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puzzle and puzzle with the name, and I say to myself, “Victor Weingarten, he was with George Seldes on In Fact.” That was a newsletter before I.F. Stone's Weekly. And sure enough, he was. Davis and I went to meet with him privately and began to talk to him about the situation, and he was sympathetic to us, but he was saying, “Listen, you know, it's a complicated kind of thing.” But I would be able to talk to him daily, what's happening in the hospital. He's asking me what's happening on the outside.

Van Arsdale is already beginning to arrange things with me, and the mayor assigns Harold Felix as labor commissioner to the issue.

Here's how we worked. It's Elliott's responsibility to organize the workers and to keep the workers in motion and to do that as an organizer. It's our responsibility, my responsibility, with the press and the public, and with Davis' help, with the politicians. Now, the politicians are helped also because Jimmy Wechsler is a very important guy with political people. Jimmy Wechsler can fashion an editorial, which he always did. Like if we were going after Wagner, he would write an editorial that was directed at Wagner. You couldn't tell. You didn't say “Mayor Wagner this,” but he knows the argument and the problem and the dilemma that Wagner has. And so he'll address himself to that. He was always brilliant enough to do that in editorials, and yet in his column he would be broader and deal with the emotional, the problems of workers, and interviewing them, and that kind of thing.

So Wechsler plays a key role in this thing.

Wechsler plays a key role, and he plays a key role throughout his life in helping our union.

I'm just curious about him as a particular individual. What motivated him, do you think?

Well, Wechsler had come out of this -- remember, he was in the Naming Names book by Navasky. I think he always was a political animal and also had a tremendous sense of justice and fair play. We're talking before the sit-ins in the South. What we're doing now --

Right after Montgomery.

And I left out the business of our going to the black and Hispanic community, because we did.

Don't leave that out. We'll have to come back.