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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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get the tung oil, and we probably wouldn't need it and would wonder what to do with it if we got it.”

It was sort of jokingly said. And yet it was obvious that we had to keep up the fight over there. I don't think I know too much about China. What I knew was just drippings of conversation, and I always was rather careful, as I said, not to try to get too much information.

Interviewer:

How about the 1944 convention? You started into that a moment ago with regard to warning Wallace not to go to China. I wonder why?

Perkins:

Well, I said that to him, when I heard he was going to China or Russia--he was going to Siberia and China, yes. I was somewhat astonished. Everybody had been going to China, you see. There had been a perfect procession of Americans going to China and Americans going to Russia. I mean, everybody! Don Nelson went. Phil Fleming went. Everybody went, everybody who could think of something. Anything they could think of, they got a free ride to China or Russia and so forth. Then they came back and gave their impressions to the Cabinet. I may say it was practically always very complimentary. I never heard anybody speak in unfavorable terms of the progress the Russians were making, and of their accomplishments, except Phil Fleming who said, “They don't know how to drive trucks, Mr. Chairman. You know, they just get in and step on the gas and drive them. They don't know how to repair them. They're unmechanical.”





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