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steady market, and are mining coal and getting a good price for it. And what other time is so good as war-time?

You can say, “That was very selfish and he shouldn't have done it.” A labor leader is primarily out to get all he can for labor, for his members, and I think that Lewis honestly took that position. I know that Lewis already saw ahead, and had said so--said so in the coal mine negotiations--that the day was coming and very soon, very shortly, when this picnic would be over, and at that time the consumption of coal would decrease and decline very rapidly and the miners would be left high and dry. When everything was going up and everybody was getting a big wage and the coal operators needed them badly, that was the time to strike. He didn't like the attitude of the coal operators. He never did like the attitude of the coal operators, because they were always a little arrogant and overbearing. It's a part of their nature.

There's an occasional pleasant one. Harry Moses, for instance, who has succeeded all the others now as a general holder of the bag, is a very pleasant man to deal with. But the man that Lewis always wanted to get hold of was Jim Francis, who owns the operation down in West Virginia. You know, these great mining operations down in West Virginia. Chesapeake and Chic carries their coal to Gregg, carries their coal to Norfolk. It has to slide downhill. It costs them almost nothing to get their coal out. It's a beautiful field--smokeless field,