For  instance,  they  wanted  to  make  it  a  rule  I  could  not  hire  or
discharge  an  office  boy  without  the  consent  of  this  representative
at  the  plant.
So,  we  took  that  up  with  Mr.  Hurley  and  Mr.  Schwab,  and  we
had  a  meeting  over  in  our  yard.  It  was  proposed  to  us  then  that
we  had  done  so  well,  w^e  were  away  ahead  of  the  average  on  con-
struction ;  they  had  a  chart  down  in  the  Emergency  Fleet  Office  with
a  line  showing  their  progress  and  our  line  was  about  so  long  [indi-
cating] and  the  next  fellow's  about  that  long  and  they  come  down
to  about  like  that  [indicating].
Then  Mr.  Schwab  spoke  about  the  progress  we  had  made  and
admired  it  very  much  and  asked  us,  "  Why  don't  you  take  it  over
on  a  straight  price  contract,  then  you  can  do  as  you  please?"  Then
Admiral  Bowles  made  a  proposition,  and  they  urged  it  upon  us.  I
told  them  I  would  take  it  under  consideration,  and  we  did  that  and
studied  it  very  carefull}^  At  that  time  our  general  manager  had
been  very  sick  and  w^e  went  doAvn  and  consulted  him,  then  decided
we  would  accept  their  proposition.
Mr.  Schwab  tried  to  get  other  shipbuilders  to  do  the  same  thing
and  he  was  not  successful  in  any  case.
We  went  along  building  these  ships,  delivering  them  all  satis-
factorily until  the  armistice  came;  then  they  sent  word  to  cancel
the  construction  of  the  last  32  ships  and  limited  the  contract  to  118,
although  all  of  the  material  for  those  remaining  ships  was  then  in
the  yard  or  in  nearby  storehouses.  We  thought  we  ought  to  go
through  with  it  because  there  seemed  to  be  a  great  demand  through
the  world.
