Parskey, Leo_1976/2/11, Oral History, 1976 - 1976

This is February 11, 1976. I am Robert Weinerman. On behalf of the Jewish Historical Society I and interviewing Judge Leo Parsky. Judge Leo Parsky and I have been warm personal friends all of our adult lives so I will start by referring to you are Leo as I always do. Leo is a native of Hartford who was educated in Hartford, went to Hartford schools, practiced law in Hartford, had a distinguished political career and in now serving as a judge in the Superior Court and I think it would be most illuminating and most interesting for us to talk to Leo. RW: Leo, could you start by just telling us of your originals, where you lived and how you got started in this community? LP: I think, first, I have to start with the Parsky family. My father’s name was Abraham and my mother’s name Fanny. The Parsky family actually goes back to two towns in the Soviet Union. Now, of course, what is now Yellow Russia. My father came from the town of Moldivano. Before that the town of Moligen. The family name was actually Persky and it was spelled then P.E.R.S.K.I., and I never realized until recently what that name really was. I had always thought it was a ________ but I discovered that it wasn’t that at all. It was a Persky family in the town of Moligen and they , I think probably every Persky or Parsky in the United States is related in some way. I discovered a few years ago that Persky is a Ukrainian word meaning somebody who came from Persia. That being the case I claim descendancy certainly from Queen Esther and Mordecai and so I want you to know that you’re interviewing royalty today. RW: I indeed feel humbled to being in the presence of one of such noble birth. Ad how did you adorn Hartford with this nobility? LP: Well mother, of course, came from Vialastock in Poland. They both came here in the year 1905. And they came to live in Hartford. My father was a carpenter and builder by trade. We came to Hartford, lived in the South End, before I was born they lived on ____________ Avenue and when I was born on Bond Street we then moved to Barker Street. My father and father had four sons, no daughters. I was the baby of the family. We lived at 22 Barker Street. I was very interesting because my mother is quite orthodox. We always accused her of having written a book and she was very strict, believed sincerely, and one of the things she insisted upon was that orthodox families, well you don’t mix, meat dishes and dairy dishes. Well, of course, the practice then was that if ever did the first thing that happened was that you had to put the knife or the spoon or the fork in the ground and I suspect that if one of these anybody has occasion to dig up the backyard at 22 Barker Street you would probably find service for six. RW: Leo, I think it’s interesting that you note that you grew up on Bond Street and Barker Street in the South End because most of the large Jewish community that always was present for at least 60 or 70 years in Hartford lived in the North End. And I wondered if you could tell us a little about what it was like for a young Jewish boy growing up in the South End of Hartford? LP: The fact is that there were a number of Jewish families in the South End but they were spread out. We had no curbs and _________ such as existed in the North End and we had no synagogue to begin with. In fact, quite common to have a Hebrew teacher come. That’s how my brothers received their Hebrew education. But before long a group got together, parents included, and founded the South End Hebrew _____ Talmud Torah on Congress Street. That’s where I had my Hebrew education and my teacher was somebody who you later became quite familiar with as all of us have, Jacob Sterns. He had his start the South End and I had quite a number of years of Hebrew education from him. He had three Hebrew students and I was one of them. Not that that was the size of his class. His class was much larger. RW: But what was neighborhood life like, were your immediate playmates Jewish or were they gentile boys and girls who lived on the street? What was the impact of life on you as an individual? LP: We were always in a sea of gentility. I think that except for the South End and its congregation I think that you were very conscious of the fact that you were a very, very small minority. Although strangely enough I can recall one teacher I had at the Burr School who was a final Semite. RW: Well, I think I’d like to ask you a loaded question because I know the answer. And that is, did you ever harbor a thought of becoming a rabbi as a little boy or anywhere else in your early childhood? LP: Well, I think it’s best to put it a little differently. Whether I harbored the thought or not was no question, but what my parents harbored the thought. In fact they had their plans for me to become a rabbi. It was a quirk of fate that I didn’t. in fact the plan was that when I graduated grammar school I was supposed to go the Yeshiva in New York and spend time there and ultimately become a rabbi. But if you recall those were the years when we had the split graduations, some in February, some in June, so I graduated grammar school in February and entered Bulkeley High School. It so happened there was a parent teachers night and Gusta Feingold was the principal of Bulkeley at the time. My parents went to him and spoke to him about the plans and he suggested since I had started at Bulkeley and had done very well in the whole Freshman year that I ought to complete my high school and then go to the Yeshiva after that. By that time I had other plans but I never lost my interest in Hebrew in the study. And of course I suppose if had ended up the way my parents had wanted mother would not be a Rebbetizen. RW: Before I get you out of high school, just for a second, let’s go back to elementary school. Which elementary school did you go to and were there any untoward incidents there that you recall that you feel you would like to relate? LP: Not really. In those days you started at the Henry Wise School, I think it was located on Preston Street and after the first four grades you then went to the Burr School and you completed there and from there you went on to high school. and I would say that my grammar school period was undrammatic. I don’t recall any particular incidents during that period at all. I thought it was quite enjoyable. There was never a great moment. RW: You mentioned Dr. Feingold and Bulkeley and of course I knew Dr. Feingold well because I grew up as a neighbor of the Feingolds. But he was at Bulkeley and I know that you spent the bulk of your high school years a Hartford High, how did this transition take place? LP: Well in ’29 when the family moved to Sumner Street, in fact, we moved from 22 Barker Street to 22 Sumner Street, of course that brought us into the high school district, the Hartford High School District, it was very interesting that was quite an interesting street because not only were there Parskys living there but there were Pinskys. David Pinsky, Jules Pinsky, the Pinsky family had a store on Sumner Street so that one way or the other Parskys, Pinskys we all seemed to get together in one place or another in the city. RW: Well now this had to be 1929, 1930. LP: Yes. RW: The Halcion days of the 20s were ending. We were moving into the Depression days the Jewish community was still growing, Emanuel Synagogue was in its infancy, what’s your recollection of Jewish life at the end of the 20s and the beginning of the Depression days? What were the impacts on you as a child of that era? LP: Well strangley enough I had a number of years of Hebrew saying it went on until I was about 16. I recall that after we moved away from the South End I went to the Talmud Torah on Pleasant Street for a while for advance training and I was there until I was about 16 and so I continued my Jewish education and Hebrew education, studied Talmud for a period quite far beyond the bar mitzvah period that was the usual period of termination. And yet I don’t recall thinking too much Jewishly at that time despite all the education and everything else I didn’t think specifically in terms of Jewish relationships in society or things of that sort. When I was in high school I don’t recall a single incident in connection with that except one. I don’t know what the circumstances were but I remember there was a Jewish Center on Albany Avenue and I remember there was a room on the second floor and why I was there I still don’t know but I remember being addressed by Abe Goldstein who was, of course, then active in the Zionist Organization and later became a national vice president and I recall he was one of the leading Jewish or Yiddish orators in the United States if not in the world. RW: Well, all right. What about the economic impact on your life during the Depression were you and your brothers, was there hardship in the family for lack of money? LP: Yes, I recall that in the early 20s my father had been engaged in the building of apartment houses. When the Depression hit, the Depression I am talking about isn’t the Great Depression of ’29, it’s the real estate depression that occurred about two years earlier than that. He had owned quite a number of apartment houses and he lost every single one of them and in fact for long periods of time we lived in houses that he had built and I remember we lost that. We lost the house on Barker Street. We lost the, it was apartment house. He built that on Sumner Street and we lost that. It was finally, as a result of that, that ultimately we moved to Westbourne Parkway and we lived in the house that he had built but at that time we had to rent it. Things were seemingly rough. The whole housing market fell apart and in those days there were demand mortgages and the only thing that builders every did that owned houses was to pay interest and of course when the Depression hit the foreclosures started and everything went down the drain. RW: Well, Leo I know that judges are not supposed to be particularly immodest but can we make an exception of this point and tell us about the kind of a student you were at Hartford High? Did you win any honors, did you participate in any activities, did you achieve anything? LP: I was quite active in Hartford High. I participated in many of the organizational life. I think I was active in the Science Society, I was active in the French Society. And I think the thing that probably led me into the law was the Hopkins Debating Society. In those days Hartford High was split into two groups, it was the Hopkins Group for those who were preparing for college and the group that was called either HPHS or Broad Street and it included all the others. But both groups had debating societies. I ultimately became president of the Hopkins Debating Society and each year there used to be a debate known at the Raddison Debate and I recall having won first prize in that particular debate and it was in the course of engaging in the research work and engaging in debating, articulating, on your feet that I think was ultimately what stimulated me and led me into law. I think without that I might have gone another route to other endeavors. RW: Well do the names Melvin Katz or Dick Weinerman ring any bells with you during those years? LP: Mel obviously. Although I to go Dick. Mel’s a classmate of mine. In fact, Mel was a better student than I. He ended up salutatorian of the class and I was only able to come in fourth. Since then I have always had to show the due difference in scholars that we expect. But I don’t recall Dick in high school. I recall Dick later. I knew Dick, of course, but didn’t get to know him until afterwards when I was in college. Of course, not only did I know Dick then but Shirley and, of course this was the time that we had already moved to Westbourne Parkway and of course when we were district that I continued to go to Hartford High and I graduated from Hartford High even though I was eligible to attend Weaver. Most of the friends at that time that I had with the exception of about, of I would say, about half a dozen of us all Jewish were at Weaver the others the half dozen were at Hartford High. RW: Well, Leo, we have a book that my father has at home that was published in 1932 which is in the middle of the time when you were in school, and it’s a history of HPHS, and it lists all the students from the beginning of the school up until 1932 and it lists those that carried away honors year by year and it seems that during the period ’29, ’30, ’31 that the names Weinerman, Katz and Parsky seem to appear every year as either first in there class of second in their class. So if you don’t recall it, I do. But because of that going to college must have been a choice for you as to where to go rather than can I go? I don’t mean financially, I mean scholastically, where did you go and how did you choose? LP: Well, initially I wanted to go to Yale. I applied to Yale, I was accepted to Yale. The reason I ended up at Harvard quite frankly was because they gave me a scholarship and Yale didn’t. RW: Good reason. LP: Also Boston is a better city than New Haven to go to school. RW: What was life like at Harvard? LP: Well, for me three are two aspects to it. Obviously I enjoyed it quite a bit but from a financial point of view it was quite difficult because at that time even thought the tuition was only $400 my folks didn’t have it. In fact the only thing that they had was the first $100 and then from then on what I used to do to get loans from various agencies that they had available to it in addition to the scholarship. Then of course I used to work for my meals. I recall that there’s a place I’ll never forget. I don’t know if it’s still in existence. I don’t think it is. Called Hazens. Remember I worked as a dishwasher there. Why I had such a liking for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I don’t know but it seemed as thought I had them morning, noon and night. RW: Well when you consider your last couple of years at Hartford High and your early years at Harvard, during that period in the middle 30s what was your social life like? Had you met Rhoda yet? Did you go out with girls? LP: The answer to the first question is yes. And the answer to the second question is yes. You see there is a part of this that had nothing to do with college. Ocean Beach played a great role in the lives of those of us of our age group at that time and my folks had a “cottage” at the beach on the waterfront and that’s where everybody used to gather and of course the Parskys had a photograph and records and since I knew how to dance and since I was there during the entire summer assuming school let out, and then went back after Labor Day, it was quite natural that I used to meet quite a number of people and Rhoda was in a group of girls that used to congregate in front of Parksy’s. I mean everybody knew about Parskys either for the dancing or I think we were the only ones that had a pay telephone on the boardwalk. RW: Well what was your religious life during this period? Did your social life center around the synagogue? Did your parents belong to a synagogue at this period? What were you doing religious wise? LP: No, except for the High Holidays. My parents used to attend services during the early period it used to be at the synagogue in New London at Ocean Beach. I think it was Park Avenue. It was down at the end, I recall it quite well. Since we were there in that same period we used to attend services there. Later when we came back home and when Agudas Achim moved to its location on the corner Oakland Terrace and Greenfield Street my parents used to get tickets there for the High Holidays and I used to go to services there some of the time but it was shortly thereafter that I joined the Emanuel. RW: You mentioned earlier that you have three brothers. What was your relationship with your brothers? LP: Of course, being the baby of the family and having, there was quite a spread, although now it doesn’t seem that much, but actually my older brothers were twins and then my brother Iz who is in the middle was close to them in age and then I came along about 3 or 4 years later. And so, of course, I was a fussing customer, I do have to tell you this. I was a fussy customer when it came to _________ baby of the family all the meals used to revolve around me so when you ask the question as to what my relationship was with my brothers, I would say something less than the best. RW: Did you get to wash the dishes or eat the dessert? LP: We all did that, come to think of it. Both wash the dishes and eat the dessert. RW: So you held your own more or less? LP Yes, except that I was the one that was supposed to be the student in the family and therefore I was treated differently. My parents made greater demands on me than they did on my brothers for understandable reasons. RW: well, that’s good because I never got to hold my own with my brothers until I was old enough to know better. Well, when you were in Harvard any unusual events that stand out in your mind, experiences there, major impacts on your life because of your presence? LP: I recall one quite vividly. And it had to do with the Carl’s Rule that the dock at Boston Harbor. Of course this was during the ascendancy of Hitler and I remember the demonstrations that took place. And I remember, this was the first time that I felt the beginnings of the direct impact what later became a matter that was of concern to everybody at all times, especially to all the students. But I remember that incident because I went to Boston at the time as an observer mostly and saw the demonstrations and saw the way the police reacted. They reacted rather brutally I thought. And here was a group demonstrating against a Nazi ship that was docking in the harbor and I saw the reaction that I have never forgotten. It’s strange. RW: Well it’s experiences like that that often shape our future. While at Harvard we hadn’t entered the war yet when you started at Harvard. Did you enter law school before you entered the service? What was the sequence of events from Harvard? LP: I graduated Harvard in ’37. Of course the war had not broken out then and I immediately entered law school and I graduated law school in 1940. And of course the war had just broken out in Poland and by the time I graduated, of course, was the time when we had that lull of course the was isn’t started in earnest until after I had graduated. RW: Well I really got you in and out of law school too fast. So let’s go back a few years and relate if you will you decision to go to Harvard Law School. What did you experience at Harvard Law School, did you have famous professors, did the courses you took there shape your life to come? LP: I think I had a more thrilling experience in law school than I had at college. College almost seems to me to be a remote sort of thing. It always seemed as though the professors were far away, that the person that you actually saw was an instructor and so you really didn’t get the flavor of the college and what it stood for. Afterwards as you look back you could see that maybe you got more out of the thing than you really thought. The law school was entirely different. There were some legal giants at the law school when I went there. People such as Willardson who wrote one of the definitive treatises, the Law of Contracts. I had him for contract. In fact I attended his last class. He was a person who lived to be a hundred. The person Allston Scott, who is alive incidentally, and has written the definitive work on the law of trusts. People like Frankfurter who was a professor when I was there and who was important to the Supreme Court while I was there. Roscoe Powell was the dean when I went there. Here’s a person who has written a five volume set on jurist prudence and it took him 50 years to write it. And here was a person who had a tremendous impact on the whole field of law and all of these people were there at the same time that I was and you’ve got to attend their classes. It really was a, even though Harvard Law School was tough the fact was that I remember the experience we had we had professors there who taught us not the procedures, not the how tos, but gave you some idea of the background, some idea about legal thinking. I think we got more out of that than we got out of knowing what the ruling was in a particular case. RW: As best you recollect it, during this period, and you are talking about pre-World War II, which is an interesting period in that World War II to me was a war that shared an American life it changed dramatically after that. Would you comment about your personal feelings pre-World War II about a Jewish student trying to get into college, trying to get into law school, trying to make their way. Was it different than it is today? LP: Well, one thing that you’re aware of was the quota system. This was pervasive. Everyone knew that if you wanted to get into the good schools you had to be better than the rest. There wasn’t any question about it. And so those of us who met that test were accepted. Harvard for example, had a quote of, I don’t know how many Jewish students there are there now, I remember not too long ago, I think that either at the law school or at the college, I think it must have been as high as 20, 30, or 40%. When I went, I think the quota was about 5% and may have even been less and we were aware of it. And it was one of those things that were mentioned. You were aware of its existence and you lived with it. RW: Was there a fraternity system on campus at Harvard? LP: No. RW: The house system was in effect then? LP: Yes. Harvard did away with the fraternity system quite a number of years before I came there. RW: But most of you contemporaries at that point were faced with segregated fraternity if they chose that. LP: Yes. RW: Well you graduated in 1940. The war hadn’t quite started and you did ultimately go into the service, what did you do when you left Harvard? LP: Well, I had a choice. I graduated in ’40, I passed the bar that year, the question was what to do. At that time I was single and the question was whether I should come back to Hartford and start practicing law or not. I had an opportunity to go with the Social Security Board in Washington and since I fully expected when the draft came along I was going to be selected and was going to be selected at an early point, it didn’t make much sense to me to start in private practice so I was with the Social Security Board from the fall of 1940, actually until June of 1942. RW: And then did you enlist were you drafted, how did you get into World War II? LP: I was volunteered. RW: You knew Rhoda at this time because you say you knew Rhoda in high school. How did you maintain that relationship? How did it warm into something more than a friendship? LP: As a matter of fact, I got to know Rhoda much better when I was in law school and , in fact, when I graduated law school there was very little question in my mind that our relationship was such that sooner or later we were going to be husband and wife. There wasn’t any doubt about that. Actually we were married in November 1941. RW: And at that point you were already in the service? LP: No, not yet. We were married and for a period of time we were living in Washington. In fact, we had some very interesting experiences there, she, more than I. Washington in those days was a rather bubbling community because government workers just seemed to move around. It was such a proliferation of agencies, the need for personnel. So personnel moved from one place to the next. So when we were married and went to live there, Rhoda got a job with the Navy Department and obviously she wanted a nice quiet job and she did. She got a job, secretary to the commander of the salvage department of the navy. Well this was November 2nd, 1941, December 7, of course, came along and that department was probably the busiest department in all of the navy, if fact she had to transcribe the conversations going on between Washington and Pearl Harbor. It got to the point where it was just too much. But again it was very easy to switch jobs so she started looking around for another job that would be quieter and I suggested that the quietest place in Washington would be the Department of the Interior. She applied there and she got a job at the Department of the Interior and they assigned her to the Bureau of Mines. It seemed to be a very quiet job and the week after she got it there was a big mine disaster out in the State of Illinois and there she was back to the first base again. RW: Subsequent to that you went into the service. LP: Yes. RW: And where did you go and what rank did you achieve? LP: Well, I was fortunate accidentally. I was inducted in June of 1942. And being inducted from Washington you went to Camp Lee. While was at the reception center I sprained my wrist it occurred in a strange fashion, were in physical training we used to have tug of wars and the ones that lost had to go through the GI bell. There I was always on the losing side. Well after a while you develop a technique. I discovered that I if would go in a zigzag process that I could avoid the bells but the person behind me, he wanted to run a straight line and so he pushed me and as a result I sprained my wrist. It was a very fortunate sprain as it turned out because that very day I was assigned to Camp Pickett where the 89th Infantry Division was forming. I used to have a very soft spot in my heart for the 89th Division because of that I was taken off that assignment and I used to follow the 89th Division and that was the one that trained out in Colorado. Ultimately it became part of Omar Bradley’s corps, landed in Marseilles, we left France from there and was decimated in the Battle of the Bulge. So I was quite lucky. As a result of being around I ultimately was assigned to the air force and ultimately ended up as an airplane mechanic. RW: In as much as this tape if for the Historical Society, and set the setting for future generations, we’ve just through a period in the Vietnames war where patriotism was at a low concern for defending a cause that was questionable was very great, what was the background in World War II, did young people willingly go to that war? LP: I don’t think in any war young people go willingly. But I think that I can speak for just about all young Jewish people and that is there was absolutely no question about the necessity of that war. I think there was absolutely no alternative. Hitler had to be defeated and if it took a war to do it I think all of us were prepared for it. And despite the fact that whether you volunteered or were inducted, really it made no difference. Philosophically and otherwise everybody felt that the war was necessary. RW: Was the life of your parents and your brothers particularly effected by World War II in any noteworthy way or any interesting way that you would want LP: No. Of course my brothers were all married at that time. They had children. When I was inducted we were just married. We had no children then and of course had no children during the entire war until 1945. RW: Well when you emerged from the war and when were you separated from the service, around 1945, 46? LP: January of 1946, by that time I had gone through a number of stages and so I was separated as a captain. RW: Well aside from the very unusual dislocation that entered all of our lives being in the service, did being in the service shape your future, did you begin to be come a political animal as a result of your war experience or did you decide to pursue a particular law career? Did the war help you shape your future? LP: I think it had this effect on me. Toward the end of the war, I used to read in some of the army newspapers about a new organization that was forming, the American Veterans Committee. And I became interested in it and so by the time I was separated there was no question in my mind but I was going to be a part of that effort. In fact, I think it was that effort that ultimately led me into politics and everything that went with it. RW: So if there were no GI’s you would had considered yourself an apolitical person? LP: Oh, absolutely. RW: And it was the post-war activities of the veterans that made you realize that politics held an interest to you. Can you tell us a little bit about the AVC and your role in it because I know it had an important impact? LP: Yes, in fact one of the most exciting experiences I have ever had was attending the national convention of the American Veterans Committee in Des Moines, Iowa. It was the most unusual convention. In those days the only conventions that were held by veterans organizations tended to be affairs where there was a lot of drinking and nothing too much was done, a lot of entertaining and so on. This was a working convention. We had it completely covered by the press. We were there for four days and during the entire four days I don’t think that I had as much as eight hours of sleep. And it was at that convention that I first developed some political interest because I was assigned to the Veterans Affairs Committee and the way the rules were set up if the Committee was going to propose a particular proposition and anybody wanted to bring it to the floor you had to file a minority report. What happened was that one of the principles which AVC was founded was that of citizens first and veterans second, and we were absolutely opposed to the idea of veterans bonus. There was a group at the convention, however, and they were very active in the Veterans Affairs Committee ad they pushed through a resolution favoring a federal bonus. I opposed that. I filed a minority report and I lived _____________ in opposition to the minority report. And interestingly enough that was the place where I met Jack Javits who joined me in that fight and we succeeded in defeating it. But it was the stimulus of that, you had to understand parliamentary law, everybody was there with his little book of Roberts Rules or Order and if you didn’t know the rules you were lost. You received your training very, very rapidly and it was AVC that ultimately led me into the Charter Committee and into political activity. RW: So that’s what whet your appetite for that but at the same time the impact of the war had to have the greatest effect on Jewish communities throughout the world, 6 million Jews were slaughtered, lives were terribly disrupted, and the American Jewish community was hardly inactive during this period and Zionism was growing in America, the Jewish War Veterans were a significant group. What role did you play in these organizations? LP: Not only did I join AVC I also joined Jewish War Veterans. If you recall in 1946 one of the key issues, ’46, ’47, ’48, was what was happening in Palestine. What was happening to the Jewish refugees? What was happening with the British plan of exclusion? And the question was, what was to be done about it. The Jewish War Veterans organized a parade in Washington and organized in a way to have a maximum turnout and I went down to Washington and participated in that parade and we had a tremendous turnout. That was the sort of activity that you engaged in and I was active in the Hartford Zionist in those years. I was participating then. Of course, I think what led me into that active aspect of Zionism was my association at that time with Ben Rabinowitz. I went with him, I was associated with him in the practice of law and he was extremely active in the Zionist organization and the Zionist Council and so it was that association that then led me into the Zionist District working the various aspects of Zionist organizations ultimately becoming secretary in the organization. It was that same period of time when I became active in the American Jewish Congress as well. RW: So during this period when you were pursuing these activities you’re describing your law practice with Ben Rabinowitz was growing but the appetite that you had whet earlier for politics with the AVC began to really mature, and the Citizens Charter Committee which at that point was taking over the reigns of running the city of Hartford, came to you and asked you to play a role there. Do you want to tell us something about that? LP: Well actually it started before the Citizen Charter Committee was formed. What happened was that there was a group in Hartford that wanted to have a charter change and there was a commission formed that proposed a change in the system of government of Hartford. Prior to that it was a mayor alderman system. And the proposal was that there would be a council manager form of government and as a member of AVC I was at that time the chairman of the legislative committee at the Hartford Chapter of AVC and I felt that it would be an excellent idea for us to look at the charter and consider all the aspects of it and then ultimately pass a resolution either for or against it. And we did and we decided to favor the charter. Well those who were also interested in the charter immediately called upon me to serve and to try and see that the charter would be adopted. So I became active in the initial program to adopt the charter. After the charter was adopted in 1947 that was when I and others founded the Citizen Charter Committee. RW: So you were now reaching the pinnacle of your or approaching let’s say maturity in your young adult life, you were raising a family, you were practicing law, you were interested in a community, you were entering politics, let’s touch on these for a second. What was happening with your family? How many children did you have by this time? LP: Well the youngest, we had three children, Leslie who is here tonight lives in California, and I am very happy she is here, she’s the oldest. She was born in ’45. The middle one, Peggy, was born in ’49 and the youngest, our son, was born in 1953. So that there are really only the two daughters that were born at that time and I would say that from Rhoda’s point of view I would say that I was an absent father because it seemed as though I was spending just about every single night out engaged in all sorts of activity and that she had the patience to stay with me during all this period of time is a special tribute to her. RW: Well you were indeed an active young man and we are moving into the decade of the 50’s, you indicated that you help found the Citizens Charter Committee, how did you get to run for office? LP: Well, I was invited to run by Joe Cronin. He wondered if I would run on the Charter Committee slate in 1953 and I agreed to and I received the endorsement of the Charter Committee and I ran. I had a very interesting experience in connection with that. It just dawned on me as you mentioned it. Of course anybody engaged in politics understands that if you are going to run a campaign you’re going to have people over the house and you’re going to have coffee clatches and what not and we had a group over the house one night and at that time I think Leslie was about 8 and Peggy was about 4 and they were making noise in the bedroom and we were carrying on in the living room and after a while I had to excuse myself and go into the bedroom and I figured the person to talk to was Leslie, after all she was the older of the two, and I had to tell her about the consequences of making so much noise. As I was getting ready to leave I said just remember this, that if you are not quiet I’m just not going to be a councilman. Peggy, during all this period of time had kept quiet. But she asked the question that was ultimately put in the Hartford Times, she says are you still going to be a daddy? RW: You didn’t have to get elected to be a daddy. LP: No, no RW: But you had to be elected to be a councilman? Were you a one vote councilman? LP: I was swept into office that first year with 14 votes to spare. RW: 14 votes to spare must have meant that, how long a campaign how many doorbells did you have to ring? LP: It was a rugged campaign because it started quite early. You had to run in the primary. It was a city-wide affair. And then the top 18 ran in the final election and then the top 9 were the ones that were elected. But I discovered one thing, once you were elected, really it made no difference whether you were elected by one vote or 10,000, you had as much voice as much authority as the person who was elected very easily. And if you worked at it you could make an impact. RW: Well now Lee, this was a very interesting period in the political life of Hartford and I notice there’s a young man in the rear of the room who played a role with you, Harry Kleinman, during those periods. And I remember this is where I got to know you when we began to do things together. Do you want to say a few words about what was happening vis a vis the Democratic party and the CCC and the political life of Hartford. It was a period of _____________ a period of readjustment and what kind of a role did you play in all of this? LP: Well I was playing a dual role. On the local level I was active at the beginning with the Citizen Charter Committee. The Citizen Charter Committee was a ________ to the Democratic party. I had always felt that having the council managed form of government actually helped the Democratic party because it avoided those battles down at the aldermanic level which tended to create problems in the state and national elections. Nevertheless, as far as local organization Democrats were concerned, here was a strange group that they probably called a Republican group that now was taking over in the guise of the Citizen Charter Committee. So they wanted in. and ultimately decided that they were going to run a slate. Well, 1953 was also the first year the Democratic party ran a slate. After the election the Democratic party candidates had actually elected a majority of the council and that was the first year that that had happened. Prior to that the Charter Committee used to elect six out of the nine but ’53 the Charter Committee was now a minority and it was a 6 to 3 division. Those of us in the minority kept active. I used to keep active in the Democratic party at state and national elections and I would be down at state headquarters I never saw any conflict between the two and that’s how I got to meet and to know and to respect and to admire John Bailey. RW: Yes I was going to say this is the period when you were making the transition from the CCC to becoming an active Democrat. Abe Ribicoff was making his political move at the period. Of course John Bailey was becoming firmly entrenched as the political leader. Then you became Deputy Mayor in 1955 and was your relationship with the Democratic hierarchy beginning to gel and firm up? LP: Actually it goes back a little bit before this. I’ve forgotten something until you made mention of it. When you mentioned Abe Ribicoff, actually I became active in the Democratic Party in 1946 and in 1948 and in 1950 I was Abe Ribicoff’s Campaign Manager when he ran for re-election to the House. I was there to differentiate by activity with the Charter Committee and my activity in the Democratic Party so my first meeting with John Bailey came as a result of having become involved in a big city-wide Democratic caucus in 1946 when those of us who were backing Sy Bernstein for the State Senate and that was the activity in the Democratic Party at the same time that I was carrying other activity in Citizens Charter Committee so that it anteceded this other period. RW: Well, all right, we’re in the period again in the 50’s which was the most active part of your early adult life. What was going on in the Jewish community and were you playing a role in the local synagogues? Were you still maintaining your interest in Hartford Jewish life? LP: Well, I was a member of the Emanuel Synagogue. I had started for a long period of time being active first at the, I was in the Brotherhood for a period of time, I think the activity went quite beyond that. One thing I had always enjoyed was chanting mafta on the High Holidays. Well, I started to do that at the Emanuel and that was the time when the Emanuel had two services, there were two on Woodland Street and then the auditorium at Weaver used to be used for the third service. When I started in attending that service and that was where I used to chant mafta every year. And, of course, my mother, as mothers will, wanted me to chant mafta elsewhere. They had switched and had become members of the Teferes Israel Synagogue which was then located on Blue Hills Avenue and Burlington Street. And so as time went on I used to chant mafta twice, once at the Emanuel and once at the Teferes Israel. RW: How did you get to be a leader at the Emanuel? LP: Well, you had a part to play in that and so did I. I guess it went back to 1957. You accidentally and I accidentally in a way, this was a time when the Emanuel’s _____ was making a big decision as to whether to move from Hartford, move to West Hartford, build a school in West Hartford and at the time I hadn’t made up my mind as to how I was going to vote. There was a meeting at Emanuel and the place was packed. It was at that meeting that my understanding and knowledge of parliamentary law actually stood me in good stand because as I recall it you were the one who was sitting in front of me and made the motion that the move be made to West Hartford. And there were some people who felt that there was going to be such great disparity in the dues as a result of this that they wanted to know what was going to happen to those people who couldn’t afford the increases in dues.