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

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

erect great telegraph lines and great power--carrying lines-- show them how and where to build a dam and utilize their rivers that flooded every year or two to make a power source, and to-distribute that power source, and to electrify China. He believed that once China was electrified, the Americans could withdraw from the operation of these things. There was no question that there were enough people in China who were well-educated, and well-educated technically, and more could be educated both here and in China, to operate these great enterprises. He maintained that once China was electrified, China would take care of herself; that there sources would be opened and that they would be made available, and that they could provide their food. I mean, that was the idea.

Interviewer:

That was awfully naive, I must say.

Perkins:

Well, I don't know whether it was naive or not.

Interviewer:

You go out the next day and find the telephone poles are down because somebody didn't have any wood.

Perkins:

Well, you mean that practically you know that they have never done that. That may be. I don't know anything about that end of it.

At any rate, there was a great disposition to believe that the Chinese had within themselves--I suppose this





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