Frances Perkins Quotes

I thought witch-hunting was a thing of the past, but that's what this 'red-baiting' immigration squad is doing. They see communists behind every foreign name.

The Employment Service is all but dead. It needs resurrecting and reorganizing. The Statistical Bureau needs revamping too, so it will be an honest fact-finding body. As for the Immigration Service—well, really, Franklin, it is altogether too reactionary for today's world.

Just let the people know that they matter to you, that your plan is to mobilize the government to help them. If you can give them hope that things will be better, they'll bless you, Franklin.

Would you leave me free to do what I think is best for the Labor Department, Franklin? I'd try to keep you informed, but I wouldn't always be able to... [D]irect unemployment relief, a program of public works, minimum wage and hour laws, unemployment and old age insurance, abolition of child labor... These things need doing no matter who is Secretary of Labor.

Organized labor has always had one of its own people as Secretary and will expect to continue to have. I do not qualify.

It is all-important to keep the human touch in whatever we do... This is the machine age... and we should make machines work for us—but let us not act like robots ourselves!

I would not be where I am today if it were not for you and others like you. ...I do not regard you as paying tribute to me personally, but to Frances Perkins as a symbol of the genuine desire to bring happiness to those who have it not in their own power. So that industry may bear down kindly instead of bitterly. ...I promise to use the brains I have to meet problems with intelligence and courage. ...I promise that I will be candid about what I know, of the Labor Department or of the state of industry in this state and in country.

To know him is to love him... He's honest, high-minded, intelligent and—above all—independent. I have worked with him in government for years. There has never been any conflict between his official duties and his religious beliefs, I am confident there never will be!

His illness had changed him... Having known what trouble is to the very depths of his being, he can now sympathize with other people who have problems. I think he could make a very good governor of the state of New York.

I know what horror tales you've been hearing from manufacturers... They've told you they can't possibly operate under a forty-eight hour law. Well, they said the same thing twelve years ago when the Fifty-Four Hour Bill was under consideration. So, gentlemen, let us look at the facts. ...[T]here have been fewer industrial accidents, because the workers do not so often become careless through fatigue. Gentlemen, there is every reason to believe things will improve still further when the working day is shorter. ...A million women will be affected by the law... you don't need to fear employers... [T]hose million women have suffrage... Let this bill that means so much to them go to a vote. They'll be grateful to you!

I think any compulsion other than moral compulsion is wrong. Let disputes be settled by public opinion, not statute.

The day I need an armed bodyguard is the day I admit my job's too much for a woman.

Gentlemen... let me make a plain statement. As I see it, the Labor Commission is duty-bound always to consider two things about every recommendation. One: what will this provide in the way of health, comfort, decency and security? Two: what will it cost?

I will fight for it up to the Supreme Court, if necessary... If the Industrial Commission does not have the right to make essential safety laws, it might as well close up shop!

The mothers don't want to bring their children [in for child labor at a vegetable cannery in Auborn, NY]—they need to. ...That need will never cease until employers pay decent wages! There ought to be a law assuring minimum pay, as well as one limiting hours worked!