January, 1945, 1945

As the year began, Mitchell wrote Leon Schachter that the STFU had no prospects for finding jobs for its members except in New Jersey (3). Despite his pessimism, Mitchell wrote the WMC about supplying workers for war plants in Louisville, Ky. (3); the Commission did not take up his offer, for reasons outlined in a WMC internal memorandum which appears in the papers (12). Two hopeful signs did begin to lift the gloom: Marvin W. Hook of the Meat Cutters Union wrote about sending men for packing house jobs in Cleveland, Ohio (10), and the Frank M. Wilson Co. of Stockton, Calif. wrote about employing 100 to 200 workers over the summer (19). Heifers for Relief, an organization founded by the Church of the Brethren, wrote about distributing cows to needy Arkansas families (25, 28). Finally, the union filed suit against W. E. Fallas, an Arkansas planter accused of charging usurious interest rates to his tenants; the court brief and a press release are in the papers (20)