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was, “How will the soldiers get the coal? What's going to be done? How will that get any coal out?”

I had been in New York, and I had seen Lewis during some of the negotiations, but I had to do most of this on the telephone. It became obvious to me that the pressure was moving very much towards the Government taking over. That is, the Senate was pressing. Members of the Senate were pressing, publicly on the floor and in private conversation. The House was. And the public and the Press generally were just wild: “Why doesn't Foosevelt do something? We can't hold on forever.” The Army, the Navy, everybody was up in arms. The Army officers would say sure, they'd take over the coal mines; sure, they'd get out the coal with soldiers and so forth. That was commonly stated, that they could do it. But of course, they couldn't. They had no more idea what a coal mine is like; As a matter of fact, the operators would not have permitted the Army to enter their mines. That's the one thing they can't afford, no matter now bitter the strike is--they can't afford to have the mines ruined by amateurs going in and turning the wrong cock or blowing off the wrong blast. I mean, it's a very delicate job and you have to know how in order to do it without bringing the whole thing down.

I never would have appreciated that until I talked