Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 731

know when Smith got that idea. I talked about it to Shientag and we both agreed that it was natural and that she'd probably do it very well. Anybody that has so much devotion, dedication and conviction about an idea always promotes it better than someone you go out and hire, even if you submit them to the most severe civil service tests of intelligence, merit and that kind of thing.

Very early it was agreed, and I couldn't say who suggested it to him, that once it was established as a Reconstruction Commission, Belle Moskowitz was to be its Executive Secretary. Very early - within a month or so of his inauguration - this Reconstruction Commission was under way and Belle Moskowitz was its Executive Secretary. Here, of course, is where she proved a perfect mine of ability - perfectly wonderful. She had the ability to organize, to think a thing through. Almost as soon as the idea was broached she could think clear through to the end to see what the possibilities were, what the hazrds were and how you could do it. She was a very practical-minded woman as well as idealistic in her conceptions of what ought to be done. She was very practical about how it could be done.

She had had no real political experience up to this time. One of the miracles was to see her gain political





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help