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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

taken no oath of office, who are well-intentioned or ill-intentioned, well-informed or ill-informed or ill-informed, who have no responsibility, who will go off in all directions, giving advice through the newspapers not only to the President and the Cabinet officers, but to the world. It's a very hazardous thing.

Dan Roper had a bad experience with the Employers' Advisory Committee during the NRA. He had not made their role and their program clear to them. He had not made it clear that he would submit questions to them from time to time, nor was he alert to think of questions to submit to them, which would keep them busy, which is what you have to do. If you want an advisory committee for window dressing and support, for heaven's sake, think of things in advance that will keep them busy and that are proper questions for them to deal with. You want them kept good and busy so that they'll have to adjourn to catch the six o'clock train and can't go on spouting ideas that they thought up when they got mad one morning reading the morning paper, which is what they'll do if you haven't got an agenda for them. Dan Roper's committee got off the path very badly at one time. It required the combined efforts of Averell Harriman, Nelson Slater, and two or three other really devoted people to get them back into line and to not have them give advice about things they hadn't been asked about.





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