The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-11-22
By VIM. z. Foster

kinds of working class organizations,
including trade unions, fraternal as
sociations, co-operatives, etc Above
all, meetings should be held at the
factory gates to acquaint the working
masses of the approaching mass meet
ings. This is done all too seldom. Our
comrades are too much inclined to
confine their efforts simply to an
nouncing their meetings thru few
radical channels and to circulation
Unfortunately of handbills. In this
day Of movies, radio, and a thousand
other attractions to lure the sleepy
minded workers away from all serious
consideration Of their problem, the
building of mass meetings is a real
task.
skill and Hard Labor Needed.
Whatever is worth while for our.
Party to do at all, should be done
well. Inasmuch as we must use mass
meetings as means Of carrying our
program to the great rank and file of
labor, we should learn to do the job
with the utmost efficiency. The COM
rades throughout the Party should
give much more attention to this fact
that has hitherto been the case. We
should not be content to go along
with the slipshod methods that pre-
vail in other organizations of work
ers. When we call a meeting we
should build it into a success, into
something that will be credit to our
Party. 81 say build" advisedly, be-
cause, under existing conditions in the
United States, successful working
class meetings are actually built by
skill and hard labor.
In the foregoing have sketched a
few of the essentials that should be
constantly borne in mind in the or
ganization of mass meetings. There
should be live committee in charge of
the work wherever such meeting is
contemplated. This committee should
take nothing for granted but should
use its intelligence in every detail of
the work 1t should see to it that the
hall secured is Of popular character,
well situated, and not too large. The
committee should assume full respon-
sibility for the heating, lighting, and
ventilation of the hall, leaving moth
ing to the imagination of the janitor.
Then widespread campaign should
be initiated directly amongst the
masses of the workers to attract them
to the meeting. A vigorous floor COM
mittee should be on the job to see that
order is preserved in the meeting,
and an experienced chairman secured
to control the meeting.
Scientific Method Necessary.
These recommendations may seem
obvious, but, unfortunately, all too
often they are not. Strangely enough,
in spite of so much experience in
this direction, the workers are ex-
ceedingIy unskilled in the organiza-
ton of meetings. The crimes that the
trade unions commit in this respect are
almost unbelievable. For example, a
few years ago the Chicago Federation
of Labor, following out its usual in
competent and primitive methods,
called a mass meeting to protest
against the threatening execution of
Tom Mooney Although there were
100000 workers in the city, only 200
of them showed up at the meeting.
Disguised at this fiasco, the radical
delegates of the Federation, headed
by J. w. tombstone, moved the re-
holding of the meeting. They set out
Systematically 20 build up the meet
ing, with the result that few weeks
later 10000 workers poured into the
great Coliseum to demonstrate for
Mooney. 1t was one of the greatest
working class meetings in the history
of Chicago and it was the result of
scientific organization methods.
We must apply scientific y ethods in
the building and controlling of Work