<Begin Segment 21>

FA: How long did you work at Standard and Poor's?

SS: Over twenty years.

FA: And what progression did you...?

SS: Well I didn't get any progression and I didn't learn that until later. That this same treasurer who had gotten me, told the War Relocation Authority about this vacant, this position that was available. He was the guy that was standing in my way for the rest of the time I was with Standard and Poor's. He was just plain racially prejudiced. He told me bluntly. He said, "Look, if we make you a full-fledged analyst, that will give you the right to go out and interview corporation managements." He said, "We cannot have a Japanese representing Standard and Poor's to interview other corporation leaders." And I found that out the day I had resigned.

FA: Really?

SS: Yes. I had handed in my resignation and I was leaving and I just wanted to go up and talk with the guy and try to get the truth of who was blocking my, my advancement. But looking back over it, I still made the right decision sticking with Standard and Poor's and not just walking out that same day. Because later they gave me an extra piece of work, for which I wasn't paid extra, but the man who for a number of years had taken care of the annual crop of new students applying for jobs at Standard, this guy -- he, let's see -- anyway, this man died very suddenly and unexpectedly. They needed someone to fill his place and they told me they were giving me that extra job. It was just another extra job. It was my job to decide which of the new crop we would keep. And I had no trouble doing that. And one of the men who was under me at that time had joined the company, he wanted to... oh, yes. When he joined Standard and Poor's he had just recently gotten married and his wife was expecting a child and he needed the job in the worst possible way. And he was so tense that I used to correct his papers. His hand would shake sometimes. And I felt very sorry for him. I said, "Look, don't be so tense, relax." I said, "You're not on the list of fellows to be fired. So far I'd say you've done well, so you can forget about being fired from Standard and Poor's." And boy, he really loosened up. And about a year or two later, he found a job he liked better, paying... Standard and Poor's pay was not good. And he, so he went to a place on Wall Street and one day I got a call from him and he said... before he left Standard and Poor's, he came up to thank me. He said, "You're the only guy in this company that ever went out of his way to try to make life easier for me." He said, "Don't think I'll ever forget it." And he repaid that promise by calling me up this one day and asking me if I would consider leaving Standard and Poor's. I said, "I sure would, depending on what they would offer." And he said, "Well, why don't you come down and talk to my boss?" So I got a new job at this brokerage house. Before I went there, I had the place checked out by my broker through whom I had been trading for the past twenty years or more. And that broker made a check on the reputation of the company that was offering me this job and he told me that as far as he could determine, that company had a perfectly clean record, reputation as far as the law is concerned.

FA: What was the name of the brokerage house?

SS: A.L. Stamm and Company. They're not in existence anymore.

FA: A.L.

SS: A.L. A-period-L-period Stamm, that's S-T-A, double M. S-T-A-M-M and Company. What I didn't know was that the A.L. Stamm and Company had just computerized their operations and the man they brought in to computerize the thing didn't know what he was doing. As a result, in a few more weeks the rumors began to fly in the company that our accounts were fouled up. And oh, yes, they said that the stock exchange had issued a statement, an order to the A.L. Stamm and Company that until their accounts were straightened, they could do no more advertising for new customers. And some of our best salesmen and otherwise well-qualified men started to leave the company. And some of these guys asked me to go with them, said this company as far as we knew was headed for the rocks. "Why don't you join us?" Well, I was stumped because the guy that got me that job there in the first place, Irwin, he was determined to stay with A.L. Stamm and Company. He said, "Well, they'll work their way out of it somehow." So I was, I was stymied. And then one day, one of the men who had accepted a job in Denver -- I had become friends with by that time -- he had come back from Denver, he had found a new job out there and had come back to clean out his desk. So I went up to this friend and I congratulated on him, congratulated him on finding a new job in a clean town like Denver where the air was clean and he looked up and he says, "Hey, would you consider moving to Denver?" "Yeah, it depends entirely on what they would offer me." He said, "Well, I'll talk to our executive VP about that." About four or five days later I got a letter from this guy offering me a job there. Much better pay than what I was getting at Standard.

FA: Did you go?

SS: Yeah, I decided to go.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.