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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 912

Interviewer:

He did this in '40, and he did it again, I think, in '44.

Perkins:

He did it in '44, too. At that time, after the election returns were in, the President giggled and laughed and said, “Well, I've learned another thing. The mine workers won't work because the President of the United States tells them to. The mine workers won't vote the way John L. Lewis tells them to. They'll vote as they please.”

Interviewer:

Did you ever talk to John L. about that?

Perkins:

No. Too sensitive a subject, why should one?

Interviewer:

I would like to hear if he had the same ability to recognize the situation.

Perkins:

Well, I don't know. I never would have asked him that question, because I was only anxious to maintain a modus operandi with him, you know. And I never said anything or rubbed anything in to him. I wasn't on that kind of terms with him--I wasn't on joking terms with him. We treated each other seriously and agreeably, and I wanted always not to have it rankle that I had pushed something into him or given him a barbed arrow of some sort. That was another thing I thought of just recently.

Interviewer:

Do you know anything about this fining of John L.





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