August, 1938, 1938

The most important document to appear in the papers for August is a 4-page typewritten memorandum laying plans for a Communist take-over of the STFU, which was found by J.R. Butler in Claude Williams' coat-pocket (22). Butler wrote Williams immediately, asking him to resign from the NEC (22). Williams replied to Butler's charges directly (25), and Donald G. Kobler, secretary of Commonwealth College, took up Williams' defense in a circular letter (31). The papers include letters commenting on the Williams case from Norman Thomas (26), Socialist Party activist Ernest Morgan (29), and Jay Lovestone (31). Butler also wrote E.B. McKinney, detailing the charges against him which the next NEC meeting would consider (27) and McKinney replied to Butler's claims (31). Other items of special interest include: David Griffin, STFU Organizer for Arkansas, to WPA Administrator Harry Hopkins, charging that the promise Hopkins made in a Memphis speech of August 5 to hire 200,000 unemployed Southern workers on WPA was not being kept (20); a report from organizer F.R. Betton on the situation in Jefferson County, Ark. (13), and Butler to M.W. Jones, a Mississippi planter who asked the union to supply him with cotton pickers (16).