The Payoff

To generations of newsmen in St. Louis, the squat, hustling figure of Sammy Bronstein was as familiar as their city editors --and sometimes more important. Sammy, peering sharp-eyed through thick glasses, regularly made the rounds of pressrooms and other reporters' hangouts, lending newsmen enough money--at high rates--to tide them over until payday. Last week Sammy Bronstein, 78, himself made news for his old customers by pulling off his greatest financial coup; for an investment of $3,600 made in bonds in the bankrupt Missouri Pacific Railroad 18 years ago, Bronstein got $970,000 in securities in the reorganized road (TIME, March 12).

Bronstein, who came to the U.S. from Russia at 14, started out by selling newspapers. Once when he saw the late great Joseph Pulitzer, founder of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, leave the old Southern Hotel, Sammy pretended not to know him and dogged him all the way to the office, insisting that he buy a Post-Dispatch. Pulitzer was so impressed by his salesmanship that he put him on a $2.50-a-week retainer as a newsboy.

Vile & Rue. As a sideline. Sammy began lending money to reporters, later went into it fulltime, despite the fact that borrowers were "always casting their vile and rue on me." His rate was usually 5% a week, but it multiplied when a newsman borrowed on the day before payday; he thought that the heavy demand at that time justified a higher return.

He prided himself on his day-or-night availability. Once a phone call routed him from bed at3 a.m. "Sammy," said a client, "I'm in a poker game. All my money's in the pot, and I want to call this guy. Will you back me on this hand?"

"What you holding?" demanded Sammy. "Four deuces," whispered the player.

"What's he got?" "An ace-full, I think."

Sam thought for a moment. "I'm with you. If you lose, I'll be right over with the money." The game proceeded on Sammy's credit, and soon his phone rang again.

"We won the pot--$200," said the borrower. "Fine, send me $20 tomorrow," Sam said, and padded back to bed.

Sammy learned to gauge his customers. The late Joe McAuliffe, then covering politics for the Post-Dispatch and later managing editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, once invaded Sam's bedroom for an urgent loan. "My pants were on the foot of the old brass bed." Bronstein recalls. "I told Joe to help himself to whatever he needed. He was a great newspaperman, and I didn't have to ever worry about an honest count from him."

Disappearing Copy Desk. But often Sammy's risks ran as high as his interest rates. Once in Chicago he ran out of money himself and went to the old Examiner office seeking a loan. When he walked into the newsroom, the whole copy desk except the slotman ducked for the washroom. They were all former St. Louis newsmen who had left town owing Sam money.

Bronstein stopped lending money by 1950, but by then the bloom was off the peach. "Heywood Broun put me out of business when he organized the Newspaper Guild," he says. "When the boys began making enough money to tide them over from one payday to the next, there was no more need for my services."

Last week, in his moment of triumph, Sammy did not forget where the money had come from in the beginning. "Newspapermen have always been very good to me," said Sammy gratefully. "They have even gone out and borrowed money from other people--just to pay me off." Sammy planned to put his fortune into trust for his wife, children and grandchildren. But after that, he announced, it will become a scholarship fund at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

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