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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 915

I undertook to sell to the trade unions the idea that this whole project, if it was to be a law, should be in the Labor Department, which was their department. As I explained to the President, you would have always in a Labor Department of fairly large department standard government procedures and standard government techniques for handling any new project given to the department. You would have the research facilities of the Department of Labor, through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and would not have to build up a new research bureau for the aid of the people looking up things under the National Labor Relations Act. By that very fact you would keep the “fancy” ideas from getting into circulation, keep it flat-footed, keep it right down to earth, keep it practical rather than theoretical. You would have the advantage of an administration of it in which there was a direct connection with the President and other members of the Cabinet. It wouldn't get out of line.

The American worker is not class - conscious, but a lot of intellectuals think he is - or at least thought he was at that time.

I frankly was afraid that such an idea would get involved in the board operation and that the idea would get more standing than the solid trade union movement





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