at Temple Beth Israel. Rosenzweig: There are some pictures on the wall. I think Newt's in one of them with Carrie Lewkowitz's sister. Ben Herzberg--he lived in Tempe. They used to come over for services. Kofman: That's Dr. Ben Herzberg? Rosenzweig: Yes. There was Carrie Lewkowitz's sister, Trudie, Newt, a boy by the name of Alfred Solomon -- he moved away from here; he hasn't lived here in forty or fifty years. Don't know if he is even alive. I'd have to look at this guy--I can't remember his name, but I used to see him once in awhile but I haven't seen him in 20 years now. They moved to Los Angeles. Quite a few Jews who did well, when they did well they'd move over to Los Angeles and, I guess, did a little better. Kofman: You mentioned that there were times when the Jewish community before the Temple actually had a building, that there were times when the Jewish community, such as it was, got together. Did they have like a community Seder or did you remember any Jewish weddings or anything? Rosenzweig: I think you'd have to talk to Pearl Newmark. I think when she was married--and I asked her the other day when I was having lunch with her--I said, "Wasn't it about 1939?" I remember going to the Westward Ho. It was really one of the first Jewish weddings I ever saw. Kofman: There really was a dirth of social activities for the Jews. Rosenzweig: My mother used to tell me about the Melczer family. They were all Jewish and practicing Jews. Kofman: Was this the Ed Melczer family? Rosenzweig: It was Ed Melczer's uncle, Joe Melczer. It was Joe and Ed and they have a Joe, Jr. and Ed died a few years ago. They were cousins. But Mother was telling me that when Joe Melczer's father got married to Hazel Goldberg, they brought in a rabbi from California and had the wedding at the Woman's Club. Remember the Woman's Club before the--well, it was torn down to build an addition to the Westward Ho. Kofman: I don't remember that old Women's Club. I only remember the one near Park Central. Rosenzweig: Our holiday services were held in the Knights of Pythias Hall. That was on Washington Street. That'd be before your time. The building's torn down now. Mr. Melczer, in the early days, had a building where Mother used to tell me they'd go to services. Kofman: But you yourself didn't usually go? Rosenzweig: I always went from the time I was a little kid. Dad never insisted but he asked if we wanted to go and we went with him. In fact, I'd take him until the time he passed away. The Knights of Pythias, the Woman's Club, and usually in the Woman's Club until we built the now Temple on--the reason we went to the Woman's Club is because we outgrew the other one. I don't think it would hold maybe a hundred people. We had a little balcony. Do you remember the little balcony in the old one or do you remember the old one at all? Kofman: Not real well. A little bit but not very well. Rosenzweig: And then they never had enough chairs to seat you and kids would have to stand all the time. Kofman: Or sit on the floor. Rosenzweig: On Yom Kippur we'd go outside and play. The time went faster. Kofman: Did you ever encounter any kinds of anti-semitism at all as a young kid growing up? Rosenzweig: I never did. I've been asked that question many times. The thing was, I think we always knew exactly what we were, but I think many times we might have heard expressions that didn't have any meaning to us. Kofman: That could be. And your best friend then was Barry Goldwater. Rosenzweig: Yes. Sandy still calls him "just a token Jew." You know, she's the convert. Sandy. She takes this more seriously than I ever did. She put in a little time with Rabbi Plotkin. Most converts take it at a more serious level then those who are born into it. We see a lot of Joe Melczer, Jr. His mother and father were both Jewish. His mother took nick and got, somehow, into Christian Science; got cancer and wouldn't have a doctor and she died. She died in '35, so that's almost 50-some years ago. Kofman: It's interesting to me, because at the time that you say that your parents were married and the other Jewish families were here, they had apparently wanted to marry Jewish girls and they had brought them here, but was there also some intermarriage going on? Rosenzweig: Oh, sure. Like Baron Goldwater. The Goldwaters came from Poland; probably had a little more of an education than my father did. But my dad wasn't social at all; he was happiest when he was home. He bought other--I don't know if you remember when we lived on Monte Vista. We had a big home and his home was elegant. There wasn't anything that Mother didn't have. Once a year he would stand for a party being given. And this was the Korricks and the Diamonds and the Sitkins. Oh, Mother'd have these friends. And she would just do the whole works. Kofman: Was this like a dinner party? Rosenzweig: Oh, yes. Nothing was spared. She used to come down to the store ahead of time and every time she saw something she'd take it home with her, so she had all the appointments to do it really nice. But my dad, when he came home from the store, he'd go upstairs and held put his old pants on and he was happy to be home. My mother would have been very social, but as a result, we knew all these people--or she did- -but socially--I can remember, as a kid, we'd see an invitation to the St. Luke's Ball each year. My dad never went to a ball in his life. My mother would have liked to have gone, but Pa just didn't believe in that stuff. Never took a vacation in forty years but yet we were sent away every summer to the Coast for two or three months--Mother and the kids. Kofman: Where did you go? Rosenzweig: Well. when we first started going away in the early--right after World War I--we went to Venice. Then Venice got a little cheapie, so we moved to Ocean Park. Then Ocean Park was going downhill, an Mother said, so we moved to Santa Monica and then we grew up so we went on our own vacations. My dad was just happy with his home. He came in '97 and took his first trip out of Phoenix, and slept out of his own bed, in 1937--forty years later. Kofman: Where did he go for that first trip? Rosenzweig: Well, Newt got him in the car one day and said, "Let's take a little drive and go to Wickenburg." My dad knew a man down there he was kind of fond of by the name of Jones who had a drugstore. So they had a Coke and Newt said, "Let's go a little further," and they ended up in Los Angeles. My sister was living over there then. So Pa stayed a week and he liked it. The only reason he left Los Angeles and moved to Phoenix, he said the town was too big for him to get started; it had 60,000 people then. Kofman: About how many people were here when he came? Do you know? Rosenzweig: About 10,000; maybe not even that many. Between 5 and 10,000. Kofman: You mentioned, right when we first started to talk, that your dad used to take your mother to dinner. Do you know where they went to eat and what they did? Rosenzweig: There was Donofrio's in those days. I think they had a place called Gass Brothers, which was a sort of grill and chop house, and probably a couple of Greek places in town in the early days. Kofman: Greek places? That's interesting. Rosenzweig: Saratoga was Greek, and then there was a (inaudible), a confectionary, and eating place in back. Donofrio's was Italian and they sold candy up front and had an eating place in back; a very nice place to eat. I can remember when I would stay home with my dad in the summertime, we'd go to Gass Brothers every night. Kofman: This was when you were a teenager? Rosenzweig: Well, I was probably still in high school. Kofman: You mean, your mother would be over at the coast? Rosenzweig: No, my mother went back East to New York, and she told me two or three times we were going to go and each time she'd cancel it, so I said to my dad, "I want to go up to Flagstaff Normal to go to summer school." So that year she went to New York. When I was up there I played in an all-girl orchestra with my saxophone and got $5.00 a night. Kofman: Otherwise it was all girls? How many? Rosenzweig: Five. All too old for me, though. Kofman: Five girls and you on the saxophone. Rosenzweig: We used to play at Lake Mary and Mormon Lake and at school--this was in the summertime. Kofman: Were these school dances? Rosenzweig: Well, no. Lake Mary is like a--cabins all around--and they'd have a dance on Saturday night. We'd drive out--they'd drive me out, I couldn't even drive. I think I still have my knicker pants. Kofman: Well, you said they were too old for you. Rosenzweig: Yes, they were probably seventeen or eighteen. Kofman: Women of the world. Rosenzweig: They were all students at school. Kofman: Do you still play the saxophone sometimes? Rosenzweig: I finally gave it away. I ran across it one day and it hadn't been cleaned; I'd forgotten all about how to play it. I don't know who I gave it to. Kofman: That's really interesting. I'd like to hear that. Rosenzweig: Anyhow, my dad, as I say, was very unsocial. I mean, he liked people but he liked certain people. Charlie Korrick and he were very good friends and yet he never did any business with him, though. Kofman: He never did any business with Korrick? Rosenzweig: With the Korricks. And he had no use for Abe. Ike Diamond was a very good friend of his. And then a fellow by the name of Bill Hart was a good friend; he was in the hardware business. I ran across one of his remaining sons who is still alive here. Kofman: I had another question on something that had occurred to me. There were already two jewelry stores in Phoenix when your father started his store and there was a population of around 10,000. I'm just kind of curious as to why there were that many jewelry stores and what the market was for him? Rosenzweig: I couldn't tell you. Kofman: You don't know. Unless it was the miners then. Rosenzweig: My dad, having the jewelry and the pawn-broking--he used to tell me a story about a Justice of the Supreme Court, he was a good friend of my dad's, by the name of Baker--Justice Baker. Kofman: Is that the Arizona Supreme Court? Rosenzweig: Yes. Fine gentleman. Every Saturday night he'd get loaded. Before he'd start out on Saturday night, he'd come in and leave his gold-headed cane and get enough money so he'd have a good time that night. Kofman: This was a gold-headed cane? Rosenzweig: Yes. And then about Tuesday he'd sober up and come up and pick it up again and be back next Saturday. Oh, there are so many stories that-- Kofman: Do you remember his first name? Rosenzweig: I don't remember. He had two sons; one was Alex and the other was Robert. His grandson was a good friends of ours. You know, everybody lived in a section--if you lived on Central Avenue, you were on the main street. If you lived east of Central, you weren't. If you lived west, on the Avenues, that's where all the families lived--1st Avenue, 2nd Avenue. Every time I drive down there I start thinking of the people who lived in the houses that are all being torn down. Up to 5th Avenue was good. They're going downhill again. Kofman: That was the area from McDowell up to around Encanto and those streets? Rosenzweig: There was nothing in Encanto. Encanto didn't get built up until 1929. In the early days, after you went past McDowell Road, it was a toll road. You had to pay to drive on there. Kofman: A toll bridge? Rosenzweig: Not a toll bridge, a toll road. Kofman: It was on Central? Rosenzweig: Yes. Kofman: Past McDowell Road. Rosenzweig: That's where the town ended. I can remember that. Kofman: What was the toll? Rosenzweig: I don't remember. Probably a nickel or dime. After my mother--I guess she had the three of us--she wanted to move to the country. My dad told her that as soon an he found a piece of land he would build her the kind of home she wanted. She wanted a place where she could have horses for the kids and all that. So that's how we acquired the property on Central Avenue. In the early days you could homestead land. My dad never owned any stocks and bonds but he loved the land. When you homesteaded, you didn't have to do the work yourself, but you had to do about $500 a year for the government to approve of it. So he went out and picked out a piece out near Buckeye called Liberty and every year he had this fellow that he sent out there and paid him to fix up the ranch. At the end of five years he applied for a government deed on that and it was given to him. So a fellow was out there looking around and he saw this ranch and he thought, "Gee, that's a nice one," so he wanted to know who it belonged to and they said it belonged to the jeweler downtown. So he came down to see my dad and he said, "I noticed you've got a great farm in Liberty." My dad said, "I think it is." I took my dad when he went there by horse and buggy. We'd leave early in the morning and wouldn't get back until late at night. No automobiles in those days. Kofman: It was a working farm? Rosenzweig: Oh, yes. Kofman: What'd they farm? Rosenzweig: Well, maize, some cotton, though cotton hadn't come in yet, barley, alfalfa. Not any food stuff. So he said to my dad, "Is this for sale?" My dad said, "Everything I've got's for sale." Kofman: A true retailer. Rosenzweig: He said, "Well, I've got a little problem. I don't have any money." My dad said, "Do you have anything to trade?" He said, "Well, I do. I've got 13 1/2 acres on N. Central Avenue that I'd trade you for it, but that doesn't seem like enough for 160 acres." My dad said, "Well, I'll go take a look at it," so he got somebody to drive him out there and he liked it and he called the guy and they traded. In 1914. He was going to build a home for my mother, so he got an architect and my mother together and he told this architect to build her anything she wanted. Now in those days if you spent 20 or $25,000 you could build a mansion. Kofman: This was in 1914? Rosenzweig: 1914. So my mother said to this architect, "One thing I want to be sure I get is gas. I've done enough cooking on a wood stove in Europe and I want some of the niceties of this country." So he said, "I'll have to find out where the gas lines are." He came back in about a week and he said the gas line ended at McDowell Road and it'd cost about $50,000 to bring the line out there. She said, "Forget it. I don't want to give my husband a heart attack." So, anyhow, my dad said, "We'll keep it." World War I came along and he put it in cotton and Barry and Bob and Newt and I used to go out there and pick cotton. They had a flu epidemic so we had no school. Mother'd take us out at eight o'clock with our lunches; she'd drive us out. We'd pick cotton from about eight to five and then she'd pick us up. We got paid 5 cents a pound. We could pick about fifty--I was only about-- Kofman: Where did you take the cotton? In the center of town? Rosenzweig: No, no. In the old days there'd be a wagon by and hang a bag on there and you'd go over there and get $5 or $4.25. The fellow who was growing it--I don't remember who had it--but my dad wasn't growing it. Then they had a panic here after that, the fruit farming wasn't any good. My dad kept this. He carried it on the books for $7,000. That's about what he figured his ranch was worth. Then a fellow in 1930 came along. Remember they had a dance hall there, the Sciots? Kofman: Yes, I remember. Rosenzweig: A fellow by the name of Ray MacKinney got Del Webb to build part of the building and a fellow from Grosso family to do the restaurant part of it out there. They were related to the Donofrios and they made candy. Grosso was a young guy who wanted ice cream; didn't get any booze there, you could only have ice cream sundaes. Kofman: This was Sciot? Rosenzweig: Sciot. And that lasted about 2 1/2 years and the neighbors closed it up because it was a nuisance when the dance was over at twelve o'clock. The people slamming the car doors woke them up. Kofman: What year was this? Rosenzweig: 1932. So my dad was sitting there with a big dance hall and vacant. Kids would go by shooting the windows out. He got the idea--he said, "I know you're a Sciot's man. See if they're looking for a place to have a meeting." So I went to the meeting and suggested that they consider this for their Sciot hall where they could meet once a week or once a month, whatever it was. I said, "I think you could have dances because people won't fight a lot of people, but an individual couldn't keep it open." So they moved in. My dad had an debt that he owed his friend, Bill Hart - $25,000--which Bill was not pressing him, but he was embarrassed that he couldn't pay him back at that time. So he said to me one day, "See if the Sciott's would buy this for $25,000. I'll make them a good deal -- $2,500 down and nine years to pay the balance." They got excited about it but they didn't have the $2,500. Two years later they came back and said they were ready to buy it, they'd raised $2,500, so you can tell what kind of an organization -- they didn't have much money. My dad said, "Well, fine, I'll still sell it to you, but I want $3,500, $35,000. I'm out of my trouble and things are better." Roosevelt was in office. And he got mad and walked out and thought that was a dirty trick because he raised the price. He probably said, "A dirty Jew." Anyhow, after they went out he got Newt and I and said, "I want you to make a promise, if anything happens to me, that you won't let your mother sell this." Kofman: Sell it to you and Newton? Rosenzweig: He said, "Just don"t let her sell it." Well, after the war was over Phoenix began to boom and the first thing you know somebody came along and offered us $100,000 for it. I got excited because I was married and had two kids and I wasn't making much money. Newt reminded me of the promise we made my dad, so we turned it down. Then somebody else came along and offered us $250,000. And it wasn't ours then. Then my mother gave it to us as a gift; we did it all legally and everything. Then Webb came along and made this suggestion of building an office building, so we became his partner. Our property had grown in value so that we didn't need any money because we could borrow enough on the land to build -- we did it in stages. Kofman: This was in 1960-something. Rosenzweig: 1961, we opened it. Webb moved in in June of '61, the first building. That was a success. Then we built the hotel and opened it in March of '65. Then we built the Greyhound building with no pre-leasing or anything. Just about when it was finished, Greyhound came along; they'd been to Denver, Houston and Phoenix looking for a new headquarters and we had this building come off the line and they took it all. Kofman: And all because your father took it in trade on a farm in -- is there a Liberty, Arizona anymore? Rosenzweig: Yes, near Buckeye. Kofman: You mentioned Sciot's Let me clear this up because I got a little confused. They are the ones who came and originally built this dance hall? Rosenzweig: No, the dance hall was converted into a meeting hall. MacKinney built it and Del Webb, he sold pieces of it. He got Webb and Jimmy Matlock took his -- he put the roof on it and he got so much in stock. It was really a trade-off. Kofman: This was the dance hall when it was being built? Rosenzweig: The dance hall. It was terribly successful because Phoenix didn't have any nice places. It was really a nice place. Kofman: And this was in the early '30s. Rosenzweig: There wasn't any riffraff out there. The only two places we had to go were Riverside down in South Phoenix for dancing -- this was on the right side of the tracks. They could put 800 couples on the floor at one time. Kofman: And it lasted until the neighbors complained about it. Now, I remember when I was in high school, which was in the '50s, that there was a Sciot. So, at some time they must have--we called it Sciot--so they must have leased it from your father? Rosenzweig: No. When they moved in it, they rented it from us and they could call it the Sciot Hall. Before that it was called the Mirador. We had all the big name bands coming through, on one-night stands. Red Nichols and His Five Pennies. Remember that? Kofman: It sounds familiar. Rosenzweig: They were quite famous. Kofman: Did you ever get Glen Miller or any of those? Tommy Dorsey? Rosenzweig: No. we didn't get up to that. I can't remember all the bands. In '30 I just got to the drinking age--21. Kofman: How did you decide to go into the same business with your father and brother? Rosenzweig: I didn't. Kofman: You didn't? Rosenzweig: No. I didn't want to go in. I wanted to be a banker. My dad had a principal interest in a bank, Commercial National Bank, and-- Kofman: It was in Phoenix? Rosenzweig: Yes. I told him I'd rather be a banker than a jeweler. What I had in my mind was that they opened at 10 and closed at 2. So my dad said, "Well, go out and see what you can find." There were only three banks, First National Bank of Arizona, which he used to call the "Jew bank." That was the Oberfelders and the Melczers-- Kofman: That was not First Interstate, it was First National. Rosenzweig: First Interstate and Phoenix National merged and they called it the National Bank of Arizona. So I made the rounds and everybody that I interviewed knew me well and I knew them well but they said they knew I didn't need a job and some poor kid who needed a job to get through the summer--. So I went to my dad and told him I couldn't find a job and he said, "Well, let me see what I can do." So he put me to work. Kofman: How old were you then? Rosenzweig: Let's see, I was--this was in 1928. I was born in '07. Kofman: So you were about nineteen? Rosenzweig: I was about eighteen. So he told me at the breakfast table one morning, "You're to go in and see the vice president, Mr. Foster." It was a very small bank. But when I say small, it had deposits of about two million, but the First National Bank only had four million and the Valley had about five or six. So I went to work and Mr. Foster told me to be there at eight o'clock in the morning. "Eight o'clock in the morning?" I wanted the job bad enough. I'll tell this. I went to work on the 12th day of July and they paid twice a month on the 15th and 31st. So Mr. Foster came in and asked me, "You know, you've only worked three days." I said, "Let it accumulate and I'll got it in a bunch at the end of the month," figuring at least they'd pay me a hundred dollars a month. So, at the end of the month I got $37.50. I went in to see Mr. Foster. I said, "Don't you think this is starvation wages?" He said, "That's all we pay runners, beginners." So then I went to see my dad. "If you don't want the job, quit." So I had to be there at eight o'clock and I had to run the checks over to the--they used to exchange checks every morning and I had to be there by eight so I had to be at the bank by seven-thirty to pick then all up. And I stuck with it from July 28 until one day my dad said to my mother, "Why don't you put your resignation in. I'm going to give you and Newt"- -see, we had two jewelry stores in town then. One was called Hege & Company, which we kept-- Kofman: You had bought that one. Rosenzweig: And my dad said he'd keep the name of it and run it and he'd have two chances at people instead of one. Ho said, "I'm going to give you guys the store and I'm going to pay Newt $50 a week and I'm going to pay you $40." Well, $40 was more money than I'd ever heard of in my life. Newt said, "That's too much money. We'll both take $25 a week." So we went to work and I still didn't like being confined. We had a pool hall right next door to us. My dad would drop by once in a while to check and he said, "Where's Harry?" Newt said, "He's in next door shooting pool." So I got fired about three times and then my dad said, "I think I'll buy a pool table for you," so we bought a pool table and put it at home, then I didn't play pool any more. Kofman: You continued to live at home? Rosenzweig: Oh, there was no way we could have moved out of that house until we either got married or moved away. Newt didn't move out--you know, he went to war when he was--but when he came back from the war he was about 40 years of age and he moved in with my mother. She had an apartment on Moreland and they were just building it so she took two apartments and had them build a big living room; her section was at one end and Newt was on the other and he stayed with her until he got married. She was real upset when he got married. Kofman: Ho got married late, didn't he? Rosenzweig: Fifty years of age. He got married in 1956. But she wouldn't let him--you know, Newt never owned a car because he could use Mother's all the time. She wouldn't let him pay for any food; I think she bought all his clothes. He told her he was going to got married. Kofman: Now you were married before? Rosenzweig: I was married the first time in '38; married to Margaret for 18 years. Then I took the vow of celibacy and said I was never going to get married again until I got these kids raised. Then I met Sandy. I used to get the kids put to bad, and she lived about a mile down on the road on Highland and I'd go by and play her gin rummy at night. We went together about three or four years and finally she said, "You now owe me $42,000, either pay me or marry me." Kofman: Good for her. Rosenzweig: Yes. So, anyhow, I had to give it some thought. As my mother always used to say, she had four misfortunes. Kofman: Four? Rosenzweig: Four misfortunes. With Sandy and Betty both sitting there. "Both of my boys got married twice and they never married a Jewish girl." That was a misfortune. Kofman: You mentioned something that I thought was kind of interesting that might be nice to talk about, that your mother had these Sunday dinners or get-togethers where you would bring your friends over. I assume the Goldwater boys would come. Rosenzweig: They were often there. It was really a great part of our lives. We had a tennis court. My dad would buy us anything that would keep us home. He said, "When I know where my kids are, then I don't have to worry about the others; they'll be right here." We had a house on Monte Vista and 3rd Street, which now has 160 apartments on it. Had a 2 1/2 acre lot and this house sat right in the middle of it. We had a tennis court. We liked to play tennis so he ordered a tennis court. He only made one mistake. He didn't know much about tennis and told the guy he wanted it put in east and west. That's what get's the sun in your eyes all the time, but we had a tennis court and everybody was there to play. I think it was one of the few--one of the only private tennis courts in town. Then he started to build us a pool and he asked Newt and myself how big we thought he ought to build it and we said, "Well, 20 by 40." He said, "How many kids can get in at one time?" We said, "About 15." He said, "That's not big enough," so he built it about 50 by 20 so we could get all the kids in. Kofman: Did you ever hear from any of your relatives that might have been left in Europe? Did any of them ever come through? Rosenzweig: We knew they were all burned up. The only one who had relatives was my dad. He brought a brother over but he didn't like it here so he went back. He would have brought them all here but they wouldn't come. A lot of them never wanted to. I never met any of them, but I can remember in World War I where I would have to go to the express office and buy express money orders to send to his mother who was still alive, and that was in the '20s. He never wanted to go back; he would never go back. He said he had enough of-- Kofman: The old country? Rosenzweig: Yes. Kofman: Tell me, how did you get started into your activities with the Republican Party? Rosenzweig: Well, I've always liked people. When I went to work the town was very small and we started a 20/30 Club and I was asked to join. Kofman: What did 20/30 mean? Rosenzweig: 20/30 was sponsored by Rotary as a training ground for future Rotarians. The 20/30 Club was started in Ohio. I thought it was one of the--well, I never missed a meeting because I enjoyed it so much. We just had the top guys--about 95 of the top young guys in my age bracket, and all on their way up to being successful. A few of them turned out bad, but 90 percent of them--maybe even higher than that--all were successful. Many of then have died since then. Kofman: What year was this that it was started? Rosenzweig: It started in 1932. And then I joined the Junior Chamber of Commerce and I enjoyed that. We'd meet every Wednesday night. I like people and I got active. Then the Depression came along. In fact, I had worked myself up to be president of the JC's and we were having a terrible time staying in business, things were so tough, so I passed it by. Forgot everything all during the war and after the war was over I told Newt that I was involved in several things and I thought he ought to take some of it on, so we started splitting it up. And the reason I was active in the Temple, because I knew my dad liked that. He was tired and he wanted to stay home. I went on the Board when I was 21; that was about 1930. Kofman: The Board of Temple? Rosenzweig: Yes. I went to meeting on Monday night, which lasted for hours it seemed like, but I stayed with it. Then during the war I met a gal by the name of Ida Maisel. Remember her? Kofman: Yes. Rosenzweig: She alerted me to my Jewishness. She was quite a gal; we had a great friendship. There was a fellow who used to work for Korrick's. He was president of the Federation. Kofman: Jewish Federation? Rosenzweig: Yes. He came by the store one day, and I didn't even know they had a Jewish Federation. He ran the Korrick's basement. Tape 2 Rosenzweig: He was on his way to the meeting; it was in the old Arizona Title Building, which was on about 130 N. 1st Avenue, about half a block down from where our store is. He said, "Come on with me and go to a meeting of the Federation." I said, "What's that?" They met up on the second or third floor of the old Arizona Title Building. I went there and I sat in back. We had an Executive Director, a young guy we brought out from Oklahoma, and the whole meeting was about that they were going to participate in the United Jewish Appeal Drive. I listened and they were discussing who--they'd form a committee of about five people and they were going to pick Charlie Korrick maybe, and go to Harold Diamond. if the first guy didn't want it the second guy will take it and if they can't get the first guy the third guy'll fill in if they can't get the first two, but they try to pick out four or five so they don't have to come back and have another meeting. Kofman: This is to head up the Jewish Welfare Drive? This was after the war? Rosenzweig: After the war, in 1945. I'm back there listening and the whole drive was for $25.000. So I put my hand up and I said, "What do you have to do to be the head of a drive like that?" They said, "Raise the $25,000." I said, "That doesn't sound like much money to me." I figured it was about--I'm back there counting how many Jews are in town and get an average so that the drive shouldn't take long. Get a few good ones and a few bad ones. So I said, "I think I'd like to do that." I'd just lost my father and I thought that it would be something he would like me to do. Everybody looked like "call the psychiatrist in," because nobody'd ever volunteered to do it before. So I called Ida Maisel up and went over to see her because we used to talk about this, how it goes on in Buffalo. She said, "Well, now that you've taken it, I'll help it; we'll get it organized." So we had to get a good speaker. We got Rabbi Zussman, who was a rabbi over in Hollywood, and we had the party at the Woman's Club. We had a good turn-out. This rabbi had just got out ahead of the Holocaust in Germany; very attractive young guy; one of these fire and brimstone speeches. I went prepared to-- Kofman: This was just a fund-raising dinner that they had? Rosenzweig: Yes. And I talked myself, which I had never done before. I said, "I've got to make a reasonable pledge night." In my mind I tried to figure what I could give. I conducted the thing, I introduced the rabbi, scared to death--I was never so scared in my life. Ida was down there smiling at me, and the thing went off and everybody, tears in their eyes, when he finished because he was a great speaker telling them what was going on there. When he finished, they knew what was coming next--half the room emptied--they left. But, anyhow, we walked out that night with $23,000. I said, "Ida, what do we do now?" She said, "Your goal is 25. You'd better raise the goal or you're not going to get anybody to give you any more money." So we hadn't gotten much literature out, so we raised it to $35,000. Then we started the footwork, calling on people. We finally got $39,000. So, they came back and said, "Would you do it another time?" and I said, "One more time." Now they raised the goal to $60,000. and we raised $54,000 or 58, something like that, but we didn't make 60. Kofman: This was still in the '40s? Rosenzweig: Yes, '46. So then I said, "I want off for a year." Nat Silverman took it on. Then the following year, that was '47-'45, '46, '47-- in '48 Israel was made a state. I thought. "Well, I've done two of them," I went back and asked if I could do a third one. I got Charlie Korrick and Harold Diamond to be my two co-chairmen, and through a connection I was able to get Eddie Cantor to come over here. We had this at the Shrine Auditorium--packed house. Kofman: How much were the tickets for Eddie Cantor? Do you remember? Rosenzweig: We didn't charge anything for tickets. He was coming over to try to help us to raise $100,000. No, our goal was 200. In four years we had gone from 25 to $200,000 and we had a real tough director. I forget what his name was. Perlstein, or something like that. Anyhow, Eddie came over and we had a party at Nellie Diamond's house on Central, a pre- thing to get pre-gifts, and a great turn-out, even the ones who hadn't been connected with Jewish affairs, like the Goldbergs, Chet and his wife, and the Melczers were there. Newt and I had met earlier and in view of the fact that this was the State of Israel, in honor of the State of Israel, we were going to give $15,000 between the two of us. And Eddie Cantor started out and he just wrung it out of people, you know. First he worked on the men, then he worked on what were the wives going to do, and what were the fathers going to do for their grandchildren, what were the mothers going to do. Anyhow, we finally raised $175,000 and I thought that was it for awhile anyway. They started the Federation--they rented a little house over on 4th Street and converted it into the Jewish Community Center. I think I was president for two years, and I really liked it. In fact--then they had a Bonds for Israel--and you remember Yale Stuart, one-armed fellow? He and I became good friends and I did a dinner for him. And then whenever he couldn't find anybody, why then he'd say, "Do it one more time, just for me." I had some fun out of it. Then I thought I'd become a little one-sided. I'd been very close to Barry and had worked with him, and when he was running for president we got to travel quite a bit with him, and he sort of shattered the party when it was through, so he came by to see me one day and said, "How would you like to be state chairman?" I said, "Under one condition. If you will speak for me, and you've got to get Jack Williams and Johnny Rhodes and Steiger and Fannin." They were all my friends. Fannin and I went to school together and Barry and I went to school together. Kofman: What was Fannin's first name? Rosenzweig: Paul. That griped me more than anything else, because I hadn't ever been involved with a political group, because they can be awfully nasty. Kofman: Well, had you managed or done anything with Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign? Rosenzweig: I raised money for him. Out of the store, I raised almost a million dollars for him. When he ran for the Senate the first time, I was his financial chairman. That wasn't political to me. I mean, Barry was an easy thing to raise money for. Then when he lost and the party had fallen apart, he wanted to know if I would be state chairman. I said, "I don't know why you want a state chairman, Barry," and he said, "Well, (inaudible)." The state chairman never lasts over a year or a year and a half in any area unless he's paid. So I took the job and the day of the election I had Fannin and Rhodes and Steiger and Goldwater and everybody there to help me, and it was a hands down thing, although a few little dirty things happened. But I had a cinch, so I went to see the fellow who was running against me. I said, "Why don't you just go in and ask that I be elected by acclimation?" Kofman: Who was running against you? Rosenzweig: A follow from way up in the northern part, Apache County. I know he's passed away since then. At the convention that day, one of the things that happened, one of the opposition, just before they voted, went out and put a thing on the seat of everybody's chair about, "Do you want to elect somebody who has connections with the underworld?" Gus Greenbaum was a good friend of mine. Kofman: But he was a good friend of everybody who was Jewish. Rosenzweig: Well, not just Jewish. I knew him long--I mean, when I went to Gus, who never supported Republicans, and asked him if he thought Barry could be elected to the Senate, he said, "Absolutely not." I knew Gus when he came in 1929. He was a friend of everybody, not only that, he knew every judge and politically he contributed to everything. So I said, "Well, think about it for a week or so." So he called me and I met him at the Westward Ho at that little ice cream fountain they used to have in there. He said. "'I've been thinking about it. I think he can be." I said, "Will you help him?" and he said, "Yes." Then I had another friend by the name of Bill Nelson, who came in the store one day and made a very important purchase and I got to talking to him and became very friendly, and he was the fellow who got blown up in the truck one day. He was Willie Bioff from back in Chicago. They brought that up. Kofman: They left this on every seat in the state convention? Rosenzweig: Yes, but it didn't-- Kofman: What year was this? Rosenzweig: 1965. So I took the job and I figured, "Now, that I've got it I don't have to pay any attention to the big boys, I've got to get the little guys to help me. Precinct workers." They never could fill all those slots, so we got them all filled and if a precinct worker acted unhappy, I'd go visit with them. I told Barry I'd take it for one year. I'd filled in a term for--well, it came up again in '67 and he said, "Just one more time, so I can run for the Senate again." He ran in '68 again. So I ran and didn't have any opposition and I got him elected and I wanted out. "Oh, now that I'm in you've got to help me." Anyhow, I went for five and a half terms. Never had a bit of trouble. Nobody was ever going to throw me out. I got elected to the National Committee in Washington and made a lot of nice friends and got the best treatment. Went to the convention--went to four of them with Barry--all the time I was a delegate. The last time, I got a national job; I was in charge of all the tickets and badges. That's the best job you can get because everybody wants tickets and they've got to come to you and you collect an IOU. Kofman: How do you mean? Rosenzweig: Well, you know, they need extra tickets and if you don't have them they're not going to get then any place else. You want a favor, then you go back and say, "Remember when I gave you tickets? and the places that really need them, like Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts--you know, they have big givers who want to go to the convention. Barry, for the rest of his life, will have tickets to the national convention, but he doesn't show up every year. Like the year I was there--the fellow who ran for president from Kansas in '36 that got beat almost as bad as Barry-- Kofman: Was that Dewey? Rosenzweig: No, no. His daughter is a Senator from-- Kofman: Estes Kefauver? Rosenzweig: No, those are Democrats you're talking about. Kofman: Yes. Well, I'm a Democrat; that's probably why I'm fixated on them. Rosenzweig: Well, anyhow, if they hadn't picked them up by 11:30, I'd then say to the gal who was helping me, "Why don't you call the state chairman of Massachusetts and say he can have 200 seats for this." They loved you for it, because they made a lot of people happy and got a lot of contributions later for taking care of these people. I went to Miami twice. Then I got picked for the Selection Committee for the convention in Kansas City. But I don't go back to Washington at all much any more. Kofman: Did you ever hold any offices in local Phoenix government at all? Rosenzweig: Yes. on the City Council. Barry and I ran. We were against gambling, prostitution and vice. Kofman: Well, good for you. Rosenzweig: And Barry said, "The three things we like best." Kofman: What year was this? Rosenzweig: '50. Everybody thought the City lost its mind, because none of us had any political experience. Kofman: Did you serve only one term on the City Council? Two terms? Rosenzweig: Won by a 3 to 1 majority the first time. We ran as a ticket. When we were campaigning, Barry and I took the south part of town. We said, "We know more people down there," and the other five people campaigned on the north part of town. There wasn't any place-- (Interruption.) We cleaned the city up. We had 27 different departments when we went in and by the time we went out, we had it down to 11. Got then a real special city manager who stayed 14 years. Prior to that there were 35 city managers in 30 years. None of them lasted, because everything was a "fix." In other words, you could get anything you wanted if you paid for it under the table. Kofman: In Phoenix? Rosenzweig: Yes. Kofman: That's kind of frightening. Rosenzweig: Well, gambling was wide open here. When I grew up, they had so many bookie joints and places to bet on anything. Kofman: Really! Rosenzweig: My dad would have turned over in his grave if he knew I had gotten into politics. He thought it was the nastiest thing in the world, cause he knew what he saw in Phoenix. Kofman: So he never got active in it in any way? Rosenzweig: No. Never even knew whether he was Republican or Democrat. I had a slight stroke in '76 and I thought somebody was trying to tell me something, so I went back to Washington and resigned my national committee and came back and resigned locally. I enjoyed it. I did it all out of the store. Newton used to get a little mad at me because he thought I was devoting too much time. See, I never have had a secretary, neither has Newt. We've always done our own typing and everything. Kofman: That's interesting. Rosenzweig: They bought me an electric typewriter and I'm having a hell of a time with it now. It's too fast for me. Kofman: You have to be careful with them. Rosenzweig: They're making a new desk for me so I can work on it better. Kofman: You know, you've been in Phoenix, seems like forever. Certainly, it's been-- Rosenzweig: Seventy-seven years. Kofman: That's a long time. For Phoenix, it is almost forever. I like to ask this of people that I interview, especially people who have been here a very long time. There must be some things that you miss about, or you consider part of the "good old days" of Phoenix, things that you would love to see again if only it were possible. Can you give me some examples of things that you really wish had not disappeared from the Phoenix you used to know? Rosenzweig: The thing is, today, everybody's coming from some place. Whether it makes a better town out of it, I don't know. I guess everything's got to grow. It amazes me the number of people, with the hot weather we have, love to come out here and live. But the thing is, you know, we used to go downtown, and our store, in the early days, was a meeting place for everybody to come in and say, "Where are we going tonight? Where's everybody going?" I still go to the store every day. You haven't been in our store. I've got a little desk at the head of the stairs. Got two chairs up there and I warn everybody who comes there and sits down not to get near the steps or they'll tumble down and I'm under-insured. Kofman: Now this is the store that-- Rosenzweig: The second. Kofman: --that's been there-- Rosenzweig: Ever since. We remodeled it in--well, you know we sold out about ten years ago. It's not the same kind of a business today. It doesn't have the personal touch, although Harry, Jr.'s in there. He's giving it something that they had because he was taught that. But, you know, Newt and I would see something in the vault; it might be a package that you were going to come out and pick up and, "Why don't we drive that by and leave it for the person so they don't have to bother coming downtown?" Used to get more drinks that way; everybody'd say, "Come in and have a drink." And I still deliver things to people. Kofman: I remember every bride went to Rosenzweig's. I did. Rosenzweig: We had 90 percent of that business. But today a bride would rather have stainless steel and have the difference put into something--because everything's so expensive. You know, you could get a service of eight in sterling, with knives, forks, teaspoons, salad forks, butter spreaders and cream soup spoons, and retail it would run about 250 to $300. That same--well, you see advertised four pieces, $135. It shouldn't be that, but the silver companies all have got it up so high they don't want to go down now. China--you could buy a nice place setting in Lenox, (inaudible) quality, anywhere from 22 to $27. Now they're 60 to $90. Goblets--nobody makes a goblet much under $9. Used to buy Waterford, even, about $3.50, now $10, $12. A young girl's not interested in it. They don't seem to care to--they've got more important things that they--it's the way of life. Kofman: Well, everything changes. You must remember when you could stand and look all the way over to Camelback Mountain and see no homes. Rosenzweig: Where I grew up, they have been very active. And ASU-- there's something I got into by the back door. I wasn't even on the Board and they invited me to a meeting. Kofman: That's the Sun Angels, isn't it? Rosenzweig: Yes. Jim Coles of Coles Furniture was the president; they only had nine people on the Board and the other eight didn't want to be president. I was going on and they said, "How would you like to do it for a year?" Kofman: When was this? Rosenzweig: In 1962 or '63. I know I've been president over twenty years, and still president. I think I got elected again for five more years. That'll take me up to 82 and then I think I'll quit. But, I like it. We started out, we did something for the school. We raised, through the Sun Angel Foundation, through the school, we raised a million and a half dollars every year for them. When I went on we were raising fifty thousand. When they built the new stadium. the school ran out of money. They sell bonds and they didn't sell enough bonds to build the stadium. The way we get our money--if you got two tickets, you buy them from the Sun Angels--when I first went on I would pay the price of the tickets, whatever they were, and then I'd make a donation to the Sun Angels. Well, when the school was going to build their new stadium, they ran out of money. I went to the bank and was able to negotiate a loan through Ed Carson for four and a half million dollars for them. We built it and we built that little section called the VIP Section and we get $500 for each person that has tickets in there. Well, we have 2,900 seats up there. $500 to $300. Then down in the other area, in the old stadium, we get 75 to a $100, so we boosted our income up. And the school likes us for doing it. It helps the school. We established thirty scholarships at $3,000 apiece. That'll mean $100,000 to the school. Then we established another forty scholarships of $1,000 apiece every year. Ten schools-- give them each three scholarships--education, school business, law end that. Kofman: You would remember, I'm sure, you said you went to the University of Arizona, which would be in Tucson. Do you remember when Arizona State College started? Rosenzweig: Oh, it was Arizona State College. Then we went for the name change in '58. Kofman: Do you remember when they started the college? Rosenzweig: Oh, the college--it was a Normal School to begin with. Kofman: It was there all the time? Rosenzweig: Oh, yes. This is the hundredth anniversary. It was Tempe Teacher's College. There were about 800 girls over there--they only had to go two years to get their certificate for teaching--and about 200 boys. Kofman: It's always been interesting to me that that school started in Tempe rather than in Phoenix. Rosenzweig: Well, what happened in the early days, Phoenix had their choice, they could either have the university, the state insane asylum or the capital. They took the capital, then they took the insane asylum, too. There was a choice of the capital. Kofman: It's an interesting combination. Rosenzweig: The capital used to be in Prescott. I get some of these old-time pictures--there's a legislative paper that Bob Creighton has and every week he puts a picture--this month's picture is of Phoenix in 1912 and they're having a flood. It flooded every year before Roosevelt Dam came along. I can remember my dad's store. It was right where Lerner's used to be, right on the corner there. He didn't do any business on that side--this was before Lerner's was there. He was on that side but he was the only retail store and women wouldn't come over there. They wouldn't go by the gambling joints and the bars, so he finally moved across the street on the south side. He did a fairly good business, but after the bars closed and everything, the north side became the good place. He never ran an ad in his business until Newt and I came in there. Kofman: I never thought of Phoenix as a wide-open town with gambling and everything. Rosenzweig: Gambling, just like you'd see in the movies. Just exactly. I can remember some of the joints we used to have around here. Nobody ever bothered them. As I said, we used to have a bookie joint right across the street from our store; we could go place a bet on any horse running in the country. (30-second gap in tape) You must talk with me again sometime. Kofman: Well, I hope that we can talk to you again. We probably will call you. Rosenzweig: My wife said, "Did you bore her very long?" She thinks I'm always talking about Phoenix, and we'll go to a party and I'll be talking to somebody--she says, "You know, you don't have to listen to him unless you want to." Kofman: Yes, but who best would know about Phoenix than you, and we'll be talking to Newton, too. I really want to thank you for coming today and taking the time. Rosenzweig: Newt says he thinks I fantasize once in a while. I said, "I like it better my way." Kofman: It's always fun. Thank you. [end of transcript]