Kingdom of Smells

Jews are the world's biggest consumers of onions and there are more Jews in New York City than anywhere else in the world. Therefore Manhattan is the world's onion capital. There in a slick red and white office with a deep onion aroma, at 40 Harrison St., works sleek, well-fed Benjamin Balish, 41, who bears the proud title of U. S. "Onion King." Last week Ben Balish, after years of distinguished partnerships, completed arrangements for going into business solely for himself.

Ben Balish's first partner was a truant officer. A poverty-stricken boy from Manhattan's East Side, Ben at the age of ten worked up a thriving trade in spoiled pineapples which he bought in bulk at extremely cheap prices (sometimes $5 for a shipload) and sold by pushcart along the docks. By the time he was 13 he had $5,300, spent it all buying his parents a home. Then he noticed that Jewish onion buyers were having a horrid time in the onion market on Pier 17. Onion salesmen were mostly boisterous Irishmen who loved to pull down Jewish derbies and yank Jewish beards. Having neither beard nor derby, Ben Balish set himself up as a middleman in onions, soon did magnificently. But a truant officer caught him and young Balish had to bribe him $10 a week not to report his absence from school.

Next Balish partner was Abraham Rosenblum, "Onion King" in 1918 when young Ben went to work for him. Three years later, having saved $35,000, Onionman Balish joined forces with a rich 50-year-old produce jobber named Carl I. Dingfelder. Dingfelder put up most of the money, Balish the onion experience, and by 1923 Dingfelder & Balish were tops in onion jobbing.

When the tariff on importing Spanish onions, which had been a large portion of their business, grew prohibitive, Dingfelder & Balish pioneered in importing Spanish onionseed; U. S. production of Spanish onions, which are the choicest of all, in 1921 was only 500 carloads. This year it is about 12,000. Total U. S. onion production last year was 70,000 carloads, of which Dingfelder & Balish handled more than any other firm. Also interested in potatoes, they had gross sales of $5,000,000. Last month after some disagreements Onion King Balish bought out his partner. Last week the new firm of Benjamin Balish Co., Inc. was squared off to dominate this year's smallish crop of 50,000 carloads, harvested from crops in most States. Mr. Dingfelder returned to the produce firm of C. I. & M. Dingfelder in which he long had an interest.

Onion King Balish is now president of the National Onion Association and chairman of a committee "to Lift the Onion Eater from the Category of Social Lepers." Owning his own company almost entirely, he lives prosperously with his wife in a colonial house at Manhattan Beach, is particularly proud of a swimming pool, a tennis court, a lavish doll house he has built for his four children. Says he: "I give them everything I didn't get."

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