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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 731

I said, “I'll hold hearings. I'll get the whole Commission up here to hold hearings.”

“Oh,” he said, “they'll never come.”

I said, “I'll make them come. If they don't, I'll start them alone if necessary. But I'll get at least three members of the Commission up here to hold a hearing. I promise you that. We'll hold hearings in the courthouse and we'll proceed in an orderly way to try and settle this. I assure you nothing will happen. Nobody will get hurt if you call of the state police. If the state police come through here, I think there will be bedlam. There will be real trouble. There will be shooting. Somebody'll get hurt. Somebody'll get killed. I know they are very much excited. That's the best I can say.”

Harvey called me. I called him back again. He wrung his hands. I wrung mine over the telephone. I finally had the last word with the Governor and he gave the orders to the state police to retire. They were already on the outskirts of the town and everybody knew it. Everybody had seen them. They were just on the outskirts of Rome. The whole town knew that the state police were in formation on their horses, on foot, in the kind of vans they moved in. There must have been several hundred of them. They got their orders to turn around and leave. They hadn't come down to the center of the





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