Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324         Page 117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144 of 592

Then the question came up early on. I went to Davis and I said, “You know, this thing, you can't beat Montefiore just the way we're doing it. That's good, but we've got to have public support.”

He said, “That's a good idea. Do it.”

So I said, “I don't know what to do.”

He says, “Figure out what to do.” That's when I started to begin interesting people in our campaign. The first thing was to try to interest people in the fact that there were workers in New York City making thirty and thirty-two dollars a week. It was impossible to convince anybody. You'd call up on the phone, and the moment you said thirty dollars a week, and they said, “Forget it. Come on. Don't kid me. I know that there's a minimum wage.” Before you could say, “They're not covered,” okay.

We were able to get to the Amsterdam News and El Diario first. Amsterdam News, the editor was Jimmy Hicks, now the editor of The New York Age. I remember I would go to Jimmy Hicks. We'd take Teddy Mitchell along, a black, and we'd take a group of workers, and we would tell them what the story was, and he would start writing stories. You know, I'd say, “You write the story of forgotten men and women.” And he would start, “Maybe I'll do an editorial on Montefiore.”

Same thing in El Diario. They would ask, “Bring in a group of workers.” We'd bring in the pay stubs. We said, “That's a month's pay,” because you had to explain. So they were doing feature things, but we couldn't get into the English press until I got to Jimmy Wechsler.

Actually, I think you told me quite a bit of this story at a different point earlier on.

On tape?

On tape. Because we talked about the whole idea of public relations, and you told the story.

All right. But you see the thing is --

Let me ask you. I don't mean to interrupt too much, but give me a little sense of the time table. You were starting to organize in '58.

Montefiore is '58. This is throughout the year in '58.

And at what point do you begin to go to Wechsler? Do you remember the month offhand?