The industry will be the constituency, and activity therein the basis of suffrage. Elections will take place in

the industries. Instead of elections in Kansas, Connecticut, and Colorado, the railroad industry of the United states will elect representatives to the Industrial Congress. So, likewise, will the coal-mining industry, the farming industry, the printing industry, the fishing industry, and all the other national industries. To quote De Leon, "The mining, the railroad, the textile, the building industries, down or up the line, each of these, regardless of former political boundaries, will be the constituencies of that new central authority the rough scaffolding of which was raised last week in Chicago.

1

2

With the Working Class organized industrially, it is capable of assuming the integral conduct of national production and distribution. The coal-mine workers, integrally organized in a national industrial union, will take possession of the mines and hold and administer them in the inter3

est of all workers. Their slogan is, "The mines to the

control of the miners, the wealth to its producers perity for the workers!"1

pros

Similarly, the W. I. I. U. ap

peals to the workers in all other industries to organize integrally to assume the conduct of the nation's production. The coal miners, together with workers in copper,

iron, and salt mines, etc., will be organized into the

1. Daniel De Leon, "Socialist Reconstruction of Society," 38. 2. Ibid, 37.

3. "The Mines to the Control of the Miners, 9.

4. Ibid, 8.

Mining Department. With all other industries, likewise, organized in their respective departments, the workers will be ready for "Industrial Democracy,

ready to elect their

representatives to the new "Industrial Congress "2 which is

to take the place of the present political Congress.

"For Socialist production the Industrial Department

Elec

is essential," explains the official organ of the W. I. I. U., "as a means of co-ordinating productive effort in such a way as to provide Industrial Democracy for the workers. The administration of the Industrial Department rests upon the workers in all the industries comprised by the Department. tions take place in the industries, and officers can be removed at will. At the same time efficiency is attained and production so arranged and planned over the entire country as to prevent all waste, over-lapping, and disorganization in

distribution.

"In place of Departments of Justice, War, Labor, State, of a political character, functioning primarily as offices guarding capitalist interests, the future will see Departments of Mining, Manufacturing, Transportation, Public Service, purely industrial and democratic throughout, interested not in protecting the property rights of an exploiting class but in meeting the needs of the workers and in promoting the welfare of all under a classless society."3

1. Ibid, 11

2. Ibid, 9

3. Industrial Union News, Feb. 21, 1920.

In local affairs, "the Industrial Councils will become the centers of civic administration in place of the present Chicago, for example, would have

form of city government."1

no mayor, no city attorney, none of its present officials, but would be governed by the Industrial Council for that dis

trict,

a Council composed of industrial and technical managers elected by and responsible to the actual workers in the various industries.

The W. I. I. U. expects that, "As a functioning body under Socialism, the Industrial Council will consist of delegates from all branches of activity in the city or town. It will be charged with the regulation of all matters pertaining to the city or district as such. Associated with it, and responsible to it, will be, necessarily, certain boards and committees appointed or elected for the supervision of par2 ticular branches of civic affairs."

At present, the General Executive Board has much power, but under Socialism its members will become merely executive heads, representing their respective departments, each responsible to his constituents.

3

The Convention, on the other hand, is the cocoon from which will emerge the future Industrial Congress. De Leon-ites picture vividly its transformation:

"In a completely organized industrial system there would be practically no Local Unions represented, but only