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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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the coal miners will dig coal when John L. Lewis tells them to, you know, and not until.

“Oh, I think you're wrong, Miss Perkins,” he says to me. This is a private conversation. “I think you're very wrong. I think these coal miners are just as patriotic as you or I, are just as patriotic as anybody else. I think if the President of the United States tlles them he wants them to dig coal, they'll dig coal.”

Yes, he did.

Q:

It goes all the way back to 1941, the pattern.

Perkins:

Well, I know, but you see I mean, it's wartime. Oh it was different, why, wartime!

And I said to him, “But they won't, and I'm sure they won't, and I'll tell you why they won't. This is what they've always done, what they've always said, this is their habit- you don't know how they live. They live in remote communities, up in the mountains, you know - odd offshoots up at the ends of the valleys in Pennsylvania. They aren't in touch with things.”

“Why, they've all got radios.”

“Yes, I said, “but they don't believe in the radio. They're sort of off by themselves. They believe in the union, and they've believed in the union for years and years, and





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