Delegate Simons opposed it, declaring that, "as it stands it says that we are in favor of political action without any political party."[141] Delegate Richter also opposed it on the ground that the struggle has really only begun when the workers are brought together on the political and industrial fields,--whereas the preamble implied that at that stage the struggle ceases.[142] Delegate DeLeon argued at length in support of the clause. To him this "political clause," as it has since been called, was quite essential to keep the proposed organization "in line and in step with civilization." "The barbarian," he said, "begins with physical force; the civilized man ends with that when force is necessary."[143] He believed it to be absolutely impossible to "take and hold" as the preamble puts it, without the protection--or at any rate the harmony--secured through political unity. Of course, the basis of this political unity was to have no organic connection--not the remotest--with the economic organization. The clause under discussion recognized the two truths "that political action and the means of civilization must be given an opportunity--and that in this country, for one, it is out of the question to imagine that a political party can 'take and hold.'"[144] This was the Socialist Labor party position. It had been foreshadowed in its 1900 convention when it endorsed the following resolution: Genuine trade-unionism not only must fight in the shop ... but must especially, uncompromisingly, at all costs and hazards fight the political parties of capitalism on election day. Its chief motto must be--"No union card will justify the political scab. Here is a traitor to his class."... We recognize in the S. T. & L. A. the economic arm of the S. L. P. and its indispensable adjunct in its conflict between the working class and the capitalist class.[145] The discussion brought out every shade of opinion on the ballot. These men were acutely aware of the fact that business is to a great extent the creator and controller of politics. As one delegate put it, "dropping pieces of paper into a hole in a box never did achieve emancipation for the working class and ... it never will...."[146] Even Daniel DeLeon had nothing but contempt for the visionary politician, the man who imagines that by going to the ballot box and taking a piece of paper--and throwing it in and then rubbing his hands and jollying himself with the expectation that through that process, through some mystic alchemy, the ballot will terminate capitalism and the socialist commonwealth will rise like a fairy out of the ballot-box.[147] The manifesto was very specific in proposing a purely economic organization. That the issue would be a political organization was the prophecy of Frank Bohn, an official of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.