

Here's where Frances Perkins stepped up and convinced FDR, to do the right thing for out-of-work Workers,

-- to give them Security, to put People back work; to give them Dignity and Hope:



Frances Perkins: Champion of the New Deal (pdf)

Michael Patrick, April 2006



[pg 3] In 1932, FDR was elected President. Business owners wanted one of their own appointed Secretary of Labor. Union leaders wanted a union man appointed. FDR had the perfect choice in Frances Perkins because he knew she wouldn’t satisfy either side but she would work for social justice. The nation was in the Great Depression with no end in sight. The new Secretary of Labor advocated immediate relief through welfare checks. FDR was opposed to such direct relief payments, but supported her plans for WPA and CCC to put people back to work. The CCC is particularly important because it took young men off the street, trained them to work in battalions under officers, gave them a “can do” attitude, and in real sense prepared them to serve in the war that was on the horizon. In her first two years in office, she wrote the Social Security Act, saw it through Congress, and in August, 1935, FDR signed it into law. Also during this time, she was an advocate for the National Recovery Act, which was found to be unconstitutional. From that she learned that social programs could be enacted to bring the country out of the Depression on a piecemeal basis, rather in an omnibus bill like the NRA.



1935 Social Security Act Announced by FDR



http://youtu.be/...



Frances Perkins: the woman behind the New Deal

Democracy Now



http://youtu.be/...



A terrible work-place tragedy in Frances Perkins' own NY neighborhood; "It had a huge influence on Frances Perkins," according to Amy Goodman, in that previous clip.

This is why we needed Workplace and Consumer Regulations.

This is why Workers needed Rights, including the Right to Organize and form Unions:



Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 1911



http://youtu.be/...

That is what motivated Frances Perkins, to advocate for Workers.

To effect real Change. To give Workers real Dignity, and real Hope again.

.

.

.





"What was the New Deal anyhow? Was it a political plot? Was it just a name for a period in history? Was it a revolution? To all of these questions I answer "No." It was something quite different... It was, I think, basically an attitude. An attitude that found voice in expressions like "the people are what matter to government," and "a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life."

[...] “Most of man's problems upon this planet, in the long history of the race, have been met and solved either partially or as a whole by experiment based on common sense and carried out with courage.”

[...]

-- Frances Perkins (1882-1965) --



WHO was Frances Perkins?



Just one brave citizen, who spoke up, and fought hard,

and ultimately ended up, changing the world. Making it a better place for the rest of us, to toil in; a better place to carry on with the work she started ...



Ms. Perkins helped restore those meager shreds of Dignity, that Workers are once again, being hard-pressed to maintain ... given today's austere political winds, mired by a Media with No sense of History. ... No sense of the average Worker's pain.







