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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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could do, you know. What should I do? Should I tell the world? Should I tell Roosevelt? What was it my duty to do?

To tell the world would be a big rumpus and an awful political scandal. I knew I must--I decided that I must tell Roosevelt, although it's strictly against my principles ever to tell anybody what anybody else says of them. I've made that a rule of life. I never tell anybody what is said about them by somebody else--friend or foe--because it makes unnecessary trouble. But I thought this over carefully, and I decided that I had to do it, in order to give the man some warning, some protection, and to prevent him from putting still further reliance upon Sidney Hillman when Hillman was ready to denounce him and to say that he was through with him. He'd used him, and he was through with him.

So I thought about it, and I stayed after Cabinet meeting that particular day, March 16, and told him that I had something very unpleasant to tell him, and to brace himself. Then I told him this story.

I said, “I hate to tell you this. I feel like a fool doing it, but I think you must know.”

He said nothing. He sat and nodded his head. He looked surprised when I told him what Hillman had said. “No!” he said. “No!” You know, the way you say, I can't believe he would say that.





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