Student Activism in the 1930s
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ASU Autobiographies

American Student Union Summer Training Institute Autobiographies


Anne Berman

1. I have always lived in an atmosphere of progressivism. My parents, aunts and uncles, and even grandparents were all, to some degree, liberals. After family dinners, political discussions would invariably follow Progressive papers and magazines were always around and if I didn't read them, I must have imbed some of their contents through the process of osmosis.

2. Mother and Dad were married soon after the World War. Both had been born in Russia and came to America with the great amount of Russian immigrants. Mother had been an active member of the Young People's Socialist League as were all her five brothers. She never had a chance to get a formal education because someone had to help support the family. All her brothers went to college but Mother never did. Dad also never had the money. He took building and architectural courses in France and in Temple. His education was largely that of newspapers and later radio. When they got married they had to struggle to make a living and now although we are comfortable at times, we still see poverty in some parts of our family. My parents never took an active part in making me a liberal. Most of my extra-curricular education came from my uncle. But he taught me how to appreciate literature and music, not the elements of progressivism.

3. I'd always been sensitive to social evils and my emotions manifested themselves in various charitable drives that I undertook. My first political activity came at the age of twelve when I campaigned for Norman Thomas. I gravely told my friends that he as the only candidate. However, my parents were afraid of being called "reds" so I soon ceased my one-man campaign. It was when I entered high school that I got any inkling of what I had long talked about. I at least knew the dictionary definition of socialism. I read Edward Bellamy and Jack London and thought I knew all there was to be on the subject.

4. Somewhere in the middle of my high school career I Joined the Young Poale Zion Alliance, an innocuous socialist-zionist youth organization. To this day I don't know why. I was never a Zionist. I suppose it was because the word "socialism" intrigued me and because I didn't discover for quite a while that the Palestinian folk songs and dances meant Zionism. At the end of my second gear in high school, this group got together to study Engels' Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. Then, some man came to lecture to us on the Marxian labor theory of value. My friends were all older than I and were probably capable of understanding at least one of the two projects. However, both Engles and the lecturer succeeded in so muddling me that I decided that Marx and I were as the east and west.

5. At the end of my third year in high school I started reading the newspapers and I started to read the Nation. It was at this time too that I definitely became an active progressive. In my seventh term I was forced to make a grave decision. There was some sort of class affair meeting to which I had a great chance of being elected to some office of honor. Being quite a social butterfly and terribly interested in gaining personal prestige I was determined to go to that meeting. But at the same time the Peace Rally was being held. I went to the rally where there were two policemen for every student. That made bout fifty in all. Well, I joined the ASU, but it was one in name only. For none of us really knew what it was all about and we never thought of paying dues. We used to ask our principal to recognize us, regularly every month. That was about our only activity.

6. It wasn't until college that I came in contact with the ASU again. There I immediately joined and conscientiously attended all meetings and ran errands. At the end of the first semester a meeting was held that elected me president. It was very foolish for I certainly was not prepared and I proved to be a "little dictator". However, I did run the Peace Strike and learned a great deal. That summer, after the first year, I went to City College, where I saw a very active ASU. This made me give up a hosteling trip for the District College Training School. The School was not too successful but it did give me encouragement and spirit. I worked in the District Office and was elected to the City Executive Committee. They elected me because I came from a new college and there was a lot for a person like me to learn. I soon perceived that my contributions to the discussions were useless so I shut up. For one whole year I took minutes and listened. This helped me to help my campus and proved very valuable to my own personal development.

7. Since before the convention I have wanted to come here. I knew of my many shortcomings. I knew that a campus like mine needed as many politically developed people as it could muster. It needs people to speak for the ASU, if not eloquently, at least, competently. If we succeed at Queens we'll be doing a better job than some other schools because our material is so raw. However I don't expect miracles and know the old saying about getting out what you put into a project.

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