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Student Activism in the 1930s
Alice Berman
Ours was the kind of liberal home that "movements" rarely invaded. Bred into us was a prejudice for liberalism. My father is a great idealist, with such a magnificent faith in human goodness that he is continually being duped. He is vitally interested in social and economic problems and has a radical individualistic philosophy while being fervently pro-Roosevelt. Mother is more realistic, but less concerned with liberty and the fate of mankind. Father has supported himself since he was ten, with negligible financial success. He was a brilliant mathematics student when he attended Cooper Union at night, while working in a pocketbook factory ,and his dearest hope was to become a math teacher. In order to make a living, however, he has tried real estate, engineering and numerous schemes always trying to become his own boss, but never succeeding. He has no interests outside of his family work and politics. Be wants terribly to have his children the opportunities he missed and has always discouraged me from job-hunting. Unlike my father, who was born in Russia and was the son of poor peasants, Mother was born in America by the time my grandfather had succeeded in getting his own business. They lived quite comfortably, and mother went to work as a secretary. The home she and my father have made is decidedly petit-bourgeois the way-of-thinking, the prejudices, the aspirations. However, mother is free from most fears of what will people think; and, on principle, Dad condemns such conventions as filial humility, parental authority and manners. It was my mother's habit to read aloud to us before we had learned to read. Her repertory included poetry, mythology, "Children's classics," bible stories, and interpretations for children of history and evolution. I read a greet deal, sometimes guided, but never censored by my parents. Yet for twelve years I never came upon a book or play with contemporary social significance. Father always discussed the current scene with us from a very liberal point of view. I heard Republicans, Communists and Socialists (the distinction was vague), bohemian intellectuals, monarchists--teachers and students, lawyers, insurance salesmen, workers, writers and artists. Enough radical talk floated around, but I never met anyone who was doing anything; conversation never seemed to center on activity, on concrete progressivism. Nothing permeated the isolation which was purely involuntary on my part and probably unconscious on my parent's. Until one day, when I walked into High School and we were herded into the auditorium for a "Peace Assembly". Policemen at the doors--the entire school out of classes--teachers with great solemnity taking attendance. It was raining out--April 12, 1935. I soon met the few who had struck at our school, but it took me a terribly long time to do anything about what they said. Finally I attended NSL (there was no SLID at Washington Irving High School) at the time we were electing delegates to the original ASU convention. Practically the entire NSL leadership and a good part of the membership graduated then, and I was Chairman-President of the first ASU. I think the veterans elected me because I was a good 'front'--editor of the paper, associate editor of the magazine, Arista leader; and with pig-tails and freckles I didn't look sinister. And I was enthusiastic and conscientious. I knew nothing, and didn't learn much. I was stumped by funsters who had picked up the parliamentary lingo and threw points of clarification at me. We undertook a lunchroom campaign and didn't know how to combat the ensuing disciplinary action. When I became President of the Current Problems club, we were able to work through it, recruiting ASUers and discussing AYA, Spain, and other ASU campaign. We were silenced by the faculty advisor whenever we tried to mention ASU. November 11 we negotiated for a student-run peace assembly, and were promised three speakers. However, our speeches had to be looked over by the English and History departments. On November 11 they were rejected, leaving us with no independent peace meeting. In Junior High School I had shot my head off because we were restricted in our choice of high schools, declaiming loud and long for free speech and democracy. At High School we protested consistent faculty censorship of the paper, of assemblies, of clubs, magazine and student council. When I came to Brooklyn College the strength and activity of ASU overwhelmed me. The ASU-consciousness of the student body. And the fighting-back against violations of academic freedom. I have been Peace Director of the Freshman ASU this past term, while working with my high school chapter as well .The old forces of administration opposition and intimidation, of student apathy and fear, persist there. I hope to learn how to combat these more effectively. I am seventeen now, was born in New York. Except for a year on a farm ,I have always lived in Manhattan, with vacations in the Catskills. Since my mother took me to a settlement house and entered me in dancing, art, music and dramatic classes, which, except for painting and modeling, I refused to attend, --since these art classes, I have always drawn, and intended to become an artist. I took an art course in High School and looked for a job last Summer. The art field is dead. Next term at Brooklyn I hope to work on publicity and peace. Work in an ASU of 500 is different from work in an ASU of ten or twenty among a student-body who have heard of ASU in terms of the red menace, if at all. I expect our school to prepare me for both types of work. Home | Historical Essay | Documents | Credits |
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