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the cost of the automobile. I kept saying that you could raise the price of labor considerably without affecting that fourteen per cent by more than a fraction, because it was such a small per cent of the total cost. That was not true in all industries. In coal the labor cost is seventy-seven per cent. But whenever we would talk about the practical thing of what to do in this particular factory, or this particular strike that was now going on, they would alwasy come back to intricate figuring, which Sloan simply loves. That's his line, figuring how much it's going to cost to sell, what the price is going to be, what the competitive price is, and so on. He was convinced that any recognition of the union, or any dealing with the union, would almost immediately, within a very short time, raise their labor cost to such a point that they would not be able to compete in the general market, not only with other cars, butwith other things that would satisfy the American people instead of a car. He was still sold on the idea that the car had to kept low in price or the American people wouldn't buy it. They'd buy something else that gave them just as much pleasure if the car wasn't low in price.

Sloan was very hard to deal with, even on that day, although it was, on the whole, an amiable meeting.