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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

Well, that boy was deferred over and over again at the request of his employer. He got very, very uneasy, very nervous and very unhappy, because he didn't want to be deferred. But that was it. His name was Robert Harrington, and he finally got himself into the armed forces, where, as a matter of fact, they utilized this same skill of his.

However, that type of man was deferred and deferred over and over again. There was no trouble at all about it, if the employer just asked and could prove that the man was so needed. So the industrial worker was also deferred, as well as the farm worker. Wherever you saw any considerable number of men deferred at the employer's request, you had this same jealousy arising, people saying that that was unfair, that it was unfair that they were not all out on the firing line.

A little later when the War Manpower Commission attempted to defer all physicists, all physicians, and all those people, there was a dreadful furor. “All a boy's got to do is go to medical college and then he gets himself into the protected class, “was what they said. And yet, anybody looking ahead, even two or three years, could see that above everything we needed men with the particular kinds of education that are essential to the continuing of both our production and the care of our health.





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