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on its own activities within the overall framework of the PUL program, signed up
new members, and (after the first year or so) collected its own dues, sending a
portion to the central organization. Additionally, each local elected representatives
to serve for one year on the PUL General Council of Delegates on a proportional
basis.57
The General Council of Delegates was, in the words of the PUL
constitution, "the Supreme law-making body of the People's Unemployment
League." It was an active decision-making body, by accounts, meeting usually
every other week, and at its height it numbered well over a hundred people. To
administer the organization, the General Council elected an Executive Committee
which included the organization's officers, the chairs of its committees, and a few
others. The Executive Committee was scheduled to meet weekly and, in mid-1934,
was comprised of 17 people including the six officers of the league. The function of
the committees of the Executive Committee was to give guidance to the locals as
they established their own activities and to coordinate the local activities with the
overall organization. These committees corresponded to the major programmatic
points and organizational needs of the PUL: the Adjustment Committee (for
advocacy with relief agencies), the Mutual Aid Committee, the Legislative
Committee, the Education Committee, the Finance Committee, and the
Membership Committee. In 1935, as the PUL engaged in increasing protest
activity, a Protest Committee was instituted.
The dialectic between centralization and decentralization in this
organizational structure was not only democratic in the sense that it allowed for a
great deal of rank-and-file initiative and input to the decision making process, it
was also functional for rapidly mobilizing and organizing a large number of people
in a short time. Even if they had wanted to, the tiny group of Socialists behind the
PUL could not have devised a despotic structure that would have effectively
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