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Notable New     Yorkers
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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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inroads on the French supply of food.”

So we went down into the hotel dining room, a very pleasant dining room, and told the headwaiter who we were and were shown to our seats. And to my surprise--I remember the astonishment there was a--great big high pitcher, eighteen inches high, full of grapefruit juice on the table! Well, we had forgotten about grapefruit juice. It was so long since we had had it. I remember pouring it and drinking glassful after glassful. This was all military food. Every bit of it was food provided by the Army. It was military food with a French chef. The hotel provided the chef. The military provided the food, and the chef did what he could with it. He did the funniest things with baked beans. A standard dish was baked beans, you see. We had it several times a week, and we had it on this particular Sunday.

It was pleasant. It was all Americans. Everybody there was American, and you began to look around and see where you were, and to be so astonished by the great number of Americans.

Well, among other Americans there was this Blacky somebody who had been the moving factor of the worst kind in the longshoreman's strikes in California, and had also gone out to Hawaii and helped to organize the longshoremen there. He saw me come in, and he sailed right up and greeted me





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