Biography
Leon Glaser was a Russian-born clothing worker in Seattle who came to the United States in 1908. He served as secretary of the Seattle and vicinity branch of the Friends of the Soviet Union, arranging film screenings and raising money for agricultural equipment. Questioned by the congressional Fish Committee in October 1930, he said that he was not a Communist Party member and opposed the use of force to overthrow the government. Immigration authorities detained him in Seattle in 1931 during the deportation campaign under Secretary of Labor William Doak. International Labor Defense attorney Lawrence Seltzer and the American Civil Liberties Union took up his case.
Birth-year evidence and its limits
In his sworn Fish Committee testimony, printed pages 69–70 (PDF pages 1–2), Glaser states that he came to the United States in 1908 and was 19 years old when he arrived. This supports a birth-year range of 1888–1889, depending on the arrival date and whether his birthday had occurred. It does not establish a unique birth year or exact birth date, so the birth-date field remains unset. This excerpt describes his earlier immigration and citizenship applications, not the admission or release dates of his later 1931 immigration detention. Citizenship applications and the committee recess are not jail events.
Louis Colman’s deportation article names Leon Glaser as held for deportation with Vladimir Welck and Michael Saksagansky and reports an order routing the three toward the Soviet Union via Shanghai. It calls Glaser secretary of the Portland branch of the Friends of the Soviet Union and says he had lived in America twenty-five years. The Portland wording and duration differ from the existing Seattle and 1908-arrival evidence and are retained as attributed reporting, without overwriting identity, residence or birth data. A routing order is not proof of an executed deportation or physical release.
