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and Hull. I said that the Secretary of State and Attorney General chose to regard this as a general strike, and that as a general strike they believed the military ought to be called out. I believed that that would be completely disastrous and would prevent any settlement of the longshore strike, or any other, in any reasonable time, that it would be bad, and that, as a matter of fact, it was not a general strike. There was no purpose. There was no plan. There was no strike fund. There was no deliberate, spontaneous and purposeful action taken. I said that I could assure him that this strike of different trades would be over in a very few days, if we held off. I said that in the meantime conciliators were at work, and so forth and so on.

I remember that I lived through a torrible day of nervousness. Mr. Hull's message went through too, of course, but mine did got there first. The President's reply was a confused reply. It said: Thanks for your estimate of situation. In other means fail you might offer complete arbitration all employers and all unions involved on three conditions: First, work to be resumed: Second, interunion agreement to be actually suspended: Third, decision of arbitors to bind all parties for a definite period as long as possible. If you think advisable you can issue any statement or offer as coming from me or with my approval. It occurs to me the country as a whole may not understand the history of the strike and that with any statement you may went to clarify the issues publicly. Confidential: Please consult with Hull and Cummings as to our authority to maintain food supply in affected areas, and with this concurrent maintenance of traffic and order. I am inclined to think after Howe's radio today it is at present best for me not to consider change my itinerary. Keep Howe in touch. Wire me Monday. Roosevelt.

I forgot to mention that after I left Cummings and Hull I went over to the hite House and saw Howe. Howe sent him a message separately. I think in my message I had said that he had better come back if Hull was going to go through with this.

The President's answer was almost perfect although it was confused. It settled nothing, but nothing better could have happened when to have the President settle nothing. It was a sop to Cummings and Hull, in that I was told to consult with them about how to keep the food supply going. That meant they hadn't been ignored. It also meant that I had won in the contest between we and Hull and Cummings over what should be done in this matter, because the President proposed a complicated, even if imaginary, system of arbitration. There wasn't anything to arbitrate. He didn't know that and there was no way of telling him. There weren't any information agreements. There weren't any grievances to be arbitrated with the