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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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“Purge”

I don't really know very much about the “purge” of 1938. I never did know, and don't know now, who advised Roosevelt to try and get rid of certain Senators and Congressmen at that time, except perhaps Tommy Corcoran. I know that that was one of Tommy Corcoran's big ideas. Whether he invented the idea, or whether he got it from somebody else, or whether he merely took over some notion of Roosevelt's and handed it back to him kind of blown up, I don't know. But I know that Corcoran was very, very keen about it and was doing a great deal of the leg work on it. I don't know who else was involved in it.

It was the failure of the Senators to vote right on the court-packing bill that I think started the whole thing, because some of them had voted right all the way through the New Deal except on that. For instance, Senator Walter George had never done anything that would annoy anybody except for his stand on the Supreme Court. Walter George had been, I think, some-what puzzled by some of our proposals. I know that he voted for the Social Security Act. I had contact with him about it, talked with him about it myself. He was very intelligent in his inquiries. He showed





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