At these conferences the railway men stood firm for an eight-hour day. The railway managers refused these demands. How to meet this grave situation, which if not checked might have resulted in giving Germany a victory, was one of the pressing problems that confronted the President that critical summer. Not only were American business interests involved in this matter, but the Allied governments of western Europe, then in the throes of the great war, were no less anxious, for a railroad strike would have meant a cutting off of the supplies to the Allied forces that were so much needed at this important juncture. The President sent for the Brotherhood representatives and for the managers, to confer with him at the White House, and suggested arbitration by way of settling the controversy. The labour leaders, conscious of their strength, refused to arbitrate. The railroad managers were equally obdurate. I well remember the patience of the President at these conferences day after day. He would first hold conferences with the Brotherhood representatives and then with the railroad managers; but his efforts were unavailing. It is regrettable that the men on both sides were indifferent to the President's appeal and apparently unmindful of the consequences to the country that would inevitably follow a nation-wide strike. I remember what he said to me as he left the Green Room at the conclusion of his final conference with the heads of the Brotherhoods. Shaking his head in a despairing way, he said: "I was not able to make the slightest impression upon those men. They feel so strongly the justice of their cause that they are blind to all the consequences of their action in declaring and prosecuting a strike. I was shocked to find a peculiar stiffness and hardness about these men. When I pictured to them the distress of our people in case this strike became a reality, they sat unmoved and apparently indifferent to the seriousness of the whole bad business. I am at the end of my tether, and I do not know what further to do."