"Death of Al Renner,"
by John Keracher
First published in Proletarian News (Chicago), vol. 18, no. 9, whole no. 198 (Sept. 1949), pp. 2, 8.

Memorial obituary of Communist Party of America founding member Albert Renner (1887-1949) by National Secretary of the Proletarian Party of America John Keracher.
Keracher recalls his longtime comrade from Detroit as a committed trade union activist, including time spent as President of the Michigan Federation of Hotel, Restaurant and Bartenders Unions (AFL). A member of the Socialist Party of America from before 1910, Renner served as a delegate to the party's landmark convention in St. Louis, Missouri in the spring of 1917, at which a militant anti-war platform was approved.
Keracher notes Renner's role as a principle chair of the June 1919 National Conference of the Left Wing in New York City and as the unanimously-elected chair of the founding convention of the Communist Party of America in Chicago in September 1919.
Keracher notes that about one-fifth of the delegates to the CPA founding convention were in opposition to the platform (his own interpretation of the strength of his own faction). He states that the cause of the 1920 split of the CPA to establish the Proletarian Party of America related to the refusal of the Michigan-based group to go "underground" following the Palmer Raids of January 1920.
Keracher notes that Renner was an expert in parliamentary procedure and a popular lecturer who visited the Soviet Union in 1935 and later spoke observationally about his visit.

Published in the USA between 1923 and 1978 with no copyright notice in original publication, contents public domain.
Transcription and digital publication edited by Tim Davenport, published in Corvallis, OR by 1000 Flowers Publishing, May 2013. Non-commercail reproduction permitted.