Student Activism in the 1930s
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ASU Autobiographies

American Student Union Summer Training Institute Autobiographies
My Autobiography

Leon M. Weiner

1. My parents were among the Russian immigrants of 1913 and 1914. It was soon after landing in this country that they were married, and their lot was thrown in with the many factory workers in the clothing industry. It was about this time that they joined the I.L.G.W.U. and became active in the trade union movement.

2. Early in my life I became exposed to the progressive movement. There was constant discussion at home about the activities of the union and the problems of the labor movement were brought home to me very vividly and very early I became interested in the defense of the labor movement.

3. My earliest to actions are concerned with the Sacco and Vanzetti case. At this time both my parents were working for the International Labor Defense and this had a deep impression in my life. It was evidenced in my reply to a school teacher who showed what kind of "bad" men Sacco and Vanzetti were and my spontaneous outcry that she was a liar, and subsequent talk with the public school principal about how the labor movement was a bad things

4. It was during the years that followed that I can recollect having been out with a can collecting money for the Tom Mooney defense committee. About this time my parents were also active in the Workmen's Circle and when the International Workers Order split away they followed and I became a Junior member......

5. He moved away from Philadelphia for a short period of time and in the isolation of a farm became somewhat removed from the whole progressive movement. When we moved back to Phila. four years later I became active in the Youth section of the IWO and for two years worked with them. At the end of the two years, during which time I joined the NSL in my high school, I entered the University of Pennsylvania soon after became active in that chapter of the ASU. At this same time my mother was once more in the I.L.G.W.U. and my dad was instrumental in formation of the laundry workers organization in Phila.(an AFL union).

6. During the spring of and early summer of my first year in college I worked in a drug store and was one of the committee of seven that began work in organizing the drug workers in Philadelphia. My work was mainly with the soda dispensers and the stock and messenger boys.

7. Last summer I spent the entire time with the American League for Peace and Democracy where I was first chairman of the City Committee for the Boycott of Japanese foods and then more suitably (since the latter was a job for one much more mature and experience than myself) I became Youth Director of the district where my work was in organizing community youth into Amer. League branches. At the beginning of the fall, when school started, I went back for a course or so at Penn and then went to do District work with the ASU which I was doing till I came to the Institute and plan to do during the next year.

8. My parents permitted me great freedom at a tender age and I was permitted to go to Atlantic Clty, N.J. alone ( i.e. on my own hook entirely) and had to forage for a job, lodging, food, etc. Here I came into hard contact with the meaning of "looking for a job" and with hundreds of other unemployed youth in the city wandered around till I found some very poorly paid chore. During another summer, with one companion and fifty dollars, I hitch-hiked to the West Coast spending six weeks on the entire trip, including the visit.

9. In summary I have briefly outlined those things which I feel have most influence on my reasons for being here and hope that they form a clear picture.

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