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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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came a time when we had to ask for a big push, it was true that the big push was better put over by George Meany and Harry Bates, and people like that, to their own union members than it would have been by any government official. When George Meany had to take all the building trades men that were needed, an awful lot of them, from Boston, New York and Syracuse to places in the South where they were building barracks, he got them, and a very smart and able job he did. He provided everything for them—buses, lunches, sleeping accomodations, a place to stay when they got there. He thought it all out, and he did it very well indeed. I think perhaps he was stimulated to action by virtue of the fact that he was in sole command, and he wouldn't have been if he weren't in the government. The response, of course, was not too difficult to get, because he could offer them wages plus, such as they had never seen, together with transportation all arranged, accomodations all arranged, and a promise that if they stayed more than so many months he would see to moving their families down if necessary.

So there were a great many good points to Harry's idea, but there were, of course, some awfully hazardous things going on, terribly hazardous things went on. Among other things that went on was a case that sprang right out of this Office of Production Management and the Navy. That was that they





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