The employers "would not hire one armed guard," Plant said. "We were going to depend on the city to provide all the protection necessary." Mayor Angelo Rossi had no doubts, either, he said. "He called the police chief and as a matter of fact they wanted us to proceed just that way because they didn't want us to have armed guards. It was fully shown that the job was theirs of providing [the strikebreaking operations] with the necessary protection." 12 The police department told shipowner and Industrial Association representatives that it would assign an adequate force to "take care of the entire situation without any additional expense to the Waterfront Employers' Union." These would include mounted police on the Embarcadero, a sufficient number of radio cars, and the police boat. The police asked the WEU to keep them informed on ship movements and indicated their willingness to patrol piers where loading was going on and escort men being transported along the waterfront. The WEU would be responsible for policing the housing ships but, otherwise, the shipowners would place the entire situation in the hands of the police. 13 (In mid-June, Plant sharply repri- manded Eugene Mills of the Marine Service Bureau in San Pedro after the WEU membership "expressed themselves very forcibly on the subject of expense at San Pedro .... The item of guards, cost and boarding, amounting to about $100,000 is one we think should be borne by the city. Here, the police in ample numbers are supplied without cost." 14