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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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shops, having the reader come in and read anything to them - the most elaborate, classical readings. He said, “Gompers did grow up feeling that he was better than the common run of working people. He still feels that way. He feels superior, but you must remember that's what he comes from.”

This man was John O'Hanlon, who was the representative of the AF of L in Albany and a very fine man. He said, “He's done a very magnificent job for the working people of America, largely because of that sense of superiority. He isn't afraid to walk right in and talk to mayors, governors, employers and anybody else. He can talk as good as they can. It's a great asset to us that he can.”

That sort of explained Gompers, but the never was fully in sympathy with what I call labor legislation. He wasn't in favor of my kind of labor legislation. He was all for the anti-injunction. He was all for the Clayton Act and all that kind of thing, because that was to protect trade unions. He believed passionately in trade unionism as a solution for all the problems that working people could have. You asked him, “Well, what about the unskilled workers who can't belong to these wonderful unions and get these high wages”?

He said, “Oh, well, they will follow along behind. Insofar as the skilled workers improve their conditions they





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