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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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by employers, unions and the insurance companies.

Well Edwin Smith in New England was regarded as first class. I regarded him as first class. I was looking around for someone who would have the employers point of view, would know the employers point of view, be sympathetic with it, and yet not be an employer himself, who had some practical knowledge of industrial relations, rather than book learning, from having practiced in it. Smith had had to practice it as Labor Commissioner of the State of Massachusetts. So I hit upon him as a possibility. He had been brought down to serve on the Labor Board created by Executive Order in June 29, 1934 after dissolution of the Wagner NRA Board and was a member with Lloyd Garrison as Chairman and Harry Mill is as a member. This Board was superseded by the Statutory Board created by act of Congress in June 1935.

He had been competent, quiet, useful and his nine months of service in that field seemed to assume that he would give continuity and be successful.

We had tried other people, including a couple of men who had been in the Standard Oil personnel department and had a very fine reputation. I've forgotten their names. We also tried Arthur H. Young





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