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me, “Oh well, I suppose shall soon get hold of them, I shall soon get hold of this, but really, they are stupid! Oh, they are so stupid--they are so stick-in-the-mud.”

He wanted them to forge ahead and do great dynamic things. He had terrific imagination. Then he began being restless about this Federation. They wouldn't do what he wanted them to do, and he was very vocative. The great complaint that the A.F. of L., the Executive Board, had against Hillman was that “Sidney wants everything done in a day. He wants to make suggestions. You know, a newcomer ought to keep still a while.”

I funnelled this information to Hillman. “Well, I have kept still for two months. How much longer shell I keep still?”

I suggested a little time, you know. Let things wear themselves. But he was very anxious to get going--I mean, he had this driving ambition, and he felt really that he could take over the whole A.F. of L. and run it.

I'm pretty sure that Hillman did most of the planning, because he described to me as early as '34 what he had in mind, what he would like to see: a committee formed inside the A.F. of L. to drive ahead with an organization plan, you see. To sort of separate themselves out from the old fuddy-duds in the building trades and so forth who wanted the A.F. of L. just as it was. “We could form a committee and be authorized,