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importance. The thing that the industry would not give way on was the recognition of the union and the dealing with the representatives of the workers. That was, I suppose, the primary reason for the breakout of these strikes in the first place, because the demand of the workers with regard to wages, both piece rates and time rates, and to general working conditions, were not at the beginning very exorbitant, and they were not beyond the power and the capacity of the automobile industry even then to meet.

I say “even then” because the automobile industry had been a very badly depressed industry, and had by no means fully recovered its general financial position. Like all other industries of the same sort, it was in debt. It had eaten into its reserves. They were only working part time. There was a terrible lapse of orders and all that kind of thing. But they had begun to recover and they did have some funds, of course. They could have met, and were even discussing, the payment of a somewhat better wage scale.

The automobile industry had not been too difficult to bring into line with regard to the NRA codes. They had been somewhat difficult because they didn't want the government to come in on this thing at all. They wanted