March, 1939, 1939

The STFU withdrew from UCAPAWA on March 12, and virtually all of the papers for March have to do with the split. A chronology of the correspondence and events leading up to the withdrawal is especially helpful (11). Returns from a membership referendum on withdrawal appear throughout the month. Advice poured in from friends of the union, including Ward Rodgers (3), Howard Kester (3), Gardner Jackson (13,31), Matthew Woll, Third Vice-President of the AF of L (29), and from two AF of L leaders in Texas and California who complained of Communism in the CIO (18, 22). John Brophy, Director of the CIO, attempted to mediate, but his efforts proved of no avail (8 to 11). Three letters from Mitchell are of special interest, one to Butler outlining strategy (3), one to Lucy Randolph Mason stating that the STFU had no quarrel with the CIO itself (30), and a five-page letter to The Nation explaining the STFU side of the controversy (30). Donald Henderson held a special convention in St. Louis to reorganize the Missouri STFU and Joyce Crawford reported on it at length (13). Odis Sweeden reorganized the Oklahoma STFU into the Oklahoma Tenant Farmers Union; the papers include the Constitution and the program adopted at Sweeden's convention (19). The STFU held its own special convention in Memphis on March 19; although the resolutions adopted there do appear (19) there is no record of the Proceedings in the papers. To protect NSW from UCAPAWA, Mitchell and Harriet Young decided to set it up as a non-profit corporation; the papers include the legal forms for incorporation (14, 15, 17)