National Affairs: Secession

With the bravery of youth two young Socialists, Harry Leland Mitchell and Clay East from eastern Arkansas, set out in 1934 to do something for Southern sharecroppers. What they did, with the help of No. 1 Socialist Norman Thomas, was to organize the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Having bearded many a planter and even bettered matters a little for its poverty-stricken membership, S. T. F. U. in 1937 tried to affiliate with C. I. O. as an autonomous union. Because the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing & Allied Workers of America was already in the farm field, S. T. F. U. was required to hook up with that union as a supposedly autonomous division. Last week S. T. F. U.’s Executive Secretary Mitchell and President J. R. Butler, suddenly breaking off the affiliation, made ugly charges.

President of U. C. A. P. A. W. A. (pronounced Ucápawa for short) is Donald Henderson, who according to Messrs. Butler and Mitchell used to be a central committeeman of the Communist Party. If Mr. Henderson is no longer a Communist, as he tells his C. I. 0. superiors, he smells like one to Socialists Butler & Mitchell. Last week they accused him of deliberately wrecking their union to subordinate it to the Communist Party. They declared that he confused simple Southern Negroes and “poor whites” with red tape, refused to support S. T. F. U.’s roadside sit-down in Missouri, finally suspended all its officers without a hearing and called a reorganization convention in St. Louis this week. On Donald Henderson’s behalf, a C. I. 0. spokesman replied that he had simply tried to bring order into a maladministered union, that Messrs. Butler & Mitchell fooled themselves in thinking they could pull out of Ucápawa and stay in C. I. O., as they hope to do.

Donald Henderson’s union claims 124,-750 members, reportedly has a dues-paying membership of about 15,000. S. T. F. U. claims 35,000, concedes that no more than 3,000 can pay dues at any one time. To figures like these, and to troubles like S. T. F. U.’s, A. F. of L. points as evidence that C. I. 0. should grow up and heal its sores before it tries to make peace on its own terms (see p. 14).