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New York Times, Tuesday, August 2, 1949

Paul P. Crosbie, 68, Communist Leader

State Treasurer of the Party, F. D. Roosevelt Classmate, Dies --
Former Democrat

Paul Pembroke Crosbie, Communist party leader here for more than ten
years and state treasurer of the party, died Saturday at his home,
64-41 Booth Street, Forest Hills, Queens. His age was 68.

Born in Woodworth, Wis., Mr. Crosbie was the son of Hadley Marshall
and Susan Hartley Crosbie. His father was a Congregational minister
who moved about the Midwest and finally lost his pulpit in Iowa after
racing a trotting horse through the center of town.

After being graduated from Lake Forest (Ill.) Academy, Mr. Crosbie
entered Harvard as a classmate of the late President Franklin
D. Roosevelt. There he served as campus correspondent for The
Associated Press, getting his news from the galleys of the Harvard
Crimson, college daily, according to his own account. At that time
Mr. Roosevelt was the editor of the campus newspaper.

Mr. Crosbie received his A. B. from Harvard in 1905 and entered the
insurance business here. Joining the Army at the beginning of American
participation in the first World War, he served as a first lieutenant
in the 313th Field Artillery, Eightieth Division, and saw action
throughout the Meuse-Argonne and St. Mihiel battles. He fought in
France for more than two years, returning to the United States in
June, 1919.

First in Democratic Party

Bored with his insurance business, which he despised all his life,
Mr. Crosbie turned to politics and joined the Democratic party in this
city. He quickly rose to be district captain in the Queens Democratic
organization and a member of the Anarock Democratic Club. He resigned
dramatically from the party on Nov. 22, 1932, in protest against the
refusal of Party Register Peter J. McGarry, sheriff-elect and member
of the executive committee, to withdraw from his private real estate
and insurance business as a condition of taking office.

Mr. Crosbie's action startled the Democrats and resulted in widespread
publicity for the future Communist leader. The next year Mr. Crosbie
aligned himself irrevocably with the local Communist machine,
explaining his action as follows:

"I supported Roosevelt in all good faith in 1932, but I was raised on
a farm and when I learned of his program of food destruction -- his
plan to make goods scarce -- I turned against him. The more I read
about hogs being killed and cotton plowed under, the more incensed I
became. Well, I have an office at 130 William Street, and one
afternoon I looked into a telephone book for the address of the
Communist party."

He was admitted to full membership in the party on Oct. 24, 1933.

Battle With American Legion

Mr. Crosbie soon attracted the attention of party leaders by his
vociferous protests at a number of meetings attended by Communist
sympathizers or party members. At a session of the Board of Education
on March 13, 1935, Mr. Crosbie, who appeared as a representative for
the Unemployed Teachers Association, was ejected from the meeting room
by a police emergency squad.

The year before he had been involved in a prolonged and bitter
struggle with an anti-Communist faction in the American Legion which
sought his expulsion on the ground that Communists are sworn to
overthrow the American Constitution.

Mr. Crosbie's contention that political affiliation could not be
grounds for expulsion from the Legion was upheld by a trial board of
Blissville Post 227, Woodside, Queens, which dismissed charges brought
against him by James J. Ogilvie, chairman of the post's Americanism
committee.

In 1937 Mr. Crosbie ran for City Councilman from Queens on the
Communist ticket together with Isadore Begun from the Bronx and Peter
V. Cacchione from Brooklyn. The petition nominating him for the
Council in 1939 was ruled invalid by the Board of Elections for
technical reasons, but in 1941 and 1943 Mr. Crosbie was again on the
ballot as an authorized Communist candidate for the Council. Each time
he was defeated for a seat on the Council. He was also Communist
candidate for Congress from the Second District in New York in 1934
and 1940 -- again without success.

Surviving are his widow, the former Katherine Small, whom he married
in 1906, and five children, Malcolm Nash, Louise, Susan, Katherine,
and Halana.