Word: lasser
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Stage manager of this legislative demonstration last week was slim, almost chinless, 34-year-old President David Lasser of the Workers Alliance of America. By now a thoroughgoing professional at marching his squads of unemployed into a State capitol and virtually taking over the legislative proceedings in the name of higher relief standards, Lasser and his Workers made their headline debut at Madison, Wis. last March. There soft-hearted Governor Philip La Follette welcomed them into the State House, provided them with food, advised them to "turn the heat" on the Legislature. After they had camped in the Senate chamber...
...veteran rabble-rouser is modest, soft-spoken Leader Lasser. Born in Baltimore, he got into the War when 15 by lying to an Army recruiting officer about his age, was gassed in overseas service. Graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in civil engineering in 1924, he shifted from one technical job to another, was fired by New York Edison Co. in 1929 when he protested a staff cut. For a short period later on he was president of the American Interplanetary Society, which propagandized the cause of sending rockets to the Moon. In 1932 he edited the only two issues...
Just before quitting his job, Lasser helped organize the Lower West Side Unemployed League in Manhattan, merged it with two other local organizations, managed to keep the leadership. Unofficially backed by the American Federation of Labor, he organized the Eastern Federation of Unemployed in 1934, last year formed his Workers Alliance as a means of consolidating local unemployed groups in a single national movement, focusing public attention on the discontent and despair of doletakers. The amalgamation in Washington last April, he claims, swelled the membership of his organization to 800,000 with chapters or affiliates in 43 states. Monthly dues...
Explains President Lasser: "This is a labor movement. It has no connection with the Communist or any other party. . . . Furthermore, the Workers Alliance . . . does not want relief primarily. We want jobs. We are not dole seekers. Any leaders urging just living on relief would be kicked...
Though he voted for Herbert Hoover in 1928 because he believed that a fellow engineer was needed in the White House, Engineer Lasser supported Socialist Norman Thomas in 1932, will support him again this year. Says this onetime inter-planetarian: "I have decided that it is necessary to remake the Earth before delving into life on the Moon...