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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

opinion when they were there. He had them there to tell them and to ask their support. We didn't know that it was going to be introduced the next day. I supposed that it would be a month or two of discussion. I didn't realize it was going to be sent right up. So we thought there was still room to express an opinion. Now, the President must have known it was to be introduced the next day. I'm sure he knew that. Maury Maverick, who introduced it, wouldn't have introduced it otherwise. None of them would have handled it without his say-so.

However, so far as there was any expression of opinion among the Cabinet, there was no enthusiasm. That I know. I don't think there was a very vigorous expression of opinion at all, except of doubts or of further consideration of Sumners' bill. I remember the President saying, “Sumners' bill is all right. That should be done, but if we have this enlarged court, it can absorb all these bad eggs. It won't matter. We can have a broader basis of representation, with a different kind of people in the court.”

I felt pretty glum, as did such persons as I spoke to when we went out, including Farley, who said to me, “I don't know how we're going to put this





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