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or national unions. The result was that they had acquaintances among the men who were then in the AF of L building, men they'd known back in the days when they were in the carpenters' union, or something or other. The result was that they came to call on a friend and just hung around.

Sometime this relationship was quite good and you could get some help, but more often they just wasted time in talking. The officials of the AF of L and other national unions in Washington didn't have much to do. It's not a very heavy job. That's changing a good deal as the unions are becoming more competitive, as their members demand more services, and as they have much larger memberships. However, that's in 1953 and originally they were likely to be quite idle and glad of some place to go to talk things over, very often talking over very small matters.

However, the Conciliation Service was highly regarded by the unions everywhere, by the locals as well as by the national offices in Washington, because here was somebody who would go and do something in the strikes that they were losing, or that they weren't able to pull off. I realized that if I was to follow this rule, to send a conciliator, whether asked for or not, that I was sure was right, I must reorganize the place so that we knew where the conciliators were. That was another thing I discovered. They never