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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 542

two workmen in my room. It was a suite - sitting room and bedroom. The two workmen had a kit of tools. They might have been doing anything. They said, “Excuse us, there's something wrong with the plumbing.” I said, “All right,” and never gave it another thought. They scurried out of the room and down the hall. Within ten minutes one of them came back. He didn't have a kit, or anything else. He said, “Lady, I know who you are. You're Miss Porkins, the Secretary of Labor. I want to tell you that they got a dictaphone in here. That's what we were doing. I wouldn't tell that to anybody else because I work for the company, but they're not going to got anything on you without my letting you know.”

Think of that. I didn't have a chance to ask him what company because he was gone in a minute. He had just come to tell me he wasn't going to let them get anything on me without letting me know that there was a dictaphone there. I was tremendously intrigued by this. Who had managed that? Who had any motive for it? Who could possibly think that anything that I said would be worthwhile to pick up? And whose business was it anyhow what I said? I was amused. At the same time





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