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Dear editor, I read Jake Cooper's obituary of P-9 leader Floyd Lenoch [April 1987 Socialist Action], and was very saddened to learn of Lenoch's death.

I met Lenoch in March of 1986. He was invited to Cincin -nati at the request of my local union to speak on the strike of packinghouse workers a ainst the Hormel company. Eleven days full of meetings and speaking en -gagements had been arranged by my union with other unions and student and community groups.

While he was in Cincinnati he stayed at my house. During that time I learned a lot about the Hormel strike and a whole lot more about unionism.

Floyd had spent 43 of his 61 years as a union person. He had been president of Local P-9 of the UFCW and was then on the union's executive committee.

Most unions that had invited Floyd to speak to their meetings were expecting a fire-breathing radical. Instead they met a gentle man with a single-minded determination to get what was fair for his membership. They met a man who, though not militant in speech, was militant in action. And all opponents of the Hormel strike who met Floyd saw in him a real threat to business-as-usual unionism.

In his press conference in Cincinnati, Floyd said, "We need to stop corporate America's relentless drive to eliminate the union movement and the standard of living we have worked so hard to attain."

Floyd Lenoch will be missed by those who were fortunate to know him. The message that Floyd brought to Cincinnati, however, will be around for a long time.

Bill O'Kain, Cincinnati, Ohio Dear editor, Regarding your article on Harold Washington and the Chicago election [March 1987 Socialist Action], I would agree with Harris and Shils that "Black working people need their own political party." However, there is no working-class party running in the Chicago elections, so the question is not one of convincing people to vote for the working class rather than Washington.

The question is: Do you support racists or do you oppose them? Do you want the Chicago machine back in power, or do you want to eliminate it? Do you think a victory for anti-racists and a defeat for the machine will benefit the working class or not?

Do you think none of these issues are important? Harris and Shils seem to take this sit-onthe-sidelines abstentionist posi - tion. Do they think Washington's election victory is meaningless simply because he is a Democrat?

I do not quite swallow that Marxism says that instead of voting for Washington we should vote for Nobody. That simply is not serious. There is quite a dif -ference between concrete forms of working-class political independence and abstaining in an election.

Abstention, when real issues are at stake, is not a vanguard position. The question is: Do you support reformism or racism and reaction? Or do you abstain from that struggle because it is not in a politically correct form?

What Marxists should do in this election is to explain to white workers why racism simply serves to divide them from their allies.

Stansfield Smith, Chicago, III. which is the graveyard of all social protest movements that have entered it.

Of course, no one denies the anti-racist sentiments that led thousands to vote for Washing -ton, or that Washington's oppo -nents were primarily motivated by racial bigotry.

But these factors do not change the fact that there was no attempt We welcome letters from our readers.

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in the nature of the Democratic 'Party? We socialists don't think so. These are the real issues posed by the Chicago elections.

Socialists in Chicago have faced a difficult series of tasks: To solidarize with the aspirations and hopes of the Black community, while at the same time clearly explaining the racist and anti-working class nature of