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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

Henry remembered two or three other things. He talked to me about Nat Witt. He said, “Frances, I remember that you got very heated in Cabinet meeting about Nat Witt. I remember your saying that he was an absolutely untrustworthy person and that you believed him to be a Communist. Although at that moment being a Communist wasn't so important as being untrustworthy, and that what's more you believed him to be the kind of Communist who would cheat on things for the sake of promoting whatever his point of view was. You thought he should be absolutely canned and nobody should pay any attention to him.

I said, “I don't remember saying it in Cabinet meeting, but I remember saying it many times. I know it was true.”

He said, “This was with regard to some problem the Labor Relations Board was presenting. They were getting out of hand, and the President expected you to drive them and keep them in hand. You used, from time to time, to report on the Labor Relations Board.”

That was true. I did. I was the only connecting link between the President and the Labor Relations Board. He couldn't run them all the time, so I tried to keep control of them. They got out of hand completely, and I laid it to Witt. I still do.





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