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Notable New     Yorkers
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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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The people who disliked Woll in the printers' union were the pressmen. They're the roughnecks of the printers' trade. The pressmen were no better than they ought to be. I realize that. In New York City they were up to all kinds of stuff. They did very rough things. They had very rough, and often unprincipled, strikes. They were always very down on Woll. They didn't trust him. They accused him of keeping the wages of his outfit up and being perfectly willing to push down the wages and working conditions of the pressmen and the lower levels of the printing trades.

Woll also was the fellow who invented, although two or three others joined in with him, this life insurance business. You do all the business by mail. I think it's called the Union Life Insurance Company or the Trade Union Life Insurance Company - something like that. It's a big mail order life insurance company. At one time it was as much as the life of any public official was worth, or any elected official was worth, not to have an insurance policy in this particular insurance company, which did all of its business by mail and therefore had very small office expenses. Matthew Woll was the head and shoulders of it. He operated it and invented it largely. There were two or three others who wont in with him also. Every trade union leader had to have a policy there or he'd be ostracized or there'd be





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