socialism." As the two groups lined up at Chicago in 1913, we may say that the controversy between the administration's supporters and the defenders of the local unions was, on the whole, a struggle between the western membership, individualistic and tainted with anarchism, and the eastern membership, more schooled to subordination--infected with state socialism. The attack of the decentralizers took the form of specific resolutions for the abolition of various features of the general administration and the restriction of the powers of the Executive Board and general officers. The abolition of the office of president in 1906 was in part an expression of this revolt against centralized authority. But now, with the presidency eliminated, with very little organization at the best, with a degree of central power and authority which the United Mine Workers of America would consider mild indeed, and with a constantly shifting membership of less than 15,000, we find that there is actually a little group of western locals which assumes that there is already a dangerous centralization of power and authority at "Headquarters." Some five hundred resolutions were introduced at the convention and a large number of these were assorted decentralist proposals for giving the local union relatively greater power--demands, in other words, for readjustments which were expected to result in increased "local autonomy." This local autonomy was to be secured for the benefit of the "rank and file," _i. e._, the individual members, and particularly for the "rank and file" membership of the "mixed" locals so predominant in the western part of the country. From the standpoint of the mixed local, "the disease within the I. W. W. is ... the gigantic machine formation attempted to be [_sic_] foisted upon it by the authoritarian socialists who presided at its birth...." "Decentralization deals essentially," we are told, "with the right of the locals to _control_ themselves and through their combined wills to run the general organization."[607] Following up the attack, the knights of the rank and file proposed to abolish, _inter alia_, the General Executive Board, the office of the General Organizer, and the national convention![608] One wonders that the Constitution itself was not put bodily on the _index_! Indeed, a year later, a leader in the movement in California did write an article to show that the I. W. W. Preamble is syndicalistic, and the Constitution state-socialistic, therefore that the latter should be abolished.[609] For two weeks the delegates wrangled over propositions of this kind and the general subject of decentralization. Two and a half days were devoted to the proposal to abolish the General Executive Board. This action was desired by locals in southern California and other parts of the West, as well, as by a few of the eastern locals.[610] Concerning their demands, a supporter of the administration said: