Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/30

 as many different states. An amalgamation proposition was adopted under this referendum law, supported by more than local unions. It was thrown out by the executive of the union without the slightest pretext of legality. The referendum was tried again, with even more local unions in support. Again it was thrown out. Then a vote was taken on whether a convention should be held. The reactionaries defeated the calling of a convention by making the ballots in such a manner that to vote for a convention required also voting for an assessment of $5, altho the union had in its treasury more than two millions of dollars at the time.

The situation in the railroad unions was paralelled to a greater or lesser extent, in practically every union and industry in the country. The rank and file was overwhelmingly in favor of amalgamation. But their organizations were in the hands of the corrupt labor bureaucracy, agents of the enemies of the workers, and the rank and file had not yet forged the instruments of struggle necessary in order to take possession of their own organizations and make of them fighting instruments against the capitalist class.

Early in its organized activity, the left wing began to understand from experience and from the propaganda of the T. U. E. L., the absolute necessity of clearly combining labor union and industrial struggle with political struggle in its widest sense. At the same time a movement, vague and undefined but with large potentialities, for a labor party based upon the same general lines as that of Great Britain, was taking shape and expressing itself in America. There was an opportunity, by working within this movement and hooking it up with the more immediate and acute struggles of the workers, to direct it toward the class struggle and develop the political consciousness of larger masses of workers. The T. U. E. L., acting in agreement with the policy of the Workers (Communist) Party, launched a great campaign