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an autonomous division, and the way you develop leadership is by letting the leader go off and learn from his or her mistakes. I think in retrospect it's racist. I think there was a form of racism. Also, the fact is that what certainly is racist is to make her the only good talented and gifted black. Everybody else is dirt, she's the only one that's good.

Was that the attitude that you had?

Well, Davis criticized everybody else but never criticized her. That's what, in essence, is it. Now, in our permitting and not tackling Davis on it, is that we concurred. This requires a much more serious analysis with more people, but I would want to put that down.

Do you think that was in any way a lack of democracy in the union that allowed it to happen?

Well, explain how would a more democratic situation have avoided that?

I don't know exactly. My thought is that it shouldn't be the responsibility or the prerogative of the incumbent leader to single out the successor. There must be a more democratic process by which the successor actually rises up. That, of course, may be an abstract ideal.

See, I think that's an abstract ideal. Let me say this. A labor union is an institution like any other institution, because it operates where the leaders spend full time in it, and the members are -- it's a part time job for them. They have less interest and concern, and there's a tendency to leave it to the leaders. The other thing is that in the way we ran the union, the union was always in a state of siege. It was always a “we” and “they” situation. Anytime people raised questions it was, “You're doing the work of the boss.” Anytime people raised opposition, “You're playing in to the boss' hands.”

Inside the union.

Inside the union. “That's what management wants. If there's anything we must do, we must be united.” That sounds good and that sounds right. That's good when everybody's together. But for example in the late 1960s, with the growth of the student movement and the SDS kind of interest in democracy, and it was beginning to be reflected in the guild. People were coming -- you know, those with ideas that were prevalent. We would beat them down fast because they might have a tendency to undermine and attack the leadership. They tended to be that kind of thing. We used to have battles in the guild on that kind of thing, where these radical groups would come in and start