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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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work. I supposed that was what we wanted - not justice, but coal. Whereas Bob Watt and some of the members of the War Labor Board wanted justice and somehow believed that coal could be had on the side. I personally never saw any way to dig coal except by coal miners, but it may be that it can be done some other way.

Foster Dulles has written this book that I'm glancing at, Labor in America, very well. He puts it this way:

The controversy went on (that is, after Lewis's fifteen day truce which they extended to thirty days while they attempted to work out an agreement. He didn't withdraw his demands, but allowed a temporary waiting period. The men would work, pending agreement with the Secretary, which was something unusual.) for the next six months, punctuated by alternate work stoppages and truces.

That's exactly it, and that's one reason why it's so hard now to just call up out of your memory which situation was which. It was just a continuous flow. After they were operated by the government, the mines were given back to the owners, who agreed with Lewis on a program that had been approved by Ickes. That is, Ickes and Lewis had worked out a program as to what the terms should be. The mines were given back and the theory was that the owners would then agree to this.

Then the war Labor Board stepped in and said they wouldn't approve that agreement. That was what made me good and mad at the War Labor Board. I thought that at that moment they should have left well enough alone, but the War Labor Board wouldn't approve that agreement, and





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