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I say, “What do you want me to do?” I call up Clark and I say, “I know it's not fair for me to ask you, but I'm telling you that I was just called by Mr. Weingarten to tell me that tomorrow morning's meeting is critical.” That morning there was an editorial in the Times directed to the directors, not saying, “Dear Director,” but very clear that as a public responsibility, you cannot have a strike over this issue, let these workers vote to determine whether they should have a union. And they agreed to have a vote.

There's many things that happened in this. There's a famous letter that Davis wrote to Cherkasky at one point. There's a brief extract in the history of Montefiore that just came out. I have a copy of the book, in which Davis appealed to Cherkasky, “In terms of your background, how can you permit this thing to happen? If we have to go on strike, we'll go on strike, and maybe we'll go down the tube, but it will be on your conscience that you destroyed this union.”

Later, Cherkasky told us that that letter had an enormous impact on him, that he was very, very concerned about it. He was conflicted.

So you've got all of these things happening, and then we have these meetings with Felix. The mayor did not get directly involved in it, except at the end when all the things are being arranged, and there's meetings with Van Arsdale, etc., and finally there's an agreement to have an election. An election takes place in December, on December 8th or 7th, something like that, and it's ninety percent-plus vote for the union. It's incredible. Then, there's a committee set up and a contract agreed to. I remember that one Saturday, Cherkasky asked Davis and me, the three of us, to come to his office at Montefiore, where he will sign the contract. I had told Clark that this was going to happen, and he said, “Remember, I told you that on weekends I am in charge of the editorial page, so call me before 2:00 o'clock if it's signed.”

So I get on the phone about 1:00 o'clock and I call him, and I said, “I have good news. The contract has been signed.” And I tell him what's in it.

He says to me, “If you had to mention names in an editorial, which names would you mention?”

So I say, “Leon Davis, Victor Riesenfeld, and Martin Cherkasky, and Harry Van Arsdale, and I would pay respects to the mayor.” That's the kind of editorial that appeared on Monday. It said that this should set the pattern for hospital labor relations, and it's a good omen for hospital labor relations in this city.