Dubinsky turned him down. Lucchi next appealed to AFL President Green, who appointed a committee composed of Woll, Dubinsky, and Sidney Hillman (President of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers) to consider a fund-raising effort. But the committee would not meet until June 18, and by then the union would have collapsed. Given Green's disinclination to support the IFWU in 1927, some scholars conclude that Green purposefully delayed the committee meeting in order to let the IFWU collapse. At the IFWU convention in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the week of May 19, 1935, delegates voted to establish a Unity Committee whose charge was to seek and win immediate merger with the NTWIU. The committee met on May 27, 1935, with its NTWIU counterparts, and quickly hammered out a merger agreement. The merger convention opened on June 20, 1935, at the Manhattan Opera House. In a final attempt to stall merger, on June 19 Green announced that any union which admitted communists as members would have its charter pulled by the AFL Executive Council. The merger proceeded despite Green's threat. More than 3,000 delegates from the NTWIU met on an upper floor, and about 2,500 delegates (nearly all the union's members) from the IFWU met on the ground floor. The same speakers addressed both conventions, although by prior agreement Gold was not permitted to speak. When Gold appeared about an hour after the two conventions opened, he was greeted with chants of "We want Gold!", "Let Gold speak!", and "Gold! Gold!" Gold sat impassive in his seat while he received a standing ovation, and it was clear that a wide majority of the members of both conventions supported him. On June 21, Lucchi and the executive board of the merged organization met in Long Island City, Queens, and reinstated Gold as a member in good standing of the IFWU. Under an agreement reached by the merger conventions, leadership elections for the New York City locals of the merged IFWU took place 40 days later. Gold was elected to his old position of business manager of the Joint Council on August 10, 1935, defeating a candidate put forth by the AFL by a greater than 2-to-1 majority. Gold was business manager of the New York City Joint Council for two years. Since the IFWU had just held its biennial convention in May 1935, new elections for officers of the international union could not be held until 1937. So, despite overwhelming member support, Gold had to wait to run for president of the IFWU.