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his very best to get hold of union leaders whom he thought that he and the CIO could influence, and get them to try to call it off. They tried, but they had no control over some of the people who worked in that plant who continued to pull strikes, stoppages and allthat sort of thing.

There were other cases where Hillman used all the influence that he had to bring the union to a sensible position. I think he did a good many things of that sort. But he laid down the law to employers who wanted contracts.

But almost from the time that the Defense Mediation Board began to crumble, and you could see it was going to collapse, I tried to keep it alive by persuasion. I remember Will Davis saying to me, “Well, you might as well let it go. We're all so mad now, everybody's stirred up, that I think it might be a good idea to let it die and rest in peace a few weeks. I agree with you that the President will have to create something else, but the fact that it has died and rests in peace will make a more amiable disposition. The labor boys will jolly well miss it when they find they haven't got it, and they'll be reasonable. The employers know in their hearts that they need something like this. Let it go.”

But then, of course, came Pearl Harbor, and we couldn't wait any longer. We had been having talks all this time with individuals and with groups, planning the revival,