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The workman really just wants a good time and good working conditions, but the intellectual tends to think that the workman wants what the books on economics, social reactions, social progress and social revolution say he wants. In a way, the workingman does want those things, but mostly has doesn't. He's just like other people. He likes what he has, if he can have it just a little better. The average American workman, and the average British workman, is not a revolutionary at all-not the least bit - and do not wish to change their status in society. They're pleased with it. Far from wanting to take over the government and run it, or take over the industry and run it, they want to be relieved of all such burdens as that.
I know that I felt that Francis Biddle and some of the people associated with him were pretty theoretical, and that they were likely to get the labor unions into a kind of a foolish position. I felt uneasy about it, to tell the truth.
I liked the idea of the National Labor Relations Act less and less as I saw this preliminary version of it, yet without statutory authority, operating. However, we were all on the best of terms. Everything was co-operative and everybody was helping everybody else.
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