Edward Shaw

Edward Shaw, July 13, 1923 (Zion, Ill.) – November 9, 1995 (Hialeah, Fla.)

VP candidate for Socialist Workers Party (aka Militant Workers Party) (1964)

Running mate with nominee: Clifton DeBerry (1923–2006)
Popular vote: 32,706 (0.05%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

In 1964 when the Socialist Workers Party was starting their long process of phasing out of Trotskyism into a guiding policy of Castroism they nominated Clifton DeBerry for President. It was the first Presidential election out their five that the SWP did not run Party Godfather Farrell Dobbs in the top slot, instead they ran his reported son-in-law. At the time some sources claimed DeBerry was the first African American to run for a President on a "real" party ticket.

The VP nomination went to longtime SWP activist Ed Shaw, a member of the Party since the 1940s. A Merchant Marine during WWII, Shaw had experienced union and racial problems firsthand, and his exposure to other countries in the course of his travels widened his political perspective. He became particularly interested in Cuba after Castro's regime took power and toured the country extensively in 1960. He also served as Midwest Director of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

The Party's platform included: "1) an end to both military build-up at home and Vietnam-type adventurism abroad; 2) a militantly anti-racist government policy; 3) an end to HUAC and all it stands for; 4) 30 hour work week, with 40 hours' pay to end unemployment; 5) a government-guaranteed college education for all youth; 6) No taxes on incomes under $7500; 7) nationalize banks, basic industries, all natural resources; institution of a planned economy, planned for human betterment, not individual profit."

The main focus of the actual SWP campaign was on African American civil rights and recognition of Cuba. They made their appeal to college and university students and black nationalist followers of Malcolm X. Support of President Johnson as the lesser of two evils with Barry Goldwater as the alternative was a constant barrier in recruiting supporters for the SWP activists. For example, groups like the Students for a Democratic Society used the slogan "Part of the Way with LBJ" rather than "All the Way with LBJ." The Socialist Workers were also attempting to recruit the remnants of the Norman Thomas socialists.

Although the Vietnam War was not the dominant issue it would later become, the SWP noted at the time that the Gulf of Tonkin incident which would result in escalated military intervention was suspicious and the product of "cynical calculations."

The SWP support for Malcolm X and the Cuban government widened some fissures within the Party and a number of members were either expelled or simply moved on to another group. Among the refugees was thrice SWP VP candidate Myra Tanner Weiss and future politico-cult leader Lyndon Larouche.

Shaw, who was a printer for the New York Times in 1964, remarked during the campaign, "The New York Times has a long-standing tradition of standing by its own people. But they put it aside in my case and failed to endorse me. Of course, the fact that I'm running for Vice President on the Socialist Workers Party ticket might have some bearing on that."

With votes recorded in 13 states the SWP experienced a slight drop from the 1960 election. Their best states in 1964: Colorado 0.33%, New Jersey 0.29%, and Pennsylvania 0.22%.

Election history: none

Other occupations: printer, Merchant Marine (WWII), soldier (Korean War), auto worker, machinist in aircraft engine shop, Midwest Director of Fair Play for Cuba Committee

Buried: ?

Notes:
Was a lifelong Party activist.
Favorite popular authors were Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut.
Had a large tattoo on his bicep.
His Party name was "Atwood."

Myra Tanner Weiss

Myra Tanner Weiss, May 17, 1917 (Salt Lake City, Utah) – September 13, 1997 (Indio, Calif.)

VP candidate for Socialist Workers Party (aka Militant Workers Party aka Workers Party) (1952, 1956, 1960)

Running mate with nominee (1952, 1956, 1960): Farrell Dobbs (1907-1983)

Popular vote (1952): 10,312 (0.02%)
Popular vote (1956): 7,797 (0.01%)
Popular vote (1960): 40,175 (0.06%)
Electoral vote (1952, 1956): 0/531
Electoral vote (1960): 0/537

The campaign (1952):

Farrell Dobbs was once again nominated for President by the Socialist Workers Party, as he would be in 1956 and 1960. In all three elections his running mate was Myra Tanner Weiss, marking the first time in American history any party nominated the same ticket three elections in a row.

Long a SWP activist in the Los Angeles area, Weiss moved to New York in 1952 and worked as writer for the Militant. Her selection as a running mate was a balancing of the ticket in the sense that Myra and her husband Murry were considered from the Right wing of the Party and had their own distinct following.

The overly long 1952 SWP platform was anti-Stalin, anti-war, proposed the creation of a Labor Party, and demanded an end of the domestic anti-Communist persecutions by the US government.

They were on the ballot in seven states and performed poorly in all of them: New Jersey (0.16%), Wisconsin (0.08%), Minnesota (0.04%), New York (0.03%), Pennsylvania (0.03%), Michigan (0.02%) and Washington (0.01%).

The campaign (1956):

The Party had lost a number of members in the Detroit and Cleveland areas due a leadership dispute involving the definition and direction of Trotskyism.

With the death of Stalin in 1953 and Khrushchev's de-Stalinization efforts underway, the SWP openly courted refugees from the Communist Party USA who were looking for a new political home.

Weiss, ever the purist Trotskyite, attacked the CPUSA as much as she was the major political parties. One news source said she "condemned American Communists as complacent champions of bureaucracy and both Democrats and Republicans as 'big business' parties."

In a miserable election year for third parties in general, the SWP had a result that was more miserable than most. They were on the ballot in only four states but also waged a write-in campaign in California (0.00%): New Jersey (0.16%), Minnesota (0.08%), Pennsylvania (0.04%), and Wisconsin (0.04%).

The campaign (1960):

A small faction had left SWP in 1958 in a disagreement over the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The official Party line did not support the suppression of Hungarians on Trotskyist grounds. The Cuban Revolution was already starting to create further divisions within the SWP, especially as younger political activist recruits joined their ranks.

Murry Weiss suffered a stroke in 1960 around the same time the Weiss' were distancing themselves from the Party. It was dawning on Myra that SWP had some gender issues in their organization and that Marxist men could be just as sexist as capitalist men.

The CPUSA endorsed the Kennedy/Johnson ticket and in doing so took a swipe at the SWP: " ... it would be a still greater error to adopt a negative, defeatist, 'curses-on-both-your-houses' position" as this would "only encourage 'stay-at-home' moods and feed such sects as the SLP or the Trotskyites [i.e. the SWP], who render only lip service to socialist aims."

By the next election Murry and Myra Weiss would no longer be members of the Socialist Workers Party. Eventually they became involved with the Freedom Socialist Party.

The 1960 election results were, relatively speaking, a big upswing for the SWP. The Party was on the ballot in 11 states with New Jersey continuing to be their best showing at 0.41%. They finished with 0.20% in New York and Minnesota.

Election history:
1945 - Mayor of Los Angeles, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1948 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Independent) - defeated
1949 - Mayor of Los Angeles, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1950 - Los Angeles Board of Education (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1950 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Independent) - defeated
1953 - Mayor of Los Angeles, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated

Other occupations: author, waitress, migrant worker, cannery worker, labor organizer

Buried: ?

Notes:
One of her opponents in the 1949 mayoral election was Jack B. Tenney, who she later competed with
 in 1952 when he was the VP nominee for the Christian Nationalist Party.
Suffered a severe stroke ca. 1992 and died in a nursing home.
Joined the Workers Party in Salt Lake City 1935, became a founding member of the Socialist
 Workers Party 1938.
Organizer of the Los Angeles SWP 1942-1952.
Brooklyn College BA 1969, NYU MA 1972
Originally studied to be a chemist but realized she might be employed to create weapons so she
 dropped that field of study.
Dropped out of SWP ca. 1963, was part of the Committee for a Revolutionary Socialist Party
 1978-1980, then joined the Freedom Socialist Party.
#11 on the "Most Famous Person Named Myra" list on playback.fm
Was socially and politically connected with Lyndon Larouche in the 1960s.
" ...Murray and Myra were typical party leaders, intolerant to a fault and convinced of their own
 intellectual and political superiority to everybody else. At a big cocktail party in the 1950s, Junius
 was having a pleasant chat with Alger Hiss who spotted Myra Tanner Weiss. Also at the party was a
 left-wing Labour Party MP who Hiss mischievously decided to introduce to Myra. He brought the
 two together and within a matter of minutes the two of them were castigating each other loudly and
 had drawn a circle of onlookers about them, as if a fist-fight was going on. Hiss stood on the
 sidelines enjoying the spectacle thoroughly."--Synopsis of an interview with Junius Scales.
Descended from Mormon pioneers.

Grace Marie Holmes Carlson

 Grace Carlson and Dorothy Schultz were a bonafide Socialist Workers Party sister act

Grace Marie Holmes Carlson, November 13, 1906 (St. Paul, Minn.) – July 7, 1992 (Madison, Wis.)

VP candidate for Socialist Workers Party (aka Militant Workers Party) (1948)

Running mate with nominee: Farrell Dobbs (1907-1983)
Popular vote: 13,613 (0.03%)

Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Although 1948 was their first Presidential election, the Socialist Workers Party had been around for awhile, tracing their history through twists and turns, mergers and splits with both the Communists and Socialists. In the Marxist universe during this wild election year where third parties really begin to proliferate, they saw themselves as the American party of Trotskyism. Farrell Dobbs (in his first of four runs for President) and Grace Carlson, two veteran SWP members who had served time in Federal prison as a result of the Smith Act, were selected as the Party's ticket.

The SWP 1948 platform is fairly predictable, but it does go into some detail concerning their views of the other parties, which is rather unusual for a party platform. Here is their take on Henry Wallace's Progressive Party, the Communist Party USA (which had endorsed Wallace), and the Socialist Party of America:

The party of Henry Wallace represents nothing but an attempt to exploit the disgust of the people with the Democrats and the Republicans. The Wallace party is the unashamed champion of decaying capitalism. Claiming support as an anti-war party, its leader, Wallace, has betrayed the struggle in advance by declaring his readiness to support the projected war when it breaks out. Wallace's stock-in-trade is a recitation of evils without one single concrete proposal to mobilize labor's strength
against monopoly capitalism, the source of all the evils he criticizes.

The Communist Party (Stalinists), which is supporting the Wallace party in this year's election, is interested in the class struggle only insofar as it can be exploited to advance the interests of the arch-reactionary Stalinist bureaucracy in the Kremlin. When it serves Stalin's purposes, as it did during the period of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, the American Stalinists talk class struggle, support strikes, pay lip-service to the need for socialism, etc. And similarly, when it serves Stalin's purposes, as it did during the wartime period of the Washington-Moscow alliance, the American Stalinists advocate class collaboration, "national unity," cessation of labor and Negro struggles, strike-breaking, etc. In their case they remain instruments of Stalin's reactionary foreign policy and must be seen as enemies of the workers' true class interests and revolutionary socialism.

The Socialist Party of Norman Thomas pretends that war can be stopped by the United Nations just as it pretended that the war could be stopped by the League of Nations. While denouncing war in general it is no less ready to support World War III than it was to support World War II. It seeks to reform and not to abolish capitalism.

Interesting that the Socialist Labor Party failed to show up on the SWP denunciation list.

The SWP placed 8th nationally, with votes recorded in over a dozen states, some of them as write-ins only. Their strongest result was by far in New Jersey with 0.30%.

Election history:
1940 - US Senate (Minn.) (Trotskyist Anti-War Party) - defeated
1942 - Mayor of St. Paul, Minn. primary (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
1946 - US Senate (Minn.) (Revolutionary Workers Party) - defeated
1950 - US House of Representatives (Minn.) (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated

Other occupations: teaching assistant at the University of Minnesota, vocational rehabilitation counselor, professor at St. Marys Junior college in Minneapolis, hospital secretary

Buried: ?

Notes:
Her sister Dorothy Schultz ran for Congress in Minnesota 1946 as part of the Revoltionary Workers
 Party.
Educated in Catholic schools.
Imprisoned for a year and half starting Dec. 31, 1943 for anti-war political activity.
Left the SWP in June 1952 and returned to the Catholic Church as a venue for social justice work. Considered herself a religious Marxist.
PhD in psychology at the University of Minnesota, 1933.
Her mother was a German immigrant.
Met and befriended Trotsky's widow, Natalia Sedova, in 1941.
Since she was a convicted felon, she was unable to vote for herself in 1948.