Clarence Senior
Encyclopedia
Clarence Ollson Senior was, as a young man, an American
socialist political activist best remembered as the National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America
during the 1930s. 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. Laidler
. Senior worked his way through high school and college performing a variety of jobs, including work as a mechanic, night watchman, truck driver, shipping clerk, and working in a soap factory.
Upon graduation from Kansas, Senior had become associated with the League of Kansas Municipalities before moving to join the Cleveland Federation of Teachers in Cleveland, Ohio
.
In 1927, Senior joined the Socialist Party of America
. Historian Bernard K. Johnpoll indicates that Senior was an acolyte of rising Socialist Party star Norman Thomas
even in these early days, representative of the sort of middle class
intellectual
s which Thomas sought to bring into the party.
Senior spent three months in Europe in 1928 studying workers' education on behalf of the Adult Education Association. While in Europe, Senio attended a conference of the War Resisters' International
and was a delegate to the World Youth Peace Congress held in the Netherlands
.
. Historian Irving Howe
recalled Henry as an inept figure:
When the Spring of 1929, Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party Henry fell into personal difficulties with his wife, Emma Henry, herself the SPA's State Secretary in Indiana, Executive Secretary Henry abruptly resigned his office. 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.
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. Senior confessed that he felt inadequate to the task of assuming the position of National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party owing to his rather superficial knowledge of socialist theory. Morris Hillquit
queried the young man from Cleveland: "You've read Comrade Laidler's book, haven't you?" Senior allowed that he had. Harry Laidler continued in the same vein: "You've read Comrade Hillquit's book, haven't you?" Again, Senior responded in the affirmative. "What more do you need to know about socialist theory?" asked Morris Hillquit with a smile.
The NEC arbitrarily waived the party's constitutional requirement that the Executive Secretary be a party member for at least three years and named Senior to the position. The formal nomination of Senior was made by NEC member Victor L. Berger
on June 11, 1929, and was approved by a vote of 6 to 2, with 1 abstention, on June 19.
The Socialist Party was in a tenuous position when Senior was finally able to assume his new position in August 1929. The party owed money to its printer and was nearly two years in arrears in the payment of its dues to the Socialist International
in Switzerland
. Party membership was at its nadir, less than 8,000, about half of whom were members of non-English-speaking foreign language federations
. 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.
Senior also set about building the size of the Socialist Party's membership ranks. Historian David A. Shannon recalled:
Senior established a Social Problems Lecture Bureau bringing Socialist speakers to paying audiences around the country, promoting the party's cause and bringing in needed funds at the same time. 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." These efforts proved to be relatively successful. "The Socialist Party never had enough money to do all it wanted to, but Senior's money-raising enabled it to do more than it had for over a decade," Shannon notes.
While the Socialist Party received an injection of enthusiasm in the aftermath of the first Presidential run of Norman Thomas
in November 1928 and gained adherents in the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street Crash
and the coming of the Great Depression
, many believe the party's growth during the first half of the 1930s was also due to Clarence Senior's energetic leadership. Historian David Shannon called 1930. Senior's first year on the job as Executive Secretary, "the first full year of vigorous leadership for the party since [Otto] Branstetter resigned in the early 1920s." A period of growth followed, with 32 new SPA locals established in 1930, 96 more in 1931, and nearly 600 in 1932.
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. From about 1930 these new radicals organized themselves into a formal faction known as the "Militants
," while older, more tradition-bound members also formally organized themselves as a so-called "Old Guard faction
." Senior aligned himself with the younger, more vigorous, and more radical forces and against the "Old Guard." 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.
Personal antipathy was also intertwined in this factional struggle. 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. According to one historian, Thomas had played a leading role in an effort to oust Hillquit:
At the same time the Old Guard, with National Chairman Morris Hillquit
at their head, sought to remove Senior from his post as National Executive Secretary in favor of their own man, Marx Lewis, who had recently lead successful fundraising efforts on behalf of the Milwaukee socialist daily newspaper, The Milwaukee Leader
.
Although the governing NEC of the party was narrowly split between the followers of Hillquit and Thomas, Clarence Senior was narrowly able to retain his position in 1932 due to the concerted effort of the Thomas group. 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.
In August 1933, Senior was elected one of six delegates of the SPA to a special conference of the Labor and Socialist International held in Paris
. 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
. The Militant majority of the American delegation lent their support to what one historian has called a "quasi-Communist resolution" calling for "workers' democracy" — a position which factional patriarch Norman Thomas did not share. Thomas was placed in a difficult position when this action of his allies was repudiated at a national conference of the SPA held in Detroit in June 1934.
In 1935, the Socialist Party began an official party newspaper, The Socialist Call, in opposition to The New Leader, and the organization moved towards a formal split, with James Oneal, Louis Waldman
, Algernon Lee
, and the Old Guard leaving the party immediately after the May 1936 Cleveland Convention to form the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). Senior remained in the post of Executive Secretary through the November 1936 election, resigning in December so that he might go to Mexico
to "recover his health." The retiring Senior was feted at a dinner in his honor at the Cafe Idrott in Chicago on the evening of December 12, 1936.
Senior was replaced by Roy E. Burt
, effective December 15, 1936. 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. By February 1937 less than 6,500 paid members remained in the organization.
With the end of Senior's tenure as Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party, his political career essentially drew to a close. A new chapter of his life awaited him in the world of academia.
Senior went on to publish a wide range of journal articles and books, specializing on Puerto Rican
affairs with an emphasis on matters of emigration and the problems of the Puerto Rican working class. Senior was also the biographer of Puerto Rican socialist and labor leader Santiago Iglesias
, with his book published on that figure in 1972.
A portion of Clarence Senior's papers, dating from 1924 through 1945, are held in the Social Action Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society
at Madison
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
socialist political activist best remembered as the National Executive Secretary 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...
during the 1930s. Originally a protégé of Presidential candidate Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
, 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
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
, becoming a widely published academic specializing on the affairs of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
and other nations of the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
.
Early years
Clarence Ollson Senior was born in 1903.He attended the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
, where he was active in the Student League for Industrial Democracy
League for Industrial Democracy
The League for Industrial Democracy , from 1960-1965 known as the Students for a Democratic Society , was founded in 1905 by a group of notable socialists including Harry W. Laidler, Jack London, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and J.G. Phelps Stokes...
, the current incarnation of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society
Intercollegiate Socialist Society
The Intercollegiate Socialist Society was the a Socialist student organization from 1905-1921. It attracted many prominent intellectuals and writers and acted as the unofficial Socialist Party of America student wing...
headed by Harry W. Laidler
Harry W. Laidler
Harry Wellington Laidler was an American socialist functionary, writer, magazine editor, and politician. He is best remembered as Executive Director of the League for Industrial Democracy, successor to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, and for his close political association with perennial...
. Senior worked his way through high school and college performing a variety of jobs, including work as a mechanic, night watchman, truck driver, shipping clerk, and working in a soap factory.
Upon graduation from Kansas, Senior had become associated with the League of Kansas Municipalities before moving to join the Cleveland Federation of Teachers in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
.
In 1927, Senior joined 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...
. Historian Bernard K. Johnpoll indicates that Senior was an acolyte of rising Socialist Party star Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
even in these early days, representative of the sort of middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s which Thomas sought to bring into the party.
Senior spent three months in Europe in 1928 studying workers' education on behalf of the Adult Education Association. While in Europe, Senio attended a conference of the War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International is an international anti-war organization with members and affiliates in over thirty countries. Its headquarters are in London, UK.-History:...
and was a delegate to the World Youth Peace Congress held in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Political career
During the second half of the 1920s, the Socialist Party was headed by William H. Henry, a venerable party loyalist from IndianaIndiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
. Historian Irving Howe
Irving Howe
Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
recalled Henry as an inept figure:
"...provincial, bumbling, half-literate — one of those figures from the Midwest who might have stepped out of a DreiserTheodore DreiserTheodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
novel depicting the struggle of small-town Americans for the rudiments of culture. That the Socialist Party could find no one better to run its day-to-day affairs tells almost everything about its decline."
When the Spring of 1929, Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party Henry fell into personal difficulties with his wife, Emma Henry, herself the SPA's State Secretary in Indiana, Executive Secretary Henry abruptly resigned his office. 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.
The NEC targeted the 27-year old college-educated Clarence Senior for the position, bringing him to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
for conversations with key party leaders. Senior confessed that he felt inadequate to the task of assuming the position of National Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party owing to his rather superficial knowledge of socialist theory. Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side during the early 20th century.-Early years:...
queried the young man from Cleveland: "You've read Comrade Laidler's book, haven't you?" Senior allowed that he had. Harry Laidler continued in the same vein: "You've read Comrade Hillquit's book, haven't you?" Again, Senior responded in the affirmative. "What more do you need to know about socialist theory?" asked Morris Hillquit with a smile.
The NEC arbitrarily waived the party's constitutional requirement that the Executive Secretary be a party member for at least three years and named Senior to the position. The formal nomination of Senior was made by NEC member Victor L. Berger
Victor L. Berger
Victor Luitpold Berger was a founding member of the Socialist Party of America and an important and influential Socialist journalist who helped establish the so-called Sewer Socialist movement. The first Socialist elected to the U.S...
on June 11, 1929, and was approved by a vote of 6 to 2, with 1 abstention, on June 19.
The Socialist Party was in a tenuous position when Senior was finally able to assume his new position in August 1929. The party owed money to its printer and was nearly two years in arrears in the payment of its dues to the Socialist International
Socialist International
The Socialist International is a worldwide organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Party membership was at its nadir, less than 8,000, about half of whom were members of non-English-speaking foreign language federations
Language federation
Language Federations were formed in the late 19th and early 20th century by immigrants to the United States, primarily from Eastern and Southern Europe, who shared a commitment to some form of socialist politics...
. 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.
Senior also set about building the size of the Socialist Party's membership ranks. Historian David A. Shannon recalled:
"When Clarence Senior became national secretary in the summer of 1929, he brought to the national office some long-needed vigor. the results were immediate. By the end of 1929 the Socialist Party had gained more members than it had in all the years since 1923. Through the United Socialist Drive it had raised more funds than it had in years, it had revived the flow of Socialist pamphlets which had all but dried up since the war, and it had boosted the circulation of Socialist newspapers....
Senior established a Social Problems Lecture Bureau bringing Socialist speakers to paying audiences around the country, promoting the party's cause and bringing in needed funds at the same time. 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." These efforts proved to be relatively successful. "The Socialist Party never had enough money to do all it wanted to, but Senior's money-raising enabled it to do more than it had for over a decade," Shannon notes.
While the Socialist Party received an injection of enthusiasm in the aftermath of the first Presidential run of Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
in November 1928 and gained adherents in the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street Crash
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
and the coming of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, many believe the party's growth during the first half of the 1930s was also due to Clarence Senior's energetic leadership. Historian David Shannon called 1930. Senior's first year on the job as Executive Secretary, "the first full year of vigorous leadership for the party since [Otto] Branstetter resigned in the early 1920s." A period of growth followed, with 32 new SPA locals established in 1930, 96 more in 1931, and nearly 600 in 1932.
With the influx of new members came a radicalization of the Socialist Party, with many newcomers professing a belief in revolutionary socialism
Revolutionary socialism
The term revolutionary socialism refers to Socialist tendencies that advocate the need for fundamental social change through revolution by mass movements of the working class, as a strategy to achieve a socialist society...
rather than strictly concentrating upon biannual parliamentary campaigns. From about 1930 these new radicals organized themselves into a formal faction known as the "Militants
Militant faction
The Militant faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to steer that organization from its orientation towards electoral politics and towards direct action and revolutionary socialism. The faction emerged during 1930 and 1931 and achieved practical...
," while older, more tradition-bound members also formally organized themselves as a so-called "Old Guard faction
Old Guard faction
The Old Guard faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to retain the organization's traditional orientation towards electoral politics by fighting generally younger party members who factionally organized to promote greater efforts at direct action...
." Senior aligned himself with the younger, more vigorous, and more radical forces and against the "Old Guard." 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
James Oneal
James "Jim" Oneal , a founding member of the Socialist Party of America , was a prominent socialist journalist, historian, and party activist who played a decisive role in the bitter party splits of 1919-21 and 1934-36.-Early years:...
— an action which earned the enmity of the slighted moderates.
Personal antipathy was also intertwined in this factional struggle. Ever since 1928, party Presidential candidate Norman Thomas had been at odds with National Chairman Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side during the early 20th century.-Early years:...
, the best known and most widely respected of the Old Guard leaders. According to one historian, Thomas had played a leading role in an effort to oust Hillquit:
"Thomas believed that Hillquit acted as a brake on Socialist activity nationally at a time when Thomas's protégé, Clarence Senior, was trying to make the party an effective organization. For these reasons, Thomas was instrumental in arranging for a coalition of all anti-Hillquit elements in an effort to wrest the national chairmanship from him."
At the same time the Old Guard, with National Chairman Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side during the early 20th century.-Early years:...
at their head, sought to remove Senior from his post as National Executive Secretary in favor of their own man, Marx Lewis, who had recently lead successful fundraising efforts on behalf of the Milwaukee socialist daily newspaper, The Milwaukee Leader
Milwaukee Leader
The Milwaukee Leader was a socialist daily newspaper established in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in December 1911 by Socialist Party chief Victor L. Berger...
.
Although the governing NEC of the party was narrowly split between the followers of Hillquit and Thomas, Clarence Senior was narrowly able to retain his position in 1932 due to the concerted effort of the Thomas group. This phase of the inner-party struggle ended in October 1933, when Hillquit died from the tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
which had plagued him throughout his life and the balance of power shifted further away from the Old Guard in the Socialist Party.
In August 1933, Senior was elected one of six delegates of the SPA to a special conference of the Labor and Socialist International held in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Senior was joined by three other members of the Militant faction, including Paul Blanshard
Paul Blanshard
Paul Beecher Blanshard was a controversial American author, assistant editor of The Nation magazine, lawyer, socialist, secular humanist, and from 1949 an outspoken critic of Catholicism....
and Professor Maynard Krueger, as well as two supporters of the Old Guard, Hermann Kobbe and Jacob Panken
Jacob Panken
Jacob Panken was an American socialist politician, best remembered for his tenure as a New York municipal judge and frequent candidacies for high elected office on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
. The Militant majority of the American delegation lent their support to what one historian has called a "quasi-Communist resolution" calling for "workers' democracy" — a position which factional patriarch Norman Thomas did not share. Thomas was placed in a difficult position when this action of his allies was repudiated at a national conference of the SPA held in Detroit in June 1934.
In 1935, the Socialist Party began an official party newspaper, The Socialist Call, in opposition to The New Leader, and the organization moved towards a formal split, with James Oneal, Louis Waldman
Louis Waldman
Louis Waldman was a leading figure in the Socialist Party of America from the late 1910s and through the middle 1930s, a founding member of the Social Democratic Federation, and a prominent New York labor lawyer.-Early years:...
, 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:...
, and the Old Guard leaving the party immediately after the May 1936 Cleveland Convention to form the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). Senior remained in the post of Executive Secretary through the November 1936 election, resigning in December so that he might go to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
to "recover his health." The retiring Senior was feted at a dinner in his honor at the Cafe Idrott in Chicago on the evening of December 12, 1936.
Senior was replaced by Roy E. Burt
Roy E. Burt
Roy Everett Burt was a Methodist clergyman and an American socialist politician and functionary. Burt is best remembered as the Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America from 1936 to 1939.-Early years:...
, effective December 15, 1936. The Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
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. By February 1937 less than 6,500 paid members remained in the organization.
With the end of Senior's tenure as Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party, his political career essentially drew to a close. A new chapter of his life awaited him in the world of academia.
Academic career
Around 1940, Senior returned to college, attending the University of Kansas City (now the University of Missouri-Kansas City) in the Department of Political Science and History. In 1942 he completed his Masters' thesis, entitled The Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad.Senior went on to publish a wide range of journal articles and books, specializing on Puerto Rican
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
affairs with an emphasis on matters of emigration and the problems of the Puerto Rican working class. Senior was also the biographer of Puerto Rican socialist and labor leader Santiago Iglesias
Santiago Iglesias
Santiago Iglesias Pantín , a supporter of statehood for Puerto Rico, was the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in the U.S...
, with his book published on that figure in 1972.
Later years, death, and legacy
Clarence Senior died in 1974.A portion of Clarence Senior's papers, dating from 1924 through 1945, are held in the Social Action Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society
Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society is simultaneously a private membership and a state-funded organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of North America, with an emphasis on the state of Wisconsin and the trans-Allegheny West...
at Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
.
Books and pamphlets
- Organizing the World for Socialism. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1931.
- Facing the Housing Problem. Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Housing Council, 1938.
- Mexico in Transition. New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1939.
- Democracy Comes to a Cotton Kingdom: The Story of Mexico's La Laguna. Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Pedagogicos e Hispanoamericanos, 1940.
- Self-Determination for Puerto Rico. New York: Post War World Council, 1946.
- The Puerto Ricans of New York City. With Carmen Isales. New York: New York Office, Employment and Migration Bureau, Puerto Rico Dept. of Labor, n.d. [c. 1948].
- Puerto Rican Dispersed Migration: A Pilot Investigation. New York: Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, 1949.
- A Selected Bibliography on Puerto Rico and the Puerto Ricans. With Josefina de Román. New York: Migration Division, Dept. of Labor of Puerto Rico, 1951.
- Labor Unions and Spanish-Speaking Workers: Report on Conference held December 20, 1952. New York: Dept. of Labor, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 1953.
- Migrants: People not Problems. New York: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Dept. of Labor, Migration Division, n.d. [c. 1954].
- A Report on Jamaican Migration to Great Britain. Kingston, Jamaica: Government Printer, 1955.
- Puerto Rican Migration: Spontaneous and Organized. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1955.
- The West Indian in Britain. London: Fabian Colonial Bureau, 1956.
- Land Reform and Democracy. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1958.
- Strangers — Then neighbors: From Pilgrims to Puerto Ricans. New York: Freedom Books, 1961.
- Migration as a Process and the Migrant as a Person: Address Made on June 12, 1961. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1961.
- The Puerto Ricans: Strangers — Then Neighbors. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965.
- Our Citizens from the Caribbean. St. Louis: McGraw-Hill, 1965.
- Toward Cultural Democracy. New York: Selected Academic Readings, 1968.
- Santiago Iglesias: Labor Crusader. Hato Rey, Puerto Rico: Interamerican University Press, 1972.
Articles
- "The International Socialist Conference," American Socialist Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 4 (Autumn 1933), pp. 20–26.
- "Mexico's Road to Social Revolution," Socialist Review, Part 1: vol. 6, no. 3 (October–November 1937), pp. 10–12. Part 2: vol. 6, no. 4 (January–February 1938), pp. 11–13.
- "Community Health Services in Mexico," The American Journal of Nursing, vol. 41, no. 3 (March 1941), pg. 318.
- "Migration and Puerto Rico's Population Problem," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 285 (January 1953), pp. 130–136.
- "Patterns of Puerto Rican Dispersion in the Continental United States," Social Problems, vol. 2, no. 2 (October 1954), pp. 93–99.
- "Migration and Economic Development in Puerto Rico," The Journal of Educational Sociology, vol. 28, no. 4 (December 1954), pp. 151–156.
- "Race Relations and Labor Supply in Great Britain," Social Problems, vol. 4, no. 4 (April 1957), pp. 302–312.
- "The Puerto Ricans in New York: A Progress Note," International Migration Review, vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring 1968), pp. 73–79.
See also
- Socialist Party of AmericaSocialist Party of AmericaThe 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...