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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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the right way to do things. Truman and Vinson didn't like the idea but I pointed out that it was almost the only way things could be settled nowadays, I don't remember that I wrote any memorandum, but if I did, they were all with those coal papers that have to do with the coal strikes out there, in that box, a little wooden box. I probably wrote a memorandum to Truman, because I couldn't take so much for granted in his background of knowledge and understanding as I did with Roosevelt who had been through it, and I probably wrote a memorandum to him, in which I laid out these points very briefly. I discovered this very early: you had to make your communications to Mr. Truman very brief. You really ought to do it to Roosevelt, but you could make them a little longer. But Mr. Truman--although he was an excellent reader and he read thoroughly, --killed himself reading, he read everything that was handed to him-- couldn't follow digressions. You had to keep right to the point, you see. “What is it that this problem is, and what do you recommend as a solution?” Not “Why do you recommend it,” but “What do you recommend as a solution, and what do I do?” That's all he wanted: what to do.

Interviewer:

Yet you say in this instance, he had an antagonism to doing what you suggested.





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