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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

telephone conversations, and he began to do some research for us. He was interested in it, and he was covering it for his paper. He began to do research on the state law and how it came into being and who was covered and why not, and all that kind of thing. Although the first national piece that was done on it was done in the Los Angeles Times by a reporter named Murray Seeger. Murray Seeger did a story in which he used a lot of stuff we gave him, which included cartoons that were distributed by the management during the early period of the organizing drive that were really from the Civil War time, you know, really racist cartoons, and he reproduced some of them. Also, he used something that we gave him that he liked. When they were trying to head off the union, they gave them an additional holiday, Robert E. Lee's birthday.

Q:

The management was just a backward, racist management?

Foner:

It was racist.

Q:

But they had sophisticated attorneys.

Foner:

They were sophisticated, but they were racist. They were very, very racist. The president of the hospital, William McCord, was born in South Africa, and later on, Andy became very close to him.

Q:

Really?

Foner:

Yes, Andy will go through every door to find a way of getting to somebody.

I remember Jack Bass telling me, you know, he'd say, “Have you ever been in the South before?”

I'd say, “No.”

“Look, Moe, before you go any further, you better get hold of the book by Cash, The Mind of the South, and read it, so you'll understand a little bit of what you're into here.”

I didn't have time to read it. I took his word for it.

The other person who was very helpful was William Vanden Heuvel. Bill Vanden Heuvel was at that time the representative of the Kennedys. He had been close to John F. Kennedy and he was very close to Teddy Kennedy. His wife at that time was Jean Vanden Heuvel, now Jean Stein. I remember I met Bill Vanden Heuvel with Stanley and Andy at the Vanden Heuvel home in New York, where we were telling him about the strike, and he expressed interest and he





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