InDecember 1896 the Industrial Action Committee, a small group of Viennese industrialists, sent a memorandum to all Chambers of Commerce in the Cisleithanian halfof the Habsburg monarchy. Arguing that two decades of internecine ethnic and party strife had allowed agrarians, small artisans, and workers to eat away at the material well-being of the “productive classes” (Stände), the committee asked Austrian industrialists of every ethnic and political persuasion to advocate a proindustry platform at all party nominating conventions. Appended to the appeal, which was printed in German, Czech, Polish, and Italian, was a proposal to found a Bund österreichischer Industrieller (League of Austrian Industrialists, henceforth BöI), an organization that would unite industrialists “without regard to nationality, confession, or party affiliation” in concerted economic-political (wirtschafts-politisch) activity.