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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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shipyards. “It seems best,” is all he would tell them, and that's all there was to it. That's all he said, a man of few words. That's a New Englander. But he did the same thing that John Lewis does. It's sort of a refreshing picture in the midst of a situation where everybody is rushing to get into the pattern, and to behave just like everybody else.

This is what brought about this terrific correspondence between Ickes and Wayne Morse. I suppose that parts of that correspondence will be found in my, so-called, papers. I'm sure that in Ickes' papers are copies of the whole thing, and that the next volume of his diary, not yet published, will undoubtedly deal with that.

Wayne Morse, now in 1954 Senator Morse, was at that time a member of the War Labor Board by my appointment. Ever since I had appointed him to be a mediator on the West Coast in the longshore strike and then in the sailor strike he had been of terrific help to us, and a very superior mediator, and a very superior arbitrator, and a very superior presider over the scene of conflict. He really brought order out of the longshore warehouse trouble on the West Coast, and he presided over that really terrible situation when you had the seamen on strike. They got so that they trusted Morse, and all Morse had to say was, “I'll resign,” and it would bring them to terms. If he threatened to resign, the seamen





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