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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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heartily--strutting around for all he was worth. And he was on the way to Russia. It was in that hotel I met Hillman too, you see. He was on the way to Russia. A lot of them were going to Russia after this meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions.

There were a lot of other very amusing, interesting things that went on there. But we began our preparations. The other delegates began coming in. I think some of them had already arrived. The first meetings of the I.L.O. were to begin on Tuesday. We met Sunday night and we met Monday, among ourselves. We had some offices in the Hotel Calif ornie that we had engaged--a few rooms that could be used as offices-- and we met to sort of prepare ourselves and agree upon various things, and so forth. Then we went to the meeting when it opened.

Well, it was the most emotional meeting I can ever imagine. We were just out from under the cover of the War. There was a terrible sense of relief, of burdens thrown aside. At the same time there were great questions, you see. But chiefly there was this sense of relief, and then this extraordinary sense of reunion, as people who hadn't seen each other since '41--no '39--, had been buried in the Underground, had been living on tulip bulbs, had been living on anything they could find, who had been on the run for their lives, who had followed the river line out of France to England, who had





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