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and knock around and come out with fantastic ideas. That's because of the experience we had, and of the kind of union we had, was to be able to make these ideas work. Because it was easy for me to spin a web to the endowments, to the staff people. “This is what we're going to do. We're going to do this, we're going to do it this way and that way.” I'm sure as they listened to me they wanted to do it. They must have said, “Listen, we've heard this before from other people.” You know, “It's a good idea but listen, we'll give them a crack. Listen, we need a labor program anyway.” I'm sure, I'm sure, that nobody believed us. That we could do what we said we wanted to do. That's the real strength of Bread and Roses. Our ability to carry it out. The only reason we could carry it out was not because -- it was a good idea. Granted, it was a great idea. But more important, we had the kind of organizational structure that could do it. I don't think any other union could have carried it out.

What specifically about the organizational structure made it possible?

What made it possible was first the delegates structure, and the closeness between the delegates and the members. Our ability to reach down to the members, and to track and bring members to programming. I originally had the idea. It wasn't a genius, but it was an interesting thing. I began to think in terms of the performances in the hospitals. Let me explain that. See, all the things we'd done before we'd done through ticket selling. Ticket selling is very difficult, in the sense that it depends largely upon the staff. The organizer has to then go to the delegate, and the organizer has to go around with tickets for different events. So that when we would have events, we had to be careful. I could not have too many events, because for fear of overloading the organizers.

So, before Bread and Roses I would do a film series. We would emphasize to the organizer -- [Telephone rings. Tape stops and starts] I would try to come up with a program, say like three films, where you would ask the organizer, “Sell the series ticket.” So you sell it once, and if we can sell 250 series tickets, you're in. Because then I'll push for the individual things at the event, and through the magazine. I would say, “We're going to have these programs take place in the Reuther Room,” which is a room that seats like 150. So I only need 100 people and I'm in good shape. So if I got them to put out, to sell those things, I have the series going. Then we take names and addresses of people who attend, and we begin mailing. The next series we send out, so you pick up sixty people through the mail. Or every theater program that we'd have, “If you're interested in more