Clarence Hathaway
Encyclopedia
Clarence A. "Charlie" Hathaway (1892-1963) was an activist in the Minnesota
trade union
movement and a prominent leader of the Communist Party
of the United States from the 1920s through the early 1940s. He is best remembered as the party's leading organizer of the Federated Farmer-Labor Party in 1923 and 1924, as the editor of The Daily Worker
, and as a longtime member of the Communist Party's governing Central Committee.
and Swedish ethnic origin.
He attended public school in Minnesota, attending three years of high school in the town of Hastings
. Hathaway left school to apprentice as a machinist
in 1911, working as a tool-and-die maker in both the United States and Scotland
for over a decade.
In 1913 Hathaway joined the International Association of Machinists (IAM). His activity in the union was cut short in 1915 by his departure for Scotland, from which he returned in 1916. It was during this wartime
experience in Great Britain that Hathaway was converted to Socialism.
Upon his return, Hathaway became very active in the IAM, working in the local and district office before being elected Secretary of the Michigan
district of the IAM for 1920 and 1921. In 1922 he was made the business agent for the IAM for its district 77, working in that capacity until 1924.
In 1922 the 30-year old Hathaway also enrolled at the St. Paul Labor College, where he studied mechanical engineering
.
Hathaway was elected Vice President of the Minnesota Federation of Labor in 1923.
Historian Harvey Klehr
has characterized Hathaway as having been an "outgoing, friendly man, a former semi-pro baseball
player not adverse to having several drinks." Doyen of historians of American communism Theodore Draper
said of Hathaway, "his personality was gay, warm, and slightly unstable."
and was elected a delegate of the Socialist Party of Minnesota to the 1919 Emergency National Convention
of the SPA. Along with the rest of the Minnesota delegation, Hathaway was denied his seat on a technicality by the convention's credentials committee, and Hathaway and his comrades bolted the gathering.
Moving to a rival convention down the street, Hathaway became a founding member of the Communist Party in 1919. He was also instrumental in helping to organize the Farmer-Labor Party of Michigan in 1920, serving on the first State Committee of that organization. During this interval he remained an active participant in the communist movement.
Hathaway was elected a delegate to the 3rd National Convention of the Workers Party of America
from Minnesota, held December 30, 1923 to January 2, 1924 in Chicago
.
Hathaway played a key role serving on the committee of arrangements for the Farmer-Labor Party's 1924 St. Paul convention, which convened June 17, 1924, and gave birth to a new Federated Farmer-Labor Party, sponsored by the Communist Party USA as one of its mass organizations. The gathering named him the Secretary of the national Federated Farmer-Labor Party, a position in which he served until dissolution of the organization late in that same year.
During the heated factional battles of the middle 1920s, Hathaway was a member of the factional group headed by William Z. Foster
and Alexander Bittelman
. Later he became a loyal supporter of Earl Browder
, a relationship which lead Hathaway into assumption of a rapid succession of important party jobs. In July 1924 Hathaway was named the Communist Party's district organizer for the important Chicago district.
In 1926, Hathaway was sent to Moscow by the CPUSA as a student in the first class of the new International Lenin School
for party activists which had just been established there. Joining Hathaway was former Socialist Party youth leader William F. Kruse and Chicago party leader Charles Krumbein. Hathaway remained at the Lenin School until 1928.
While in Moscow, Hathaway attended the 6th World Congress of the Communist International as a non-voting advisory delegate. It was there that American Communist Party factional leader James P. Cannon
was won over to the ideas of the Left Opposition
to the Russian Communist Party
, headed by Leon Trotsky
. It seems likely that during this interval Cannon spoke with his old acquaintance about these prohibited ideas.
Upon his return to America, Hathaway was quickly reintegrated into the top ranks of the CPUSA's leadership. Hathaway had the necessary party rank as well as the inside information which enabled him to become the chief person on the Central Committee accusing James P. Cannon of Trotskyism
and factional activity
, charges which ultimately lead to Cannon's expulsion.
Hathaway was also returned as district organizer in Chicago.
Early in 1929 Hathaway was named the editor of the monthly magazine of the Trade Union Unity League
, Labor Unity. Hathaway was later moved to New York where he became district organizer for the New York district. In July 1933 he was later made an editor of The Daily Worker, the CPUSA's official newspaper.
Hathaway was three times a nominee of the Communist Party for the U.S. House of Representatives, running in the 7th District of New York
in 1930, the 3rd District of New York in 1932, and the 7th District again in 1934.
that belonged to the Communist Party. The janitor, August Yokinen, was accused of having rudely threatened three black attendees of a party-sponsored dance — an action which undercut the party's professed support of social equality
. Richard Moore, one of the party's top black leaders, was assigned to speak in Yokinen's defense. A Soviet-style show trial
was held on March 1, 1931 in front of an audience of 1,500 — a gathering which included 211 delegates from 113 different "mass and fraternal organizations" associated with the Communist Party.
Neither side presented witnesses. Hathaway called for Yokinen's expulsion from the party for "acting as a phonograph of the capitalists," while Moore blamed the "vile, corrupt, oppressive system" of capitalism for the defendant's undisputed transgressions. The jurors expelled Yokinen from the party and instructed him to participate in the struggle against "white chauvinism" if he wished to be readmitted in the future. The object lesson taught, the gathering sang The Internationale
and disbursed, with the proceedings of the show trial subsequently published in pamphlet form for a broader audience.
in speaking before 8,000 people at a meeting held at the Bronx Coliseum
attempting to drum up support for a broad coalition to fight against the spread of fascism
.
The following day, Hathaway was involved in a riot in New York City which erupted when 5,000 Communists marched to a rally held under the auspices of the Socialist Party of America
in support of the Socialist Party of Austria, at the time the object of violent repression at the hands of right wing Austrian nationalists. Incensed that the Socialists had invited Matthew Woll
of the American Federation of Labor
and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as speakers, the assembled Communists chanted and booed in an attempt to disrupt the meeting.
When Hathaway came to the podium as David Dubinsky
was finishing speaking, several members of the audience jumped on the Daily Worker editor and began beating him with fists and chairs before picking him up and forcibly throwing him over a railing off the platform. Fights broke out throughout the arena, chairs were flung from balconies, and the New York Police Department rushed in to restore order. When chairman of the meeting Algernon Lee
attempted to read a resolution in condemnation of the actions of the Dollfuss
government in Austria, Communists in the audience began to chant "We Want Hathaway!" to interrupt him. The national radio broadcast of the Socialists aimed at condemning the right wing takeover in Austria was reduced to an embarrassing debacle.
for consultations in December 1937, Clarence Hathaway remained as a top party leader. On February 18, 1938 at an expanded meeting of the party's governing Central Committee called the Party Builders Congress, Hathaway was entrusted to give the keynote
report in Browder's absence. It was Hathaway who officially broke the news to other top leaders that the party's new tactical objective would no longer be a Popular Front
of all progressive forces against the fascist movement, but rather an even-broader "Democratic Front," making alliance with anti-fascist members of the bourgeoisie
, previously considered anathema by the Communists.
In 1940 Hathaway served a brief jail term owing to a conviction of the Daily Worker of criminal libel. Hathaway was expelled from the party in October 1940, charged with drunkenness
. Following his expulsion, Hathaway returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he worked once again as a machinist.
(UE), part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
.
His drinking problem resolved, Hathaway was readmitted to the Communist Party late in the 1940s, once again rising to a leadership position, being named Chairman of the CPUSA's New York district in the late 1950s. In 1960 Hathaway was elected to the governing National Committee of the party.
During the process of his vetting for the National Committee in February 1960, however, objections were raised in Moscow by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which cited material in its personnel records alleging that Hathaway had been an employee of a detective agency from 1918 to 1920 as well as having been in contact with Federal Bureau of Investigation
employees in 1941 in Pittsburgh and 1947 in San Francisco. Although this information came to the attention of American Communist Party leaders too late for his removal without provoking a crisis in the New York organization, Hathaway was soon shunted out of power, ostensibly for reasons of health.
, just outside the township of Fair Haven, Minnesota.
Hathaway's papers, consisting of 21 published articles and speeches in one archival box, are held at the library of the Minnesota Historical Society
at St. Paul.
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
movement and a prominent leader of the Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
of the United States from the 1920s through the early 1940s. He is best remembered as the party's leading organizer of the Federated Farmer-Labor Party in 1923 and 1924, as the editor of The Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
, and as a longtime member of the Communist Party's governing Central Committee.
Early years
Clarence Albert Hathaway, known to his friends as "Charlie," was born January 8, 1892 in St. Paul, Minnesota, the son of a carpenter. Hathaway was of mixed EnglishEnglish people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
and Swedish ethnic origin.
He attended public school in Minnesota, attending three years of high school in the town of Hastings
Hastings, Minnesota
Hastings is a city in Dakota counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota, near the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. The population was 22,172 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Dakota County. The bulk of Hastings is in Dakota County; only a small part of the city extends...
. Hathaway left school to apprentice as a machinist
Machinist
A machinist is a person who uses machine tools to make or modify parts, primarily metal parts, a process known as machining. This is accomplished by using machine tools to cut away excess material much as a woodcarver cuts away excess wood to produce his work. In addition to metal, the parts may...
in 1911, working as a tool-and-die maker in both the United States and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
for over a decade.
In 1913 Hathaway joined the International Association of Machinists (IAM). His activity in the union was cut short in 1915 by his departure for Scotland, from which he returned in 1916. It was during this wartime
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
experience in Great Britain that Hathaway was converted to Socialism.
Upon his return, Hathaway became very active in the IAM, working in the local and district office before being elected Secretary of the Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
district of the IAM for 1920 and 1921. In 1922 he was made the business agent for the IAM for its district 77, working in that capacity until 1924.
In 1922 the 30-year old Hathaway also enrolled at the St. Paul Labor College, where he studied mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
.
Hathaway was elected Vice President of the Minnesota Federation of Labor in 1923.
Historian Harvey Klehr
Harvey Klehr
Harvey E. Klehr is a professor of politics and history at Emory University; he is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America ....
has characterized Hathaway as having been an "outgoing, friendly man, a former semi-pro baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
player not adverse to having several drinks." Doyen of historians of American communism Theodore Draper
Theodore Draper
Theodore H. "Ted" Draper was an American historian and political writer. Draper is best known for the 14 books which he completed during his life, including work regarded as seminal on the formative period of the American Communist Party, the Cuban Revolution, and the Iran-Contra Affair...
said of Hathaway, "his personality was gay, warm, and slightly unstable."
Political career
Clarence Hathaway was an active member of the Socialist Party of AmericaSocialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
and was elected a delegate of the Socialist Party of Minnesota to the 1919 Emergency National Convention
1919 Emergency National Convention
The 1919 Emergency National Convention of the Socialist Party of America was held in Chicago from August 30 to September 5, 1919. It was a seminal gathering in the history of American radicalism, marked by the bolting of the party's organized left wing to establish the Communist Labor Party of...
of the SPA. Along with the rest of the Minnesota delegation, Hathaway was denied his seat on a technicality by the convention's credentials committee, and Hathaway and his comrades bolted the gathering.
Moving to a rival convention down the street, Hathaway became a founding member of the Communist Party in 1919. He was also instrumental in helping to organize the Farmer-Labor Party of Michigan in 1920, serving on the first State Committee of that organization. During this interval he remained an active participant in the communist movement.
Hathaway was elected a delegate to the 3rd National Convention of the Workers Party of America
Workers Party of America
The Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929. As a legal political party the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood,...
from Minnesota, held December 30, 1923 to January 2, 1924 in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Hathaway played a key role serving on the committee of arrangements for the Farmer-Labor Party's 1924 St. Paul convention, which convened June 17, 1924, and gave birth to a new Federated Farmer-Labor Party, sponsored by the Communist Party USA as one of its mass organizations. The gathering named him the Secretary of the national Federated Farmer-Labor Party, a position in which he served until dissolution of the organization late in that same year.
During the heated factional battles of the middle 1920s, Hathaway was a member of the factional group headed by William Z. Foster
William Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
and Alexander Bittelman
Alexander Bittelman
Alexander "Alex" Bittelman was a Russian-born Jewish-American communist political activist, Marxist theorist , contributed a more complex analysis , and writer. A founding member of the Communist Party of America, Bittelman is best remembered as the chief factional lieutenant of William Z...
. Later he became a loyal supporter of Earl Browder
Earl Browder
Earl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
, a relationship which lead Hathaway into assumption of a rapid succession of important party jobs. In July 1924 Hathaway was named the Communist Party's district organizer for the important Chicago district.
In 1926, Hathaway was sent to Moscow by the CPUSA as a student in the first class of the new International Lenin School
International Lenin School
Situated in Moscow and shrouded in secrecy, the International Lenin School was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevisation" of the Communist International and its national sections, following the resolutions of the fifth Congress of the Comintern. Between 1926 and 1938 the school...
for party activists which had just been established there. Joining Hathaway was former Socialist Party youth leader William F. Kruse and Chicago party leader Charles Krumbein. Hathaway remained at the Lenin School until 1928.
While in Moscow, Hathaway attended the 6th World Congress of the Communist International as a non-voting advisory delegate. It was there that American Communist Party factional leader James P. Cannon
James P. Cannon
James Patrick "Jim" Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.Born on February 11, 1890 in Rosedale, Kansas, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911...
was won over to the ideas of the Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
to the Russian Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, headed by Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
. It seems likely that during this interval Cannon spoke with his old acquaintance about these prohibited ideas.
Upon his return to America, Hathaway was quickly reintegrated into the top ranks of the CPUSA's leadership. Hathaway had the necessary party rank as well as the inside information which enabled him to become the chief person on the Central Committee accusing James P. Cannon of Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
and factional activity
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
, charges which ultimately lead to Cannon's expulsion.
Hathaway was also returned as district organizer in Chicago.
Early in 1929 Hathaway was named the editor of the monthly magazine of the Trade Union Unity League
Trade Union Unity League
The Trade Union Unity League was an industrial union umbrella organization of the Communist Party of the United States between 1929 and 1935...
, Labor Unity. Hathaway was later moved to New York where he became district organizer for the New York district. In July 1933 he was later made an editor of The Daily Worker, the CPUSA's official newspaper.
Hathaway was three times a nominee of the Communist Party for the U.S. House of Representatives, running in the 7th District of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1930, the 3rd District of New York in 1932, and the 7th District again in 1934.
1931 Yokinen show trial
In 1931 Hathaway was selected by the party to serve as the "prosecutor" of a janitor at the Finnish Workers Club in HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
that belonged to the Communist Party. The janitor, August Yokinen, was accused of having rudely threatened three black attendees of a party-sponsored dance — an action which undercut the party's professed support of social equality
Social equality
Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...
. Richard Moore, one of the party's top black leaders, was assigned to speak in Yokinen's defense. A Soviet-style show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
was held on March 1, 1931 in front of an audience of 1,500 — a gathering which included 211 delegates from 113 different "mass and fraternal organizations" associated with the Communist Party.
Neither side presented witnesses. Hathaway called for Yokinen's expulsion from the party for "acting as a phonograph of the capitalists," while Moore blamed the "vile, corrupt, oppressive system" of capitalism for the defendant's undisputed transgressions. The jurors expelled Yokinen from the party and instructed him to participate in the struggle against "white chauvinism" if he wished to be readmitted in the future. The object lesson taught, the gathering sang The Internationale
The Internationale
The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.The Internationale became the anthem of international socialism, and gained particular fame under the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1944, when it was that communist state's de facto central anthem...
and disbursed, with the proceedings of the show trial subsequently published in pamphlet form for a broader audience.
February 1934 riot
Hathaway's place as a top leader of the Communist Party was further illuminated on February 15, 1934, when he shared the platform with CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder and former Vice Presidential candidate James FordJames W. Ford
James W. "Jim" Ford was the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Communist Party USA in 1932, 1936, and 1940. A party organizer from New York City, Ford was the first African-American to appear on a presidential ticket in the 20th century....
in speaking before 8,000 people at a meeting held at the Bronx Coliseum
Bronx Coliseum
The Bronx Coliseum was a former sports venue in New York City, in the borough of The Bronx.The Bronx Coliseum hosted the defunct Eastern Hockey League's Bronx Tigers franchise for two non-consecutive seasons, 1933-34, and 1937-38....
attempting to drum up support for a broad coalition to fight against the spread of fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
.
The following day, Hathaway was involved in a riot in New York City which erupted when 5,000 Communists marched to a rally held under the auspices of the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
in support of the Socialist Party of Austria, at the time the object of violent repression at the hands of right wing Austrian nationalists. Incensed that the Socialists had invited Matthew Woll
Matthew Woll
Matthew Woll was president of the International Photo-Engravers Union of North America from 1906 to 1929, an American Federation of Labor vice president from 1919 to 1955 and an AFL-CIO vice president from 1955 to 1956.-Early life:Born in Luxembourg in 1880 to Michael and Janette Woll, the Roman...
of the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as speakers, the assembled Communists chanted and booed in an attempt to disrupt the meeting.
When Hathaway came to the podium as David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky was an American labor leader...
was finishing speaking, several members of the audience jumped on the Daily Worker editor and began beating him with fists and chairs before picking him up and forcibly throwing him over a railing off the platform. Fights broke out throughout the arena, chairs were flung from balconies, and the New York Police Department rushed in to restore order. When chairman of the meeting Algernon Lee
Algernon Lee
Algernon H. Lee was an American socialist politician and educator, best known as the Director of Education at the Rand School of Social Science for 35 years.-Early years:...
attempted to read a resolution in condemnation of the actions of the Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...
government in Austria, Communists in the audience began to chant "We Want Hathaway!" to interrupt him. The national radio broadcast of the Socialists aimed at condemning the right wing takeover in Austria was reduced to an embarrassing debacle.
From leadership to expulsion
With Earl Browder and other Communist Party leaders off in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
for consultations in December 1937, Clarence Hathaway remained as a top party leader. On February 18, 1938 at an expanded meeting of the party's governing Central Committee called the Party Builders Congress, Hathaway was entrusted to give the keynote
Keynote
A keynote in literature, music, or public speaking establishes the principal underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address...
report in Browder's absence. It was Hathaway who officially broke the news to other top leaders that the party's new tactical objective would no longer be a Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
of all progressive forces against the fascist movement, but rather an even-broader "Democratic Front," making alliance with anti-fascist members of the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, previously considered anathema by the Communists.
In 1940 Hathaway served a brief jail term owing to a conviction of the Daily Worker of criminal libel. Hathaway was expelled from the party in October 1940, charged with drunkenness
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. Following his expulsion, Hathaway returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he worked once again as a machinist.
Union organizer
During the 1940s, Hathaway went to work as a union organizer on behalf of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of AmericaUnited Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America , is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States....
(UE), part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
.
His drinking problem resolved, Hathaway was readmitted to the Communist Party late in the 1940s, once again rising to a leadership position, being named Chairman of the CPUSA's New York district in the late 1950s. In 1960 Hathaway was elected to the governing National Committee of the party.
During the process of his vetting for the National Committee in February 1960, however, objections were raised in Moscow by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which cited material in its personnel records alleging that Hathaway had been an employee of a detective agency from 1918 to 1920 as well as having been in contact with Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
employees in 1941 in Pittsburgh and 1947 in San Francisco. Although this information came to the attention of American Communist Party leaders too late for his removal without provoking a crisis in the New York organization, Hathaway was soon shunted out of power, ostensibly for reasons of health.
Death and legacy
Clarence Hathaway died on January 23, 1963. He is interred at Fairhaven Cemetery in Stearns CountyStearns County, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 133,166 people, 47,604 households, and 32,132 families residing in the county. The population density was 99 people per square mile . There were 50,291 housing units at an average density of 37 per square mile...
, just outside the township of Fair Haven, Minnesota.
Hathaway's papers, consisting of 21 published articles and speeches in one archival box, are held at the library of the Minnesota Historical Society
Minnesota Historical Society
The Minnesota Historical Society is a private, non-profit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the territorial legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehood. The Society is named in the Minnesota...
at St. Paul.
Works
- Race Hatred on Trial. With Richard Moore (unsigned). New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1931.
- Who are the Friends of the Negro People? New York: Communist Party National Campaign Committee/Workers Library Publishers, 1932.
- Communists in the Textile Strike: An Answer to Gorman, Green and Co. New York: Central Committee of the USA, 1934.
- Why a Workers' Daily Press? With Sam Don. New York: Workers Library Publishers, n.d. [c. 1934].
- The People vs. the Supreme Court. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937.
- Collective Security: The Road to Peace. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1938. —Radio speech of December 22, 1937.
- The Communist Position on the Negro Question. With Earl Browder and Harry Haywood. New York: Workers Library Publishers, n.d. [c. 1940].
Further reading
- John Earl Haynes, Dubious Alliance: The Making of Minnesota's DFL Party. University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
See also
- Farmer–Labor Party (United States)