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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 731

regard to state hospitals, with regard to public parks, with regard to highways, with regard to the administration of the Workmen's Compensation Act, with regard to the labor law, as well as the action that he had taken earlier, or while he was Governor, looking toward the establishment of those laws. I went over it item by item, including child labor and everything else.

It got a great hand. It got interruptions of applause breaking out in different parts of the building. After the meeting was over, and the general talking to everybody and shaking hands, Felix Frankfurter showed up, having been in the audience. I hadn't seen him in the audience, but he was in the audience with quite a lot of people from Cambridge. He said to me, “Frances, you have given me a new idea about campaign speeches. I never heard of a campaign speech like that before. Obviously, the people like and are interested in what a candidate has done for the benefit of the people. I never had thought of that before. You went through the roster of the program of the Consumer's League (which Felix frankfurter always associated me with) and you showed that Al Smith as a political officer had moved in that direction and had thought in that direction. They like it and they're going to vote for him. It's a political discovery. I don't know whether you know that or not.”





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