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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

and been away. She was always going to the West Coast, to the Southwest or somewhere or other, and had been gone for weeks at the White House. It had begun to cause grumbling around, such as “Where's Mrs. Roosevelt? Why doesn't she stay home? Why doesn't she take care of her husband?” I recognized the validity of that, because I had felt, “Really, I think she ought to be there. These are very troubled times. The President has a great deal to carry and to bear. I think she ought to be around to give him a little light domestic life, a little change of center of conversation, to make things easier and to see an awful lot of people that would like to be seen. It's good politics for her to see them.”

I got so worked up about it, that when I was seeing her about something or other one day, I said, “Now look here, I want to say something to you and you may not like it. I honestly think, my dear, that you ought to cancel this trip that's coming up. I really think you ought to be here in the White House more. I say it to you in the warmest kind of friendship. I think it would be better for you and better for the President. The President needs you and needs you here.”

She looked at me and with the sweetest smile, sort of twisting her eyes and smiling sweetly, she shook her





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