"It has been said," remarked Haywood, "that this convention was to form an organization rival to the A. F. of L. This is a mistake. We are here for the purpose of forming a _labor organization_."[121] This common opposition to what they called the "American _Separation_ of Labor" proved to be a fairly adequate "harmony plank" in the platform of these disaffected workingmen. The stress of opposition to the Federation was, of course, directed chiefly to its craft formation, but it also featured prominently the reaction against (1) its assumption of identity of interest between employer and employee, and (2) its absolute denial of the necessity of united political action on the part of the working class. To these industrialists the American Federation of Labor was simply the symbol of the craft type of trade union. It was made the object of the most merciless criticism throughout the convention. One of its committees drew up a comprehensive indictment of "old line trade-unionism." "The A. F. of L., which is the fine consummate flower of craft unionism," it declares, "is neither American, nor a federation, nor of labor." This, they contend, because (1) it is adapted only to such conditions as existed in England sixty years ago; (2) it is divided into 116 warring factions; (3) it discriminates against workingmen because of their race and poverty; (4) its members are allowed to join the militia and shoot down other union men in time of strike; and (5) it inevitably creates a certain aloofness among the skilled workmen--the "aristocrats of labor"--toward those not skilled. "There are organizations which are affiliated," Haywood asserts, "with the A. F. of L. which ... prohibit the initiation of, or conferring the obligation on, a colored man; that prohibit the conferring of the obligation on foreigners."[122] From the opening of the convention it was quite evident that an ideal labor union was conceived to be something more than an institution for improving the immediate condition of labor. Through it immediate interests must be advanced, of course, but its primary object must be to make an end of labor as a slave function and to establish in place of the wage or capitalist system an industrial commonwealth of co-operators. The convention was convinced that the craft union was not only comparatively helpless in the matter of advancing immediate interests, but was absolutely useless as a fulcrum for removing the capitalist system. "The battles of the past," declared the manifesto, "emphasize this lesson. The textile workers of Lowell, Philadelphia, and Fall River; the butchers of Chicago; ... the long-struggling miners of Colorado, hampered by lack of unity and solidarity upon the industrial battlefield, all bear witness to the helplessness and impotency of labor as at present organized."[123]