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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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“But the man's job is only going to last a month. He's only going to be in there for the period of the excavation. Are you going to take $250 from him for that? That's terrible. That's all out of proportion. He isn't becoming a lifetime carpenter.”

Well, they couldn't do anything. Tracy was always dealing with them, persuading them to overcome their perfectly natural objections, because this ran all the time to union prerogatives, to interpretation of hours of labor and overtime, which were totally foreign to the ordinary labor leader. He hadn't been trained for that. Tracy did a very fine job.

As to the relationship of the Secretary of Labor and Hillman, I lent him Tracy, Hinrichs and Lubin, but they were my men, not his. They stayed my men. That I know. They worked for Hillman, but they worked with their foot on the Labor Department mat, and they kept that attitude right straight through. Lubin, who spent more and more time over there, still kept that attitude. They didn't want to be separated from the Labor Department. They always came to me with any change or any new idea before they committed themselves to it. I suppose I knew what was going on very, very intimately. Lubin saw me almost every day. Tracy saw me every day. All the other people who were assigned over there, although they were lesser lights, were in constant touch with





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