Frances Perkins
Appearances
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
Well, Mr. President, what are they going to do when they get to the woods?
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
Yes, I know. But what about the unemployed? Where are they?
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
Take those poor men off the bread lines and take them up to the Adirondacks and turn them loose?
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
Just because they're unemployed doesn't mean they are natural-born lumbermen. How are you going to recruit?
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
Mr. President, you know as well as I do that the Department of Labor has no facilities for recruiting, selecting, and transporting these men.
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
As she later summarizes, It was characteristic of him that he conceived the project, boldly rushed it through, and happily left it to others to worry about the details.
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
So, ready as ever to support the president, Francis looks him in his bespectacled eyes and answers, Well, the Forest Service could tell us where work needs to be done, and perhaps the military could set up camps and provide the tents, cots, shoes, and blankets workers would need.
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
I think you ought to speak to Ickis.
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
You haven't told Hugh?
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
Oh, Mr. President.
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
We visited every green park in Washington that day, some of them many times, as I tried to reason with the general. Don't blow up, I pleaded. Don't pull out. And all he would say was, it's terrible, it's terrible.
History That Doesn't Suck
174: The First “First Hundred Days:” FDR Kicks Off the New Deal
He was, of course, merely showing gratitude that I had been his friend in an hour of need. What he really meant was that I was the best woman in the cabinet.