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to know much about the situation.

I got the Bureau of Labor Statistics people in, all the wiseacres in the Department of Labor, to try to figure out just what these men wanted and why. In a few hours we had laid out what their principal grievances were, what they thought they wanted in the way of a code. They were threatening to have a strike. We said, “How can you strike if you haven't a union and if nobody's working?”

Well, they thought people would walk out to attract attention. They had had a little meeting and had discussed whether they should have a strike, but they had decided to come down to Washington and to see what they could get in the way of a code first. If they didn't get a code, they thought they would have a strike because that would attract attention. Then the Washington people would come rushing out and do something about it. They didn't believe they were going to get any attention any other way. They wanted to see the President. They wanted to tell their story. They had a great line of grievances developed.

The people in the Department of Labor gradually got them kind of reduced to a set of grievances. Then I called up William Green and asked him to come over. He said, “Well, we ought to have Bill Collins here.” Then he told me for the first time that Collins was out there organizing.