he foundation upon which the whole edifice of
the American Federation of Labor is built. Like the Federation, each
particular trade union has a tripartite structure: there is first the
national body called the Union, the International, the General Union,
or the Grand Lodge; there is secondly the district division or council,
which is merely a convenient general union in miniature; and finally
there is the local individual union, usually called "the local." Some
unions, such as the United Mine Workers, have a fourth division or
subdistrict, but this is not the general practice.

* The term "trade union" is used here in its popular sense,
embracing labor, trade, and industrial unions, unless
otherwise specified.

The sovereign authority of a trade union is its general convention, a
delegate body meeting at stated times. Some unions meet annually, some
biennially, some triennially, and a few determine by referendum when the
convention is to meet. Sometimes a long interval elapses: the granite
cutters, for instance, held no convention between 1880 and 1912, and
the cigar-makers, after a convention in 1896, did not meet for sixteen
years. The initiative and referendum are, in some of the more compact
unions, taking the place of the general convention, while the small
executive council insures promptness of administrative action.

The convention elects the general officers. Of these the president is
the most conspicuous, for he is the field marshal of the forces and
fills a large place in the public eye when a great strike is called. It
was in this capacity that John Mitchell rose to sudden eminence during
the historic anthracite strike in 1902, and George W. Perkins of the
cigar-makers' union achieved his remarkable hold upon the laboring
people. As the duties of the president of a union have increased, it has
become the custom to elect numerous vice-presidents to relieve him. Each
of these has certain specific functions to perform, but all remain the
president's aides. One, for instance, may be the financier, another the
strike agent, another the organizer, another the agitator. With such a
group of virtual specialists around a chieftain, a union has the immense
advantage of centralized command and of highly organized leadership. The
tendency, especially among the more conservative unions, is to reelect
these officers year after year. The president of the Carpenters' Union
held his office for twenty years