The Arbitration Committee, or Board, consisted of Mr. Carl Meyer, representing the firm, and Clarence Darrow, representing the employes.  The office of chairman was not filled until December, 1912, when Mr. J.E.  Williams was chosen.  The Board settled the questions around which the dispute had arisen, and an agreement for two years between the firm and the workers was signed.  For some time the Board continued to handle fresh complaints, but it gradually became apparent that the Board, composed of busy men, could not hear all the minor grievances.  The result of a conference was the organization of a permanent body, the Trade Board, to deal with all such matters, as these arose, or before they arose, reserving to both parties the right of appeal to the Arbitration Board.  The plan can be judged from the following clauses in the constitution of the Trade Board: 

TRADE BOARD

The Trade Board shall consist of eleven members who shall, if possible, be practical men in the trade; all of whom, excepting the chairman, shall be employes of said corporation; five members thereof shall be appointed by the corporation, and five members by the employes.  The members appointed by the corporation shall be certified in writing by the corporation to the chairman of the board, and the members appointed by the employes shall be likewise certified in writing by the joint board of garment workers of Hart Schaffner & Marx to said chairman.  Any of said members of said board, except the chairman, may be removed and replaced by the power appointing him, such new appointee to be certified to the chairman in the same manner as above provided for.

DEPUTIES

The representatives of each of the parties of the Trade Board shall have the power to appoint deputies for each branch of the trade, that is to say, for cutters, coat makers, trouser makers and vest makers.

APPEAL TO ARBITRATION BOARD

In case either party should desire to appeal from any decision of the Trade Board, or from any change of these rules by the Trade Board, to the Board of Arbitration, they shall have the right to do so upon filing a notice in writing with the Trade Board of such intention within thirty days from the date of the decision, and the said Trade Board shall then certify said matter to the Board of Arbitration, where the same shall be given an early hearing by a full Board of three members.

The Trade Board was accordingly organized, with Mr. James Mullenbach, Acting Superintendent of the United Charities of Chicago, as chairman.

When the time approached for the renewal of the agreement, the closed or open shop was the point around which all discussions turned.  Eventually, neither was established, but instead the system of preference to unionists was adopted.  It was thus expressed: