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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 731

didn't have adequate funds and therefore couldn't make a large enough sample for complete security, it was a figure that was universally used. We had great respect for that. It was the best part of the whole Department of Labor.

The rest of the Department we never paid much attention to. We never got any help from them, except in those two fields. Of course, the Children's Bureau has always been magnificent, but that sort of stood outside the Department of Labor. It was of it, but it was not very much handled by the Secretaries. They were magnificent in their own fields. We didn't have much to do with them except in questions on child labor matters. There we always relied on them very much indeed.

It was certainly never in my mind that I would administer the Federal Department of Labor. I didn't therefore view it critically at all. I didn't say, “I would do this,” or “I think that ought to be done,” because I wasn't even thinking in those terms. I didn't have any strong impression about it. I was so completely occupied with the state administration, and the great good you could do to the millions of people in the State of New York by proper laws and proper administration of those laws, that I really didn't think much outside of what we could do in the State of New York.





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