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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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kettle of fish. I see how it happened. It happened out of this amiable idea, “Ask 'em who they want. Let them pick 'em out.”

You'd better pick them yourself.

In the 1945 meeting we had an excellent delegation. We went to Paris and we arrived, I think, a day or so early. And to my astonishment, the World Federation of Trade Unions had just been meeting, and it had practically preempted the publicity in the Paris Press. The Paris newspapers had been full of what they had done and what they had said, and the resolutions they had adopted, and so forth. I met Sidney Hillman there--met him on the street or in a hotel-- and oh, he was full of excitement. I've told you about my conversation with him earlier, in March, when he condemned the President? It was a propos of the World Federation of Trade Unions. He was just about to go to the meeting of the organizing committee in London, the next day after I saw him in New York. Before he went, before he got there, the President died. He was just about to go when the President died and then he of course postponed his flight. But he went afterwards. That was when he made me realize that he was neither reliable nor loyal. I don't mean loyal to his country, but I mean loyal to me, to the President, to his friends, to anything. He was all taken up with this big idea.

I met him on the street, and I said, “Well, how did things





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