Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/760

 744 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

their number could go from the shop to the office of administra- tion and meet all requirements. Even if one happened to fulfil expectations, he was not given much of a chance, for rotation in office was insisted upon. " In the local trade clubs of the eighteenth century democracy appeared in its simplest forms." And the authors add :

It is significant to notice how slowly, reluctantly, and incompletely the trade-unionists incorporated in their constitutions what is often regarded as the specifically Anglo-Saxon form of democracy, the elective representative assembly.

After many years of ineffective struggle, the delegate meeting became in fact superseded by the referendum, in an attempt to adapt the scheme of popular control to large and increasing bodies, just as the advocates of the initiative in America today are seeking to apply, through its operation, the principle of town- meeting government to great cities and populous states. So long as unlettered men, inexperienced in business, strove to combine administrative efficiency with popular control, the struggle of unionism against trained, highly skilled opposition was hopeless. There was a development through decades out of the theory that " the voices " of the whole body should govern, and that each and every member should take an equal and identical share in the common project, into a logical administrative system. It is the clear and reliable history of the constitutional development in trade-union democracy.

Those who believe that a true democracy implies a direct decision by the mass of the people of every question as it arises will find this ideal without check or limit in the history of the large trade unions [in England] between 1834 and 1870.

The official circular was the medium of balloting, and every issue was filled with crude and often inconsistent projects to be voted on. Every member was an executive.

The system worked disastrously, most so in connection with the rates of distribution and benefits.

The disadvantages of a free use of the referendum (and initiative) became obvious to thoughtful trade-unionists, and the practical abandonment of the initiative ensued.