, and John Mitchell served the miners as
president ten years. Under the immediate supervision of the president,
an executive board composed of all the officers guides the destinies of
the union. When this board is not occupied with the relations of the
men to their employers, it gives its judicial consideration to the more
delicate and more difficult questions of inter-union comity and of local
differences.

The local union is the oldest labor organization, and a few existing
locals can trace their origin as far back as the decade preceding the
Civil War. Many more antedate the organization of the Federation. Not
a few of these almost historic local unions have refused to surrender
their complete independence by affiliating with those of recent origin,
but they have remained merely isolated independent locals with very
little general influence. The vast majority of local unions are members
of the national trades union and of the Federation.

The local union is the place where the laborer comes into direct
personal contact with this powerful entity that has become such a factor
in his daily life. Here he can satisfy that longing for the recognition
of his point of view denied him in the great factory and here he can
meet men of similar condition, on terms of equality, to discuss freely
and without fear the topics that interest him most. There is an
immense psychic potency in this intimate association of fellow workers,
especially in some of the older unions which have accumulated a
tradition.

It is in the local union that the real life of the labor organization
must be nourished, and the statesmanship of the national leaders is
directed to maintaining the greatest degree of local autonomy consistent
with the interests of national homogeneity. The individual laborer
thus finds himself a member of a group of his fellows with whom he is
personally acquainted, who elect their own officers, to a large measure
fix their own dues, transact their own routine business, discipline
their own members, and whenever possible make their own terms of
employment with their employers. The local unions are obliged to pay
their tithe into the greater treasury, to make stated reports, to
appoint a certain roster of committees, and in certain small matters
to conform to the requirements of the national union. On the whole,
however, they are independent little democracies confederated, with
others of their kind, by means of district and na