Nothing to Fear

by Adam Cohen

  78 Brock, Welfare, Democracy, and the New Deal, pp. 94-102; George McJimsey, Harry Hopkins: Ally of the Poor and Defender of Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 45; Rosenman, Presidential Style, p. 301; Jeff Singleton, The American Dole: Unemployment Relief and the Welfare State in the Great Depression (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2000), pp. 76-78; June Hopkins, Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Reformer (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999) pp. 154-56; Freidel, Triumph, pp. 221, 223 and n.

  79 Frances Perkins, “Radio Address ‘On behalf of the campaign of the National Democratic Committee for Roosevelt and Garner,’ ” St. Louis, October 25, 1932, p. 2; Frances Perkins, “Campaign Speech for Governor Roosevelt: ‘Concerning Governor Roosevelt’s labor and welfare programs,’ ” p. 3, Perkins Papers, Box 4; New York Times, 1/20/30; New York Times, 11/13/32; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, p. 463; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 295-96, 460-64; Josephson and Josephson, Al Smith, p. 428.

  80 FDR Papers, Vol. I, pp. 786-89.

  81 Washington Post, 11/6⅙/32; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 295-96, 503.

  82 Dewson, “An Aid to the End,” pp. 78-79; Letter of Mary Dewson to FDR, Dewson Box 4, Roosevelt, Franklin D. 1928-1944, FDR Library; Notes of Agnes Leach interview by Joseph Lash, 12/13/67, Lash Box 44, FDR Library; E. Roosevelt, This I Remember, p. 5; Ruth Backes Interview with Allan Bloom, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 12, Folder 5; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 145, 156; Los Angeles Times, 3/2/33, 9/14/30 ; Chicago Daily Tribune, 1/29/33; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 73-74.

  83 Tomlin Coggeshall Interview; Ruth Backes, Interview with Maurice Neufeld, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 12, Folder 12; Notes of Agnes Leach interview by Joseph Lash, 12/13/67, Lash Box 44, FDR Library; New York Times, 3/8/33; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 560, 639-44, 646-47, 560 ; Chicago Daily Tribune, 1/29/33.

  84 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 522, 559, 643-44;New York Times, 12/11/32; “Letter of Felix Frankfurter to FDR,” January 28, 1933, in PPF 140, Frankfurter, Felix, 1932-April 1933, FDR Library; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 156; Frances Perkins, “The Cost of a Five-Dollar Dress,” Survey Graphic, February 1933.

  85 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 519, 570 ; Washington Post, 2/5/33.

  86 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 570-75, 587-608; Frances Perkins, “Eight Years as Madam Secretary,” Fortune, September 1941; Collier’s, 8/5/44; Martin, Madam Secretary , pp. 239-41.

  87 Martin, Madam Secretary, p. 241.

  88 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 639-47; Maurice Neufeld Diary, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 6, Folder 4.

  89 Washington Post, 2/5⅖/33; Los Angeles Times, 3/2/33; Los Angeles Times, 3/2/33; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, p. 298; The New Republic, 3/8/33; Carter, New Dealers, p. 59.

  90 The New Republic, 3/8⅜/33; New Yorker, 9/9/33; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 158.

  91 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 3, pp. 650-54; Chicago Daily Tribune, 4/3/33; Los Angeles Times, 3/3/33; Los Angeles Times, 3/2/33; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 158; Mohr, That Woman, p. 2; Saturday Evening Post, 7/27/40.

  92 New Yorker, 9/9/33; Chicago Daily Tribune, 3/4/33; Chicago Daily Tribune, 3/2/33; Washington Post, 3/2/33; New York Times, 3/2/33.

  CHAPTER 7 : “JUST SO WE GET A PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAM”

  1 Grossman, Department of Labor pp. 3, 9; Works Progress Administration, Washington, p. 960; Frances Perkins, “The Department of Labor as an Agency of Government,” lecture to Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations, April 24, 1957, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 5, Folder 1.

  2 Grossman, Department of Labor, pp. 12, 22-24, 29; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 104-5, 108, 112; New York Times, 7/1/28; New York Times, 1/8/33; Time, 12/8/30 ; Time, 8/10/31; Perkins, “The Department of Labor as an Agency of Government.”

  3 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 117-23; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 20-21, 25; Mohr, That Woman, pp. 129, 153; Carter, New Dealers, p. 174.

  4 Peter H. Irons, The New Deal Lawyers (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 23; Dewson, “An Aid to the End,” p. 83; Mohr, That Woman, pp. 154-55; Grossman, Department of Labor, pp. 58-59.

  5 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, p. 133; Rexford Tugwell, Interview of Henry A. Wallace; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 302-3; Carter, New Dealers, pp. 169-70, 174.

  6 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 299-300; Severn, Member of the Cabinet , p. 112.

  7 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 303-4; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 251-52.

  8 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 308-11; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 253-54; New York Times, 6/26/21.

  9 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 67-70, 186-90.

  10 Tully, F.D.R.: My Boss, p. 195; Mohr, That Woman, p. 3; Ickes, Diary, p. 407; Tugwell, Brains Trust, p. 78; Dewson, “An Aid to the End,” pp. 83-84; New York Times, 5/7/33; New York Times, 5/15/65; Louis Baldwin, Women of Strength: Biographies of 106 Who Have Excelled in Traditionally Male Fields, A.D. 61 to the Present (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1996), p. 24.

  11 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 148-51, 301; Mohr, That Woman, p. 148.

  12 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 148-53; Washington Post, 3/15/33; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 278-79; New York Times, 12/19/34; Ruth Backes, Interview with Gerard Dennis Reilly, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 12, Folder 13; Time, 8/21/33; Mohr, That Woman, pp. 36, 148-49; Carter, New Dealers, p. 69.

  13 Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 279-82; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 6., p. 488; “All Saints Episcopal Convent,” in Ruth Backes Papers, Box 4, Folder 2.

  14 FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 82-83; Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow,” New York Herald Tribune, 2/7/33; Badger, FDR, p. 86 ; Williams, Federal Aid for Relief, p. 49; Letter from Allen Burns, Executive Director of the Association of Community Chests and Councils, to Raymond Moley, March 23, 1933, Moley Papers, Box 63.

  15 FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 19-20.

  16 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 468-70.

  17 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 501-3; Lewis Douglas draft reminiscences, “Budget Years,” p. 4, Douglas Papers, Box 5.

  18 Moley, First New Deal, p. 274; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 430; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 468-69.

  19 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 468-69; Harold Ickes, Back to Work: The Story of the PWA (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1935), pp. 5-6, 9; Leighninger, Long-Range Public Investment, p. 36; The New Republic, 3/15/33; One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression, ed. Richard Lowitt and Maurine Beasley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), pp. xvii-xviii; Huthmacher, Senator Robert F. Wagner, pp. 61, 76-77, 89-90; New York Times, 4/15/33.

  20 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 468-70 ; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 269; Tugwell, Diary, p. 327.

  21 Letter of Lewis Douglas to W. R. Mathews of December 29, 1932, in Douglas Papers, Box 238; Letter of Lewis Douglas to Franklin Roosevelt of January 19, 1933, in Douglas Papers, Box 238; Tugwell, Diary, p. 411; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 468-69; James Sargent, Interview with Lewis Douglas, p. 42, Douglas Papers, Box 119, Folder 5; F. Roosevelt, FDR: His Personal Letters, p. 342; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 85, 96; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 9; Moley, First New Deal, p. 252; New York Times, 5/19/33.

  22 Sargent, Interview with Lewis Douglas; Tugwell, Roosevelt’s Revolution, p. 9; Tugwell, Diary, p. 411.

  23 Reminiscences of Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr., 1959, CUOHRO, p. 175; Remin
iscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 468-69, 471-72, 477-78; Ickes, Back to Work, pp. 5-6, 9; Hugh S. Johnson, The Blue Eagle from Egg to Earth (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1935), p. 189; New York Times, 4/15/33.

  24 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 471-72, 477-78; New York Times, 4/15/33; J. Hopkins, Sudden Hero, p. 161.

  25 McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, pp. 45, 51-52; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 471-77.

  26 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 184-85; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, p. 474-75.

  27 Letter from Lewis Douglas to Raymond Moley, May 4, 1964, Douglas Papers, Box 118; Moley, Diary, 3/24/33; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 173-74; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 267-68; FDR Papers, Vol. I, p. 625; FDR Papers, Vol. II, p. 13; Washington Post, 3/12/33.

  28 John Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1967), pp. 4-5, 8; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 173-74; William James, Memories and Studies (New York Longmans, Green and Co., 1912), pp. 290-91; Letter from James Rolph, Governor of California to FDR, August 5, 1932, Moley Papers, Box 113; Moley, First New Deal, p. 268; Reminiscences of Henry A. Wallace, 1951, CUOHRO, p. 243; Leslie Alexander Lacy, The Soil Soldiers: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Great Depression (Radnor, Pa.: Chilton Book Company, 1976), p. 19; Tugwell, Diary, p. 388.

  29 Memorandum from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Raymond Moley, January 18, 1933 (enclosing report on a Florida program that proposed putting the unemployed to work outdoors), Moley Papers, Box 113; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 173-74; Moley, First New Deal, p. 269; Freidel, Triumph, pp. 225-26 ; FDR Papers, Vol. II, p. 654; Tugwell, Diary, pp. 387-88; Reminiscences of Henry A. Wallace, 1951, CUOHRO, p. 243; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 3-5, 8; Tully, F.D.R.: My Boss, p. 17; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries, p. 26.

  30 Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 3-4; Moley, First New Deal, p. 269; F. Roosevelt, On Our Way, p. 40.

  31 Moley, First New Deal, p. 269.

  32 Frances Perkins, “Memorandum for the Cabinet Meeting, March 31, 1933, Perkins Papers, Box 64; Moley, First New Deal, p. 268; Moley, Diary, 3/14/33; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, p. 480; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 258; Breiseth, “The Frances Perkins I Knew”; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, p. 110; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 177.

  33 Memorandum for the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Labor, March 14, 1933, OF 15, Department of Labor, Box 1, FDR Library; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 173-74; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 481-83, 504; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, p. 11; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 268-69.

  34 Moley, Diary, 3/24/33; Letter from Lewis Douglas to Raymond Moley, May 4, 1964, Douglas Papers, Box 118; Presidential Press Conference, March 15, 1933, Complete Presidential Press Conferences; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 259.

  35 Moley, After Seven Days, pp. 174-75; Moley, First New Deal, p. 269; Presidential Press Conference, March 17, 1933, Complete Presidential Press Conferences.

  36 Washington Post, 3/22/3⅔3; Chicago Tribune, 4/3/33.

  37 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 347-48, 367-68; Dewson, “An Aid to the End,” p. 87; New York Times, 3/8/1933.

  38 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 239, 343-56, 368; Smith, FDR, pp. 309-10 ; Dewson, “An Aid to the End,” p. 87.

  39 Ruth Backes, Interview of Allan Bloom; Dewson, “An Aid to the End,” p. 87; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 239, 342-45, 368; Collier’s, 8/5/44; Grossman, Department of Labor, p. 58.

  40 Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 259-60 and n.; FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 80-81; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 270-71.

  41 FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 80-81.

  42 Ibid.

  43 Jordan A. Schwarz, The Interregnum of Despair: Hoover, Congress, and the Depression (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), pp. 168-69.

  44 New York Times, 3/22/33; Time, 4/3/33; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, p. 14.

  45 Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 14-15.

  46 Ibid., pp. 7, 16; New York Times, 3/24/33; Washington Post, 3/24/33; New York Times, 3/30/33.

  47 Time, 4/3/33; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 491-92.

  48 Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 16-18; New York Times, 3/25/33.

  49 Moley, Diary, 3/24/33; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, p. 75.

  50 Presidential Press Conferences, March 24, 1933, Complete Presidential Press Conferences; Lewis Douglas, Memorandum of December 30, 1933, in President’s Personal File, File 1914 (Lewis Douglas), FDR Library; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 260-61; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, pp. 167-69; Letter of Lewis Douglas to James Sargent, March 19, 1973, Douglas Papers, Box 119.

  51 FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 95-96; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 20, 23, 88; New York Times, 3/30/33; Washington Post, 3/26/33.

  52 Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 26-29; Martin, Madam Secretary, p. 251; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, p. 493; FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 107-9.

  53 FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 107-9; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 27-28, 30-31; Lacy, Soil Soldiers, p. 20 ; Dickson and Allen, Bonus Army, p. 208.

  54 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 311-12; “Agenda for the Labor Conference,” Perkins Papers, Box 71; Press Release, “For Release to Morning Papers, March 23, 1933,” Perkins Papers, Box 71.

  55 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 312-16; New York Times, 4/1/33; New York Times, 3/31/33.

  56 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 312-18; New York Times, 4/1/33.

  57 Deborah C. Malamud, “Engineering the Middle Classes: Class Line-Drawing in New Deal Hours Legislation,” Michigan Law Review 96 (August 1998), pp. 2212, 2234; Newman, Hugo Black, p. 157; Freidel, Triumph, p. 418; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, p. 113; New York Times, 4/9/33; New York Times, 4/8/33; New York Times, 4/7/33; Time, 4/17/33.

  58 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 439-48, 450-52; New York Times, 4/9/33; Newman, Hugo Black, pp. 144-45; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 260-61; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 192-94; New York Times, 4/8/33; New York Times, 4/7/33.

  59 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 4, pp. 440-48, 450-52; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 192-93.

  60 Newman, Hugo Black, p. 156; Harris, “Convocation,” pp. 104-5; New York Times, 4/7/33; New York Times, 4/8/33; New York Times, 4/9/33; Time, 4/17/33; David Roediger and Philip Foner, Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (New York: Verso, 1997), p. 247.

  61 New York Times, 4/13/33; New York Times, 4/16/33, 4/21/33; Time, 4/24/33.

  62 Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, p. 124; FDR Papers, Vol. II, p. 141; New York Times, 4/13/33; New York Times, 4/14/33; New York Times, 4/15/33; New York Times, 4/21/33.

  63 Ickes, Back to Work, p. 13; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, p. 155; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 261-62; New York Times, 4/18/33; New York Times, 4/19/33; New York Times, 4/20/33; New York Times, 5/2/33; Time, 4/17/33.

  64 Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, p. 155; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 262-63; New York Times, 4/26/33; New York Times, 4/27/33; New York Times, 5/11/33.

  65 “Radio Address by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace,” April 1, 1933, Wallace Papers, Box S1; Report of the Honorable Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief Administrator, July 18, 1933, Hopkins Papers, Box 43, FDR Library; Frances Perkins, “Radio Speech: ‘Emergency Conservation Work,’ ” July 17, 1933, Perkins Papers, Box 46; Lacy, Soil Soldiers, pp. 24-25; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, pp. 103-4, 275; Perry H. Merrill, Roosevelt’s Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps (Montpelier, Vt.: Perry H. Merrill, 1981),
pp. 9, 11-15, 55; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 264; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 31-32; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, p. 261; Time, 4/17/33.

  66 Merrill, Roosevelt’s Forest Army, pp. 58, 60, 92-93, 95, 97-98; Tugwell, Democratic Roosevelt, pp. 278-79.

  67 Joint Statement by Mrs. Roosevelt and the Secretary of Labor, June 1, 1933, OF 15, Dept. of Labor, Box 1, FDR Library; Monthly Report of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, OF 444 FERA, FDR Library; New York Times, 5/1/33; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 265; New York Times, 8/27/33; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 33-34; Leighninger, Long-Range Public Investment, pp. 15-18; Lacy, Soil Soldiers, pp. 74-77.

  68 Dickson and Allen, Bonus Army, pp. 207-23; Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe, p. 386 ; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 15.

  69 Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe, pp. 386-88; Dickson and Allen, Bonus Army, pp. 215-16; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 15; Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. II, pp. 45-46; Smith, FDR, pp. 282, 329-30; E. Roosevelt, This I Remember, pp. 112-13; Salmond, Civilian Conservation Corps, p. 36; Frank Friedel, Interview of Eleanor Roosevelt, Small Collections Oral History, FDR Library.

  70 Stott, “FDR, Lewis Douglas, and the Raw Deal”; Dickson and Allen, Bonus Army, pp. 216, 220; Smith, FDR, pp. 329-30 ; New York Times, 5/12/33; New York Times, 5/13/33.

  71 Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 184-85; Sternsher, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, pp. 154-57; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 409; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 93; Moley, After Seven Years, p. 370.

  72 Rexford G. Tugwell, “Planning Must Replace Laissez Faire,” in Zinn, New Deal Thought, p. 88; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 184-85; Sternsher, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, pp. 9, 154-57, 351; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 409; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 93; Josephson, Infidel, p. 60.

  73 Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 184-85, 370; Sternsher, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, p. 156; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, pp. 156-57; FDR Papers, Vol. I, p. 752; Letter of Henry Harriman to Franklin Roosevelt, May 11, 1933, Of 466, Box 1 (NRA Jan.-May 1933), FDR Library.