December, 1936, 1936

The papers for this month are primarily concerned with preparations for events scheduled to take place in January, including the STFU Annual Convention held at Muskogee, Okla., on Jan. 14 to 17, the Southern meeting of the Socialist Party at Norris, Tenn., on Jan. 2 and 3, and the public hearings of the President's Special Commission on Farm Tenancy, held at Dallas, Texas, and Montgomery, Alabama, on Jan. 4 and 6, respectively. At the beginning of December, the Workers Defense League sent Aaron Levenstein to STFU headquarters in Memphis to help with legal defense and fund-raising. Levenstein's almost daily correspondence with Sidney Hertzberg in the New York office of WDL provides much information on plans to initiate a National Sharecroppers Week and the "Friends of the STFU". Other items include: a prospectus for an organizers training school set up by Claude Williams at Little Rock on Dec. 13 to 22 (13); a letter of apology from Donald Henderson for his editorial in The Rural Worker (21); and the minutes of the Oklahoma Farm Tenancy Committee (19 and 31).