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did not recommend union recognition, but he recommended something that was like it. We waited for the hospitals to respond first. We didn't want that stuff. We wanted union recognition. The hospitals rejected it. We said we accepted it. Nothing ever happened, but we could always point to -- and I'll come back to that at the end because that was very significant.

The other things that are important to keep in mind here -- just for history's sake -- Van Arsdale was in constant communication by phone with George Meany because Van Arsdale and the Central Labor Council was leading a strike of hospital workers against the public interest thing and George Meany was not the strongest person to strike hospitals or in any other place.

But I remember I was present many times when Van Arsdale called Meany. And I remember there was a meeting in -- it's now a television station or theater on Sixteenth Street or Eighteenth Street off Union Square -- an ILG meeting hall. Roosevelt Auditorium, it was called. That's where the Central Labor Council used to meet and that's where the meetings of the labor union leaders took place. I remember that once there was a meeting of labor union leaders on the hospital strike that overflowed that hall. These were all leaders. The highlights of that meeting were speeches by hospital workers. We brought in four or five hospital workers who made speeches to them and they really broke them apart. As a result of which, not only did we get money, but unions turned out members to picket lines. We could get hundreds. There would be a Central Labor Council demonstration at Beth Israel Hospital. You'd get a couple of thousand labor leaders and rank and filers on the picket line.

[END TAPE]

It was a different labor movement even in 1959?

It was a different labor movement in '59, but this strike really captured the imagination of the union leaders. It reminded them of their past. Mike Quill, I remember a speech he made, and we have it in the film. Quill's speech is in the film. You see, the film, “Hospital Strike” is a “must” for people who really want to see what happened in that strike. That film does it very well, and we did it hastily. I don't know if I told you that story.

Why don't you finish on Mike Quill.

Quill had a contract at Columbia University for the maintenance people, like fifteen to twenty people, that he'd gotten