At the sixth constitutional convention of the congress of industrial organization, held in Philadelphia, November 1-5, 1945, the political action committee of the CIO was formed. The Leaders of the CIO sensed the need for a labor political arm. They felt that careful analysis of the elections of the immediately previous years revealed a growing conservative trend in government. They were not positive as to how they could best cope with the situation which threatened to destroy all the progress that had been made in the early years of the new deal. This conservative element appeared very strong and unified. The workers, their leaders, and liberal progressive sympathizers felt inadequate to grapple with them in their then disorganized and dissolute condition. In 1942, out of a potential 80,000,000 voters only 28,000,000 went to the polls. The greatest lethargy existed among the workers and the naturally more progressive elements in the voting population. The apparents reason for their lethargy was that they had small choice among candidates... There was little difference in the voting records of republican ham fish or democrat martin dies. Both democrats were either voting no or not at all on the most vital legislation before congress... and so the election slipped by.