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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

I said, “What can we do?”

“Well, I don't know,” said she, “but it seems that we ought to do something. I don't know what's the matter with him, but I know his wife is unhappy, because she told me so. I've known her a long time. She says everything is going to wrack and ruin. I think something's wrong with Edwin. I think he's mixed up about something. You know, he's a very emotional man.”

I said, “No, I didn't know that. I thought he was a flat-footed administrator.”

“Well,” she said, “I knew him when he was a young man and worked at Filene's. He was very emotional then. He had a good front, but he's a deeply emotional person. He can be greatly upset by other people's views on things.”

Anyhow, it rolled along. Then we began to hear these reverberations that Smith had made common cause with Nat Witt and that Nat Witt was somehow influencing Smith's thinking. Now, nobody knew that Nat Witt was a Communist. That was the last thing I thought of. I never thought about communism among people of education and standing. I was more aware of communism than most people were because in New York State we had been forced to see the presence of a group of people in some unions whose only interest appeared to be to break up the union,





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