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I thought that he probably was right, that they were trouble-markers, but, after all, I was the Secretary of Labor. They were making troubles about conditions in the steel mills and I wanted to hear them. He said, “They're just disgruntled men who've been fired from the steel company years ago. They're always making trouble.”

I said, “Well, let me make a speech to them right here. I'll make a few remarks right here, Mr. Burgess.”

“No, I won't have any speech-making from this building.”

By this time this disgruntled crowd had grown to be quite a crowd. Perhaps the original disgruntled trouble- makers numbered only about twenty, but of course as soon as there was trouble they swelled to a couple of hundred. They were all eyeing me to see what I would do when the Burgess told me I couldn't speak.

Right across the street from the Burgess was a public park - trees, benches and a little square. So I said, “Well, that's too bad. We'll go over to the park and there I'll have a chance to meet you. I'll say what I have to say and you'll tell me what's wrong.”

“You can't do that,” said the Burgess. “You can't do that! It's against the law - against the law! There's a law in this town that there's to be no public assembly in the parks, no street meetings, no public assembly permitted in this town.”