loud mouth braggadocio, he never went in for that stuff. He hung around
Barney Ross all his life. He liked Barney Ross. Everybody liked Barney
Ross.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you one of Barney Ross’ followers?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Naturally when you live on the west side you have got
to be a follower.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I mean did you hang around him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; he was Jack’s age. I knew Barney through Jack, you
know, met him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I take it you were not in a position to know Jack’s
friends when Jack was a child.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. His friends were the fellows who loved life and go out
and have a good time. His business associates were fellows who were
hustlers and like to make money. So you put two and two together. You
find good business associates who are hustlers, and you had to be,
without much education, go out and make money, and in the evening you
go out and you find the friends you like to spend it with. He never
hung around with no hoodlums. We knew hoodlums, sure. If they come into
a restaurant where you are, next to them you are sitting, “Hello, Hy,”
“Hello, Joe.” What do you do, ignore them? You have known them all your
life, you don’t ignore them.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Kids from the neighborhood?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Kids from the neighborhood.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you have any people in mind?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Wherever you lived on the west side there was a hoodlum
or became a hoodlum who you went to school with, or you belonged to
some club with, or maybe--let me give you another example or you played
ball with them. You never knew. You never knew. They surprised you.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who were Jack’s closest friends before he went to Dallas?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He was very popular, he had a lot of friends.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who were the people he was closest to?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. What age?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let’s take it after he got out of high school.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Harry Epstein was one, a business promoter. Sam Gordon
on the west coast now, very wealthy man, a business promoter.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Ira Kolitz?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He knew Ira from the Lawndale; he knew Ira.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But they weren’t close?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Leave me tell you something now so you people
understand. Ira Kolitz comes from one of the finest families in
Chicago. His father was a banker on the west side. But living on
the west side you are next door--your next-door neighbor might be a
hoodlum, you don’t know. Maybe Ira Kolitz went to school with Jack, it
could have been. Maybe they hung around the same poolroom together. I
was in the Army with Ira. How much Jack hung around with Ira, I don’t
know. I know Ira had a couple of taverns downtown; that I did know.
Whether a tavern owner is a hoodlum that is another category, that I
don’t know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Marty Gimpel?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He died; poor Marty. Marty was a nice guy; worked for
the post office for many years, saved up a nice piece of change, went
down to Dallas, Tex.; they tried to promote homes, build homes, out of
log cabins. They built one, they sold it and that was the end of that
deal as far as I know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was Marty friendly with Jack during the thirties?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know. I imagine; yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When did you first become aware that Marty was----
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you know Marty in Chicago?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I knew of him. Probably met him once or twice at the
house.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you know when he went to Texas?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No. Leave me tell you about Dallas, Tex. I mean anybody
that Jack knew when Jack came up to Chicago maybe once every 4 or 5
years. “Come down to Dallas, I have got a proposition for you.” “Come
down to Dallas, I have a proposition for you.” Everybody he wanted to
come down that he wanted to have a friend down there, that was the kind
of a guy he was, or else have a place for him to stay, he probably
would have a job for them, or if a proposition come up that this fellow
could handle Jack would fix him up for it. That was the kind of guy
Jack was; you never go hungry with Jack.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you know a fellow in Chicago named Frank Howard?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; never heard the name.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Jack Howard?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. The musicman?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Is that who he is?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know, that is the only Jack Howard that I
remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us how you knew him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I can’t tell you nothing. I don’t know him that well;
no.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did Jack know him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember Jack being in the music business?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I don’t.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Selling sheet music or anything like that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. That is the guy that Jack counted sheet music; that is
the guy.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did your brother Jack sell sheet music?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you know a man named Irwin Berke?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Never heard of him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Or Sam Chazin?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Never heard of him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you know a fellow by the name of Paul Labriolla?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Needlenose; I seen his name in the paper. I never met
him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Hershey Colvin?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Hershey was an Army buddy of Jack in Mississippi, and
Hershey is a gambler by profession, and he now is a bartender on the
north side of Chicago. That is about all I can tell you.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us what you mean by a gambler by profession.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Well, years ago when everything was open in Chicago,
like certain communities were. He is a professional gambler. He dealt
cards or he run a crap table, or he was in that particular line. Maybe
he booked horses; I don’t know. But I know Hershey.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Jimmy Weinberg?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Never--I heard of him but I don’t know him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you know Alex Gruber?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Never heard of him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Mike Nemzin?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Oh, there is a nice guy. Mike is a nice guy, but Mike
is not Jack’s friend; he is Earl’s friend.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Marty Eritt?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Rambler agency in Chicago; very well respected and a
very nice guy.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was he a friend of Jack or was he Earl’s friend?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Both. I think Jack introduced him to Earl.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you ever loan Jack any money while he was down in
Dallas?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I didn’t. Earl did, I think.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Eva; did you ever lend her any money down in
Dallas?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes. Eva went down there, I don’t know, before the war.
What she was doing down there I can’t tell you, how she ever fell in
love with that city that is her business. She came up to Chicago one
year, and I had a little money hustling around like I told you, buying
and selling things for myself. “I got a good spot,” she says. “1717
Ervay Street.” I said, “What do you need?” She says, “I need about a
thousand dollars.” I said, “What for?”
She wants to buy a piano, so I bought her a piano and cost me $625 for
the piano. She wanted a loudspeaker system for the nightclub, cost me
a couple of hundred bucks for that. Then she bought some dishes, and
some pots and pans for the restaurant in the back. I said, “O.K. I
will ship them all down to you.” We picked out the piano. I got her
the loudspeaker system, and the paraphernalia that goes with it, the
speakers, and we went down to Maxwell Street and we bought pots and
pans and dishes and cups and saucers and shipped it all down to Dallas,
Tex. That was the last I heard of it until I went down there. I was
subpenaed by the Government by a guy by the name of Paul Jones. They
got in a jam. How did she meet Paul Jones? Eva sent him up to Chicago
and he is in Chicago and he calls me. I came downtown and I met him. Do
you want this part of the story now?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes; go ahead.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Paul is looking over things down in Dallas that they
can’t buy. We were looking for stuff in Chicago that you can’t buy
either; merchandise, legitimate merchandise. One of the items was pipe.
Of course right after the war, you couldn’t buy anything. There was
nothing to be had. I made a connection with somebody I don’t remember
now--this is 20 years ago--on pipe. So I sent Paul down a small piece
of pipe about 6 inches, and I put a sticker on it and I mailed it down
to Dallas, and I said, I sent him a letter, how else can you send a
piece of pipe, that was the best way. I figured nobody is going to use
a piece like that. I put a label on it and I mailed it down to Paul
Jones.
I mailed it to the tavern; Eva’s place. He got it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Had you met Jones before you sent the pipe down?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Up here in Chicago. I never heard anything else from
Paul Jones. But shortly after I am subpenaed, come down to Dallas by
the U.S. District Attorney from Chicago, Al Lehman, who died since,
they wanted me to go to Dallas. “What do you know about Paul Jones?” So
I told them. He said, “Go down there and tell the truth,” and I did. I
go down to Dallas, the district attorney down there cross-examined me
for about an hour, and I told him exactly what happened about the pipe
deal, and he didn’t like it because he subpenaed me as his witness,
here I am testifying for Paul Jones on the pipe deal. I had to tell him
the truth. So he got sore at me, and I said, “Look, I don’t want no
part of this court; you sent for me and I am telling you the truth,”
and he got angry at me. That was it.
I hung around, this was not in Dallas, the trial was in Nuevo Laredo,
Tex. It seems that some of Paul’s associates were smuggling dope, by
airplane, from Mexico--across the line--and Paul got grabbed. They
found my ticket, I think one of my cards, in his pocket. So, I am
subpenaed. I am a dope peddler right off the bat. What the hell do I
know about dope peddling? And that was the story of my connection with
Uncle Sam. I don’t know what year it was, either 1944 or 1945. That was
it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was it before or after Jack had moved down to Dallas?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Jack was in the service.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This was while Jack was in the service?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I am almost positive.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Jack didn’t testify in that trial, did he?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall being questioned by Federal narcotics agents
in connection with Jones?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was that--were you questioned about that before or after
the trial?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. It must have been before the trial because after the
trial they let me go. They didn’t even bother with me after that
because I was no good to them.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So the best way to date it when you went down there was
when the Federal narcotics agents questioned you in Chicago?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes. Al Lehman, I think, was the one who questioned me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about Jack, was he questioned at the same time?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Jack was in the Army.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You don’t have any recollection of his being questioned?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Jack was never in Dallas before in his life. He didn’t
know nothing about Dallas. He never met Jones. I met Jones through Eva.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You don’t ever remember meeting Jones with Jack?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I told you Jack did not know Jones.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well now, if the record showed differently, would you
think you might be mistaken?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I am almost positive. Because this was before Jack
went down there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember a time when Jack was living at the Sherman
Hotel?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. When was that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. When he came out of the Army.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall if during part of the period when he was
living at the Sherman Hotel he also went down to Dallas for a while to
see Eva?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Incidentally, when Jack was in Chicago were there times
when he did not live with the family?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; when he stayed at the Sherman Hotel.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Any other time?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Either the Sherman or the Congress, one of the two
hotels I know he stayed.
Mr. GRIFFIN. For how long was he living in a hotel?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know, after he got out of the service.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Why was it that he was not living with the family?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He had sold out his business to my brother Earl or part
of his interest to my brother Earl, and he had some money, and so he
felt he wanted to live by himself for a while, which is all right. I
mean he was no kid any more, he was a man.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was there room for him at home?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you have any contact with Jack during the fall of 1963
prior to the time that the President was assassinated?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us about your contact with Jack?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. In the fall of 1963. Let me tell you when the first
time was. He called me on the phone, the records you get from the
telephone company, and he is going to send me up--he wanted me to come
down and become his manager of the Carousel Club.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When was this?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. In the fall, sometime in the fall of 1963 and he also
told me in 1962 he wanted me to come down----
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let’s talk about this being the manager first before we
get into the other thing.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Why did he need a manager?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He wanted someone in the family to run the place.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What was he going to do?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He was going--he used to come down later. Jack did not
come down early. A manager has got to be there from 4:30 until closing.
Jack used to come down around, I understand, nine or ten o’clock in
the evening. Probably he belonged to a couple of the clubs there, I
understand he was a member of the YMCA and the Dallas Athletic Club I
think he was a member of--maybe even had a girl friend or two, I don’t
know.
Anyway, he asked me to come down and be the manager. I could not see
working in a place 7 days a week, I couldn’t stand the noise in the
striptease joints, those brassy bands, you know. I know right away that
was out.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you having trouble at that time making a living?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I had a good job. I was making good money.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, this is in 1963, this was after you left the Lewis
Ribbon Co.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; I had a lot of money outstanding on the road from
merchandise I had sold to my customers and that was more important to
me than taking any kind of a job.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This wasn’t going to help you out?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He thought--he didn’t know what my position was.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But you told him, did you tell him, that you really didn’t
need it? That you were doing all right?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; I told him, I didn’t want no 7-day a week
proposition right off the bat, that was No. 1.
No. 2, I was a little bit too old for that kind of a deal. You get
to be a certain age you don’t want that noise all night long and you
realize it, you don’t have to be there but you can realize it, you can
visualize the job. I didn’t want it.
All of a sudden he sends me up, do you know what a twistboard is? I
should have brought one with me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us what it is.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I showed it to the FBI. Somebody in Dallas invented a
twistboard. It is a square board, two boards, one on top of the other
with a ball bearing that separates it in the center.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So that one piece of wood rests on the floor and the other
would swivel around on the top of it?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. And you stand on this and you can twist.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Indicating you stand on the board and twist your body
around.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. “$1.69 retail, hottest thing in the world. Go out and
sell it.” I still have it home with the original wrapper and all.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This is what Jack told you?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He told me and he also made me a sample.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How many did he mail you?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Just one. He mailed Earl one, anybody in Chicago he
thought he could contact for promotion he mailed one, because he had
the distributorship.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember any----
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. That is the kind of a guy Jack is. He gets a hot item,
boom, he wants to go out and sell it, promote it, that is his life.
You can never take that out of a person.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember some of these other things that he did
like that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us about it.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. When Roosevelt died he was the first one with a plaster
of Paris bust, and he sold them all over the country. I don’t know, it
wasn’t much. He probably paid them $1 apiece for them and sold them for
$2.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you know who manufactured them?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; but somebody in Chicago done Jack a favor, they
made him a mold and kept on making these things for him and he either
shipped them or took them and sold them by himself, always something,
anything that is hot, he is right there out with it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Any others; can you think of any others?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Punchboard deals. He would pick up items that the
average person couldn’t afford to buy. Let’s say a small radio,
probably would retail for about $18 or $19 he would arrange on a
punchboard card that from 1 to 39 cents the winner would get the radio
and the guy selling the board would get a radio, that the radios would
probably cost him about $5 apiece because they would buy lots of them,
small radios, little ones, cheaply constructed. Well, you walk into a
plant and get hold of a foreman and say, “Would you like one of these
for yourself?” “Sure.” “Well, sell out the punchcard on their lunch
hour, mail me the money, give the winner this radio and I will mail you
a radio.” Perfect. Good gimmick.
Mr. GRIFFIN. As I understand it then, part of the punchboard gimmick
was that he would give some merchandise away with it, is that right?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. That is right. Incentive. Otherwise, why should the
foreman take the board? The foreman wants one exactly like he is going
to give to the winner, and there was always enough profit left over for
Jack to sufficiently cover his expenses, and make a little profit on
the side, and that was one of his other promotion deals.
What else did he do? During the football seasons when he was a kid,
you know, these little footballs with the school colors. He would go
out to the games, Wisconsin, Ohio, Champaign, Mich., he would leave on
the Friday morning with some fellow who had a car and they would load
up the car with these emblems and these different school things and he
would sell them.
That is another one of the things he did when he was--after he got out
of high school--I forgot to tell you that. That was a good deal for him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Can you think of anything else? While he was in Dallas,
did he call you with anything else beside the twistboard, any other
promotions he had? How about entertainers?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes. He had more trouble--this is a guy in charge of
the union down there was giving Jack a headache.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I am not asking you for his problems now, did he promote
any entertainers?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us about that.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He came up to Chicago on one time with a little colored
boy by the name of Sugar Daddy, was about 10 years old.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Would this have been Little Daddy Nelson?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know; I don’t know the extra name but there was
a little colored boy who was the greatest pianoplayer and singer for a
kid 10 years of age.
Jack took him to Chicago, tried to get him on the TV and tried to get
him on radio, and we went to New York, Jack spent all this money, and
the deal was all set, with even a tutor for the kid, a tutor, all set,
the contract was going to be signed, and everything, and he had to give
the mother and father 25 percent or something like that of the kid’s
earnings and Jack took 25 percent, I think for his work and expenses,
and the kid would get the rest of the 50 percent and all the money for
the tutoring would come out of the kid, expenses and so forth, all set
and signed. This you will never believe. A second mother shows up. You
know that would make a story in itself.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us about it.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know, that is it. That is all.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How did you learn about the second mother?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. From Eva.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When did you learn about this?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Way after; Jack was advised by his lawyer in order to
avoid a lot of legal difficulties, and all that stuff, drop it, and
Jack dropped it like a hot potato. You can get yourself into a lot of
trouble, two mothers. Talk about Jack with his promotions. That is the
kind of a guy Jack was, you would love him, nice guy, likable guy. Do
you a favor any time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What other promotions can you think of?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. It is really funny. Jack’s promotions. I wish I could
think of all of them. Ever since he was a kid. I can’t think offhand
now. But when I heard about that two-mother deal that was really funny.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you hear about the two-mother problem before or after
the President was killed?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Oh, this is long before.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So this is something that was, you all knew about?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I am just trying to give you the background of Jack’s
life, what kind of a guy Jack was. He would never hurt anybody, I mean
either physically or mentally. He loved life, he loved a story, he
loved to laugh, he loved women, and--but don’t hurt him, don’t hurt
him or you would never hear the end of it. He was very sensitive, very
sensitive.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Give us some examples of that.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Well, I gave you one about the Roosevelt chair, and I
am trying to think of something very important in his life. Yes; he
popped Eva on the nose one time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How did that happen?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know. Something about chop suey. I wasn’t
there. He popped my own sister on the nose. That is the kind of a guy
he was, something quick, something broke in him and he hit her, hit her
right in the nose, which isn’t like our family.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So when you say he wouldn’t hurt anybody, what do you mean
by that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I mean he wouldn’t go out of the way and start a fight.
I mean he wouldn’t just pick a fight on the street.
Mr. GRIFFIN. He did fight with people on the street?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Oh, yes; oh, sure--sure. That is because they were
doing something to, something to hurt him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Or at least he felt they did?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. That is right. He wouldn’t start anything. Let’s put it
that way. He wouldn’t start anything. He would let the other guy start
it. That would be the end.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, when you say he wouldn’t start anything, he
sometimes would strike the first blow, wouldn’t he? He didn’t wait for
the other guy to hit him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. That is true. But there must have been cause to lead up
to it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You feel that these--were there any times when you
observed him in a fight?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So what you are telling us about his fights you heard from
other people, fights that he did get in? How about arguments? Have you
observed him in arguments with people?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; he was a little bit stubborn with his arguments.
When he felt he had a certain idea that was it. He was a hard person to
change or to convince.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you think--was Jack a personally ambitious person?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Oh, definitely.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What were his aspirations and his ambitions? I want you
to tell us from your own personal knowledge. Do you have any personal
knowledge of what his aspirations and ambitions were, did he ever talk
to you about that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; but I feel he always wanted to be successful and
he was capable, and always trying to meet the right type of people,
where he could either be friendly or have knowledge to a promotion.
Let’s put it that way. To him a promotion was the greatest thing in his
life, something to have exclusive that was his, with his experience in
selling items and promoting items, or promoting an individual, where he
would get some profit out of it, that was his ambition.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, was he interested in the promotion aside from making
money, was he interested in any notoriety that he might get out of it?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Jack was not the type, I am trying to tell you. Jack
was not the notorious type of a person. Because of all the fights that
he had, he never came home and told us about one. We had to hear it
from his friends.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he do anything, did he promote anything which would
have also involved the promotion of himself?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Explain that.