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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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program. With his coming into the Board and with getting Thomas J. Curtis, the head of the building trades in, we really got some work done. Tom Curtis had left the active trade and was representing his union. He represented not only the building trades but other union men on workmen's compensation claims. I made him kind of a roving Referee.

With that kind of thing, I got two people who would go before the AF of L conventions and support us in our legislation. It always took talking. When they would pass a resolution, then Johnny O'Hanlon was all right. He could go into the next legislative session and he could go before committees and say that the AF of L was for this. It meant a great deal because the committee was much more impressed by the support of the AF of L than there was any need for their being. The AF of L wouldn't have done anything to them if they'd voted against it, but they didn't know that. They didn't know that every last member of the AF of L wasn't informed and interested in this. It gave O'Hanlon the chance to be effective, and he was.

I had absolutely nothing to do with the formation of labor unions. If a labor union doesn't form itself out of the inner convictions of the people working in it, it just better not be. A labor union formed by a government





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