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the longshoremen, but I can't deal with Mr. Lapham because I haven't got any standing.”

I said, “Well, if they formed a union, would they elect you president of it, Mr. Bridges?”

He said, “I don't know. I don't know at all whether they would or not, but I would worked with anybody. I now seem to have to speak for them because there isn't anybody else.”

At any rate, he didn't have much to say. I thought afterwards, “I wonder why he wanted to see me.” I asked Fitzgerald that. Fitzgerald and I doped it out that there was a certain prestige for him to see the Secretary of Labor, because the suggestion he had to make that we send somebody out to form a union was not a very bright idea really. The government couldn't send anybody out to form a union. It was obviously the thing that needed to be done and it was up to Joe Ryan to do it. As I've said before, Joe Ryan was very lax about doing anything.

That was the first time I ever saw Bridges. That he had to say was not very impressive and I remember being not very impressed by him. I said to Fitzgerald, “I don't think they can build a union around that man. He hasn't got what it takes. He hasn't got the nerve, the courage,