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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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that there seems to be very little doubt but what Lee Pressman is a Communist, and you know what a Communist in the C.I.O. in an operating position can do. Now, you only have to see one or two unions that have gotten under the grip of one to know that they can disrupt a whole union movement, and the whole movement of the C.I.O., and it occurs to me that it's very hazardous for you to keep Pressman in this close relationship, or to keep him at all in your employ, in an organizing aspect.”

“Well,” he said, “wasn't he very useful to you and to the Government in the settlement of the sit-down strikes?”

And I said, “I've never been sure whether he did anything helpful or whether it was unhelpful. He gave us lip-service. He told us that he was doing everything he could, and undoubtedly he had a line in to whatever handful of Communists were back of this, after it got going.” After the sit-down strikes got going, I know there were some Communists moved in from New York and other places, and Pressman was certainly the pipeline to them, when the Government began to mean business, and when Lewis began to press him and Hillman began to press him.

I said, “I know that was a useful project, probably-- but actually, does he do anything for you that you couldn't do better yourselves, through other union men who are not tainted with this? You'll ruin the union, and of course it gives you a very bad color. It gives people the





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