The movement for federation among the Protestant denominations quickly won the favor of all Disciples except the most rigidly noncooperative, but these were many, and their voices were loud. The impulse to federation came from the new sense of the social responsibilities of the churches which became acute in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was first proposed by the Presbyterian General Assembly as a means of getting some united action by Protestants without compromising their denominational differences and independence. After a decade of desultory discussion and some local organizations, a national Federation of Churches and Christian Workers was formed in 1901. The next year this body proposed a conference of official representatives of denominations to consider the feasibility of a federation of the denominations as such. It was at this point that the matter came before the Disciples through a brief speech by the secretary, Dr. E. B. Sanford, at the Omaha convention in 1902, following an eloquent address on Christian union by E. L. Powell. A resolution of approval was introduced by J. H. Garrison, who supposed—naïvely, as he afterward said—that it would be adopted unanimously. J. A. Lord, editor of the _Christian Standard_, objected that joining such an association would be “recognizing the denominations.” The resolution was adopted, with only a small opposing vote. But the war was on, with the two papers already ranged on opposite sides. For the next four or five years, federation was the hot spot of controversy in conventions, ministers’ meetings, and the press. The Disciples were represented, however, at the Interchurch Conference on Federation, at Carnegie Hall, New York City, in November, 1905, where a constitution was drafted. A mass meeting called during the Norfolk convention in 1907 approved the constitution, with only one dissenting voice, and elected representatives in the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The first meeting of the Federal Council was held at Philadelphia, February 2, 1908. Thus the Disciples were in the Federal Council from its beginning. They also cooperated from the start with the Foreign Missions Conference of North America (1907) and the Home Missions Council (1908). Union as an objective had not been forgotten; but, while there were barriers to immediate union, cooperation with other Christians in the promotion of practical Christian ends had come to seem, to the great body of Disciples, both safe and wise.