Reel 22

Scope and Contents Complaints began to arrive from the STFU contingents sent to Arizona (1), New Mexico (8), and Camp 90 at McNary, Texas (2,7,10). For good information on the problems at Camp 90, which eventuated in a sit-down strike, see the reports from organizer Anderson Johnson. Mitchell wrote the FSA about these complaints (12), but the agency did not reply until January. Beginning on December 11, there is a deluge of letters from job-seekers all over the South in response to an STFU advertisement in the...

Scope and Contents

"Extracts of Letter to Senator LaFollette"; drafts of letters to various foundations applying for funds; STFU statement on the poll tax; list of families in various Mississippi counties, perhaps connected with the USES survey; report by J.F. Hynds on his work investigating complaints against the AAA; summaries of "typical" legal cases handled by STFU attorney K.T. Sutton; "The Out Look of the Tenant Farmer, 1942" by F.R. Betton; and a sample FSA Work Agreement.

Scope and Contents The WMC took up Mitchell's offer and the planning began in earnest. FSA Administrator C.B. Baldwin supplied detailed information on prevailing conditions about wage rates in California, but claimed to know little about Arizona and New Mexico (13). Odis Sweeden, a former STFU leader in Oklahoma, happened to be in Arizona and sent Mitchell the missing information (15); the sheet of paper on which Sweeden answered Mitchell's questions is lost, but see Mitchell's transcription of Sweeden's...

Scope and Contents The Ninth Annual Convention was held in Memphis on Nov. 11 and 12, but only a set of resolutions appears in the papers (11). The USES sent information on the conditions of employment in Arizona (4), and, after considerable difficulties, the STFU got off a shipment of workers. There are two apparently incomplete lists of the men sent, their age and race (13, 25). On the problems encountered, see Mitchell to Will Alexander (14) and a letter from USES Director John J. Corson (23). The worst...