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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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That summer and autumn were concerned with getting memoranda ready, getting materials ready, and so forth.

Interviewer:

When did you go to Civil Service?

Perkins:

I went into Civil Service October 1, 1946.

Interviewer:

Wallace's debacle was in September of '46.

Perkins:

Yes, I know. I was back in Washington by that time. The President asked me earlier than October. It wasn't convenient for me. My book came out and I think it was published in November, '46, and I had been working, I had been writing this book this year, you see. I was in Maine, and I got this call first from Paul Fitzpatrick of Buffalo, who was the Chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee. He called me in Maine,

The President had asked me, you see, before I left, what post I wanted, if I wanted one at all. He had wanted me to be associated with the Administration one way or another, but he thought he wanted to have somebody he know very well as Secretary of Labor. He didn't tell me it was going to be Schwellenbach. See, he and Schwellenbach had been of the “Four Horsemen,” you remember, when they first were new Senators --there were Schwellenbach and Truman, and Val Peterson and I can't think who the other was. Anyhow, they all felt they were great reformers and so forth.





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