Committee of Union and Progress

“ We are anxious we should throw no obstacle in the way of any hope of union, therefore we have decided not to press that amendment in the Subjects Committee, nor to bring forward our full amendment with regard to the reforms. ”

“ To ensure complete unity of action, we think it desirable that the Whips of the party should sit, ex officio, on the Council, and should have a right to be present at the meetings of all Committees. Such an arrangement would be a security against any unintentional divergencies of policy and would lend weight to the proceedings of the Union. Business relating to candidates should remain entirely with the Central Committee. ”

“ This Article shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or adopting measures providing for specific advantages in order to make it easier for women to pursue a vocational activity or to prevent or compensate for disadvantages in their professional careers. ARTICLE 7 The Commission shall draw up a report each year on progress in achieving the objective of Article 1, including the demographic situation in the Community. It shall forward the report to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee. ”

“ The committee have endeavored to present to the senate a comprehensive plan of addjustment, which, removing all causes of existing excitement and agitation, leaves none open to divide the country and disturb the general harmony. The nation has been greatly convulsed, not by measures of general policy, but by questions of a sectional character, and, therefore, more dangerous, and more to be deprecated. It wants repose. It loves and cherishes the Union. ”

“ Chairman, I find myself again constrained to trespass on the patience of this committee. I wish there was a prospect of union in our sentiments: so much time would not then be taken up. But when I review the magnitude of the subject under consideration, and of dangers which appear to me in this new plan of government, and compare thereto my poor abilities to secure our rights, it will take much more time, in my poor, unconnected way, to traverse the objectionable parts of it; there are friends here who will be abler than myself to make good those objections which to us appear well founded. ”

“ There is, of course, a committee for every state, and at the head of the whole stands a national committee for the whole Union, whose special function it is to make arrangements for the conduct of party work at a presidential election. ”

“ Behind these will be committees of union and progress who will direct operations, and behind the committees again one or more master minds from whom will emanate the ideas that are to direct the world. ”

“ Popular committees are considered here, as with us, in the light of substitutes to constitutional government, and as being only necessary in the interval between the removal of the former and the establishment of the present. ”

“ From this moment she exists chiefly as a Member or President of innumerable Committees. No sooner does the shadow of a political idea flit through her brain, than she forms a Committee to promote its development. ”

“ We need more than politically ordained national objectives to challenge the best efforts of free men and women. A group of selfless and devoted individuals, outside of government, could effectively participate in making the necessary appraisal of the potentials of our future. The result would be establishment of national goals that would not only spur us on to our finest efforts, but would meet the stern test of practicality.
The Committee I plan will comprise educators and representatives of labor, management, finance, the professions and every other kind of useful activity. ”

“ I believe it would be possible to constitute a commission, nonpartisan in its membership and composed of patriotic, wise, and impartial men, to whom a consideration of the question of the evils connected with our election system and methods might be committed with a good prospect of securing unanimity in some plan for removing or mitigating those evils. ”

“ It has been impossible to carry out the programme of the Constitution; and, without careful reform, the national legislature will even more dangerously approach the perilous model of a mass meeting. There are several ways in which Congress can be so integrated as to impart to its proceedings system and party responsibility. That may be done by entrusting the preparation and initiation of legislation to a single committee in each house, composed of the leading men of the majority in that house. ”

“ But, gentlemen, remember that the Central Committee is all the more dangerous, in that it has taught the revolutionaries how to act outside the authority of the Central Government and how to manage the ship of State. ”

“ The work of this committee long since became a matter of history. It was conducted with the utmost conscientiousness and care; personal interests and personal bias were generously waived, differences of opinion were settled by appeal to facts and the evidence, with a result that agreement was established in respect to all points of nomenclature and other technicalities, and a new impetus given to systematic investigation. Thus, - 145 - through the work of this committee alone one of the primary objects in view in founding the Union was most happily accomplished. ”

“ It provided for the election of a National President, to serve until his successor could be elected at a general election, and for the appointment of a Minister-President and various ministers of state. The constitution created a so-called Committee of State, to be named by the various state governments and to occupy the position of a Second Chamber, and empowered the assembly to enact "such national laws as are urgently necessary," particularly revenue and appropriation measures. ”

“ The Reform Committee desires that the public will aid them with the loyalty and enthusiasm which they have shown so far in the maintenance of its organization, and will stand firm in the cause of law and order and the establishment of their rights. ”

“ On the whole, if there were any probability of the assembly's confining themselves merely to the business of organizing the government, so as to put an end to their session and call a new legislature, the Revolution might be considered as really in a successful state; but the Report of the Central Committee, which you will have received, prescribes such a superabundance of matter as necessary to be deliberated on and settled by the present assembly, that its end as well as the term of the completion of the constitution can be reduced to no calculation. ”

“ They recognize and support simple, straightforward, inartificial party government, under a standing committee of responsible party leaders, bringing legislature and executive side by side in intimate but open coöperation; whilst we, preferring to keep Congress and the departments at arm's length, permit only a less direct government by party majorities, checking party action by a complex legislative machinery of two score and eight composite, semi-ministerial Committees. The English take their parties straight,—we take ours mixed. ”

“ There would then certainly be a compact opposition to face the organized majority. Committee reports would be taken to represent the views of the party in power, and, instead of the scattered, unconcerted opposition, without plan or leaders, which now sometimes subjects the propositions of the Committees to vexatious hindrances and delays, there would spring up debate under skillful masters of opposition, who could drill their partisans for effective warfare and give shape and meaning to the purposes of the minority. ”

“ The legislation of the country is handled almost entirely in committees. It requires a possible revolution to overcome the hostility of a committee, even if the House and the country are otherwise minded. ”

“ Never did any representative assembly encounter so fearful a responsibility as the present Congress. Each member must vote as if the fate of the Union and of humanity depended upon his action. He must rise above the passing clouds of passion and prejudice, of State, local, or selfish interests, into the serene and holy atmosphere, illumined by the light of truth, and warmed by the love of his country and of mankind. His only inquiry must be, What will save the nation? ”

“ If we recollect how many states have lost their liberties, merely from want of communication with each other, and union among themselves, we shall think that these committees may be intended by Providence to accomplish great events. ”

“ I am pleasd to hear that a provincial Congress is proposd, and cannot but promise my self that the firm manly and persevering Opposition of that single province will operate to the total frustration of the villainous Designs of our Tyrants and their Destruction.
I hope the Committee will continue to act up to their Dignity and Importance.—I am yet of Opinion that Heaven will honor them with a great Share of the Merit of saving the Rights of all America. May God inspire them with Wisdom & Fortitude. ”

“ The duties of the Executive Committee shall be to execute all resolutions of Congress, and to see that they are strictly observed by all sections and members, to organize and centralize the propaganda, to represent the organization at home and abroad, to entertain and open relations with the workingmen’s parties of other countries, to make a quarterly report to the sections concerning the status of the organization and its financial position, to make all necessary preparations for the Congress as well as a detailed report on all party matters. ”

“ In nearly all Unions any suggestion as to the desirability of adopting the middle-class device of entrusting a responsible Executive Committee with the power of choosing its own officers has been resented as undemocratic. [649] In some Unions the indispensable amount of unity is secured, not without internal friction, by the presence of some dominant personality, who may be a secretary or president, or merely a member of the Executive Committee. The same drawback is seen in the constitutions of such wider federations as the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party. ”

“ Then there was the question as to the composition of the new government, and it was resolved that the committee should avail themselves to the utmost of the established order, eliminating all cruelties. Thus, for the present, because no better scheme can come forth, ready-made, from human brains, the socialized State will continue. ”

“ As a business meeting the whole function of the Congress is discharged in the election of the Parliamentary Committee, to which the representation of the Trade Union world for the ensuing year is entrusted.
In the first edition of this book, in 1894, we gave a description of the work of the Parliamentary Committee which it is interesting to recall:
The duties of the Parliamentary Committee have never been expressly defined by Congress, and it will easily be understood that resolutions of the kind we have described afford but little guidance for practical work. ”

“ We cannot keep the Civil Service in a sound and healthy condition if we are going to examine into it by a committee every five years. If the House of Commons were to yield to the very natural temptation of granting a committee such as had been asked for, though we might escape an inconvenient division, we should be unworthy, in my opinion, of bearing any longer the great responsibility of being the enormous employer of labor that we are. ”

“ But we prided ourselves on our liberties as Americans, and an appeal was to be made to the first citizen of the land, the President of the United States. A committee of Western men were appointed, which would be augmented by others at the national capital, and it was proposed to lay the bare facts in the chief executive’s hands and at least ask for a modification of the order. ”

“ His work during the Revolution was less noteworthy, and was at times open to criticism. Thus, he was one of the strongest supporters of the committee system of national administration, and one of those who delayed unnecessarily and unfortunately the organization of executive departments under single heads. ”

“ There is, in fact, no guarantee that there will be any unity of policy within an Executive Committee elected by a dozen different districts, or between an Executive Committee and its leading officials, who are elected at different times for different reasons. The members may choose a majority of reactionary Executive Councillors and simultaneously a revolutionary General Secretary. ”

“ It was surprising to see at his first attendance there, men, who, while he was President, had been the loudest to call out "Coalition, Bargain, Intrigue, Corruption," come forward and express the involuntary confidence they felt in his wisdom and integrity, and their fear, actual though baseless, that his withdrawal from the Committee on Manufactures would "endanger the very Union itself." ”

“ It is impossible to regard the Party structure or any local organization as something unshakably firm and not liable to undergo changes. The Party Committee must systematically check the distribution of members between different cells, check the expediency of the organization of the cell, carry out regrouping of the members of the cell in order in each separate case and at each concrete moment, to concentrate the best forces of the Party round the most important sectors of the front of the class struggle. ”

“ All who were ever present at the meetings of the council must know with what zeal the cause of the citizens was there defended. A committee of the Council of State received all the petitions of the Empire, and laid before the Sovereign those which deserved his attention.
With the exception of lawyers and persons employed in the administration, it is surprising how far the rest of society were ignorant of our political legislation. No one had a correct idea of the Council of State, of the Legislative Body, or of the Senate. ”