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vote.” Enough held up their hands so that the General said, “All right, he's elected.” That was the election. It would have been all right if it had worked out, but Byrd proved to be a very peculiar person. But the method by which he was chosen, while informal, would have been good enough if everything had worked out properly and the man had been a bona fide competent person. He then told them to appoint a secretary with whom we could correspond. They appointed somebody else - I forget who - and then they went away.

Then Bill Collins came over to see me. He said, “This is the craziest thing I ever heard of. This will never work. I don't know who Byrd is. I never heard of Byrd until today. Nobody out in Detroit knows anything about him. The substantial men in the automobile industry don't know him.”

We began hearing before the afternoon was over from employers who had heard this on the ticker, saying, “Who is Byrd?” They didn't know who Byrd was. I think I had found out by this time where he worked. Anyway, nobody knew him, so he was not a very prominent man in the automobile workers' groups. However, this had been done and I said to Bill Collins, “Well, you'll have to make it work, Bill, that's all. A board will be appointed. You must keep this crowd together.” Some of them came