The couple led an active social life, travelling widely, acquainted with some of the leading literary and artistic figures of the day.
"[4] During the 1930s Leslie hosted a radio program on Newark, New Jersey, station WOR on which he read poetry, sang Gaelic songs, and played the violin.
As Kenneth Leslie later told it: "My wife had the habit of taking all the children away to stay with relatives for months at a time, leaving me alone.
[3] In 1934 Leslie married Marjorie Finlay Hewitt, a divorcée, who had "become enamoured of him when she attended a poetry reading he was giving in Montclair, N.J." The dozen years of their marriage were the most productive of his life.
During the mid-1930s, "he had become increasingly disturbed by the growth of fascist and anti-semitic attitudes in the United States throughout the 'thirties and the concomitant influence of isolationist sentiments on American foreign policy."
"[2] In December 1938, with the "support of his second wife, who provided almost all of the initial investment money (approximately $40,000), he created the Protestant Digest, ... which eventually attained a circulation of 50,000 and became a powerful voice in the war against fascism and anti-semitism in the United States.
"[3] "With contributions from the leading public intellectuals of the day, the magazine called for a declaration of war against the Axis powers, and stood firmly against the oppression of Jews.
[3] "But [Leslie's] leftist politics and pointed criticism of the Catholic Church (which in his view had enabled Europe’s fascists) earned him enemies as well.
"The fact that a large number of these publications were in use in Roman Catholic parochial schools contributed to Leslie’s undeserved (but growing) reputation as a virulent anti-Catholic.
"[3] Leslie also came up with the idea of The Challenger, "an anti-fascist comic book which appeared sporadically in 1944 and once in 1945, this last time in a 64 page "deluxe" edition which had a press run of 400,000 and sold at 10 cents.
The cover of the 1945 edition shows youths of the white, yellow and black races battling green demons of fear, hate and greed.
Gerald Richardson, the editor, made use of nationally known cartoonists in this attempt to counter the mass production of fascist propaganda aimed at the young.
"[3] At the same time, by Leslie's account, he was fighting to maintain control over editorial policy against executive staff of The Protestant who were supporters of the Communist Party.
To make matters worse, his wife discovered he was "having an affair with his private secretary, Cathy, a Polish-American girl some thirty years younger than himself," and filed for divorce.
In addition, he was listed as one of the top 50 communist "fellow travelers and innocent dupes" on the Life Magazine alongside figures including Albert Einstein, Norman Mailer, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller and Langston Hughes.
[2] Kenneth Leslie arrived back in Canada with a new wife, "Cathy, whose parents were peasant class Polish immigrants [and] had no independent source of income.
Due to his activist past, plus a 1958 trip he made to the Soviet Union, he was for some time under Royal Canadian Mounted Police surveillance, and an object of "parental anxieties about Communists in the classroom".
The couple were devoted to each other and collaborated on the publication of New Man until 1972, when ill-health forced them both to enter a Halifax nursing home...Only about a dozen friends and relatives attended the funeral.
In the 1920s in Nova Scotia he and his first wife were members of The Song Fishermen, a literary and society group that included Charles G. D. Roberts and Bliss Carman.
Additionally, he draws readers in with sound (waiting for the snow, / the foam of bloom forgotten), at times reminiscent of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
[4] The lyrics to Leslie's song "Cape Breton Lullaby" (set to a different, traditional melody) have been recorded by several Canadian Celtic artists, including Catherine McKinnon,[3] Ryan's Fancy,[8] and The Cottars.