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On May 20,1934, the Maryland State Convention of the Socialist Party met
in Hagerstown, Maryland, passed resolutions condemning war, fascism, and
lynching, and nominated their candidates for state-wide office and for the U.S.
Senate. On the initiative of the younger, PUL-based Socialists, Broadus Mitchell
was nominated for governor of Maryland; Elisabeth Oilman was nominated for
U.S. Senator. Of the 110 delegates present at the convention, 80 came from
Baltimore. Of that 80, 50 were from regular SP branches, and the remaining thirty
were from such organizations as the PUL, the League for Industrial Democracy,
the Johns Hopkins Liberal Club, the Workmen's Circle, the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, the Furriers' Union, and even the Baltimore Federation of Labor.3

In early September 1934, a convention of Socialist Party members meeting
in Baltimore nominated candidates for state office from the fifth legislative district.
Clarence Mitchell and five others (all white) were nominated for the state
legislature, another white was nominated for the state senate, the state-wide ticket
headed by Broadus Mitchell was endorsed, and the Hagerstown platform was
adopted. Additionally, support was given to the FUL's Naomi Riches as SP
candidate for Congress.

The Maryland SP's Hagerstown platform that became the framework for the
statewide campaign and the campaigns in the various legislative districts contained
ten detailed "immediate demands" calling for various forms of relief and
government assistance to various sectors of the Maryland population — the
unemployed, workers "of hand and brain," women workers, aged workers, farmers,
the infirm, the youth, all the citizens of Maryland, and Black people. Point seven,
"For the Negro," demanded: