until 1902, when he was named Commissioner General of Immigration by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. The eventuality of a Grand Master's incapacity to serve was provided for by the periodic election of a Vice Grand Master, nominally the second ranking officer of the organization. In practice, however, the number two functionary in the "Grand Lodge" of officers of the B of LF was the Grand Secretary and Treasurer—running the organization's office on a day-to-day basis and providing for the publication of the B of LF's monthly magazine. The first Grand Secretary and Treasurer was William Sayre of Galion, Ohio, who professed to be a staunch advocate of the theory that personal virtue and good character, economic efficiency and a stable and democratic republic were closely interrelated. While Sayre espoused these sacred values on a theoretical plain, in practice his behavior seems to have been rather more profane. In July 1880, a young locomotive fireman turned city clerk from Terre Haute, Indiana named Eugene V. Debs was elected as Grand Secretary and Treasurer of the B of LF. Upon gaining access to the books, Debs discovered that his predecessor had been embezzling funds from the organization. With the B of LF about $6,000 in debt, Debs stabilized the organization's shaky finances with a promissory note which he personally backed and began a new era of careful financial management. Two years later, the Brotherhood had recovered, with nearly $13,000 in the bank to the credit of the organization's 6,000 members. Debs was named editor of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine in 1881 and he remained in that capacity and in the position of Grand Secretary and Treasurer until September 1894. While remaining supportive of the B of LF and its limited mission, over time Debs began to feel the insufficiency of a mere fraternal benefits to solve the fundamental problems facing locomotive firemen and other railway workers, which were often financial in nature and seemed to call for collective action. In 1893, Debs was instrumental in forming an industrial union bringing together railway workers of all occupational tasks, the American Railway Union (ARU). This organization conducted several strikes for higher wages and better working conditions before ultimately being broken by judicial injunction in the 1894 Pullman strike. Change of name The 23rd Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, held in Milwaukee in September 1906, took the step of expanding the scope of