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welfare of the workers, and where the workers have to look out for themselves a little.”

I tried to explain to him how it was essential, in a Government like ours, that the workers should have notions of their own about what their wages and hours should be, and should struggle to establish those wages and establish the working conditions--that there was no other way of achieving a just and proper balance of powers. We talked on about that for some time. I laughed at him. I said, “What would you do if there should be a strike? What would happen?”

“Oh, that is unthinkable!” he said. “Unthinkable. They could not strike, of course. In no properly conducted country would there ever be a strike. That's just out of the question. The Government sees to it that the wages and hours and working conditions are just and right.”

He had no conception--at least he didn't express any conception, and I think he didn't have any conception--of the differences, you see, in the levels of operation; the differences in the kind of work, and in the product and in the sale of the product, which we have and which we think are just second nature.

I laughed at him and teased him a little about the way there couldn't be any strike. I said, “Well, of course it's just unthinkable to the American working man, or to the American employer or the Government even, that there can't be a