They [the decentralizers] claim they will never submit to the rule of a minority of four or five men.... They do not want to submit to the rule of the G. E. B. composed of four or five, but they will submit to the authority of the General Secretary and the General Organizer whom they want to function in the place of the G. E. B. The authority of the minority of five or seven men is something terrible, but the authority and rule of the minority of two is not so terrible.[611]
The locals of Calgary [Canada], Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Spokane, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona, presented a resolution asking that "the function of the headquarters [_i. e._, the general administration] be reduced to a mere correspondence agency." No action was taken.[612] "We ... are working ... to overthrow this [wages] system," said a decentralist fellow-worker, "and we claim ... that the rank and file of the proletariat will have to do this themselves." The General Executive Board members, according to this delegate, "place themselves in exactly the same position over these people [the workers] and put themselves in the same [position of] unique power over them as the capitalist class."[613] Said another: "The minority in this organization is ... ruling ... today, namely, the G. E. B. I am certainly in favor of abolishing the G. E. B. I don't see any use for it. I don't see what they can do for the rank and file."[614] According to the majority report of the constitution committee (which was lost) all authority was, in the absence of the G. E. B., to be vested in the General Secretary-Treasurer and the General Organizer, both responsible to the rank and file.[615] In line with the foregoing was a resolution providing for a reduction in the per-capita tax of "mixed" locals from fifteen to five cents per month. The proponents of this resolution insisted that the "mixed" locals bore more than their share of the financial burden--that they practically supported the national organization.[616] The proposition was given extended debate and finally killed. Naturally it was opposed by the General Executive Board.[617]
This attack on the already weak central authority took the form of an attempt, first, to abolish the G. E. B.; second, to cut down the financial support of the general office; third, to abolish the convention and substitute for it the initiative and referendum; fourth, to place agitators under the direct control of the rank and file; and fifth, to make the general officers mere clerical assistants. The only real success achieved by the decentralizers in these efforts in 1913 was the introduction into the I. W. W. constitution of a provision for the initiative and referendum.[618] The introduction of the referendum feature is another illustration of the unconscious tendency to follow the lines of our political development. Note, too, that the I. W. W. referendum advocates hailed from those very states which have recently attracted attention by introducing this feature into their political structure. The I. W. W. is now much more decentralized than it was in 1905 or even 1913, and it appears to be drifting toward further changes in that direction. So far, the movement away from what little centralized power it could boast may be seen in two phases: (1) The abolition of the presidency; (2) the placing of the General Executive Board under the control of a general referendum which can be initiated at any time and upon any subject by request of not less than ten locals in not less than three different industries.