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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 912

Perkins:

No, but that was the idea--to bring in everybody who presumably had an interest in the utilization of manpower. So you had the Army, the Navy, the Draft Board, Agriculture, Labor, Education. Everybody was on it.

Interviewer:

I have the minutes of the Commission--would they help you remember anything of significance?

Perkins:

No, because I don't think anything of significance ever happened.

This was a very expensive operation that resulted in nothing, and it broke down three or four very good people trying to run it, you know. McNutt, of course, never did anything, and never caught on to anything. That's really true. Did he take hold? He didn't even catch on. I don't know whether he had any ability to catch on or not, but he never caught on to what was being done. He just sat and smiled. He never presided, in what I call a presiding officer's way of doing things. He never grabbed the subject and reduced it to its elements and got the idea of the Army on that hand and the Draft Board on the other and Labor on the other. Ideas of his own? Oh, not any! Never an idea. He never had an idea!

Now, whether he thought that was the way for a presiding officer to be or not, I don't know. Maybe he did.





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