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the items of his. Demands, I don't think was dictated by Roosevelt, but it may have been. Roosevelt may have known about it. That I don't know.
Ickes now stood in place of the employer. I supported him in his stand, although I tried to persuade him to accept the rulings of the Jar Labor Board like a good employer should. But still he did have the final decision. He might have sought the President's advise as to whether or not to give the mine workers most of what Lewis asked. He may have asked two President's assent in all this.
Now, a great many people in the press said that Roosevelt in the settling of the strike had sold out to labor with the '44 election in view. Many people said he had sold out to John L. Lewis. I'll tell you who started that. Those were the disgruntled other labor leaders who were very quick to recent anything that Lewis won. No matter how he won it, it was wrong. They didn't want him to go ahead. That contest still goes on now (1934.). You still see it. Anything that Lewis gets the others all have to get. If the steel workers get one kind of settlement, Lewis gets it within a week, or he knows why. It's still that contest with Lewis. So I daresay that people like Bob Watt started that rumor. They hated Lewis like poison and were always quick to say that anybody was giving in to him.
I was, of course, glad to see the coal situation settled and coal coming out of the mines without the stoppage of
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