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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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I had been able to accomplish as a member of the Industrial Board, as Industrial Commissioner. I took a great pride in it. It was a professional pride. It's like a lawyer being told that he is being considered for the Supreme Court. Every other reason in his life may push him against that, but his professional pride is terrifically caught by the idea. It was the same with me. If it had been just a political appointment, if I had been asked to be the head of the Department of the Interior, I'm very certain that I would have said no. I wouldn't have had any professional pride, because I was not a politician who had won a political battle. I was professional in this field. The fact that it was a continuation and an opportunity to extend geographically projects that I knew I had invented and introduced in New York and that had proved successful was what made the post appealing. That attracted my professional pride and skill.

I have always been interested in the working people of the United States in all of their relationships, in everything that affects them. That is labor. The relationships of the people of the United States to trade unions, or to trade unionism, is an entirely private affair. They can be in them, or not, as they choose. That is not what





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