Mr. Gary received the Commission courteously and after minutely cross-examining them concerning the "anonymous" report of the presence of "Bolsheviks" among them, he heard the Commission to the extent of learning the first step in their proposal. He made his reply immediately, an absolute refusal of arbitration or mediation. The Commission therefore never had any opportunity to present the authorized acceptance of the mediation plan by the other side and in no sense conveyed to Mr. Gary the extent of the concessions which the strikers were then willing to make. Mr. Gary, however, clearly understood that acceptance of the mediation plan would mean that the men would all return to work at once. Mr. Gary based his refusal on the grounds that any dealings which in any way involved representatives of the men then on strike would be an acceptance of the closed shop, sovietism, and the forcible distribution of property. Mr. Gary said that if the Commission represented the men who had gone back to work, those men were content; if the Commission represented the men who had not gone back to work, those men are nothing but red radicals whom the plants did not want anyway. He said that there was absolutely no issue for discussion with the U. S. Steel Corporation. The Commission presented its viewpoint on the advisability of mediation at great length and with insistence. Mr. Gary did not in any respect modify his immediate decision. The Commission felt it necessary therefore to drop the plan and transmitted the following to the National Committee: December 6, 1919 Memorandum for Mr. Fitzpatrick: The independent Commission of Inquiry, instituted by the Interchurch World Movement to investigate the steel strike, received on December 2 a communication marked "confidential," dealing with an official action taken by the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, signed by Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Foster. On December 5, members of the Commission informally conversed with Mr. Gary for two hours, proposing to plan a new basis of relations in the steel industry, with an ending of the strike best calculated to further better relations. They offered to act as mediators both on behalf of the men still on strike, whose leaders were to order them back and then step out of the situation, and on behalf of still dissatisfied men who had nevertheless returned to work. Mr. Gary refused to confer with these representatives of the churches as mediators in behalf of any interests represented by you in the strike, on the ground that the men still out were Bolshevist radicals who were not wanted in the mills and who would not be taken back.