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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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He said, “Like this. You know, there's always somebody starting something big over nothing among those automobile workers. Before they get organized they want to pull something, to pull a fast one. The men who start these walk-outs don't know anything about the situation. When I get over there, they've got three hundred people out on a quickie strike. There's no organization. There's no union. There's no shop steward. There's nobody to speak up for the men in the place. I talked to the fellows that I thought were going to be leaders there and asked them why they were out. Their answers were, ‘Well, this fellow Jones, or Smith, said that this was the time for us to insist.’ So they all walked out and insisted. When you get talk like that there are always some Commies there.”

I said, “I don't think this fellow Byrd is a Commie, but I think there's a Commie back of him.” Byrd had been down here with them and they had elected him as a kind of chairman. They allowed him to be put on the Automobile Industrial Relations Board.

“I don't think he knows anything himself,” said Collins to me. “He's a just dumbbell. He's just as dumb as he can be. But I think that some Commie stooge,





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