Chairman Haywood called the convention to order at nine o’clock.
THE CHAIRMAN: While we are waiting for the Secretary the Chair will announce the committee selected to fill vacancies on the Ratification Committee: M. E. White, Lynch, Starkenberg and Mrs. Forberg.
On motion the roll call of delegates was dispensed with.
The Secretary read the minutes of the previous day, and they were approved.
A communication was read from Local Union No. 9, Brewery Workers; Milwaukee, contributing $25 toward the stenographic report.
The Credential Committee and special committees had no reports to make.
THE CHAIRMAN: Under the head of standing committees we will take up the report of the Committee on Constitution.
Del. Kiehn: I make an amendment to the amendment of Delegate Coates—
DEL. COATES: I rise to a point of order. As I understand it I have the floor.
THE CHAIRMAN: The chair will take the position at this time that Delegate Coates has the floor.
DEL. COATES: Mr. Chairman and Fellow Delegates, I am not going to try to delay you very much longer on this argument. I would have been through before the closing adjournment last night if it had not been for the great number of questions that were continually asked me, and I will try to finish just as speedily as I possibly can. In opening this morning I want to tell you an experience I had before I had moved an inch from where I closed speaking last night. Upon this stage day after day there has appeared a reporter for one of the daily papers of Chicago. He is the labor editor, if you please, of this paper, a very active member of organized labor, and a very warm and enthusiastic supporter of Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor. Before I had a chance to move he came to me and grasped my hand and said: “Coates, I know you are right in that, but I hope to God you will not succeed.” I understood him in a moment. So do you. And then he added, “If you do succeed it means the complete success of this organization and the disintegration of the American Federation of Labor.” (Applause). He says, “If you don’t succeed it means the failure of this organization, and it means more supreme than ever the policy of Sam Gompers and the American Federation of Labor.” Now, there is the testimony of one of their chief supporters and one of the men who have attempted to ridicule this convention ever since it has begun.
I want to say in that connection that this report of this committee, if it is adopted as provided here in this chart, that no matter how we may decide to interpret it in this convention, there will not be an officer of a single national or international organization in the American Federation of Labor but what will interpret it in his own way to destroy this organization. In my opinion, if they interpret it correctly they will have sufficient force behind that correct interpretation to destroy this organization and to prevent their membership coming into it. My friends, they will not stick to a correct interpretation as I understand it of this chart. They will deliberately misrepresent the chart and this grouping of the divisions in this new organization.
I want to touch just on one or two other points that were brought out. Delegate Sherman, in his argument in favor of this, said that if the amendment was adopted it simply meant again the assembling of the various presidents of these various industrial organizations as an executive board, and the matter of breaking of contracts would come up in all these various industrial controversies. Why, my friends, the whole foundation of this organization is the class struggle, and it was understood that we should not have a single solitary contract with any organization, and that this executive board would have absolute and full power to control instantly every organization making up this great organization. So I cannot understand that argument.
Then comes again Brother Trautmann, and he says in his argument that each industry shall have its own union. Now, that is all I am contending for, and I am free to confess that most of the men who have favored the committee’s report practically agree on that proposition. And, fellow delegates, I want you to keep clear in your minds that I am not contending against the interpretation of this constitution by the various people who have spoken in favor of it, but I am trying to stick to the wording of the constitution itself; and if that means that we shall have industrial organizations under this organization, all I want and all my amendment provides for is that the constitution itself shall say it in distinct language. That is all I am contending for. I might agree largely with their interpretation, but I want the constitution so worded as to carry that out into a fact, and that no interpretation may be needed by any individual. If we are going to depend upon interpretations, how widely the interpretations of the report have differed.
DEL. JAMES O’NEIL: Delegate Coates, I wish to ask this question.
DEL. COATES: Yes.
DEL. O’NEIL: Not to confuse you or anything of the kind, but I am seeking for information. For instance, I have worked somewhat as a hoisting engineer in the mines. Suppose I am working as an engineer in the mining industry and I have my card in the mining industry. I go to work in the packing industry as an engineer, and I deposit my card in the packing industry. I believe that in each of these industries I have local autonomy, but I am not represented except through the industry itself. Am I to understand, or am I to infer rather from your argument, that the craft should govern me where I am a member of this industry, or shall the industry govern me?
DEL. COATES: Will you let me answer that later on, and I will bring that point out.
DEL. O’NEIL: Yes. That is a question that is bothering me.
DEL. COATES: Now, Delegate Hagerty tried to illustrate the difference between two so-called industrial organizations. For instance, he said that the Western Federation of Miners was an industrial organization. Granted for the sake of argument. It comes as near to it, I am satisfied, and nearer to it than any organization that I know of now in existence And then he says the United Mine Workers is an industrial organization, but it is tied up with the identity of interest between the employer and the employe. Why, that does not change its phase as an industrial organization. We have declared that there is no identity of interest between the employer and the employe.
DEL. T. J. HAGERTY: Brother Coates, just a moment. I made that distinction in order to clear the term in the Manifesto “an economic organization,” and I believe I called the Western Federation of Miners an economic organization and the United Mitchell Workers an industrial organization. That is the sense of the Manifesto.
DEL. COATES: But you agreed that they were both identical in form, except one recognized as we may say the class struggle, and the other recognized the identity of interest of the employer and the employe. Well, now, we are not going to have any such distinction as that here. We cannot possibly have it. But let us stick to the Preamble that we have adopted, that there is no identity of interest and there cannot be possibly an identity of interest between any division of this great organization and the employers of labor. There is no autonomy of any division of this organization when the general interest is at stake, as I wanted to say last night when I got to the hog illustration. I did not have time to finish exactly what I meant, when another question was fired at me. But you will remember I said I did not want this thirteenth hog divided up into a laundry worker’s leg, a musical union leg, a cooks and waiters’ leg, a barber’s leg, a printer’s mouth, and so on. Why, if you give us that kind of a razorback hog you simply transform him into a woggle bug or tumble bug. This leg over here may switch off or want to switch off as a cook and waiter. The other part may switch off and want to be a municipal worker. I want that hog to know absolutely what it wants. I want the hog to be an industrial hog that knows absolutely, that is conscious of the very thing that he wants to carry out in his industry solely and done, and then I want him to back up with every other hog that comes from all the other industries and make a solidarity class struggle to meet the solidarity of the capitalist class. (Applause.)
DEL. SHERMAN: That is the capitalist hog you meant.
DEL. COATES: No, I meant just what I said. Delegate Hagerty said this chart is an economic grouping. I will not say anything further about that. I think I tried to show yesterday that the industrial organization is clearly in line with the economic development at this time. It may be necessary after a while to change this form of organization, and I want to say to you that if this body is not broad enough in another few years to expand itself to meet the economic development of its time, I will head a movement, or join in a movement rather, to organize a new union that will. I believe it will be broad enough to expand itself. But if it is not broad enough to expand itself, then it simply rests with some of us that do not agree with it to go out and organize a movement that will conform with the economic development of its time.
Now let me say just a few words on my amendment, and I will try to cover your question in that, and then I will close. I said at the beginning that the amendment simply meant that this organization should be made up of industrial organizations. I said at that time that I did not want to take the position, that I do not believe it is proper for this convention to take the position, of absolutely drawing the line as to every individual in a single industry, as to where he belongs. That is exactly the reason I made the amendment as broad as I did, because I did not want to say, or I do not want to say, to the engineer in the packing industry that if his experience teaches him that he does not belong there as an effective force he should go there anyway. I want that to be left to the experience of these organizations. I want that to be left to the judgment of the Executive Board and the managerial or administrative board of this organization to do what we believe would be effective in an industry to-day, and we might decide that it is for its more effectiveness and more practicability that he should be shifted into some other industrial organization, and I want this consideration, at least at the beginning of this organization, to be left identically in that position.
Del. Lillian Forberg: Under your plan of organization would you advise any one of the trades that are organized, for instance, in the Western Federation of Miners, to break away from the miners’ organization and organize themselves as an industrial union of engineers, we will say, independent of the other lines in that industry?
DEL. COATES: No, that is not my understanding or my interpretation of it at all. And I want to say that from the questions last night, fired at me as they were, there has an impression gone out that that is exactly what I stood for. Now, one of the last questions last night was about work around the mines and whether the metal worker making the iron stulls to be used instead of wooden stulls belonged to the mining industry or not, and it seems to have made a false impression, which I could have prevented if I had had time to stop and think. I said repeatedly that I did not propose to draw a line or attempt to make up these industrial organizations. I want to say that neither in your time nor in mine will that change occur for lack of timber for use. I would have said that off hand, perhaps, because you will find in our country within the boundaries of the State of Idaho, for instance, that there is enough timber at least (they have estimated it time and time again) for the next hundred years for every stick of that character in use, based on the present consumption. And in all the Western States that kind of a condition exists more or less. But I would have said this: I would have gone further and I would have said that if it comes to a time when we must change or depart from the wooden stull in the mine to the metal, that that metal will not be made in or around the mines, but it will be made in a shop somewhere, either located in a central part of the mining industry or in a metal workers’ shop or machine shop or something of that kind or a foundry located distant from the mines. The fellows that handle the iron may be not fall under the jurisdiction of the Western Federation of Miners, except the fellow who places it in the mine. Now, if that is true, we then believe there would not be much trouble to find out where the industry started and where it ceased as far as the mining industry were concerned, in the matter of control over the man that works in and around the mine. But I still won’t take the position that I am not going to take, and I do not want anybody to put me in the position of saying to what each and every department of an industry they shall or shall not belong, because I do not know where they belong. If I had known, I would have tried to elaborate an entire scheme, but I do not want to do that and I do not want you to do it, because I believe we can only do that by the actual experience that will come out of this organization.
Now, let me touch on another phase. How are we going to form this organization? I want to say that with the possible exception of two trade unions that are in this body to-day—and they will have to be revised somewhat, in my opinion—there is not a national or international organization in existence to-day that can properly come into this organization. Now, where are we going to get our organization? Why, my friends, we have simply got to go out and educate these people that are working in these already organized industries. We have got to organize them as they come with us, believing in industrialism, into local organizations, and it is going possibly to take us more than a year, more than to the time of the coming of the next convention, to even attempt to organize a national or an international organization. Then why should we not wait? Why should we not go into the field absolutely open, without a line of demarkation, in order that we may go and find out just exactly where we shall finally land in the makeup of this organization after another year at least has passed by? There will not be a single union come here, with the possible exception of the U. B. R. E. and the Western Federation of Miners at the present time, except as they come in as local organizations, and then are finally made up into industrial organizations by the Executive Board of this organization. That is, they will call them together and they will organize and they will adjust themselves entirely as to who ought and who ought not to belong to a certain industrial organization. Now, take my own organization for instance, the organization that I represent here. I want to tell you that if the amendment is voted either way, if it is passed or no matter what is done at this convention to organize a new movement, in order to get into it the American Labor Union is absolutely destroyed—absolutely. We cannot come in here as an organization. We are made up of a great group of local organizations, and they must come into this organization as locals, and then finally be grouped into their national or international organizations as they belong. There is not a national organization to-day that can come into this organization to which they can attach themselves, not a single, solitary one. The national and international industrial unions that are finally to make up this organization must be organized by this organization itself, because they are not organized at the present time. And then, my friends, there is a greater plea than that for the amendment, that we ought simply to let ourselves loose and to give ourselves absolute freedom to go among the unemployed. I have heard one or two delegates here plead the cause of the unemployed. I want to say that I want absolutely every man and woman in the gutter and out of the gutter in this organization. But we have got to organize them first and then classify them in their various industries through the experience and the knowledge of this organization itself. They are not classified or organized at the present time.
Now, friends, in closing I want to refer to one of the most important objections—or not really important, but I believe one of the most weighty objections offered to the amendment, and that was by Delegate De Leon. He said that my proposition was too remote for the worker. I had estimated something like fifty years to bring about the final ideal of this organization; and he said that the wage worker would become discouraged, that I was setting the time too far ahead. I want to say that I am firmly convinced—and if I were not so I would not appear upon this floor—that I am proposing the very thing to grasp the hand of the worker to-morrow and give him encouragement in the battle for his condition to-morrow, at the same time perhaps holding out to him the final result a few years away. If we do not get these people in, if we do not make a practical organization that will take the wage system as it stands to-day and improve the condition of the wage worker under the wage system, we will never get the wage workers together to abolish the wage system. And I do not want to see the abolition of the wage system before the struggle of right now. I want a practical organization so that to-morrow we can go out and say to these people. “ We are here to help you battle under the wage system, while at the same time we are battling for the abolition of the wage system.” I claim, my friends, that this kind of an organization will give the greatest encouragement to the man who is a toiler in the ranks of labor. I want to charge too remoteness against this proposition; I want to say, friends, that this departmental grouping is perhaps fully fifty years ahead of the industrial time of today. This is too remote. This is too far a jump ahead of the present education and the economic grouping of the working class.
DEL. HAGERTY: May I ask a question?
DEL. COATES: Yes, when I finish. That is the charge against this. And because of that nature, because of that grouping, the organized laborer of to-day would not come into this organization. I want to repeat the words that I said at the beginning of this discussion. My friends, the adoption of the form of organization either means the success or the defeat of this movement, and I believe you too are here with an earnest, honest, sincere purpose to make this organization a success. Too remoteness is my greatest conception on this. If it is simply made up for the purpose of representation on the Executive Board, well and good; it may not have to be changed to any material extent. But as a departmental grouping of the wage workers in one great organization where a half dozen or a dozen different groups of workmen are gathered together under one executive head, I say that it is absolutely remote and the thing that will discourage this movement and mean its defeat at its inception. And I want to plead to you, delegates, along that line. I want you to throw away all petty little differences that we may have had. I want you to throw away all the prejudices that any of us may have. Let us look at this organization from the standpoint of success. That is what we are for. Let us make a practical organization that will receive the almost instant support of hundreds of thousands of the wage workers of this country; and if we do that it means the glorious success of this organization; if we do not I believe it simply means defeat at its birth and the setting back of this very sentiment another five or another ten years in the United States. I thank you most sincerely, indeed. (Applause).
DEL. JAMES O’NEIL: Now will you answer my question? Which trade will control me in that division? Shall the industry I work in control me or shall the craft I work in control me?
DEL. COATES: I told you, Mr. O’Neil, that every individual industry would have to settle that proposition. I don’t want to settle it. Now, I don’t want to settle it because I am not big enough to settle it.
DEL. BRADLEY: Do you believe in the uniform transfer card system that we have adopted in that constitution?
DEL. COATES: You bet. That is what gives it effectiveness.
DEL. BRADLEY: If so, what are you going to do with the printer in the packing house system? Is he compelled to take a transfer card from the packing house industry to the printing industry?
DEL. COATES: You don’t want me to answer that.
DEL. BRADLEY: I want you to.
DEL. COATES: No, because the organizations will settle that for themselves. That is, the Executive Board will settle that proposition.
THE CHAIRMAN: The question occurs on the amendment. The amendment is that this organization “shall be composed of national and international unions embracing all persons working in an industry.” Those in favor of the amendment will signify it by saying aye—
DEL. SHERMAN: Roll call on that.
THE CHAIRMAN: Contrary, no—
DEL. COATES: I want a roll call.
Del. White: I rise to a point of information. Does the defeat of this amendment prevent a motion to re-refer this proposition to that committee?
THE CHAIRMAN: No, sir.
DEL. WHITE: Will you entertain a motion before the roll call to re-refer this whole proposition now back to the committee?
THE CHAIRMAN: If the convention will permit the chair to decide at this time whether or not this motion has been carried or lost, such a motion would be considered.
DEL. COATES: I object to that. I want a roll call on this amendment. However, I want to say this to the chair, that the chair’s position will not be correct if he takes the position that a motion now to refer would be out of order.
THE CHAIRMAN: We will proceed with the roll call.
The roll call was proceeded with by the Secretary.
DEL. COATES: While the Secretary is figuring this up I want to say that of course there is a record or official report with each name and how they vote. The Secretary has it in his possession.
SECRETARY TRAUTMANN: Yes.
DEL. COATES: When it is published I don’t want the total record; I want the record of each individual voter.
THE SECRETARY: All right, that will be given out.
DEL. VEAL: Is there any possible way by which the number of people represented by the independent vote here may be arrived at? They were only seated as individuals, although there were credentials here from several organizations. I would like to have that vote brought out as far as the credentials show the membership of the organizations. I know of one organization of two thousand members that has voted on this proposition. I would like to know if we can put that in such a way that it would go out and show the people who are voting on this proposition, so as to estimate the amount of membership they have in this organization.
DEL. DILLON: Is it not out of order for us to do any such thing officially? We might like to do it as a matter of statistics, but is it not out of order to make such a motion?
THE CHAIRMAN: He has not made a motion. He simply asked if it were possible to ascertain. I do not know how that can be done except through the roll call and finding out those that do not represent organizations.
THE CHAIRMAN: The result is 39,540 1/2 no; 11,543 1/2 yes. The amendment is lost. (Great applause).
[For detailed vote, see appendix.]
Delegate Sherman was called to the chair.
DEL. HAYWOOD: At this time I would ask the privilege of having the motion to refer presented to the convention.
DEL. FERBER: I again ask the privilege of seconding that motion.
DEL. HAYWOOD: I simply want to ask that the amendment be read as the Secretary has it.
THE SECRETARY: The one you made yesterday?
DEL. HAYWOOD: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: “That Section 2 of Article 1 be referred back to the committee with instructions to specifically satisfy and provide for that part of the Manifesto providing for craft autonomy locally, industrial autonomy internationally, and working class unity generally.” That is the amendment to the amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN (DELEGATE SHERMAN): You have heard read the amendment. What is your pleasure? (Question called for). All in favor of the amendment—
DEL. T. J. HAGERTY: Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment; not the spirit of the motion to refer, but its logical sequence in this Article 1. It is not logically the part of Section 1 to deal with that motion. Section 2, if the motion to refer it is carried, is the place at which to consider it, namely: “The financial and industrial affairs of each Union,” and so on, “shall be conducted by an Executive Board of not less than seven nor more than twenty-one, selected and elected by the general membership of said international union; provided that the Executive Board and general membership of said international industrial union shall at all times be subordinate to the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World, subject to appeal, provided the expense of such referendum be borne by the international industrial union or unions involved.” It seems to me that there is sufficient Power in that section to regulate the industrial affairs of each department, each group of industry, and that the discussion should come under that section. This entire article is covering the form of organization. The first section is simply the groupings. The second section deals with the administration of those groupings, and it seems to me that the motion ought to be referred to that part of the section to be instantly discussed.
DEL. KIEHN: Is an amendment to the motion in order?
THE CHAIRMAN: This is an amendment that we have under discussion at the present time.
DEL. KIEHN: The motion is to refer. Is an amendment in order?
THE CHAIRMAN: I believe it is.
DEL. KIEHN: If an amendment is in order, I move as an amendment that Section 2, Article 1 of the constitution as submitted the Committee on Constitution be amended as follows: “The Industrial Workers of the World shall consist of organizations embracing all workers in a clearly defined, distinct industry, which industrial organization shall be subdivided according to the calling and location as seems practicable to the membership thereof. It shall be the duty of the General Executive Board to determine the jurisdiction line of the industrial organization. An appeal may be taken from the decision of the General Executive Board to a convention or to a referendum vote of the membership of the general organization.” (Amendment seconded).
THE CHAIRMAN: The chair would rule that that amendment is out of order.
DEL. COATES: I expected that decision, but I was then going to point out this fact to you, under the proper rules of order: That that motion would be perfectly in order, but the motion to refer must take precedence. That is, we must vote on the motion to refer, and then this would be in order.
THE CHAIRMAN: That is the way I look at it. At this time it is out of order.
DEL. COATES: Yes, until we vote on this.
DEL. MOYER: As a member of the Committee on Constitution I ask for the roll call on the amendment to refer.
DEL. HAYWOOD: I take it that every member on the Constitution Committee is on that committee and in this convention for the purpose of carrying out the spirit of the Manifesto, the sense of the Manifesto, the proposition or document that has resulted in the bringing together of this convention: the document that has created a world-wide discussion. This section as presented by the Constitution Committee, in my opinion does not carry out the sense of the Manifesto. When one of that committee takes the floor and asserts that these divisions are groupings of industries, he then is opposing the sense of the Manifesto. There is a delegate on this floor representing 23,000 workers and they occur in one of these groupings. He asserts that it is impossible for his organization to become a part of this industrial union unless it is so constructed that at least a portion of that membership can be recognized as an industry.
DEL. MOYER: With the consent of the chair I would like to submit a question. I would like to ask what delegate he refers to as representing on the floor of this convention 23,000 workers.
DEL. HAYWOOD: I refer to Delegate Critchlow of the Laborers’ International Union. He is not voting 23,000 votes; he is here as a representative member of an organization of that strength. There is a delegate on this floor representing a number of thousand votes, that is not in accord with this section; and there is the delegate now speaking. And as I have asserted, it is because I believe that this section does not carry into effect and into action the spirit of the Manifesto. You have acknowledged on the floor that this is a grouping of industries. The Western Federation of Miners, a delegate of which I am, endorsed the Manifesto. It did not endorse a departmental organization such as herein represented. I am opposed to the general centralization of power (applause), only in so far as that general centralization of administration affects the general working class movement. (Applause). I believe that every industry should have absolute control, jurisdiction, autonomy, administration or whatever you may please to call it, over their entire membership. And I believe that the local union and every industrial union should accord to that local union jurisdiction just as far as possible over all of their affairs. I do not believe that there is a handful of men in this country that are big enough to devise ways and means or point out methods and tactics or ways of carrying on a tremendous organization. That power must come from the rank and file. (Applause). It has been asserted that this industrial union is for the purpose of developing the individual membership to such an extent that they will be able to say to the capitalist class that we understand the workings of the economic industries and it won’t be very long until we will tell that class that we are getting ready to move in. (Applause). I believe in an economic organization that will so sufficiently organize the workers as to give them control of the industries, and that is not going to be accomplished by a general centralized administration. (Applause). It can only be developed by giving to the individual just as much individuality as you possibly can, so that he does note interfere with the best interests of the members of his local. To give to the locals administration over their affairs as long as they do not interfere with the interests of the industries; and to give the industries absolute jurisdiction and administrative autonomy over the interests of the industries as long as they do not interfere with the general working class movement; that, to my mind, is a democratic method of administration. This, to my mind, is a sort of Rooseveltian form of organization. This is a form of organization where we give to the President of this organization a power so that he can involve the industries represented in this organization in strikes in any part of this country, and that is what Roosevelt is doing. When he was down in Colorado he left Taft sitting on the throne, and there wasn’t any trouble.
DEL. MOYER: Now, I want to take exception, as chairman of the Committee on Constitution, to the speaker. He says that the report of the Constitution Committee gives the power to the President of the Industrial Workers of the World to involve every industry in a strike. I say no. It places the power not in the hands of the president, but in the hands of the General Executive Board.
DEL. HAYWOOD: Which is practically the same thing. (Applause).
DEL. MOYER: I take exceptions to the speaker’s position. I claim that it is not the same thing. I claim that the Executive Board of the organization that he represents has a voice in conducting the affairs of that organization.
DEL. HAYWOOD: And again I am compelled to assert that it is practically the same thing, inasmuch as the president maps out and has control of the workings of the Executive Board. To my mind the president of this organization should be the smallest potato in the row (applause), and if this constitution is adopted in its entirety and this grouping of industries is formed that they are going to work under, the president will be the biggest fish in the puddle. But that is neither here nor there. That is a matter that will directly adjust itself in a very short time. The most important, the vital issue at this time, is to here and now form an organization that can grow. I was in favor of the amendment introduced by the delegate from Idaho, Delegate Coates, but I am not in favor of it if he proposed by that amendment to entirely wipe out this proposition. Now I am willing to have this form of centralized government, provided that going down through these segments, you will give to every industry that is grouped there administration over their internal affairs; and it was because the delegate’s amendment did not provide for that, that I voted against it. Now, as I have remarked before, there is not one of the embers on this Constitution Committee that can take exception to this amendment offered to refer, because what we have asked is that they bring in a constitution in the spirit of the Manifesto. If that is done you will launch an organization here that is going to grow and grow rapidly; and in the course of a few years it may be possible to bring this about. I trust that it will never come to that stage, because I never want to see the industries of this country centralized in a central general administration. (Applause). You have got your general administration at the present time under the capitalist system, and it should not be your purpose here to try to emulate the things that are being done by the capitalists. In speaking of these groupings you say this takes identically the same form as the industries of the capitalists. It is not so, positively not so; because there is no capitalist corporation but what will contend that every man in the railroad department must be a railroader, that is, under the general supervision of men that understand the railroad business. And that is so in every other department. And while there is the same interest, the same money, the same capital invested in the different industries, each industry is operated by itself for the benefit of the capitalists that have got their money invested there. This organization should operate on those lines to the extent of saying that the railroaders shall conduct their business, the miners shall conduct their business, the printers shall conduct their business, for the benefit of the working class, because we have got our capital invested there. And that is carrying out the sense, the spirit, the mandate, if you will, of this Manifesto. I say mandate because I come instructed into this convention. The convention of the Western Federation of Miners endorsed the Manifesto. They did not endorse anything else. They endorsed all other parts of the Manifesto, and not any particular part. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, the motion to refer should not only carry the support of our entire delegation, but I believe that the truth, the facts that I have set forth here should bring to that motion to refer the support of all the delegates on the floor. I thank you. (Applause).
DEL. HALL: I want to announce myself as being in favor of referring this matter back to the committee, but in doing so I should like to take issue with Delegate Haywood upon the proposition he has suggested. I am not going to occupy a great deal of your time. He said he is opposed to centralized administration—
DEL. HAYWOOD: No.
DEL. HALL (continuing): —for the reason that he believes—
DEL. HAYWOOD: Now, Delegate Hall, will you permit me to say that I did not say anything of the kind? I said that I was opposed to general centralized administration only in so far as it affected the general working class movement.
DEL. HALL: That is the same thing, except in different language. I am willing to accept that. He agrees to centralize administration, and he agrees to oppose centralized administration. That is the statement in his words. I gave him more credit than that, for simply saying that he opposed centralized administration placed him on that side of the question. I still maintain that he is opposed to centralized administration. Now, I want to call your attention to administration wherever it has been established in any part of the world for any purpose. Would it be wise for a railway corporation to divide its administration? I admit it is wise to divide its legislative department. I admit that it is well to bring in just as many people as possible to consult together upon propositions of legislating, but when this legislation is effected it is absolutely necessary to have the carrying out of those propositions in the hands of one man. When you have it in the hands of different men there is conflict, there is conflict of authority. Conflict of authority always brings personal conflict, which has been the weakness of the labor movement in this country—absolutely its weakness. Now he says that every industry should have autonomy. He means that in an administrative way. I claim that if every industry is given autonomy, that is directly opposed to the principles that are necessary to be established in constructing an economic organization. Now we will take the railway industry. To what extent is he going to give that administration? If he gives that administration to any extent whatever it means that he is taking from the centralized administration that authority, and then comes up the question as to how much they have not got? But the point I want to call attention to is that it is establishing a unity; a unity of authority, that is in opposition to the centralized unit of authority that we should establish. But I will not occupy your time. I simply want you to think of those things yourselves. I want you to understand. Brother Haywood says we should not emulate the capitalist class. I think we should emulate the capitalist class in everything that has made them a powerful factor, in everything that has put powers in their hands to grind down the workingman. The same principles that have given them power will give us power. He claims that they have centralized their administration. They have done it for the purpose of giving them power over the working class. Now, is it not wise for us to emulate the capitalist when it comes to principles of that kind that work for our interest? Brother Haywood himself says that centralization of power—he has told me privately that centralization of power is wise; centralization not of power, but of administration. I think a better term would be centralization of superintendence. That is a term that suits me best. He says he is in favor of that, but that our economic development at this time has not made it possible for us to centralize our power because the working people are not educated to that point. I claim that if that idea is correct, if that general principle is correct, that we should announce it, that we should establish it in our organization as a fundamental principle. If we do not do that we are simply establishing another organization that in a few years will have to be destroyed in order to give place to an organization that more nearly fits into the economic progress. We have the American Labor Union, established six years ago. It has been presented to the working people of the world. Practically the same element that is forming this new economic organization is in the American Labor Union. The A. L. U. has anything but the working class. If it had it would have been a different organization to what it is to-day. Now the idea suggested by Brother Haywood as his reason for referring this back to the Committee is that he wants the same proposition that we have got in the A. L. U. He does not want to improve in the least upon what the A. L. U. was. I claim that if we do not improve upon the A. L. U., that we will stand in the world exactly as the A. L. U., and that is not what the working people want. I am in favor of referring this back to the Committee, but I would like and I want to leave them uninstructed, but I would like for them to study these propositions, not from the standpoint of their past experience in the trade union movement not from the atmosphere that comes through their own experience, but from a wise standpoint, judging not from the failures of the past, but from the successes of the past, which can be studied if we will study the capitalist plan of organization. I am in favor of referring the report to the Committee.
DEL. KIEHN: I am opposed to that motion to refer this back to the Committee for two reasons. In the first place it will retard the work of this convention, and I think we have been here long enough. The second reason is that I can judge by the disposition of that Committee that the recommendation that they will give when they do report will be practically or almost the same as came from this Committee before, and that would raise the same discussion as the first report has raised. That is why I am opposed to referring it back to the Committee. We are here to do business. If it is referred back to the Committee we will stay here and wait for the report of that Committee, and it may be another week before we have the report, and we will go over the same ground that we did yesterday, practically the same ground.
(Delegate Haywood resumed the chair.)
A DELEGATE: I want to know whether we are working under a suspension of the rules or those reported from the Committee.
CHAIRMAN: We are working under the rules of the Committee on Rules of Order.
DEL. J. C. SULLIVAN: I am opposed to referring this back to the Constitution Committee, and I am not going to take up very much of your time in telling you why I am opposed to it. In the first place I want to say that in my opinion the report that this Constitution Committee submitted to you is the result of their best thought. If it is not acceptable to this convention, act wisely and consign their report to the waste basket and appoint a committee that will do your bidding and prepare a report that is acceptable to you.
DEL. LUCY E. PARSONS: I believe the Committee have done the best they could and did it conscientiously, and if the section were referred to the same committee they would go over the same ground and their report would cover practically the same ground. For this reason I shall cast my vote no.
DEL. SHERMAN: I feel that many of the delegates do not thoroughly understand the intent of the Constitution Committee. Several speakers who have addressed this convention on the proposition have dwelt very strongly on the proposition that the Executive Board would be an organization something the form that a Czar would have. Now we will take the President; we provided specifically there that the President was not a Czar; that if he did anything detrimental to the movement in general, the General Secretary or any of the Executive Board have the privilege of preferring charges against him, and they have the power to suspend or vacate his office. He is selected by a general vote of the whole organization. Vice versa, when the Secretary is in the same position; which practically puts it in the hands of the people. Your Committee realized full well that the scope of any of the departments was very large. Hence we felt that we had no business to go into the departments in the Constitution further than to provide for a minimum and a maximum initiation fee, minimum and maximum dues, and place the per capita tax or general tax at a universal figure for all organizations. We felt that each department should enjoy a democratic government of their own, and let the voice of the people say what form of government they would give to their department. All we asked them to do was to conform to the general Constitution. We proved, as we believed, a wide scope for that Executive Board for the different departments, from seven to twenty-one. Now, we did not say how they would place those twenty-one, neither have we stated what duties would be imposed upon those twenty-one if they saw fit to elect twenty-one. But we supposed that they would take from the spirit of the Manifesto and they would draw up a Constitution, and they would noħ be appointive offices, but that they would be elected by the whole membership of a department, and we supposed that it would be made up of men who organized that department and had some knowledge of the trade union movement and the question that we are trying to solve here, which is the solidarity of labor. We supposed that it would be made up of men not wishing or desiring to divide the ranks within those departments any further than it would be to divide the local union by letting trades organize in local unions by themselves. Your Committee as a unit believes that the blacksmiths should have a blacksmith’s union, for convenience sake, if not more, for discussing grievances and not having other crafts there to interfere with them on the floor, men that knew nothing about it. Now then, if they got strong local unions in Department 13 representing Brother Coates’ craft, the printers, which has been laid great stress on, there is nothing in this general constitution that prohibits a representative at the head of those local unions, as they would be printers; there is nothing that prohibits them from having a sub-executive board behind them, and each one of those that would be represented would be expected to have an intelligent Executive Board in here that would be composed of representative men of the different departments, of the different local unions. There is nothing that prohibits having local councils within themselves, or grievance committees, as many as they want to. That is administration within themselves; that is like a seat of government; it is a government by themselves, within themselves. Then they come down here, and Brother Coates lays great stress on the fact that nobody but a printer can sit in this Executive Board and represent the printers. Perhaps that might be so if he had no association here where he would not hear any grievances on this Executive Board where he is supposed to sit. That might be true, but he does at all times preside at these meetings and he hears these grievances come in, and perhaps after these a grievance comes in from the printers, and there would be a grievance committee come before this Executive Board of a hundred members, representing pressmen and type-setters and the different departments among the printers, and there it would be discussed; and I would hope that they would never elect a man as their president there that would not have intelligence enough to know how to instruct the Secretary to take down the proceedings and take any manuscript that they would furnish that would put them in a position to know what the printers would want. Then the Constitution does not debar this president, the representative, from taking any number of witnesses before the Executive Board if there is any question coming up there relative to any specific or special trade. I as one of the committee am willing to serve this convention in any capacity that the majority vote rules. I am your servant. While I am on that committee I will serve you to the best of my ability; but I will say that at the present time, from what I have heard in the arguments that have been put forth, I tell you that if it voted that we retire once more with this, I actually believe that we will not be in a position to alter the proposition different from the way it stands at the present time, but I am willing to try. Brother Haywood is just as much in error as Brother Coates, and Brother Haywood being an industrialist, would howl so that the top of the Black Hills would go up to the sky if this thing was put in working order the way he wants it within two years. I contend that if the printers are entitled to an identification as being a specific calling or trade, I claim the man that learns to be an engineer, and gets a certificate before a board recognized by a State, national and municipal government, certifying that he is prepared to take under control that engine and machinery, that the engineer is just as much entitled to a separate representation and a separate national organization with a separate national board, no matter whether that engineer works in a mine or whether he works in a factory or whether he runs an engine that runs a threshing machine in the rural districts. And let the engineer or the blacksmith walk into the mining districts where Brother Haywood has his industrial organization and begin to dictate there and say that “that man belongs to me,” and you will hear the boy put up his war whoop, you bet, good and solid. Those things will come just as long as you don’t have the right form of organization. I thought we were here to form an industrial organization, but it seems that some have came here with the impression that it was industry organizations. I am out of place if that is what this convention was called for. I am in the wrong place, because I am first, last and all the time opposed to forming industry organizations. I cannot see where the sisters and brothers can take exception to this Constitution. We have left it practically within the hands of the people. We would naturally suppose that they would exhibit the same spirit as here in drawing up their Constitution; that they would have local control over their president and their Executive Board; that they could take their representative out of that Executive Board if they wanted to. We would suppose that they had common sense enough to do that. I can not for the life of me see that this division proposition means unification. It is only a few months ago that I got up some statistics in the little “Metal Worker” that bears my name as editor. I took conservative figures and showed the thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars that are expended every year for Executive Boards to keep men on salary serving the various organizations that we have in existence now; and this would be identical; and my only thought was to bring it down so that we could handle the affairs and unite the sisters and brothers into one solid phalanx so that they could realize that they were not following leaders, but that there was a principle involved, and the only ones that it was necessary to hire were those to carry on the actual local business of the organization. It is a fact to-day that hundreds of thousands of dollars are being paid by the poor unfortunate working people, and some of them haven’t got a bite in their house, yet the salaries of those who represent them in the organization must come every month. That is one thing I want to be done away with. I want to see in this Constitution the figure—heads, as I call them, the number of heads in the organization, brought down smaller. Let the money remain with the people; leave it in the country, leave it in the home, leave it in the local district, and not pay anything out simply to keep a lot of wise-looking guys, rubby-dubs I call them. While his intent is all right, Brother Coates knows as well as I do the disposition of human nature, and when you set up eighty or a hundred governments those eighty or a hundred governments, no matter what the ties may be in the federation, those governments will conflict and their will quarrel.
DEL. DAVIS: Will the speaker answer a question?
DEL. SHERMAN: I will answer any question you wish to put.
DEL. DAVIS: Are you aware that the delegates were not sent here to take up the time simply; they were sent here to do work?
DEL. SHERMAN: That is just what I was sent here for, and I am not representing myself; I am representing my constituents, the people that sent me here. I have no personal ax to grind; I am representing the spirit of my people.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time is up. The question before the house is that the section be referred to the Committee on Constitution.
DEL. VEAL: Mr. Chairman and Fellow Delegates, I am opposed to referring this proposition Back to the Constitution Committee. Why? It has been stated here that this chart does not come up to the expectations of this convention. The men whom I represent many of them, have laid on their pillows at night; they saw that chart before they went to sleep; they saw it in the morning when they woke up; it has become the property of the working class, which has focused their minds on the class struggle proposition, and they know where they are, in these large industries, based on the class struggle. And because the printer and the scavenger (applause) are placed together are we going to repudiate this whole thing? This is what we want, as industrial unionist revolutionists, to put these highly skilled capitalist—trained men in the ranks with the slaves in the ditch and in the mines, and say, “You have got to come here.” A question has been raised about an arbitration board and democracy. Yes, the American Federation of Labor has said, “Democracy.” I would rather take two class conscious workingmen to represent the economic interests of my class than four million men who interpret it from a capitalist point of view. What? Do you need to fear the men whom you are going to select from this body of men? No; if we have reached the point in American history and development whereby our class can stand and without putting up any props to hold them in line, we have reached that point where we can launch a class conscious union. Then why do we need to cater to sentiment and cater to the idea of democracy? (Applause). Here we are. We say, we claim in defense of this chart that it does not exclude any one. And I want to say that the representatives who have taken a position against that proposition here, they themselves have sat from the Atlantic to the Pacific on boards representing the various crafts; and I claim as a representative of the working class that I can interpret our class economic interests, whether of the miner, engineer, or printer; and if we cannot interpret the fact of the merchandise character of labor, if we cannot interpret these various crafts under the head of the working class movement, economically speaking, then we are in belief pure and simplers, and we ought to go on record as being pure and simplers and leave no record as being revolutionists. Hence I think this thing has been discussed long enough. Let us adopt it. The spirit that is behind it is a revolutionary spirit, and I would rather take the spirit that is behind that than a perfect thing on paper which is reactionary in its character. And with the experience that we are going to get in the labor movement, in a year or two years we can come to this convention with a proposition based on experience without any so-called defects which seem to be imaginary on this proposition. And after all, what does it mean? It means the working class on the one hand and the capitalist class on the other; and we can focus the minds of the slaves with that thing better than anything—with this chart and with the Manifesto better than anything that has ever been conceived of in this century which will represent my class interests.
Question called for, at 12 o’clock.
THE CHAIRMAN: In the opinion of the Chair all of the delegates know whether they want to refer that or whether they want to adopt the original. The Chair is willing to sit out ten minutes if the rest of the delegates are willing.
DEL. KIRKPATRICK: I have never spoken.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have the floor.
DEL. KIRKPATRICK: Mr. Chairman and Delegates, I believe that the sentiment of the delegates in general is a unit. The only thing that I see is a misunderstanding between different opinions. But when you come to sum it up the same idea comes out at the hub of the wheel. I believe that this convention ought to take into consideration the autonomy that you set out in your Manifesto; and the representatives, if you please, that have been sent here as rubber-necks, as I call them, to find out the sentiments of this convention, you will notice, are trade autonomists, and if you hope to leave this convention with the foundation of the Manifesto you must consider their case. I believe in an industrial form of organization nationally, but not locally. We must take into consideration the masses that are organized at the present time and the condition that they are organized in, and if you please, the experience that we have had in the jurisdictional fights is what has brought us here to see if we cannot eliminate that. We can eliminate it, and it shows in this convention that it can be eliminated, because in local localities there is no jurisdictional fight. That has been the history of the American Federation of Labor, that it was the fakir at the head that caused the jurisdictional fight, and not the wage earners in the shop. Now, then, I ,want to state that I am in favor of sending this back to the Constitution Committee, not because of any reflection on the committee, because I believe they did the best that they could; but I believe that in this discussion that has been brought out they can see and grasp the sentiment of the convention, and that they must in their constitution recognize local autonomy; you must recognize that fact. There is not a laborer but what wants to be classed in his class. And you are telling us to be class conscious, and yet there are some of the delegates that are looking too far ahead. They have got the idea that when you tell them to be class conscious they imagine it is to be class conscious with the men they work with, whether it is in the ditch or in the machine shop. He believes that he should support that man. If he is a laborer he classes himself in that class. The delegates at the present time are trying to convey the idea of a hundred years from now. Ignorant men don’t understand that, and you cannot educate them to it at this particular time. Why should we not take that wheel? I can conform to that wheel. I see within that wheel that every organization represented in here can conform to that wheel. The only conglomeration that I see in it was the intent and hope to stipulate and name each and every industrial organization. That was a foolish idea, to my estimation, because I do not think the entire convention could do it and put them in their place properly. But they will come. If you will lay the foundation they will come each in its own natural course. It will take some time, but you can bring it. I would like to illustrate my ideas as best I know as a local organizer in the metal industry. I would like to express my opinion in that particular industry, because I work in that industry. I see in one of the segments that you have a metal industry. That meets with my approval in this way: that the blacksmith and the machinist and the molder and the pattern maker, the metal worker, etc., in the metal industry would not lose their identity as a craft in that metal industry. They have their local autonomy, but when it comes to a national issue there is only one head. When there is any grievance that head decides that if there are one or two or three of the different metal crafts in that particular factory involved in a trouble they are all involved. That is industrialism. It is not industries; you are industrialists, in my estimation. Now, why can’t we agree? I do not believe that we need to have an international president and an executive board for the molders, for the machinists, for the metal workers and so on down the line till we come to the entire metal industry. There is where we have use for our trade autonomy from an international standpoint, and there is where this trade autonomy proposition is fitting this industrial form of organization at the present time, right from the international standpoint. I believe that we could in that metal industry make one office that all communications from the metal industry would go direct to that office, and have only a secretary and local representative who would need to do the business of that one national organization. But when a grievance went in there it would be going into the one office that controlled that one metal industry, and only one.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time is up.
DEL. FAIRGRIEVE: Now, Mr. Chairman and Brothers, I do not wish to take up your time by arguing on this question, but I do want to take exception to the remarks made by some of the speakers who preceded me. When I came here I came here with one idea, this one thought foremost in my mind: I know that the workers of this country want to be emancipated from wage slavery. That is what I have been working for for years. I have realized this, that as long as the workers of this country or of this world were divided on trade lines and shop lines they never could be brought together, or that they never could be brought to a state where they would work as one. Now, I want to illustrate the capitalistic system a little bit.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate, the convention cannot have its time taken up by any further illustrations of the capitalist system. The question before the house is the matter of referring this proposition to the Constitution Committee.
DEL. FAIRGRIEVE: I want to speak on that.
THE CHAIRMAN: No further illustrations of the capitalist system.
DEL. FAIRGRIEVE: I want to speak on that, and I want to show you the impracticability of sending this back to the committee, before I get through; because we will get the same thing back here again, in my opinion. I believe we should have one single organization, organized with one single head; a practical working machine, that would have absolute control over every working industry in this country, and not only one. If we are going to do anything we have got to have that. Now, then, in this committee the different methods of organization were thrashed out, and the committee brought a report in here with one dissenting vote, and that was my own, against that system; and they decided then to stay with it regardless of what came up in this convention. Now, if you refer this back what do you expect to get from the committee again? If you want something else, for God’s sake appoint a committee; for that one won’t bring a report in again that is any different, in my opinion. Now, I want to say this much, that if we are going to have the old system of organization, then let us all go into the American Federation of Labor. If we won’t form an industrial organization then let us go into the American Labor Union where we belong, because I want to say this, that the system that Delegate Coates has been advocating here is not industrialism; it is industry, and if we want to give the union craft organizations, then do so. That has been my observation about the old American Labor Union, or American Federation of Labor, that those jurisdictional fights have always been schemes to divide the working class and keep it divided. My object is to have one single organization and one head for the business of directing the affairs of the working class generally; and you know that the rank and file are at the present time capable of running their own local affairs.
DEL. SCWHARTZ: After the discussion of the past two days I have come to the conclusion as follows: that Delegate Coates is in favor of this constitution, but objects to the wording. I do not think the wording expresses what the interpretation of the committee meant. That is what I understood Coates to say. Therefore, I would make a motion that the interpretation of the constitution by the committee be a part of the constitution, and that will settle every question which has been discussed till now.
DEL. COATES: Right here just let me ask a question. Whose interpretation do you want?
DEL. SCHWARTZ: The interpretation from the Committee on Constitution.
DEL. COATES: There are none of them that have interpreted it alike, not one of them.
DEL. DE LEON: Every one has done it from a different viewpoint.
DEL. SCHWARTZ: Yes, and I will do it differently. To which interpretation do you refer when you state the interpretations are not alike, may I ask?
DEL. COATES: To the speeches of every delegate.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair will not entertain the motion, because in the opinion of the Chair this convention does not want a constitution that needs interpretation. We want one that we can all understand.
DEL. COATES: That is right. (Applause.)
DEL. DE LEON: Mr. Chairman, I take the floor, although I consider every minute of this convention to be precious at this late hour. I take it as a member of the Committee on Constitution. I shall not go into any of the subjects that have been debated here during the last two days. I believe I voice the opinion of every member of that committee that they know they have not produced a thing that is perfect. I believe I voice the opinion of all when I say that they are convinced that if they had a month to think this matter over, they would have produced something better. I think I express their opinion when I say that what they have produced has been the resultant of two considerations—namely, the limited period we had to work in, and the belief that by presenting this, we would present something under which we can begin to work. I believe I express the opinion of my fellow members on the committee when I say that what they had in mind was to propose a temporary organization for when this convention will have adjourned. For these reasons, I shall not deny, indeed, I consider it very probable, that, if this matter is referred back to our committee, we may now be able to bring in something better. We may be able to do so for the simple reason that we now know more. We are now bound to know more because during the forty-eight hours that this discussion has lasted we have grown forty-eight hours older. True enough, to refer this matter back, to refer it back at this late hour, would promote the designs of the A. F. of L. agencies, whoever and wherever they may be, whose desire and designs must be to protract the discussion so that this convention may adjourn without having left even a nucleus of an organization. Even so, I would not object to having this thing referred, lest the committee be considered pig-headed. Nevertheless I shall vote against the motion to refer for the reason that, tacked to the motion to refer, there is a sentence which I, for one, cannot understand. The closing sentence of the motion is that this committee bring in a constitution in keeping with the Manifesto. If this motion is carried it implies that the committee violated the Manifesto. It is in the nature of things that a new term like this of “industrialism” cannot yet have acquired such a crystalized meaning as to convey the identical thought to all minds. I believe that, at this stage, were you to take a hundred men at random, you would with difficulty find any two who view the subject from the identical side of its many sides; each would be more likely to consider some one aspect of the subject, give that aspect supreme importance, and frame his definition of “industrialism” accordingly. When you refer this thing back to the committee with that sentence and instruction that we shall bring back a report in keeping with the Manifesto—a thing that we believe we have done—you simply set up to us a standard which I, for one, do not understand. For that reason I shall vote against the motion to refer. (Applause.)
(Question called for.)
DEL. GOODWIN: I do not want to take up much of your time, and I won’t take up much of your time. I want to say this, that the ideas that have been brought out here cover three general stages of capitalist production. Delegate Coates brought in the consummation of the pure and simple craft form. He would organize perhaps into one union with reference to the industry in which the printers were engaged, and as far as the other crafts were concerned industrially he would not make anything specific and definite. Delegate Haywood speaks of industrial autonomy. Now, there can be no industrial autonomy in this organization any further than it is a function, for the word “autonomy” is not and should not be used, because it expresses something that a particular industry has not got, a function. It has an economic function, but it is not clear. It is so closely interrelated and intermarried with other industries, that have been organized before we have completely organized, that when one part of this complete economic organization moves all the rest of these parts must move. So these industries, any of these industries, are subsidiary and supporting the whole organization; and I hold that that chart as gotten up is practically correct. In some of the details it might be corrected. There might be some criticism about where some should be. But the tendency of capitalist development is concentration. We are going from industrial production to departmental production. It won’t be many years—in fact it is practically now in embryo—till we have departmental production. We have departmental production that takes in several industries. The tendency in development in the early stages of capital is to go into industries, and the later tendency is to divide into departments, and these departments are international. I am opposed to the amendment.
(Question called for.)
THE CHAIRMAN: The motion is to refer Section 2 of Article 1 to the Committee on Constitution. Those in favor of the motion will signify it by saying aye. Contrary no.
(Roll call asked for.)
DEL. COATES: A delegate has requested a roll call before you put the motion.
THE CHAIRMAN: I do not hear any dissenting voice. The motion is to refer.
DEL. DE LEON: I would ask that the motion be read. The motion is not merely to refer, but with instruction that we bring back a report in keeping with the Manifesto, which means that we have not done that.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Secretary will read the motion.
The Secretary read the motion, as follows: “Motion to refer back to the committee with instructions to specifically satisfy and provide for that part of the Manifesto providing for craft autonomy locally, industrial autonomy internationally, and working class unity generally.”
THE CHAIRMAN: The Secretary will call the roll.
The Secretary then called the roll of delegates and took the vote. During the calling of the roll several delegates explained their votes, as follows:
DEL. MOYER: I desire to explain my vote, as I believe I have the privilege of doing in a convention of this character. I want to say that I am in favor of referring this report of your committee, that part of it, back to A committee. I am opposed to referring it back to THE committee, as I understand is meant by the amendment. I would vote in favor of having it referred back to a committee, but I would vote against referring it back to the original Constitution Committee. My vote is no.
DEL. KNIGHT: I have a right to explain my vote. I want to say that I vote no for exactly the same reasons that Brother Moyer gave.
DEL. FAIRGRIEVE: I want to explain my vote. I do not believe in sending this back to the same committee, because I know that nothing else can come back from them. Therefore I vote no.
DEL. KLEMENSIC: I take the same position as Brother Moyer, but I will vote yes.
DEL. SHERMAN: I desire to say that I concur in everything stated by Brother Moyer. I vote no.
DEL. VAIL: I believe that every member of the committee with the exception of two voted for the constitution as amended. I was the only member of my delegation on the committee and we vote as a unit. I think it is useless to send that back to that committee, and therefore I vote no for the entire delegation.
DEL. PAT O’NEIL: I understand that the next section explains the very argument we are having here, and for that reason I vote no. I am not one of the kind that lays down, and so I vote no.
DEL. PARSONS: I believe the committee has done the best it could, and has done it conscientiously. If we are to refer this back to the same committee their report would go over practically the same ground again. For that reason I cast my vote no.
(After the computation of the vote by the Secretary—)
THE CHAIRMAN: The motion to refer is lost; 20,759 no; 2,705 yes. (Applause). The motion to refer is lost. The convention stands adjourned until ten minutes past one.
[For detailed vote on roll-call, see appendix.]
Adjourned at 12.10 P. M. till 1.10 o’clock.