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to the conclusion that there should be a law to require collective bargaining. I've explained already why he had been so offended by the refusal of a number of employers to meet with committees of their workers, even when the committee of which he was chairman in the NRA had sought to mediate and to bring the two parties together. He had come to the conclusion, first, emotionally that there should be a law to make them do it, and, second, as he thought it over and had Rifkind draft various preliminary sketches of such a bill, he had become more and more convinced that there ought to be a law with teeth in it.

Wagner talked about that a good deal with different people. He talked about it with Johnson. He talked about it with Richberg. He talked about it with me. I might as well be perfectly clear and say here that I never thought very well of the idea of having a National Labor Relations Act. I thought it was hazardous both for the labor movement and for the country as a whole to have the matter of labor relations settled by an administrative body by law. I thought that if they couldn't reach a voluntary agreement either by agreement or by the contest of stength of the two parties, nothing was gained by having the government step in and say, “You have to do this and