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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 578

was concerned, I hadn't even heard of this plan, although in Richberg's mind it was a very important contribution that he'd made to the thinking in the Midwest of what to do with unemployment and how to solve the unemployment problem. I don't think he had any very serious commitment to the group he was working with. At least, he didn't appear to have the jealousy, and the hanging-on to it, that some of the others did. He thought that they should find a common meeting ground, and that if the President wanted such a plan, they should plan in common.

He had learned about the so-called Tugwell group. However, I must say that Tugwell never claimed to be the head of this group. Richberg called it the “Tugwell group,” and I grew to, because of the fact that he was obviously the best brain in the outfit. He was the one person you thought you could go to and find out something. He was the most responsible person in the group because he had some personal responsibility to the President. I don't know what that was, but he had worked in this pre-Roosevelt campaign and you felt that he must be friendly to the President and not trying to pull the wool over his eyes. At least, that's what I supposed.

I was shocked to find that none of them had told the President what they were about, and hadn't been authorized





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