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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

So I go in to him and I show it to him. I show a sampling of it to him. I don't have all the slides. He looks at me and says, “Moe, it's terrific. You've answered our problem.”

I said, “Why? What's the problem?”

“We're preparing for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the AFL at our next convention. We're thinking about what can we have to give to every member there. “Images of Labor,” we'll get it for every member.”

I say, “You get it. We'll give you a special rate.”

Okay. He gives me the name of a guy, some guy they took out of the CWA, an old-line guy, to work on this thing at the convention. They've started a series of meetings and discussions with him that went on endlessly, and every time I knew there was a problem, a first it was, “Irving Howe has written the essay.” Now Irving Howe's essay is very good. Irving Howe! I got my brother Phil yelling over Irving Howe, got them yelling over Irving Howe.

Q:

For different reasons.

Foner:

Irving Howe was part of the opposition with the DSOC, at that time regarded as opposition. Then they now have a copy of the book, and it's a beautiful book. Nobody's put out a book like that in the labor movement in 5,000 years. They now tell me, “What's this quotation you got from Woody Guthrie?”

Q:

Which one was it? I forget.

Foner:

The cover. The hardhat. When I was doing that thing, I was concerned. I wanted something that would be broad. That's why I have Gompers, I have George Meany. One of the artists, Honore Scherrer, a very fine artist, the only artist who said that she didn't want to do it, because we gave the quotation to the artist. It was the kind of thing we knew they would do, the kind of work they did. It was based on the George Meany quotation. When we gave it, Honore Scherrer called me up, and I knew her because we had used one of her works in the “Working American” exhibition. She lives up near Rochester and I met her when we had the exhibition at the Memorial Art Museum. She says, “Moe, I'll tell you I just don't want to do this. I don't like to say this to you and I want to be in this project, but I don't want to do this quotation.” I even picked a good quotation, a trickle- down thing. I had to spend weeks going around to find the exact





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