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of the President, in his own way. I mean, he wasn't all het up about the New Deal. He accepted it. It was a modern pattern, and he was anxious to overcome unemployment. He had very realistic views about the “poor white crackers” and the “darkies” that Harry Hopkins was taking care of.

Interviewer:

You're happy in your own mind that Wallace chose Commerce because Commerce was what he wanted?

Perkins:

Yes, and Commerce was something where he had no experience. He said, “I have no experience.” This is what Wallace said to me. I asked him why he wanted Commerce. He said, “I have never had any opportunity to know the businessmen of this country well. If I know them well--and I will get to know them well as Secretary of Commerce, because I shall make an effort to bring them in and treat them right and set their minds and their feet on a constructive path.”

Is that what he said to you? Well, that is what he said to me. “This is why I want that Department of Commerce. I can make myself known, and my purposes known, to the businessmen who have been against me without knowing why.”

Interviewer:

What purposes?

Perkins:

Well, the purposes of building up an economy in which the personal incomes would add up to a large interior purchasing market. That was, you know, what Henry Wallace





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