[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 19, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2391]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE MENSCH WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS

                                 ______


                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, December 18, 1995

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, last week there was a 
terrible tragedy in Massachusetts, when a fire did enormous damage to 
the Malden Mills factory in Methuen, MA. While no one can undo the 
terrible effects of this fire, thanks to the enormous courage, 
compassion, and integrity of one individual, Aaron Feuerstein, the 
working men and women who were the victims of this terrible event have 
more hope than they otherwise might have. Aaron Feuerstein is the third 
generation in his family to run this company, and his actions since the 
tragedy have been an unparalleled example of how a human being can act 
in a moral manner in a very tough situation. In the Boston Globe for 
Sunday, December 17, columnist David Nyhan accurately conveys the 
heroic role that Aaron Feuerstein has played at a time when most people 
have done far less. Despite himself being a major victim of this 
tragedy, Aaron Feuerstein has acted with an extraordinary degree of 
humanity and decisiveness to administer to the other victims, and I 
believe it is important at a time when more and more working people are 
giving reason to doubt the essential fairness of the American economic 
system that the shining example that Aaron Feuerstein presents be fully 
understood and appreciated by the nation. I therefore ask that David 
Nyhan's excellent presentation of what Aaron Feuerstein has done be 
printed here.

                 [From the Boston Globe, Dec. 17, 1995]

                     The Mensch Who Saved Christmas

       Were it not for the 45-mile-an-hour winds ripping out of 
     the Northwest, the sparks that they carried and the 
     destruction they wrought, Aaron Feuerstein today would be 
     just another rich guy who owned a one-time factory, in a 
     country full of the same.
       But the fire that destroyed New England's largest textile 
     operation Monday has turned this 70-year-old businessman into 
     a folk hero. If a slim, determined, devoutly-Jewish textile 
     manufacturer can be Santa Claus, then Feuerstein is, to 2,400 
     workers whose jobs were jeopardized by the fire.
       The flames, so intense and widespread that the smoke plume 
     appeared in garish color on TV weathermen's radar maps, 
     presented Feuerstein with a stark choice: Should he rebuild, 
     or take the insurance money and bag it?
       Aaron Feuerstein is keeping the paychecks coming, as best 
     he can, for as long as possible, while he rushes to rebuild, 
     and restore the jobs a whole valley-full of families depend 
     upon.
       Everybody got paid this week. Everybody got their Christmas 
     bonus. Everybody will get paid at least another month. And 
     Feuerstein will see what he can do after that. But the 
     greatest news of all is that he will rebuild the factory.
       The man has a biblical approach to the complexities of 
     late-20th-century economics, capsulated by a Jewish precept:
       ``When all is moral chaos, this is the time for you to be a 
     mensch.''
       In Yiddish, a mensch is someone who does the right thing. 
     The Aaron Feuerstein thing. The chaos was not moral but 
     physical in the conflagration that began with an explosion 
     and soon engulfed the four-building Malden Mills complex in 
     Methuen, injuring two dozen workers, a half-dozen firemen and 
     threatening nearby houses along the Merrimack River site.
       The destruction was near-absolute. It is still inexplicable 
     how no one perished in a fast-moving firestorm that lit up 
     the sky. This was one of New England's handful of 
     manufacturing success stories, a plant that emerged from 
     bankruptcy 14 years ago. The company manufactures a trademark 
     fabric, Polartec fleece, used extensively in outdoor clothing 
     and sportswear by outfits such as L. L. Bean and Patagonia.
       The company was founded by Feuerstein's grandfather in 
     1907, and its history over the century has traced the rise, 
     fall and rise again of textile manufacturing in New England 
     mill towns.
       Most of the textile makers fled south, leaving hundreds of 
     red brick mausoleums lining the rocky riverbeds that provided 
     the waterpower to turn lathes and looms before electricity 
     came in. The unions that wrested higher wages from flinty 
     Yankee employers were left behind by the companies that 
     went to the Carolinas and elsewhere, to be closer to 
     cotton and farther from unions.
       The Feuerstein family stuck it out while many others left, 
     taking their jobs and their profits with them. The current 
     boss is one textile magnate who wins high praise from the 
     union officials who deal with him.
       ``He's a man of his word,'' says Paul Coorey, president of 
     Local 311 of the Union of Needleworkers, Industrial and 
     Textile Employees. ``He's extremely compassionate for 
     people.'' The union's New England chief, Ronald Alman, said: 
     ``He believes in the process of collective bargaining and he 
     believes that if you pay people a fair amount of money, and 
     give them good benefits to take care of their families, they 
     will produce for you.''
       If there is an award somewhere for a Compassionate 
     Capitalist, this man should qualify hands-down. Because he is 
     standing up for decent jobs for working people at a time when 
     the vast bulk of America's employer class is chopping, 
     slimming, hollowing-out the payroll.
       Job loss is the story of America at the end of the century. 
     Wall Street is going like gangbusters, but out on the 
     prairie, and in the old mill towns, and in small-town 
     America, the story is not of how big your broker's bonus is 
     this Christmas but of how hard it is to keep working.
       The day after the fire, Bank of Boston announced it will 
     buy BayBanks, a mega-merger of financial titans that will 
     result in the elimination of 2,000 jobs. Polaroid, another 
     big New England employer, announced it would pare its payroll 
     by up to 2,000 jobs. Across the country, millions of jobs 
     have been eliminated in the rush to lighten the corporate 
     sled by tossing overboard anyone who could be considered 
     excess baggage by a Harvard MBA with a calculator for a 
     heart.
       Aaron Feuerstein, who went from Boston Latin High School 
     and New York's Yeshiva University right into the mill his 
     father owned, sees things differently; The help is part of 
     the enterprise, not just a cost center to be cut.
       ``They've been with me for a long time. We've been good to 
     each other, and there's a deep realization of that, that is 
     not always expressed, except at times of sorrow.''
       And it is noble sentiments like those, coming at a time 
     when they are most needed, that turns times of sorrow into 
     occasions of triumph.

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