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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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intelligence, but up until that time he'd been a common sailor with no interest in anything of the labor movement, or of world affairs. He was just interested in himself, whether he had a good time in port, or whether he didn't.

So it's always been my belief that the Commies got in touch with him, that the Commies tried to bring them into their group, that they certainly coached him, helped him, did everything they could to build him up. That's how he got his reputation.

Beginning then some seamen became Commies, so that you had a Commie element in that sailor's union that they started to form right then. The old sailor's union, of which Andy Furuseth was the head, was breaking up. Paul Scharrenberg was a member of that union also. Scharrenberg has been in recent years, and I'm not sure he isn't now (1954), a member of the Industrial Board of the State of California, a very good man, a very sober man. But that union was breaking up and didn't have much strength. Lots of ships sailing under the American flag just didn't have any union at all. I don't think that the steamship owners had been very anxious to have a union. They did everything they could to keep it out.





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