19 quotes
Who is that tall, thin young man with the pince-nez, who seems constantly to be looking down his nose at people?
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
From this day forward, I will be a Doer of the Word and not as Hearer only, whenever and wherever I see the need.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
The day I need an armed bodyguard is the day I admit my job's too much for a woman.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
Organized labor has always had one of its own people as Secretary and will expect to continue to have. I do not qualify.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I shall always be most grateful to him. He made me rediscover that I had a mind. It had lain fallow, I am afraid, since my Mount Holyoke days.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I'm the last leaf on the New Deal tree, and I think perhaps I've clung here too long already.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
His arrogance isn't what disturbs me so much as his self-centeredness... He doesn't seem to care about anything that doesn't concern him personally.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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!
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
Harry Bridges is a card-carrying Communist, Franklin, but that's the single black mark against him and isn't illegal. I just don't believe a man should be punished for what he believes or thinks.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I think any compulsion other than moral compulsion is wrong. Let disputes be settled by public opinion, not statute.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
I never really saw really poor people before... My parents always told me nobody had to be poor—that they wouldn't be if they weren't shiftless or didn't spend everything they earned on drink. I don't understand how Mama and Papa could be so mistaken! ...Yes, I guess I do.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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!
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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!
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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!
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
You showed me which, of all the 'hats' a social worker wears, suits me best. ...[i.e.,] You convinced me that man-made evils can be corrected if people can be made to care enough. I intend to make them, if it's in my power.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
Upon hearing that Franklin D. Roosevelt won his NY state senate seat because many thought they were voting for Theodore Roosevelt.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)
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.
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (1970)