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He said, “I think it's all right. I think you should see him.”

I said, “All right. Tell him that I will see him directly after the morning session of the AF of L this morning. I'm speaking at the morning session. I will stay on the platform until the morning section is over. Just as it's breaking up, instead of going down into the aisle I will go backstage. There is always a room backstage and he can meet me back there. You come along too.” I had just sense enough to have a witness.

At this time I had no knowledge whatever of what kind of a man Bridges was, or might be. Only the roughest kinds of descriptions of him had come to me over the telephone from McGrady, Eliot and the conciliators who were dealing with him. They had said to me that he had taken a kind of half leadership of the longshore group and that they thught he showed a good deal of sense, although he didn't have any experience at all as a union leader or as a negotiator. But he was doing pretty well. There seemed to be a gradual growth among the longshoremen of a sense of reliance on him, allowing him to be the spokesman.

I was considerably surprised when I saw him. I