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the government's reply as to what should be paid, what should be the working arrangements, and so forth and so on.
All this annoyed the War Labor Board beyond words and they began saying, “Oh you can't do all this. We are the agency that makes the findings on all these things. There has been a stoppage of work which has interrupted the war program and we should handle it.”
The miners went right back to work the minute the United States flag went up. Lewis's order went out and they went back instantaneously. They went back to work singing and cheering. There was great celebration in most places. Those too were the orders issuing from the United Mine Workers office in Washington. They were to make a great fuss about it and show themselves more patriotic than any- body else. They were to love to work for Uncle Sam, and that kind of thing.
The War Labor Board soon saw that Ickes had his own ideas about what kind of agreements he would make with them. The board began to say, “You can't do that. We have fixed that. The case was properly referred to us. We have deter- mined what the wages, hours and working consitions shall be, and that they shall be. Nobody else must change them.”
It was at this point that the correspondence began between Wayne Morse and Ickes, which I have never, naturally, talked about, because it would have meant trouble at the time, but which was so funny that, as the weeks went on, I could
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