The evening world. Newspaper, June 6, 1922, Page 24

Angelo Paino Started as j Jo Water Boy By Fay Stevenson. Oopyright, 1922 (New York Evening World) nt Brose Publishing Co. ) NGBLO PAINO and John Doukas have experienced all the romance and adven- ture of the poor boys who became suddenly wealthy un- | der the fascinating | and all-ebsorbing pen of Horatio Alger. While other youths were lounging in hammocks or lying on their atomachs down by the ol’ swimming hole reading straige tales of penniless boys who lived among squalor and dirt but | who struggled and battled and got to the top these two boys were actually LIVING this life. They needed no story books to lure them on; the qwant of bread and a roof did that. Twenty years ago Angelo Paino, & Bicitian lad of fourteen, arrived in New York as a steerage passenger with only a quarter in his pockets ‘and all his possessions in a red ban- @anna handkerchief. To-day, at thirty-four, he is on his way back to Sicily for a four months’ tour with bis beautiful young wife and little @aughter and, in contrast to his steerage arrival, he has the suite de luxe on the new Lloyd Sabaudo liner Conte Rosso. Just a few years before this, in fact twenty-eight years ago, another Jad in his teens came to this country gn a steerage passenger with only $1.25 in his pockets who is to-day a very well-to-do man. He is John, Doukas, the Spartan confectioner ot the east ee who is known as “the man who gives away candy.” UT let's begin at the beginning. Let's round up tha story of An- gelo Paino, the fourteen-year-old Jed who was born in Salina, a small town snuggling along the seashore at the foot of a big hilt on the little fsland perched just in front of Italy's ‘Dig boot. Here he had many neigh- bors and kind friends, but opportunt- ties were few. An adventurous streak kepthurging him to come to America. At last he saved enough to get over in the steerage. His mother wrapped up a few-clothes and an old silver crucifix and he was gone. But although Angelo Paino came to this country with only a handker- chief full of clothes and his mother’s Diessing and to-day possesses & fortune which ranks him in the mil!- fonaires’ class, a beautiful Matbush residence, a limousine and a roadster, Jhis path has not been a particularly rosy one. His story may read like a fairy tale now because it has all “turned out” so well, but he haé to ‘work by the sweat of his row to “get things started.” “To-day Paino ts one of thp best known contractors in Brooklyn and Queens, but the “getting there’ took years of work and planning. At pres- ‘ent he is completing the concrete paving of the Rockaway Boulevard nd recently he put in the $1,000,000 Myrtie Avenue sewer in Flushing aaa! RAB ne ite Geile eRe Sad Yaa ES Tce be ere tat A Last year he finished all the momar 0} tn Woodhaven and all three his omces at Court Street, B fona and Rockaway Boulevard are Gilead with contracts and plans for the future. “1 came to America to get & chance,” be said at his handsome Flatbush residence on the morning of his departure for Stelly al got it. But 1 got it by bard work nd saying and never having that gatisfied fooling.” “My first job was as water boy Wealthy . Contractor, - Revisits Sicilian Home, Sailing in the Ship’s Most _ Expensive Suite. Pinatas an names TUESDAY, JUNE 6G, 1922, —Now dling Rich Gives Bananas—Now a Candy Merchant, All His Surplus Wealth to Aid Orphans and Aged and Poor. young woman from our own home- land, from Salina, but I always want- ed to work rather than to meet new friends,"’ “The very nice young woman from Salina’ was no other than me," inter rupted Mrs. Palma with a merry twinkle in her eyes and a soft rippling laugh ‘m coming to that,’ romantically announced her husband. “I want to show that love and work go hand in hand. Well, thén, within two weeks after my arrival in this country, I was @ foreman, but that wasn’t what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a boss contractor with a horse and carringe and drive around telling others how to work and hustle jobs through. They didn’t have autos for business in those days, so I wanted just carts and horses, Because I could think of only one thing, getting to be a big boss, I constantly avoided meeting this nico young woman from my own country. “T heard that this girl was educated, that she came from Salina when five years old and went to school in Amer- ica. Then I heard that she was a grad- uate of Public School No. 5, Mount Vernon, and I knew that she must know many things of which I had never heard. But I could make money and I knew that was one thing to my credit. , “Still It took a great deal of capital to be a contragtor. I had to have an office, carts, horses, men and influ- ential friends. Year after year I worked for other contractors, I lived as cheaply as I could and I sat up nights figuring and marking and scheming how I could become a boss. “After ten years of this sort of life I began to see my way to become boss, I had money in the bank, a few hun- dred and I had an fdea it would be sport to ‘take a chance’ ‘Therefore A Va 4 an f when I heard a contract for a large sewer in Jamaica was given out I put in my bid, I made it low. I knew that was what would win out. When the bids were opened I had submitted the lowest bid, I had gotten the con- tract and my boss lost. I was at last @ boss, “Then,” Angelo Paino paused and looked admiringly at his wife, “then, I knew it was time to meet that ‘very nice young woman from my own home country.’ I told my brother that now that I was a boss and had launched my first contract I had time to go courting. “That was ten years ago. Tt didn't take me lons to propose ard even though the youny lady had a very fine education she consented to be- come my wife, Two years later Jose- phine was born to us and we are indeed a happy family. “My other contracts? Oh, yes, well, after that first one at Jamaica they began to pour in. I learned to bid low. I came to America to get a chance, and when I got it I appre- ciated It, The only thing not Amert- can about me is my birthplace and 1 didn't choose that. Ever since 1 could choose I've been picking the United States first, last and all the time. I am President of the Stelle Salina Soclety and very fond of Italy, but America first. This is the first time in twenty years that I have gone back to Italy. I am going to stay four months. I am going to see my old mother and father and thank my mother for the blessings she bestowed upon me when I left home to get my chance in America. I am glad I can take my family over in the best suite on board ship instead of the steer- age. Iam not purse proud. I'm only glad I made good when my chance came to be a boss. ee LOE Came Over in Steerage Broke-Found Wealth inNewYork hn DoukasBegan byPed- TRE PAINO HOME IN 5 FLATBUSH Za a / j SS MR: & MRS- ANGELO PAINO, AND DAUGHTER JOSEPHINE. ONE.OF THE PAI NOS’ TWO AUTOMOBILES Always before young Paino, as he carried water for his boss, was a vision of the money he could make in a contracting business of his own —Doukas, pushing his banana cart, visioned the wealth that a real store could be made to yield )HN DOUKAS was nineteen when he came over as @ steerage pas- prosper a certain amount of his money J senger, Although he was a trifle has gone to help others. Last week “the map who gives away candy" the Avenue B district, where his shop 1s to-day located, and made money right from the start. Not long after with a contractor in the Bronx. [ ot it the second day after I landed im New York. 1 had a brother ‘%ho met me at the boat, but I knew that 1 must make good or he would pend me back on the next ship “That job as a water boy with jhe first contractor 1 met in my life just suited me. 1 decided I would be a <antractor some day, I had no am- Litio=s to read or learn to write, wasn't a born high brow. I had had & little schooling in Italy and now | wanted to be a man and make a fan's wages. 1 figured it out that 4 éMf-made man had to do one thing, didn't tire A RR NE TE HD OTN ES work, so overwork me ) Tt gave me inapiration U 1,” “Soon after this I was made u fumekeeper and then 1 obtained \ nother job with Joseph Siggtotto, a ) contractor, who liked me and m ame foreman. But I wasn’t satisfied. TD wanted to get a beter job, to be my own boss, Other fellows wanied ie to go in for some fun, to go to own. to mest girls and play took my time and stre y brothe anted met Priends, Ww bt & coriun DOUKAS DISTRIBUTING CANDY AT HIS EAST SIDE STORE a older than Paino, he had not had the advantage of home Mfe nor the love of a mother. ‘Therefore, when he came to the shores of the land of the free he made up his mind he would get wealthy and give uway great auantities of money to orphans and poor people. To-day Mr. Doukas not only gives away candy yearly to many orphan asylums and homes for the crippled and aged but makes a practice of iving to the needy all his surplus wealth, retaining only enough to maintain comfortably his wife and n children. I was poor once myself and I can't forget it,"’ declared Doukas at his large enst side confectionery shop, “and now that I am getting along well myself I don't want to forget others in thetr early struggles.” Then John Doukas went on to tell how he came here from Zarakas, Greece, with but §}.25 in hia pocket and did mot dare buy his dinner that night in America because he must use that as his capital, The next mort he bought the full sum up ia bananas, peddled them through this he started a fruit stand and later opened up a’ full equipped candy store. When Doukas country six years he met a girl from Greece and because they knew people in the same home village they soon found their friendship growing into love, A little apartment over the store was fitted up and the couple Were married To-day the Doukas have a hand- some home in Woodhaven but they still retain that first love nest where they were so happy the first years of their married life “When I told my wife how poor I was as a boy, how I guffered during my early struggles and how I resolved I should always help the very poor and especially poor children she was in hearty sympathy with me,’ said Doukas. ‘We agreed that we would not hoard our money for ourselves and our seven children, they may have plenty and a good start in life but T want to throw some sunshine Into the lives of the poor, for I know how dull and drat life may seem to them." And #o ever wince be bas begun to had been in, this celebrated his twenty-elghth year in this country and because he wanted to make others happy he piled two touring cars full of candy and started tour of the city's hospitals, orphan asylums and old people's homes. He visited more than twenty of these homes and left large bags and boxes of chocolates to many happy souls. But the confectioner has other ideas of charity, He provides life pensions of 26 francs a month for every or- phaned child in the sixteen countrief’ of Sparta, Forty-eight Spartans who served with distinction in the war have heen mailed checks of $25 each by him, And 100,000 gross of pencils and achool supplies to the children of hiv native country also were sent by ‘the candy man" through the Prophet Elias Soctety, of which he is Presi- dent, flo you see theas two men eimply {ilustrate the fact that Horatio Alger knew what he was writing about when he mode penniless boys very, vory wealthy men, on a 2s