Challenge (1933)

Challenge was a tabloid-sized monthly newspaper established in Chicago in April 1933 which served as the official organ of the Young People's Socialist League, youth section of the Socialist Party of America. The publication was subsequently renamed The Challenge of Youth and continued in existence through 1946.

The decision to launch a new official newspaper of the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) was made at the 1932 National Convention of the YPSL. In April 1933, this publication was launched, a 4-page tabloid called The Challenge. Throughout its first year, the publication campaigned against the threat of international war, fascism, child labor, and deficiencies in the American education system and lobbied on behalf of efforts to politically organize unemployed workers and to expand the trade union movement.

The first issue of The Challenge featured a lengthy masthead, including Arthur G. McDowell as Editor, James Quick, Bob Parker, Jack Jaffe, Aaron Levenstein, and Paul Rasmussen as Associate Editors, Hy Fish as Business Manager, and a Socialist Party all-star list including Norman Thomas, Powers Hapgood, Upton Sinclair, and Oscar Ameringer as "Contributing Editors."

Editor Syd Devin, later quit in order to finish his studies. Devin was replaced by Melos Most, who had previously been a delegate to the Executive Committee meeting of the Socialist Youth International, held in Belgium in 1934. Most was later named as editor of the youth page of the New York weekly, The Socialist Call.

After shutting down for the summer of 1936, The Challenge of Youth returned in September. It was issued very irregularly, however, with an apologetic notice printed in the 4-page February 1937 issue noting that "the reason for it not appearing has been financial." It was noted that the newspaper received no publication subsidy from the Socialist Party, with all its costs borne by the YPSL organization, which was holding evening festivities in Chicago in an effort to raise funds to insure the publication's survival. Ernest Erber, National Secretary of the YPSL, had taken sole charge of the editorial task.

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