Clarence Senior
Originally a protégé of presidential candidate Norman Thomas, during the inner-party fight of the 1930s, Senior became an active supporter of the so-called "Militant" faction.
After resigning his post late in 1936, Senior returned to graduate school, becoming a widely published academic specializing on the affairs of Puerto Rico and other nations of the Caribbean.
He attended the University of Kansas, where he was active in the Student League for Industrial Democracy, the current incarnation of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society headed by Harry W.
[4] While in Europe, Senior attended a conference of the War Resisters' International and was a delegate to the World Youth Peace Congress held in the Netherlands.
"...provincial, bumbling, half-literate – one of those figures from the Midwest who might have stepped out of a Dreiser novel depicting the struggle of small-town Americans for the rudiments of culture.
[6] The governing National Executive Committee found themselves in a position of needing to find a permanent replacement, appointing Mabel H. Barnes to fulfill the role on a temporary basis.
[3] The NEC targeted the 27-year-old college-educated Clarence Senior for the position, bringing him to New York City for conversations with key party leaders.
[9] Senior was instrumental in solidifying the party's financial situation through economical operation of the national office and through the successful solicitation of funds from the organization's loyal remaining membership core.
[11] Senior also targeted sympathetic individuals who were not formal members of the Socialist Party in his fund-raising efforts, sending out 10,000 letters as part of a 1931 campaign called the "Socialism Forward Drive.
[14] With the influx of new members came a radicalization of the Socialist Party, with many newcomers professing a belief in revolutionary socialism rather than strictly concentrating upon biannual parliamentary campaigns.
In the summer of 1933 the Militants, with Senior as their ostensible spokesman, sought to remove "official" status from the New York weekly newspaper The New Leader, the voice of the Old Guard edited by James Oneal – an action which earned the enmity of the slighted moderates.
Ever since 1928, party presidential candidate Norman Thomas had been at odds with National Chairman Morris Hillquit, the best known and most widely respected of the Old Guard leaders.
[17] This phase of the inner-party struggle ended in October 1933, when Hillquit died from the tuberculosis which had plagued him throughout his life and the balance of power shifted further away from the Old Guard in the Socialist Party.
Senior was joined by three other members of the Militant faction, including Paul Blanshard and Professor Maynard Krueger, as well as two supporters of the Old Guard, Hermann Kobbe and Jacob Panken.
[23] The Roosevelt landslide in the 1936 election in the face of a full Socialist campaign was disheartening and amidst the faction fighting and splits, party membership dropped precipitously.
