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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

is social life. They made the party go on the social side, just as they would in any other party. If you've been out in Washington society at all, you're accustomed to dining and being very, very pleasant to people you don't like at all who are plotting against you in your work or against your husband's. It's your business to make everything very pleasant. The women were doing it in fine shape. They were glad to see each other.

Some of the women were not known by the others. Mrs. Tobin, for instance, was there. She's practically never been down to Washington for any social event. That was one of the very few she's very attended in the years that he's been Secretary of Labor. Everybody was being nice to her, although she was almost a stranger to them. Some of the others, of course, were very good friends. They'd worked together on various committees. Mrs. Brannan of all the present Cabinet ladies is the most energetic, affable and gets around the most, with perhaps the exception of Mrs. Barkley. They were doing their full part.

The President made a point of speaking personally and alone to each individual Cabinet member. He couldn't speak to all the wives, but he spoke to each individual who had been a member of his Cabinet. I presume he said to them much





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