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Testing 1234. OK, today is April 18, 1995. This is Harvey Schwartz. I'm with Dave Reed. I'm in Daly City, California. This view is going to be part of the labor archives of San Francisco State University and part of his tape collection. Dave, I was gonna ask

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you, um, How about your early life? Where were you born? Uh, what year were you born? Where and when? Um, something about that. I was born in Mount Zion Hospital, you know, up in Phil North Street, and let's see, I guess it's 1916 or 1917, right

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in there, yeah. And, uh, yeah, I lived out on Fillmore Street years ago. It was, You know, all different people than they are now, you know, they're all Jewish people lived out there, you know, all over the town, there's different nationalities live like in their own

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neighborhood like Hunters Point where it's all Slavonians. Fillmore Street was all Jewish people in there. Out the mission was all Irish people out there. See, but today it's all intermingled, you know, but that's, you know, in the era when I was a young kid going, OK,

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so you were, um, You grew up in the in the Fillmore district at that time. I didn't grow up fully in it, but I was a little kid out there. Then later on my father sold the house, you know, we moved to Saint Louis for a

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couple of years, you know, then we come back again, you know. How old were you when you moved to Saint Louis? Oh, I was maybe 12, something like that, 1012 years old, yeah. That's Saint Louis, Missouri? Yeah. What do you remember of the 1st 10 years

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of your life when you're, uh, when you're living in the city? Oh, well, Hamilton Park, and then there used to be, uh, that was, uh, one block over from where we used to live on Indicott Park and, uh, And uh I remember the city. There wasn't

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much city here. We went down to Marina that was all sand dunes. We went out towards the beach. It was all sand dunes. See, a lot of that stuff is not built up like it is now. It was all, you know, barren land, you know. Um,

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my father, he used to be, Motorman on this D line. So, I used to lay for him once in a while. He let me out and we'd take a trip all over, you know, go down the marina with this D line and around the town, you

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know, and this, this little place where they had tracks, you know. Uh, what do you remember your dad saying about unionism at all in the, uh, as a motorman? Well, nobody, we didn't have unions in those days. When the, the 34 was the first beginning of

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it in my life, and I think most people are on it. They had outlawed it years before that. You had to be a company union. This was the first union to go on strike of having an independent union. Right. Oh, before, before we get to that,

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I guess I'm asking, um, Did you, do you remember your dad mentioning anything about, uh, Tom Mooney, anything about the. Yeah, they, they talked about him, Tom Mooney, Oh yeah, what did your dad say? Do you remember? Oh well, he didn't get too involved in it,

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but yeah, a lot of them heard about him. He was in that, what was it, kind of a bombing or something. Yeah, there was a so-called preparedness day parade and around World War I in about 1916 there was an explosion on Market at the foot of

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Market Street, and he'd been a union activist. Yeah, and I think maybe that's why it was kind of outlawed up until The 34 when they made it illegal again, cause, cause why should they take their rights away from all these people? Cause one guy did something

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wrong, you know. So anyway, our union was the first one to test that, right? But your dad didn't, you don't recall anything specific that he might have said about, about the, uh, motormen's union or about Tom Mooney. No, some people thought he was right. Some people

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thought he was wrong or innocent, you know, and, and I was too young to really absorb all that stuff. Sure. Um, So you went to St. Louis. How long were you in St. Louis? A couple of years, I think 23 years, something like that, yeah. OK.

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And then you come back to this. Yeah, come back here to San Francisco. Well, we was in LA for a while, then we came up to San Francisco. What did you do when you came back to San Francisco? Did you go to school here? Did you

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go to school when you came back to San Francisco? Yeah, I went to, what did I do? Oh, I got out of grammar school. Yeah, I went to San Francisco State as a, uh, was a student. When you're over 21, you can go there and take

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the subject. Then, um, see, I'd work all night and go in the daytime and my grades got low and they used to throw you out when you fell below a C average, so I got kicked out, you know. Uh-huh. When you say you were working, what

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kind of work were you doing? Well, the waterfront. This was the waterfront. Yeah, the waterfront had, uh, come into being. So forget, I was real young down there. I was about 17 years old. Sure. Yeah. Now, before you worked at the waterfront, if I understand it,

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you were a boxer. Well, it, it was, yeah, I was doing that down in LA and the last fight I had was in the Oakland Auditorium. Then I had two at Dreamland. They used to have Dreamland Auditorium there and, uh, yeah, but I was a real

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young guy fighting, you know, like 17 years old and, And you never get in good shape till like later on when you're 2025 years old, you're strong and tough. You, when you're young, you're fast, but you can't take a punch like when you get older, you

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get tougher, yeah. How did you get into that? Well, that's the only way to make money. Everybody was broke. Yeah. Do you remember how it happened that you got into it? Oh, let's see, I, it was a dreamland. Let's see. All of its kids, uh, or

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guys around there were training for those, that amateur fights over there. It was the Golden Gloves. So, yeah, I have a picture in the paper on the, one of those, yeah. Yeah, I've seen that. What? I've seen that. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, yeah. And, uh, so,

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we trained and got it with Twin Peaks. Yeah, we were fighting for Twin Peaks and they were training us and I won one fight and, Second fight, a guy hit me. I kind of laid down. I was scared. I used to see him fight all the

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time and he was a champion. So, there was more fear there than anything else cause the guy that I beat before and they all figured could beat him, you know, but, but you don't know in your mind cause it's just a little thought in your mind

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makes you strong or weak. If you're scared, you're weak. If you think you can beat him, then you're stronger, you know, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Uh Who did you meet in the boxing world at that time? Oh, I, I knew a lot of guys, Max Spaar, Buddy

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Bear. I used to, well, I trained with both of them. Max Spaar, I put on an exhibition with him in Oakland when he went back to fight, uh, Max Spaar. He knocked Max Spaar out, become champion, yeah. He was in Duffy's gym in Oakland. It was

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a three-round exhibition with him. Buddy Bear, I put on a lot of, I worked with him a lot of times for his fights, you know. And uh about what time is this? Is this before your long shoring? Yeah, it's well, what happened? Uh, this fight I

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had in Oakland, I got about $75 and I bought a car and I come over the next day and we stopped to watch him load his ship and the guy come out and asked me one at work. And this, this is way before the union down

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there, this, you know, a year before that. That's, that's how I ended up in the waterfront. OK. Cause I figured that was easy. You didn't have to get beat up for your money. You could just work a little bit. Sure. You know? Um One thing I'd

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like to ask you that I don't want us to get that I don't want us to miss out on, what, what countries were your parents from? All, uh, my, my father was from down south, but he was German and so was my mother. Mhm. Were there

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many German speaking people or did they speak German? Uh, no, they didn't, but There was one of them, uh, that, uh, I seen back east when I was back east. His name was Lang and, uh, uh, he was my mother's brother, I guess, and he was.

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Yeah. Kind of an inventor, you know, and, I guess what I'm asking is were there German speaking people or was it a German community where you lived in in the city? No, no, they spoke English, yeah. OK. And, uh. But they lived in the Fillmore, you

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say? Yeah. Which is interesting. Well, there was all Jewish people, you know, out there, but, uh, on the outskirts there was all mixed nationalities. When you came back after St. Louis, did they move to the same neighborhood? Let's see what we do after. No. I lived

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out the mission after that, you know. OK, did you finish high school in San Francisco? OK. Oh, so you could just go to SF State at that time. Well, back in St. Louis, about a year I think I had in this high school. And uh then

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we moved out here, you know. OK, so you got, you bought this car, went down to the waterfront, you saw them loading ships, yeah, and the guy came out and asked me if I wanted to work. So, I may end up a lot stronger, But this

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was before the strike though. I understand. And then he, he asked, then he made me join the union later on. He'd give me jobs. It cost me 50 cents. No kidding. What was his name? Uh. Patty Clark. And he made you join the union later. Well,

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he told us, he said, we're trying to get a place, a hiring haul to get off the street, you know, and so it was 50 cents, you know, and, uh, that was kind of easy to get into the huge, you know, because the prices they charge

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you now, you know. I'll be darned. Yeah. Um, What was his position? Was he he was a gang boss. What more did he tell you about the ILA? Oh well, when we organized our union, it was organized under the ILA and uh then uh uh uh

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we got ready to go on strike. Well, uh, they come out or international this guy's name was Ryan, you know, and he come out and says take that government arbitration because the government, you know, stepped in. The congressman said that we'll make them arbitrate with you.

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You don't have to take a chance in losing, so, uh. Uh, anyway, uh, Bridges wasn't known then, and he was against government arbitration because he figured they were kind of phony. So, uh, anyway, that's how come we pulled away from our international, went independent out here

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after that. OK, that's a little further down the line than. Yeah. Than I wanted to get at this, at this point. Yeah. But that is real good. Um, Can you describe the first day of work? What it was like that first day when Clark offered you

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a job? What, what happened that day? Well, it was easy. We were unloading boxcars and I was a young kid. They kind of watched out. They didn't throw anything on you. We're pulling stuff out and dumping it in the nets and bringing our ship. It was

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meat. It was a navy supply ship. And we'd throw it in big nets and then we'd dump it down in the hull of the ship and, and, uh, then the guys would put it away and they'd come out again. We'd be filling the other net up,

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so, Did you then go down and work for Clark? Did you, did you work for, for, for Clark at for on a steady basis, or was it, uh, well, he was, he was the guy that got me to join the union, you know. He was telling

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me you got to join the union because we're trying to get a hiring haul and all that. So I put up the 50 cents, you know, because we didn't know what that was. And, and then when he got jobs he'd always hire me. We'd, he, we

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would always be down at the waterfront across from the ferry building. They used to hire everybody in there. See, that's when the old shape up system, as they used to call it, yeah. Um, did he hire you from a shape up? Well, they, they used to

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call it the shape up system, but no, when he got a job, there, there was another Swede I used to work for, Dude Larson. He'd see me and ask me if you want to work, because a lot of times they wouldn't have jobs. They got to

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wait until the ship come back if they're loading the navy supply ship. Then I used to go out there swing and hoyt with this Dude Larson once in a while. He used to ask me to go out there and get my partner and, and, Jobs weren't

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enough work to just rely on that one job, so you had to, then we used to work the banana boat too when they come in. The banana boat used to come in down there, yeah, and, uh, Were you going down to the waterfront all the time?

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Oh, well, Hello When you wanted to work, you didn't get out all the time, but you'd go down there and see who's hiring, you know, and, uh, And then most of them were hired, you know, at the Embacadero across from the ferry village used to be

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all restaurants in there, Patty Hurley's and all this and I forget the name of the restaurant and They used to hang out in there when they needed guys to go there to get, how's that thing working? Real, real good. Real good. OK. I, but I do

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have to monitor it now and then. Yeah. That's what. To make sure. When I look away from you, uh. Yeah. I'm looking at the machine for a specific reason. I'm not looking away. Yeah. You know, just. Yeah. I'm not losing my interest. Yeah. OK. Go ahead.

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Now what was I. You were talking about the, uh, restaurants on the waterfront. Well, they were on the other side of the ferry building and most of the guys used to get coffee or eat in there or they'd hang out in there as they in the

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morning as they shake the gangs up and then after that then they'd leave, you know, and so they'd be there for a couple hours, you know, see, but they knew the ships too. Then the Matson ships were coming in too years ago. They had the Yale

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and the Harvard one of them went on the rocks, but they used to, well, we used to go down to 32 to see if they're hired for that, see. Did you work those at all? Yeah. I worked, we used to have a hand truck. We used

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to have to run down a big runway with the hands, uh, with it all the way up. Going back up with the load was hard, but going in with the, the hand truck was easy. Now go ahead. See, of course, there's exceptions where the tide was

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way up, it was different again when it was way down. See, so, so it'd be maybe a low tide. You'd have to push all the heavy weight up there, but, uh, high, uh, uh, off the ship, but high tide, you just, it'd be different, you know.

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Each, each way the ship went, see, yeah. That, I never, I've never heard that. That's interesting. Yeah, well, you know, the, you have big tides. They go up at one time, you're pushing uphill, the next time you're running downhill with the load, see. Yeah. The Shape

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Up has a kind of a notorious reputation. Well. Can you, did you see much of that? No. Experience much of that? No. Down the waterfront was a little different. Working down there, people all knew one another later on, later on. Maybe an outsider would feel there

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was a shape up. But once you work for these people and they know, you know what you're doing, they hire you because they can sit on their fanny. They don't have to worry about the work because you, yeah, let's see. Like later on when I, you

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know, I was there for years, every time I seen some guy, I knew if he was good or bad. Sometimes some guys were kind of imbecile, but these old Swedes and Danes, they, they were good workers, you know, that's all they knew was work, you know,

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so you see them, you know you're going to have an easy day, you know. Yeah. Well, what, I guess what I'm asking is in, in the period before the 34 strike. Yeah. It's 33 that you're, that you're. Oh, I'm ready to start. You start 33 now,

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OK. Yeah, Uh, yeah, we're in 33. Well, those people was, that's when they were there. They left during war years. Now, this was real funny. I used to look at them and, you know, how they say yob and yiggy yiggy, but they all had captain's tickets

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and everything. They were all sailors. During wartime, they took ships and left, but, but they, you'd think they were ignorant people, but they weren't completely ignorant, you know. Sure. Yeah. But what I'm asking is, um, what's the shape up like, Uh, before 1934 strike in the

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year 1933. Yeah, well, you used to have to go down the docks and wait and then come out and pick different guys. I used to lay for the Yale down at the Madison down there. Then at the banana boat we used to go there, but the

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same guy who used to hire us all the time, Miss Murphy, see, because they remember the guys that knew what they were doing, because if they hire guys who don't know what they're doing, they gotta go there and work themselves to get it going, see. So,

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so, so that shape, uh, of system, uh, I had to look at it like most people did. I, yeah, because see when you see these old Swedes, you know, that, uh, nobody knew about, you know if they can work or not, tie knots, and they were

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ex-sailors. They come off, they jump ships off the old wind jabbers and all that, so they were real good, but looking at them, they didn't look very smart, you know, and. But in that industry, they're good mechanics. They, uh. You, you never encountered any of the,

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uh, demands for kickbacks as they were called and all that. No, they, they, they. That was. They talk about that, but I never run into that. See, maybe the study gangs where they had the same study gangs and were getting a lot of work, they might

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have been something like that. But, uh, I never run into anything like that. OK. See, like they had study gangs at the Matson, maybe they might have did that. OK. They'd bring them up at home. But with those guys hanging around the waterfront, uh, it was

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nothing like that, see. Sure. Um, in that period after your parents came back. Yeah. Uh, are, are you living with your parents at this time? You're a young person and. Yeah. Well, I, my father, I lived with him and then, you know, he died way back

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there, you know. But, uh, yeah, and, uh, my mother died when I was young. We, I had a stepmother. I see. See, and, uh, so she died when we were just little kids, you know, so. Was the depression hard on the family? Oh, yeah, it was

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hard on everybody, you know, because, uh, but see, you couldn't buy much with the money anyway. They, you, you got 1000 new items if you never had depression. You had meat, potatoes and onions. Now, and then they had lettuce. Now you got a half a dozen

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of each kind of lettuce and vegetables, you know. See. What, what was your dad doing? Well, he was a motorman on the streetcar. Right. I mean, also when he came back from Saint Louis? No, he was retired then, you know. Uh-huh. Sort of retired, yeah. Were

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you making most of the money, For the family group? Well, yeah, well, don't forget, uh, you rent a room $10 a month or something, so you didn't have to make a lot of money. So, if you're living with somebody and they're working, you just got to

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have the room anyway. Yeah, the, the place I remember, you should go, Uh, about 20 a month. They want 1000 a month now in those old Victorian homes, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That we used to have upstairs, but we owned a home though way back when

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I was young. It was in Victoria and as a matter of fact, we sold it to my sister's, uh, Uh, mother in law. She bought it, yes. Because I had a sister that kind of ended up with a lot of money. She got a lot of

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real estate and, uh, and things, and, but she was married into a family that did that, so they pick it up, see. Got it. And she just died recently, and she had a lot of loot. She left her son. She left a nice big home across

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the bay and another home over another place to another, one of the relations, you know. I see. OK, um. You remember the wages you were making when you were first working in the waterfront? Yeah, was it, was it 35 cents an hour or something? Oh no,

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on the waterfront, uh, because I worked for a Baptist company. It was something like 40 cents an hour. It's the NRA 40 cents an hour. That was for, for an hour's work, 40 cents. This was longshore. This was. Now this is the. A mattress company in

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between that I worked a little bit with and, uh, I didn't work there very long. But long showing, the banana boat was 50 cents an hour. Uh, the regular stevedore work was, uh, uh, 75 cents an hour. Then it got up to 95 cents an hour

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after the strike, you know. Um Did you have to work, ever, ever work more than 8 hours? Oh yeah, he worked a lot of 10 hours, 12 hours when the union come in, you know, after 8 hours there's 2 hours leeway, but then, oh, I used

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to work. I mean in the early I'm talking, I'm, we're, we're still, we're still before the 3333 before the big strike. No, let's see, uh, the jobs like at Swayde Hoyt we got, we'd always get done early there we 6 hours we used to get done

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on that then the, the, the this, uh. Supply ship for the Navy that, that was 8 hours, 10 hours when they're sailing, you know, or a little longer, so. Yes, some of them used to work all day and all night, you know. Yeah, I, um, that's,

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that's something I'm, I'm actually aware of, um. What was the equipment like at that time that you worked with? Well, they had 4 wheelers and you have to have to pull them. See, now you got all lift jiffies and you can hoist them up in the

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air. Here they had to hand store everything. With the union, a lot of mechanization come in, you maybe to cut down labor, maybe to go faster. So that kind of improved the conditions for people all in that industry because they used to have to mule all

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that weight, you know, and, yeah, so, uh, OK. OK. Um, Do you remember discussions, uh, before the strike? Yeah. Uh, for example, I don't know if you, you joined, you joined the ILA, which is a, a really interesting. It, it was ILA at the beginning. No,

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I'm aware of that. I'm. Yeah. I'm aware of the, of the, of the shape of the, of the history of the. Yeah. Uh, on the waterfront. And then, see, now, they didn't want us to go on strike. Our president come out and says, hey, take that

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government arbitration because they knew they were going to beat us. They beat us. They run us uptown and everything. Then we took that government arbitration. Because you weren't gonna beat those guys, you know, with all their shit hook up and left, you know, I'm actually searching

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for, um, your, your mind in a sense in the earlier before the big strike, um. Do you remember an organization called the Marine Workers' Industrial Union? They were the left wing group. Yeah. Do you remember. Well, that way, there was a lot of left wing groups

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those days. Right. OK. Uh, where I go back to on that is when we got our hire haul on Clay Street. Well, they were up there like the, uh, uh, Lundberg and the sailors and. Uh-huh. The hot sea. They were all close to us then, you

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know. That's a little bit later. That's, yeah, after the strike, but before that, no, I'm just trying to think, no, I don't think I remember that. I've heard of it, but I didn't have anything to do with it. Did you read the Waterfront Worker that was

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a newspaper put out? Yeah, well, we'd read once in a while. In there, read it, yeah, you know, we had that for years, the waterfront worker down there. What, what did you think of the waterfront worker? Yeah, you did have that. Well, it's good, but they

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were very anti employer, you know. They, they figured all employees should be dead. You got, they got a right to live too, you know, but, yeah. Did you think of that at the time? What did you think at the time? Do you remember? Oh, once in

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a while you'd look at it, you know, and, uh, of course, you know, when you're young, uh, you, Don't concentrate on that all the time. As soon as you get out of work. Sure. From the job, then you go, like I used to like to go

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to the dances, you know, you had all the big orchestras. So that was my main thought. I got enough money to go over and listen to, what's Jimmy Dorsey, Henry Armstrong, they all used to go to suites, ballroom across the bay. Oh, really? Yeah. Frank Sinatra

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was just a young kid singing around here, you know. Yeah, now he's way up there. Yeah. Were you, you, did you essentially stop boxing when you, when you started working on the waterfront? Well, I always went back every year and got in shape so I could

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fight 6 rounds because if I ever went broke, I think I could always make money fighting. So, like, I have different speed fights, guys that jump on top of me and I was a big heavyweight. You only throw one punch and you knock them out, you

00:24:23.450 - 00:24:34.130

know, especially with the bare knuckles. So, I always felt a little secure and long as I was in good shape. If I was out of shape, you could get beat, beat up, because a lot of people that beat you up, maybe they didn't like, like the

00:24:34.130 - 00:24:46.280

looks of you. Lot of times we used to go to the picnics and they'd all start fighting and beat one another. So, it's, it's good to, to kind of stay in shape. So, I did that throughout the years and I think that kind of helped me,

00:24:46.980 - 00:25:01.990

you know, along life for seeing working out and getting your blood circulating and all that. Sure. Yeah. What, um, what picnics do you refer to that. Oh, we used to go down Portola Park. That, Be the ones. And then they have, uh. Who, who are they?

00:25:02.620 - 00:25:18.520

Well, different outfits used to rent them. This is not ILW? No, no, these are not the labor unions. OK. These are private, uh, clubs that used to have them, yeah. I'm trying to think of the one that was down there, uh, I was with, I don't,

00:25:18.650 - 00:25:31.500

you never heard of Delucci. He used to fight here all the time. He was down there. We were fighting a lot of guys down there. They all jumped us and, And, uh, I'm just trying to think of what it was. What, it was some group, you

00:25:31.500 - 00:25:45.980

know, of, uh, people and they used to throw them down there at the, the, the picnics once in a while and they'd have dancing and all that and, The Regal Amber Brewery, do that picnic, yeah. OK, OK, OK. That, that, that used to be out the

00:25:45.980 - 00:26:02.810

mission, the Regal Amber Brewery, yeah, that, Um, before the big strike, were you in a, in a, in a, uh, steady gang? Or were you always working or no, before the strike, see, if I was down there like Mattson when they'd hire, well, when he got

00:26:02.810 - 00:26:12.890

all the old timers I was a young kid, then he'd hire me because a lot of times they'd be working at some other place. But this guy Newt Larsen that I used to work with, Swain and Hoyt, he used to always tell me to get my

00:26:12.890 - 00:26:25.970

partner, you know, he's got a job, and his was always short jobs, you know, and then maybe a couple of months, 2 or 3 months, a month, you know. But uh at the banana boat a guy by the name of Murphy out there used to hire

00:26:25.970 - 00:26:37.020

us all the time and if you worked good they'd hire you and if you didn't work they'd hire you, you know, so so everybody run with the stalk of bananas, you know, do you know, do you know you have no pictures of that when the conveyor

00:26:37.020 - 00:26:53.280

used to be down there and the banana boat used to come in? That's across that on 3rd Street and 4th right next to the estuary in there. Uh, jeez, I think I've seen people. Yeah. Guys with those big hands of bananas. Yeah. But they used to

00:26:53.280 - 00:27:05.340

come out in the conveyor. Now, now maybe they put them in, in, on boards with a rack or something. I don't know how that is down there. But the, the, this down here, the 4th and shallow, 3rd and shallow, it used to come out in the

00:27:05.340 - 00:27:18.570

conveyor. Then they had the chain gang. They put them on there back in the run, then put them on another conveyor, and then, uh, the guys in the car would be waiting for different sizes when in different cars, you know. OK. Um, there, there were always

00:27:18.570 - 00:27:31.640

almost mythological stories of, of bugs and snakes on, on the. Well, no, yeah, once in a while the guys would take, get a banana, what do you call it, they'd see a snake, but they'd be frozen in there from being cold, you know. So, yeah, they,

00:27:31.780 - 00:27:44.130

they had triathlons or something like that once in a while. But once in a while they'll run into a snake while they're packing the bananas. Did you ever see anything like that? No, I, I never run into that, yeah. The only thing we wanted to stay

00:27:44.130 - 00:27:55.650

out of the chain gang. If he put you in the chain gang, you just went back and forth from this conveyor to that belt. He just, just like a, a robot, but on the cars, we'd wait for different sizes they wanted in each car. See, the

00:27:55.650 - 00:28:13.040

big stocks would be one car and a little stock, you know, because they had them all graded certain ways, you know. OK. Um I guess the next question is, um, The Harry Bridges question, did you, uh, hear Harry speak and what was your impression? And I,

00:28:13.190 - 00:28:26.090

I know, well, he kind of told a bad story about me when I was young. I was on this ship and, uh, the mate was kind of screwy, you know, I was running the gang and all that, and so, uh. Anyway, uh. When, when is this?

00:28:26.190 - 00:28:39.650

This is after we had the, oh, he wasn't around at the beginning with bananas and that. That, later on when we got the union, he was here. Right. But the first time I seen him was up at the union there when they took on, uh, Lee

00:28:39.650 - 00:28:51.050

Holman and, uh, Henry Smith was the guy who made the motion to put bridges in there. That's the first time I seen him. This is after the strike or. No, this is before the strike. OK. Uh because Holman didn't want to go on strike. He wanted

00:28:51.050 - 00:29:06.850

to take the government arbitration thing. OK, yeah, you, I know from reading the papers, you knew, you knew Lee Holman. Lee Holman, yeah. Um he was, he's kind of a quiet guy and he didn't have a gang of, of, of bodyguards around him. Like Bridges later

00:29:06.850 - 00:29:22.940

on, Joe Ring was his bodyguard and some little guy dumped him and then he lost his job as a, as his bodyguard, you, But Lee Holman was, he was kind of a guy by himself, you know. OK, he's the ILA officer. Well, he was the ILA,

00:29:23.050 - 00:29:38.730

but then after, uh, the, the, well, Smith got up and they were kind of stacked, all the radicals were there, and they voted him out and they put bridges in there and, uh, so, Can you describe in some depth the conversations that went on and, and

00:29:38.790 - 00:29:54.580

this is a, is it, this is 1934 that this is taking away? This is before the strike, right? OK. Um, do you remember the tone of the of the discussion and what was said? Yeah, Lee Holman wanted to take the government arbitration. He said that the

00:29:54.580 - 00:30:07.710

congressman had just notified him, said don't go on strike. You don't have to take a chance of losing. He says we'll arbitrate it for you, see. And when he told that to the membership, I remember Henry Smith and Bridges was there. They got up and said

00:30:07.710 - 00:30:21.530

he's phony. The government's phony and this and that, but three months later, after we all got beat up and run out, they didn't say I'm phony. They took that government arbitration, but they threw this guy out, you know. So they. This guy, meaning, meaning Lee? Lee

00:30:21.530 - 00:30:35.610

Holman, yeah. Uh-huh. OK. Now, Bridges was a wonderful talker, you know. Everybody's got something on the, the wall, you know. So, he was good at the meetings and all, but I never saw him work on the waterfront. Everybody says, oh, he worked on the waterfront. And

00:30:35.630 - 00:30:47.220

we looked at a record, what's in there to see if he worked. We used to have a, we got a hiring hall, but we didn't see it in there, but then all of a sudden the record office burnt up. So, so, we always figured maybe they

00:30:47.220 - 00:30:54.720

had something to do with that. Let me turn, uh, we're almost out of tape. I wanna turn this over before it actually runs out.