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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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two weeks ago in somebody's office with Felix Frankfurter working out what it was possible to do in the way of legislation at the federal level and still be constitutional? The constitutional problem hadn't been solved then as it was later. The bill that is known as the Walsh-Healy Act, which gave the government the right to fix wages on government contracts, was Felix's idea of the only thing we could do. That was hatched up in Mary Dewson's Consumers' League office in New York City sometime in the month of January. Felix and three or four of us had been canvassing everything that could be done that would serve to give us minimum wages, maximum hours, unemployment insurance. In all the things that we knew needed to be done, we had to say, “What are the constitutional ways by which they can be done?” This was Felix's approach - the thing that he knew for certain could be done, because the government can require anything it wishes to require of its contractors. We finally put it in as the Walsh-Healy Act.

Mary said, “You want all these things done. We're agreed. You have the idea. You've done them. You have no doubts. You can do it as nobody else can do it. What's more, you can get on with Roosevelt. He trusts you. He likes you. You're easy with him. You don't make him nervous. You've got all the equipment. You know how. You've got





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