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you're talking to a patient. It became kind of annoying to hear it -- there was lecturing.

So it's not a simple kind of thing. I wish I knew, or could have examples to select, where this thing has been in some way handled differently or resolved. I don't know of any.

But that's the way you worked! That's the way you're effective. We tried consciously to do the opposite. I always felt that it was the easiest thing to do, is to do it yourself. The easiest way to go. You had a job to do -- do it yourself. You start to involve other people in doing it, first of all it ain't going to get done the way you want it done and you're going to waste a lot of time. If you're in a hurry to get things done, you do it yourself.

But you're saying also that you had absorbed a style of organization and a style of work.

A style of work. It's a style of work. You see there is no question in your own mind or in the minds of those who are working with you -- it began to change later -- that you have no self interest here. See you're not doing it to, you know, get yourself more money or that kind of thing -- which is a traditional way of doing it. That's why I think that the Blacks who came in to leadership couldn't understand that. They couldn't understand that at all. Their attitude was -- and I guess not only Blacks but even Whites who were coming forward -- the only reason you do this is to make more money, a better job. So that once we set that aside, what we were doing is for the angels. You know, we were doing the work of the gods for the members. At these meetings in the early days and even later on, you know, Davis was even regarded, he was blacker than the Blacks. He was the blackest of all.

I think this analysis is very important because 1199 has a reputation for having been one of the most progressive, most democratic, most militant unions and yet, it appears from what you're saying that in a sense there was a fatal flaw, or a fatal weakness.

Yes. There was a major flaw in this thing.

It's important, I think, for you to say, you know, what the meaning of it is for the labor movement in general -- if you could possibly generalize about it.

I am reluctant to generalize for the labor movement, because that's a very big hunk to talk for. Because the unions are very different