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any of the fighting. You can be sure of that. He's a desk man. When I last asked where Mortimer was, I was told that he was out organizing in California - not for the automobile union, but for something else.
The next time I was conscious of running into a Commie situation was when the strike took place on some ship of the American Hawaiian Line in San Francisco in 1935 or 36. This ship was tied up at the dock ready to sail. She sailed regularly from San Francisco. She was loaded with passengers. Dan Roper, the Secretary of Commerce, was also involved in this because the licensing of seamen is done by the Department of Commerce.
The ship was all ready to sail, passengers were all aboard, baggage was all aboard, cargo was all aboard, when all of a sudden the crew walked off and said that they weren't sailing - a most terrible thing to do. It's just not done in shipping circles. At that time there seemed to be no connection between this ship and any dockworkers in San Francisco. There was no dockworkers union that claimed any responsibility for it. The people who walked off said that they didn't belong to a union, that it was a spontaneous strike of the hands of that ship, who had a series of
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