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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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politically and wouldn't be sound, solid trade unions representing the best interests of their members and employers.

I remember his saying to me, “What's the matter with that? Some of these unions are dead from the neck up and they'd better be routed up.” At any rate, he put up a great defense. “Anynow, the National Labor Relations Board is absolute authority in this matter. Nobody can modify it and nobody has anything to say about it.”

I began to be concerned about Edwin Smith. When he came down to Washington, I had already met his wife. On one occasion when I had been in Massachusetts on some conference on unemployment that had been called by the Governor, Commissioner Smith had given a small dinner for the visiting commissioners from other States. Mrs. Edwin Smith, a very pleasant, attractive girl, was there. They lived out in Framingham, a small distance out of Boston. They had two children and maybe three. When they came to Washington, they found a very attractive house in Alexandria in one of the pretty streets that runs down to the river. After they were established, they gave a very small evening party. I went over there and I remember how happy she was, how





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