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he admits, but that was a very, very, very terrible mistake that the union suffered from because of it. He never wanted to take on Doris on anything.

The mistake was simply in the selection of her as a successor.

The selection and the treatment of her as a --

What about the treatment?

Well, I think he treated her like she could do no wrong. He would make speeches saying that, “She's more like the members than I will ever be. She represents you.” And whenever she did anything that was -- for example, they worked out a plan where Doris would meet with Davis weekly to discuss events, things, you know. She stopped coming. Davis never said anything. Jesse Olson --

Jesse Olson, the executive vice president.

He always mistrusted Doris for this reason, and it was a symbol, symptomatic of the problems. He would fire staff members who he thought were ineffective and didn't work.

Jesse would.

The next day they were hired by Doris. Davis never said anything, but it was undermining Jesse. It meant that people he thought that were incompetent were ending up as organizers, and they became her strongest allies. So she was cleverly building that. There was an election for members of the election board. We didn't give attention to that. Whoever won won. She planted somebody who she wanted to win. That person won. In various committees, so when issues came up that we didn't expect would ever come up, she had the votes there. She had carefully built this up, and we had helped her do it, Davis had. But I think it stems from the way we worked at that time and our outlook.

Was there anything about the approach that represented a patronizing or condescending tone that might have turned Doris against Davis at any point, assuming that she [cross talk]

Well, there are certain ways Davis worked to show her. Davis was not the most skilled person in dealing with like black women. Now, when he decided it was Doris, it was Doris, you know, always speaking affectionately about her and “Will you do this and do that?” You know, to many of us it sounded very, very patronizing.