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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

certain questions that were asked me. As a matter of fact, except for one or two occasions--well, I think only one occasion, really--I found Mr. Lewis a most courteous and agreeable man. I found him a very agreeable and very rewarding man to deal with. He was never anything but agreeable to me. If he made a speech to me at some occasion, as I related yesterday, his scowls were not addressed at me but at somebody else. He was rehearsing a speech.

He did, on one occasion--I forget what it was he said, but it was in some public speech or public comment he made on something I had done--use some derogatory term about me. I can't remember what it was now, it made so little impression on me. But that was the only occasion on which he was even slightly discourteous to me. He was a little unctuous at times in his courtesy, but he was genuinely courteous and he was genuinely friendly. He intended to be friendly, and he was friendly. I feel quite sure of that.

I was invited to his home to dinner on a number of occasions, and I certainly went on two or three occasions to just a family dinner--I mean, nobody else there. This I think indicates a desire to be friendly and an intention to be friendly, because there was no showing me off or anything of that sort. I also asked him to dinner at my house. I asked him, I think, only on occasions when I was having





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