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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 654

at us, that's what will take the Congress by storm. That's what they'll try to do.”

I remember stopping and saying, “Well, do you want that to be done, Mr. President?”

“No, I think it's crazy, just crazy!” Then he told me a couple of stories about elderly loafers whom he knew, and who we all know.

I said, “I think we have to make some studies of this.”

“Well, it's all right to make studies of it. You can study it.”

I said, “If we study it, it will inevitably lead to a program. I know it will. I know there's enough to be said in favor of it.”

“Well,” he said, “it's all right to study it, anyhow. How do you propose to study it?”

I said, “I know a great deal about it already. I think we'd get in a committee of intelligent people, other Cabinet officers, proper advisers, and would make a study that wouldn't just be copying the English system, but make a study of just what the facts are in American life and what could be done, making some recommendations. I think it will hearten the people if the study begins at once.”





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