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Anyhow, they had a little chat about this awful occasion out there, and the President said, “Well, it's a terrible mess, and the employers haven't acted well.” Then he said, “A plague on both their houses.”

Well of course, why Charlie Taft took it into his head to repeat that to the Press when he came out, I don't know-- except that he thought it was a cute thing to have said. He thought it was bright, you know. He felt relieved. The President had said they were both wrong, they were both crazy, a plague on both of them--if they'd only behave like human beings, it would be all right. It was what he had in mind. It didn't mean a thing, you know.

That very next day--or two days later--Lewis issued this statement to the Press, in which he said the exact words he had said to me a month or six weeks earlier, pointing out that the President had said “A plague on both your houses,” and this showed where his heart was and what kind of a heart he had. He made this terrific denunciation. Of course, the Press carried it in big headlines and spread it all over the country, as he must have anticipated that they would.

I remember it because of Alfred Sloan, who came to my office that same day, with Myron Taylor and somebody else. I had Owan D. Young in reserve, so that they were all in the office together, and Sloan came in bearing this newspaper.