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reason or another was the principal grievance put before the committee.

Now, I'm all off on my dates and don't know when all this took place. The beginnings of it were in '33. Of course, it lapsed over into '34 and '35. I think the great big automobile strike with sit-downs didn't take place until '37. But all this time there were sporadic and intermittent strikes in different plants. There was an organizing drive going on.

My memory is that In the summer of '34 Collins had a convention and that he had several thousand people there -by which I mean less than four thousand, which he claimed as members. He didn't have four thousand persons present, but he had representatives of as many as four thousand persons, or nearly that. The extraordinary thing was that within two years there was an organization in existence which could claim 4000 members. This, of course, was one of the great causes for ructions in the automobile industry. The union had grown so rapidly that it didn't have any inner core of strength or mutual understanding and could get out of hand very easily.

Collins had thought it essential to get rid of Byrd as the president. He had been the pro forma president by reason of having been elected by acclamation by thirty-odd