FDR's Personal Copy of 1934 Textile Industry Crisis Board Report Countersigned by Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins, the First Woman Presidential Cabinet Member

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Published by Washington, D.C., 1934

About this Item

Typescript Signed with initials, twice, on the title page. Roosevelts personal bound carbon copy of Report of the Board of Inquiry for the Cotton Textile Industry, September 17, 1934, Hyde Park, New York. 38 pp., 9 x 11 3/8 in. This typed report was compiled in two weeks amidst a violent nationwide textile strike. In addition to Roosevelt initialing it twice, it is signed by his the chairman of the commission, and by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve on a Presidential cabinet, in which role she played an important part in writing critical New Deal legislation, including the Social Security Act. The report was personally given to FDR at a meeting at Hyde Park to discuss the board's findings which successfully brought an end to the strike. Excerpts"Report of the Board of Inquiry / For The Cotton Textile Industry / To The President / Submitted September 17, 1934"Inscribed and signed by FDR: "by F.P. to F.DR. /in propria persona / F.DR."Also inscribed and signed by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (1880-1965): "Frances Perkins. All at Hyde Park / N.Y. - conference". And also signed by John Winant, Chairman of the Board of Inquiry."There is no doubt but that one of the basic causes of the present conflict is the wide-spread dissatisfaction on the part of the labor with machinery of code administration dealing with labor's rights under the code. The procedure for handling complaints of violation of section 7(a) and other labor provisions of the code, as it has existed up to the strike, may be described briefly as follows:"The Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board was, as already noted, originally conceived as a body for handling 'controversies' arising over stretch-out problems alone. More or less as an afterthought the Board was given jurisdiction over controversies arising out of 'any other problem of working conditions.' In all types of cases, however, the legal power of the Board was limited to hearing cases-on appeal from the State boards, whose power in turn was limited to hearing cases on appeal from the mill committees. Thus the National Board and the State Board were legally equipped to act only through the mill committee procedure, and only in case a 'controversy' arose in the mill."The Board was seriously handicapped in other ways. It lacked facilities for performing its functions; it was granted no definite budget. Two of the members were unable to devote their full time to the Board. The member of the Board representing labor was from the printing industry and not a textile worker. Much of the work had to be experimental. The State boards often did not function satisfactorily and in the end several became virtually defunct. Without in any way wishing to reflect upon the integrity or sincerity of the members of the Board, its operations in practice under these handicaps resulted in wide-spread dissatisfaction with the Board as a part of the code administrative machinery." (p18-20)"The principle of investigation by management of complaints made by workers against management cannot be defended from any standpoint consistent with the principles on which the Recovery Act is founded. The principle is in fact directly contrary to usual N. R. A. procedure, as expressed in N. R. A. regulations and enforced as to many other codes. And, as might be expected, there is considerable evidence, both from the union and from an independent inquiry conducted by a member of the N. R. A. staff, that the investigations were often less effective than would be the ease had they been independent in character."Complaints of the violations of section 7(a), such as alleged discriminatory discharge and refusal to bargain collectively, were, handled by the same procedure. It appears to us self-evident that in no event should such complaints be handled by a partisan body made up of employers only. The code authority agrees to this conclusion and has already expressed its . (See website for full description). Seller Inventory # 27690

Bibliographic Details

Title: FDR's Personal Copy of 1934 Textile Industry...

Publisher: Washington, D.C.

Publication Date: 1934

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Book Type: Typescript Signed