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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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first time, would lean forward and speak. He would say, “I don't think that's exactly what the meaning of the meeting was that instructed us. My understanding was that we should demand thus and so, “something slightly different.

At first you tried to reconcile the difference, but nothing ever suited. After an hour more on that one point we would say, “Well, let's pass over that and take up the second point.” The same thing happened.

In other words, the entire day was spent without coming to agreement between the delegation members and Bill Collins, who was their organizer, and the conciliator of the Department of Labor as to what it was they wanted at this moment. Every time a point would be raised, the talk would go in the usual bargaining and negotiating and compromising phraseology. We would get just to the point where everyone agreed and Mortimer would pipe up. His running mate down at the other end of the table would agree with him.

It was always done so innocently that even Collins didn't spot them. I spotted them that very day and I said to Miss Jay, who was a New York girl, had seen these demonstrations in that Department of Labor, had heard their tactics when they came into





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