Social Security History

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION PROJECT

Maurine Mulliner
Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, 1968

PREFACE
This memoir is the result of a series of tape-recorded interviews conducted for the Oral History Research Office by Peter A, Corning with Miss Maurine Mulliner in Washington, D.C. during 1967. Miss Mulliner has read the transcript, and has made only minor corrections and emendations. The reader is asked to bear in mind, therefore, that he is reading a transcript of the spoken rather than the written word.

Interview # 1 (Note: Approximately 128 printed pages.)

Interview with Miss Maurine Mulliner by Peter A. Corning

Washington D.C. April 26, 1967

Q: Perhaps first of all we can put on tape a brief capsule biography of yourself up to the point where you came to work for Social Security. And, perhaps you could tell me how it was that you came to work for Social Security.

Mulliner: It was because of the Depression.

Q: Like a lot of other people.

Mulliner: You've heard that before.

Q: Yes indeed.

Mulliner: I came from a little different setting than many of the other people. During my college time I was torn between two drives--one which I had had all my life and another one as I grew older. The one I had had all my life was to be the world's greatest ballerina. The other one was to be a lawyer. And while I was in college at the University of California in Berkeley, I studied ballet. I majored in physical education and political science in college, and when I came to Washington originally in 1927, it was to continue my study of the ballet--over my mother's objections. If you wanted to be romantic about it, you could say I ran away from home to go on the stage--well, to dance in the ballet. And I studied here with the Kingsmith Studio school, which then had a good school of the ballet which now is out of existence. But then in order to do that, I had to earn my living. I took a position as executive secretary of the Washington Child Research Center, which was a research organization financed by the Rockefeller Fund.

In that connection I got to know a great many people in Washington who were on the executive board of this research center. I studied ballet here. I got to the point where I wanted to have a try; went to Chicago because I could get a research assistant's position following out some of the research we had done here at the Washington Child Research Center, at the University of Chicago. I tried out for the ballet, and to my amazement I was accepted in the ballet of the Chicago Civic Opera Company, because I really hadn't had the training that I should have had to do this. But nevertheless I was lucky. So I did two things while I was there. I was a research assistant at the University of Chicago, and I danced with the ballet of the Chicago opera company. But this was in ‘30 and ‘31, and the Depression hit Chicago, and our fairy godfather, Mr. Samuel Insull, who wrote out the half-million dollar check for the deficit each season had to flee the country when his house of cards fell down, and the opera closed. That was in the Depression, as you know, and jobs were not easy to come by, and I was a long way from my home in Idaho, and I needed to earn my living.

I came to Washington and saw some friends here. Then I went to New York and tried out for a dancing group there and was offered a contract to go to Paris for six months. "Well," I thought, "what will I do when the six months are over? And the Depression is worse in the United States."

Q: You didn't believe Herbert Hoover that it would be over in six months?

Mulliner: No, I didn't. And one of the reasons at that time that I was able to make a decision to leave the theatrical world was that the people in that field were so unaware of the social problems and the economic problems of the country. They just lived in a different world, and it was such a limited kind of living... Well, I'd had my little fling. I had found out I was not going to be the world's greatest ballerina, and I was satisfied then to turn my life into some other channel.

So I came back and took a test for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which was one of the agencies that was set up in connection with the Depression program. I did this on my way to New York, and when I came back they told me that if an amendment passed that had been offered to their act by Senator Wagner of New York, which would provide I think just $5 million to give loans to states and localities to help them with the Depression, that they would employ me, because they would be putting on some people. So at this point I had to go home to Idaho where I could eat and sleep without paying money, and I did get a telegram in July that they had a position for me to interview people in personnel. I had been doing some work in the field of psychology at the University of Chicago, and this fitted in.

I came back. I took that position and held it for maybe six months, and I didn't like it a bit, because I didn't think their personnel policies were fair. One day at noontime I walked from my office over to see Isador Lubin, who was then still an economist with Brookings Institution. He later was Commissioner of Labor Statistics in the Roosevelt Cabinet.

Q: How did you come to know him?

Mulliner: He had been on the executive committee of the Child Research Center. That's why I mentioned earlier that I had gotten to know a good many people through that work. I said, "Lube, I just can't take it any more. I just don't like these personnel policies, and if you hear of anything that you think I could do, I wish you would keep me in mind."

This is a pure aside, but I remember him saying, "Well, I have some friends named Javits in New York whom I know are looking for a top-notch executive secretary, an administrative assistant type of person. Do you think you'd be interested in going to New York?"

And I said, "No, I don't think I would. Let's wait and see if something else turns up."

Well, there's no telling how interesting a life I would have had. If I'd gone with the Javits. I think it was the Eagle Pencil Company or something like that that they were working in at that time.

But anyway two days later Lubin was called up by Senator Wagner for an interview. At that time Senator Wagner was using Lubin as an economic adviser on a volunteer basis. While Lubin was in the Senator's office, one of the Senator's secretaries came in and said, "Senator, here's the executive order from the President setting up that position you asked for, for a personal secretary. It's finally come through."

You see, the Economy Act was in effect in those days, and no vacancy in government could be filled and no new position could be set up except by an executive order from the President. So the Senator turned to Lubin and said, "Well I have the position now but no one to put in it."

And Dr. Lubin said, "Oh. yes. I know who should go into it." And three days later I was personal secretary to Senator Wagner of New York.

Q: What year was this?

Mulliner: Nineteen thirty-three. It was either ‘32 or ‘33.

Q: I guess it must have been ‘32 because March of '33 was when Roosevelt came in, or it may have been early '33. But it was when Hoover was still President.

Mulliner: Yes, Hoover was still President when I came into the government service. That senatorial work was a marvelous experience. I didn't know much about New York. I had spent three days in New York in my life. I didn't know a thing about the operations of the Senate except what I may have learned in school years before. But I just thoroughly took to that kind of work. The Senator introduced the Economic Security bill and when that bill was introduced I knew that was the program I wanted to work with, and I told the Senator that.

Q: Before we go on to talking about that, I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about working for the Senator. What was he like, for a start?

Mulliner: He was a man whose whole life was his work. He was a widower, as you probably know. He had one son, and he really didn't have any home life. You know, the sessions went on and on and on then, and he carried I guess two-thirds of the New Deal legislation, and his office was completely understaffed. There
was an efficiency expert waiting to see him one day whom I talked to. I told him a little bit about the volume of mail--from 2 to 5000 communications a day flowing in there, because every working man in the country thought Bob Wagner was his Senator, in addition to the New York citizens. And the man said, "Well, I would think a minimum staff of 25. How many do you have?" I said, "There are eight altogether to do the committee work as well as the Senator's work as Senator of New York." Well, it was just impossible But anyway we all worked very hard at it.

The Senator was not interested in or aware of the administrative or operations side of his office. He was interested in the legislative program, in his political contacts with New York, and we were quite free to go ahead and handle his correspondence--except for the letters I was supposed to identify out of those several thousand a day that were from personal friends or important public figures, which needed his personal attention--the best we could and try to keep from being bogged down by it. So we had complete freedom, not much guidance; but when something went wrong, wow, then we'd hear about it. He was under great pressures all the time. And really when he was intent on the legislative program, he didn't want to be bothered by these peripheral things, some of which were very important to his political standing.
I remember one incident, I had tried for about three days to get him to take over when he went to the floor some petitions that had come in from some towns in New York and some other things that were the kind of documents Senators put in the record for their effect back home. Now, surely they weren't as important as the legislation he was concerned with, and I'd be in there competing against Leon Keyserling, who was the legislative secretary, for the Senator's ear in trying to give him these to take and put in the record. All he had to do, you know, was just say two or three words and drop them in the hopper, and he'd just walk off talking to Keyserling and not do this. So one day he came back from the floor and he was just as cross as he could be. He said, "I don't know why it is that Senator Copeland's staff can get the things to him that he should get into the record."

And I said, "What do you mean?"

"Well," he said, "I saw in the Record today that yesterday Senator Copeland put in this and this and this."

I went back to my desk; I picked up this folder and I said, "Senator, I have been trying for four days to get you to take this to the floor and put these things in the Record, and the very things Senator Copeland put in yesterday are in this folder, and you could have put them in four days ago if you had listened to me." Said I, crying, "If I work for you 20 years I will never again try to give you anything to put in the Record," because he'd been real cross with me about this.

He sat there for a minute, I was standing by his desk. Then I had stopped crying and he said, "Well, are you all over it now?"

And I said, "Yes, Senator."

Then he said, "If I ever talk to you like that again, you just look right at me and say, ‘You go to hell.'"

He was really kindly, but when the pressures were on, like other people, he didn't think a bit about the person to whom he was exploding.

We used to say we wished he had a wife and family that he could explode to at home. Mrs. Barkley was telling us one day (this was the first Mrs. Barkley) about how irritable the Senator was because the pressures were so great and the summer was hot and the session was going on. And we all said, "wells we wish the Senator had a wife at home he could explode to so he wouldn't have to do it in the office."

But we all liked him. You know, he was fighting for the eight-hour working day for the working people, and he paid no attention to the 12-hour days that his own staff put in. He just couldn't relate these things at all. But we were supportive of the things he was trying to do. We'd work just as hard as we could regardless of whether he paid any attention to it or not. He was a brusque man.

I remember the day he came back from the meeting where he had told the Social Security Board members that somebody on his staff wanted to work for them. I hadn't known whether he was going to say this or not, I had told him months before that I would like to work for this program, and then in about October of 1935 we got a call one day saying that the Board was going to meet and they wanted the Senator to come down and consult with them. They wanted to consult with him about getting organized. And I thought to myself: "Should I remind him of what I said?" And I thought: No, if he's going to do it, he'll do it, and I won't remind him of it."

When he came back, he called to me and I went in, and in this graceless way he told me. It was sad, but when he was doing something nice, he couldn't be graceful about it. Now, I'd say this was a Germanic trait in him. I don't know whether that's fair or not, but that was the way it seemed to me. All said to me was; "Well, I hope you won't let me down--all those nice things I told them about you down there today." So that's how I knew he'd mentioned it.

So this was the way I got into the Social Security program.

Q: I wonder if we could expand a little bit on what you've talked about here, and whether you could give me a few impressions of what the Senate was like in those days. I don't know how much of a basis of comparison you have with the way the Senate operates today, but, if possible, maybe you could draw some comparisons between the Senate in those days and the changes over the years.

Mulliner: Generalizations are hard and unfair; and of course in my opinion the way the Senate operates is controlled so much by the personality of the majority leader that it's hard to make comparisons. For example, when I was first up there, Pat Harrison, a distinguished Senator from Mississippi, who was very much interested in the Social Security program, was the gadfly on the minority side because the Republicans were in control. And he was very effective. When the Democrats took control and he had a position of responsibility on the majority side, I didn't think he was nearly as effective. So we people are better in the opposition role and some people are better in the leadership role. The relationships, of course, between the Senator and the White House changed overnight when President Roosevelt came into the White House because they had worked together in the New York State Senate and known each other warmly and personally there. Al Smith and Wagner and Roosevelt all worked together and knew one another. It was interesting that I never heard Senator Wagner refer to a man he had probably called "Frank" or "Franklin" through a great many years other than as Mr. President or the President or President Roosevelt, once he was in the White House.

At one point I heard a very touching exchange between the two of them after there had been a strained difference of opinion, something to do with minimum wage, I think. Senator Wagner had taken a position opposed to President Roosevelt's position on this, and all the columnists were writing about it, you know--the break between the President and Wagner and how Wagner was out so far as the White House was concerned. Then a call came from the White House one day and I put the Senator on and listened and when the President came on he said, "hello there, Bob, how are you?"

And the Senator said, "Wells I'm fine, Mr. President, but I thought from the newspapers that I wouldn't ever be hearing from you again."

And the President laughed and said, "Oh., Bob, don't be a goose."

That healed the breach and they went on in a working relationship.

But the Senate then of course wasn't faced with the kind of issues that are so divisive today. Everybody in the Senate was scrambling for what to do to get people back to work, to get this country on an economic basis that would be sound again. There weren't things like Vietnam or the race issue that can be so emotional and so divisive as today. So I don't think I can really make any comparisons. It seemed then to me, and thinking back to then, that there was less friction between the Congress and the White House during those years--'33, '34, '35, when I was on the Hill--that there has been in recent years. But we weren't dealing with external matters then, and we weren't dealing with our most emotionally explosive domestic problems. We were dealing with what seemed to be sort of impersonal economic problems. They were personal enough to the people out of jobs. A majority of the people in the House and the Senate were looking for something to support regardless of whether it was Democratically sponsored or Republican-sponsored that would help to minimize the Depression.

Q: Regarding the relationship between the Senator and President Roosevelt, I have the impression that throughout all of these years, the Senator was frequently at the White House; that he was as much an adviser and confidant of the President as many other people--perhaps not as close as a person like Harry Hopkins, but that he did have a very close relationship.

Mulliner: Of the legislative people, he was the closest, I think.

Q: Exactly, and seems--since he took the responsibility for so many of the President's proposals--to have been fulfilling some of the role of the majority leader during this period.

Mulliner: Yes.

Q: In particular--and this brings us to social Security now--one of the predecessors of Social Security was the Wagner-Lewis bill. I wonder whether you recall that in particular.

Mulliner: I certainly do. And nothing was ever locked in Senator Wagner's office until the three copies of the Wagner-Lewis bill came from the Printing Office--the copies that were to be introduced in the Congress. And, of course, as you know, Davey Lewis had worked his heart out for these kinds of programs, while Congressman Doughton hadn't paid any attention to them. Doughton was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee then. And some of the people who had worked, hardest on the bill wanted Mr. Lewis to be the sponsor of the bill in the House, just as it was expected that Wagner would be in the Senate. And those copies were locked in the Senator's desk overnight. They came over late in the afternoon,

Q: You're not talking about the Wagner-Lewis bill. You're talking about the Social Security bill.

Mulliner: What bill are you talking about?

Q: I'm talking about the Wagner-Lewis bill, which was a predecessor. It involved unemployment insurance...

Mulliner: I think I'm talking about Wagner-Lewis--that Doughton then took over?

Q: Well, later on, yes. This was a year later.

Mulliner: No, I'm talking about the Economic Security bill.

Q: Yes. Perhaps you should finish telling this incident, and then we can come back.

Mulliner: All right. There were supposed to be just this many copies printed. Well, the Senator dropped his in the hopper the next morning, but somehow Doughton's people had gotten hold of a copy of the bill overnight, and he dropped it in the hopper in the House a few minutes before Davey Lewis did.

Q: Unplanned?

Mulliner: Oh, it was intentional.

Q: Yes, but this was not prearranged with the President, to have Doughton do it instead.

Mulliner: No, no. Not as far as I know. He just wanted to get into the act at that point. It was unkind because Lewis had done so much work in this field.

Q: And a copy of the bill was missing from the Senator's desk?

Mulliner: No, there was another bill made available. You see, these powerful committee chairmen have ins with the government Printing Office and other places. I don't know what was involved, but we were all disappointed that this became the Doughton bill in the House instead of the Lewis bill. And then I was really annoyed when the annual report of the Secretary of Labor about the legislation subsequently referred to it always as the "Harrison-Doughton bill," because Pat Harrison was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Q: I see. You don't know whether or not the President was involved in the changes of sponsorship?

Mulliner: No, I don't know.

Q: What did that have to do with locking the Senator's desk?

Mulliner: Apparently he sensed that there was going to be some effort to keep Lewis from being the sponsor of the bill in the House. He never said anything about this, but I know that that was the only time I ever knew of anything being locked up in that office.

Q: Oh, I see. It was done before, not after.

Mulliner: That's right. When the three copies came over, they were locked up.

Q: And presumably other copies than those three were made available to Lewis.

Mulliner: Yes, he was supposed to have his too, but somewhere along the line the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee or his staff got hold of a copy, and it got in a few minutes before the Lewis copy did.

Q: What do you know about Doughton? I understand his nickname was "Muley."

Mulliner: Yes. He didn't have any understanding of the need for social legislation, he got a tremendous education at the hearings on the Social Security Act and some of the others, and I do think that he came along quite well in that educational process. But here was a man, Davey Lewis, who had spent his whole career in the House working on these things, this kind of program.

Q: What was Lewis's background?

Mulliner: He was from Maryland, and I think he had worked as a laborer or with one of the unions or something like that--I can't recall now. I never knew him well except that he was a sweet little man, and this just seemed so unfair.

Q: I take it that you knew him because he had frequent contacts with the Senator.

Mulliner: That's right.

Q: The bill I was referring to before was called the Wagner-Lewis bill.

Mulliner: Unemployment.

Q: Yes. I'm not sure I have it exactly clear in my mind, but it was introduced and then endorsed by the President, blessed by him, and then his blessing was withdrawn, and he decided instead to set up the Committee on Economic Security and review the whole picture and come up with a broad program. I wonder whether you recall any of the discussion which must have gone on between the President and the Senator about all of this.

Mulliner: No. I don't recall anything about that. Leon Keyserling would. probably know about that; and if it happened a little earlier, Simon Rifkind would. He had been in the legislative job for the Senator before Keyserling took over. He didn't get as much publicity out of that as he did out of the Manchester book.

Q: The Senator certainly had some prominent people working for him.

Mulliner: He was one man who didn't fear brains. You know, some of the Senators up there really are--or were--afraid to employ able people because they would be smarter than they were. But Senator Wagner didn't have that concern. Simon Rifkind was an extremely able man and so was Leon Keyserling, and they handled the legislative side for him very well.

Q: What about the Senator's intellectual powers? Was he the equal of these men or was he simply a person who maybe recognized that he wasn't as bright as some of the people he employed but he wanted the best?

Mulliner: Yes, I think that would be his attitude. He didn't have an usual IQ. He was a dedicated man, he devoted his whole 24 hours a day, except when he was having fun, and he enjoyed having fun too, but he didn't have any real home life--his job was his life. He just liked to work away on it. While he wasn't as extreme on this as people whom I later worked with, like Mr. Winant, Senator Wagner would call up his staff off hours other than his legislative man. The legislative man was on call all the time. But he'd call some of the rest of us for something whether it was working hours or not if he was interested in knowing something or moving ahead on something and needed some information that we could give him. He was very pleasant with his staff. He'd take us all out to dinner now and then.

I was with him and Rifkind and Keyserling on a speaking tour around New York State in 1934 during the campaign. He wasn't up for reelection, but he was doing two things, he was doing an educational job with respect to Social Security, preparing people for that, and helping the New York State ticket, Governor Lehman was up for reelection that go-round, and the four of us would have a nice, relaxed, jolly time until we would come into a town where the Lehman campaign entourage was. You know, traveling with any candidate is tense. And then we'd all get tensed up because of that. But then when we'd go along and wouldn't be in the same town for the same meetings as the candidate, things would relax.

I learned two things then about political campaigns. One was we had to mention all the candidates on the ticket in these speeches, and there was one man running for Congressman-at-large whom none of us had ever seen. We didn't know a bloomin' thing about him. We knew he was young. So the first time we were bringing this in, we said, "What can we say about him?" I kind of hate to use his name now because maybe he's still living, but anyway the story isn't a story without his name. His name was Matthew J. Merritt. And we were trying to think of something to say. Finally Rifkind said, "You know, it sounds like a tug on the East River." Well, then we decided on the phrase: "the up-and-coming young Congressman, Matthew J. Merritt." So that's the phrase that got thrown into the speeches about Matthew J. Merritt.

In a speech we were doing for Elmyra, I think, we put in a funny quote from Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass. It had something to do with elephants. I can't remember what it was now, except the Senator didn't feel easy about it. He said, "I don't like it. It won't go over."

And we said, "But it will go over, Senator, leave it in."

"No, I don't think it will go over."

You know, that rascal got half-way through that story and coughed about three times and then picked up there and went on, and then when he came back he said, "I told you that story wouldn't go over."

We got even with him in Buffalo. He always worried about his Buffalo speeches. I don't know--there must have been something that happened in his early career in Buffalo. No speech that was ever prepared for him for Buffalo seemed to him to be right in advance. When we got into Buffalo everybody was there--Governor Lehman; Jim Farley, who was then the national Democratic chairman, everybody. And there was to be a big parade and much hup-de-doo, and it was snowing. That put a little damper on the parade. I said, "I'm not going to the parade. I'm going to stay right here." When we'd move into a hotel, we'd take a suite and there'd be a nice sitting room and the bedrooms around it; so we led kind of a family life. And Keyserling and Rifkind both said they weren't going to the parade either. So we sat down, and oh, the Senator was so tense about that speech. There were about three points in it he wanted to make, and he was afraid they wouldn't go over. We could listen on the radio--there was no television then--and as soon as they started moving into the armory, where the big to-do was to be, we got in a taxis, went over to the armory. One of us went on that side of the armory; one of us went up in the balcony in the middle; one of us went on this side of the armory. And when those real crucial points came up in the speech, we'd start the applause in these three places in the audience. As soon as the Senator's speech was over, we all went back to the hotel and listened to the rest of it on the radio. The Senator came in when it was all over just aglow. He said, "I never had a speech go better. The very points I wanted appreciated were the ones that were most appreciated." And nobody ever told him that he had a special claque there to see that those points went over.

Q: That's a wonderful story.

Mulliner: That was an interesting trip because I'd never been around New York State.

The Senator was making a speech in Glen Falls when we were in Albany, and I decided I didn't want to go over to Glen Falls, and I'd never been in Albany before. We stepped out of that big old-fashioned hotel there--we were right on the hill where the capitol is--and I walked across and thought I'd look around
and learn a little bit about the capitol. I walked into the Court of Appeals, and the little old janitor was just closing up. I said, "Oh, I'm too late. I can't see it." I said, I'm going out early in the morning."

"Oh, yes, well, I'll show you through." So he took me through. He knew a great deal about the building. As we went into the chamber itself, here hanging on either side were the portraits of the former justices and chief justices. I said, "Which one do you think was the finest justice?"

He didn't hesitate a bit. He walked down the aisle, pushed open the little swinging gate that takes you into the rows of seats, and there was this fine portrait of Mr. Justice Cardozo, with those sensitive fingers displayed so beautifully in the portrait. There was never any doubt in his mind that that was his favorite.

Q: Very interesting. Perhaps we could return to the Economic Security bill, the Social Security Act. I wonder if you have any particular recollections about the passage, the byplay in getting the Economic Security bill through the Congress, or the work of the Committee on Economic Security, which I presume
the Senator was interested in and involved with indirectly.

Mulliner: Yes, he was. I remember one incident, and it could have taken place with respect to the drafting of the Economic Security bill or the National Labor Relations Act. I can't remember at the moment, but I think regardless it's illustrative of what you referred to a little while ago: How did the Senator work and his
capacity for getting legislation developed and through Congress? It could have been either bill because Tom Elliot worked on both of them. Tom Eliot was the solicitor for the Department of Labor, and he and Leon Keyserling and about three other bright young lawyers in the government were the working committee who were developing the draft of this legislation, and there were two or three sticky points that had to be compromised. Different groups had different positions on them. And Keyserling would come in in the morning after these young men had worked all night practically, and. still they hadn't resolved these sticky points. Finally, one day the Senator said, "Now, Leon, legislation has to involve compromises. Now, I would agree there's a point beyond which one should not compromise, but you'll never get a bill drafted or introduced or enacted if you can't work out compromise language on the points where there's real controversy." He, said, "Now, tonight when you young"--I don't know what he called them, but some special affectionate term--"go to work, quit taking the position that every comma in this draft is sacred because you folks put it in there, and come to some resolution--some language that will get us over these humps. We have to do that." He said, "Now, just because you put those commas in there, they're not sacred and they must be changed."

Q: Interesting. He had a very definite and realistic appreciation of how legislation is enacted despite his commitment to social welfare.

Mulliner: That's right. You take what you can get. If that's all you can get at this point, you get that; and then you move forward from there later on. He was very realistic.

Q: What about the Committee on Economic Security? Do you have any impressions of the Committee's work? It's very difficult for somebody who comes at it from a historian's point of view being able to read through documents that were published after the fact and historical materials now available...

Mulliner: Have you seen Ed Witte's publication...?

Q: Yes, I have. But I'd like to evoke the impressions of somebody who was an outsider...

Mulliner: I wasn't close enough to be able to do that for you. Wilbur Cohen could do it for you. Frank Bane was on one of those committees, he could do it for you.

Q: But what I'm looking for too is the impressions of somebody who was an interested bystander, who wasn't on the inside. What were the impressions from the outside of what was going on?

Mulliner: Well, you see, Keyserling was the main contact for the Senator's staff with all that. While at the time I had bits and pieces of contact or information, I just don't remember anything specific now. Of course one of the real issues was the unemployment compensation program--we had to call it then. We thought insurance would be unconstitutional, so we shouldn't use the term "unemployment insurance." We had to call it unemployment compensation, and the real issue was how much state role there should be versus a national system. Arthur Altmeyer, out of his Wisconsin experience, regrettably was strong enough to influence Miss Perkins to hold fast for the state role being the stronger. And as a result we've gotten a weaker and weaker unemployment insurance program throughout the country practically every year, because it's easier for the people who are not in favor of an adequate unemployment insurance program to influence state legislatures than the Congress. And as Arthur Altmeyer would tell you today, that's a sin he committed that he wishes he hadn't, because he had to work with the headaches of trying to keep the programs from deteriorating when he was the Commissioner.

Q: I'd like to talk about some of those problems a little later on. Do you recall Senator Wagner having any strong views on specific aspects of the Social Security bill?

Mulliner: No, I think he regretted when they had to drop out all the health business, you know. And I think he would have liked to have seen that Brandeis idea kept in about savings. There was something in there. Isn't it awful? I can't remember.

Q: Yes, there was a reserve proposal of Brandeis'.

Mulliner: But I really don't know enough about this to talk about it.

Q: Did Wagner have discussions with Brandeis?

Mulliner: Oh, I expect so. I would certainly think so. They were good friends. The Senator was at the Brandeis home socially on occasions. But I don't know any specifics on that.

Before we leave Senator Wagner, he took considerable personal interest in the members of his staff, even though he didn't pay much attention to what they were doing in the office unless he was directly interested in what was going on, what they were doing. It always amused him that I had been a ballet dancer. This kind of piqued his fancy. And he was in the Adirondacks or the Poconoes for a holiday one summer when there was publicity about a man who had been working for the OWI, Office of War Information. This was later on in the ‘40s and McCarthy was going after any person who deviated in any way from his own ideas of how people should behave and what they were like. This man in his youth had belonged to some religious group where natural dancing or some kind of dancing was part of the religious service, and he had participated in this. McCarthy found out about it, and it seems incredible but they fired him. The Senator had been reading about this in the newspaper, so he wrote me this letter. He didn't write in longhand very often. Even his personal letters, like a good many businessmen, he dictated. But for this one he, didn't have any secretary around, so he wrote it in longhand. I've been going to turn it over to Georgetown University, where his papers are deposited, and maybe I did. But at any rate, among the other things he said was: "Just wait until Senator McCarthy finds out about your past," teasing me that I was really in jeopardy. It's true that as long as was in the Federal Government I never volunteered the information that I had trained only to be a ballet dancer.

Q: It was not relevant experience.

Mulliner: Because as a hard-boiled administrator, this would have been a great shock to people. They just couldn't imagine me in that role.

Q: I take it from some of the things you've said here that the Senator had a good sense of humor.

Mulliner: He did and he enjoyed a good time. He liked to go to the races. I went to the races with him on occasion, and I soon learned that it was better if I didn't win if he lost. This made hi very grumpy and unhappy, and particularly because he was a plunger. He wanted to pick a dark horse and really have one come in, and I'm quite content to play with the same $2 all afternoon. I'll bet the favorite's place and be just as happy as can be to get my $2 back with 30 cents plus or 60 cents, which just outraged him. He just couldn't bear that. So after a few times I used to refuse to tell him how much I was betting, because here I
winning. I wasn't winning anything, you see, but he'd bet $50 on some dark horse, and he'd lose his $50 and then I'd come back with my $2.30. It annoyed him.

One other thing he liked to do--which is not unusual; we had justice of the Supreme Court who liked it too--was to go the Gaiety Theater. I don't know how well you know Washington, but that was our top-notch burlesque theater in Washington for a good many years. But he also had misgivings about this, you know-how this might be interpreted if it got into the newspapers. So occasionally he would ask me to go to the Gaiety with him because somehow he had an idea that if he were accompanied there, it would sort of legitimize this. Well, when I was in Chicago with the ballet, I'd gone to the Gaiety there a few times with the people who were always going to various theatrical things, so it wasn't a new experience for me. But he would wear dark glasses, and I must remember always not to introduce any remarks to him, by saying, "Senator how do you like this?" because he, didn't want to be recognized.

Another thing he liked to do--and when I was in New York he took me--was go to restaurants. He used to very often take me to dinner in New York because I had never been in New York City before, and liked to go to the different kinds of restaurants, and it was kind of fun for him to introduce this girl from out in the country to the various places in New York. Sometimes when we would go to a restaurant that wasn't too far from Union Square, we would stroll over after dinner; and he wouldn't go up to the various speakers close, but held like to know what that fellow was saying over there. So he'd stand. back kind of in the shadows in the background, and I'd wander up to see what he was promoting to save the world, and then I'd come back and tell the Senator about it. That's, one way he kept in touch with what, the fringe was doing and saying.

Q: What about his relations with his son?

Mulliner: They were very good. And this was an interesting contrast in a way. I don't want to sound unkind, but the Al Smiths, and the Wagners had been good family friends, and they had beach houses somewhere in New Jersey, and they'd all go in the summers. This was when the men were practicing law in New York and were in the Legislature, and the families would go down there, and the men would. come down on the weekends. As a matter of fact, when Al Smith died, the will that was left was still the will that Senator Wagner had. drawn up for him years and years and years before.

Well, young Bob was in boarding schools and college all the time I was with the Senator, so we didn't see a great deal of him. But he was never any problem to his father, while Al Smith's children were getting into perfectly natural trouble here, there, speeding, or drinking too much liquor or something like this. I used to think what a comfort young Bob was to his father. There were never any problems that I knew about. I don't think they were unusually close. But of course the mother had died, I guess when young Bob was very young, so his father was the only parent that young Bob had known. As for as I know, they always got along well. And after his father was ill in his later years, I think young Bob was an attentive, considerate son.

Q: What about the Senator's relationships with some of the other people in the Senate? How did he get along with his colleagues?

Mulliner: He got along quite well with his colleagues, as far as I know. He had a particular crony, a man named Peyser, who was a Congressman on the House side. It was the Wagner-Peyser bill, you know, that set up the employment services. I guess Peyser must have been a widower, too, or a bachelor, because they used to spent their evenings together quite often. I never knew that he had difficulty working with people. He became chairman of the Public Lands and Surveys Committee after the Democrats took over the organization of the Senate, and I simply roared. I said, "Senator, you've never seen a foot of public land in your life. Now, this summer you'd better go and visit some public lands and parks instead of going to Europe." You see, it was just habit. As soon as Congress adjourned, every summer he'd be off for Europe and Germany. That's the only way he knew to spend a vacation. He'd take a nice long boat trip over and spend the summer there and back. And he did. He went on a planned tour. I guess I got a letter from him from Salt Lake City or somewhere because he knew my family had been Mormons and that I knew a lot about Salt Lake City. He was really ecstatic. He said, "Why didn't somebody ever tell me what a beautiful country this is? Why have I been going off to Europe every summer of my life?"

Then when he got back he said to me one night: "Now, tell me honestly what do people do with their time in all those dinky little town?"

He was a big city boy, you know. I said, "Senator, you'd be surprised. They have more fun than the youngsters do in the city because they have to create their own entertainment. And they have picnics and they have hay rides and they have sleigh rides. They have to create their own recreation and entertainment, and it's a lot more stimulating and satisfying than going down to a roller skating rink and paying your money and going and skating around indoors." But this is something he never really understood or believed.

Q: We mentioned Pat Harrison before, and he of course figured in the history of Social Security. What do you know about him? Do you know why he wanted to be included in the Social Security Act, why he wanted his name on it?

Mulliner: I suppose human vanity.

Q: It was recognized this was going to be an important piece of legislation from the very beginning. It wasn't something that people came to appreciate after it had been enacted.

Mulliner: No, the whole structure, you see--the President setting up this elaborate Committee on Economic Security with all its working groups--gave it a different standing than other bills had which were being introduced then. There were so many staff people working on it that this generated a lot of talk. Then of course there was the big opposition from the California group. My word, who'd ever think I'd forget the name of that movement?

Q: The Townsend Plan.

Mulliner: Yes, yes, Dr. Townsend. That of course gave it more attention and publicity.

Q: What about the Townsend movement, incidentally? There's been a tendency among historians of this period to give a good deal of credit to the Townsend movement as something that did spur interest in Social Security and did help get it through the Congress as a way of heading off this more radical movement.

Mulliner: I think there's some validity in that.

Q: People really did become aware of this thing--not after the Social Security Act passed but definitely while it was in the Congress.

Mulliner: Oh, yes, because of all the appearances before the committee, you see, and the supporters of Townsend and the petitions that flowed in signed by the people who were recruited as members of the Townsend movement. It's another illustration of how one man can exert influence far beyond what one would expect of him.

Another man who did that was Abe Epstein. You know, one man crusading for government programs for the elderly. He sparked a tremendous interest, just as Dr. Townsend did in a different way. That little Abe Epstein was just like a fighting cock, you know. I would have thought, if I were in his position, "Why should somebody in my spot think I can influence this country to do anything or this city of New York or this state?" But he did. He just moved ahead, and he did it by sheer personality and determination and ability.

Q: What evidence did you have of his activities? Was he visible to you during this period?

Mulliner: Yes, he was around seeing people and writing to people and buttonholing people he was a zealot.

Q: Of course being a zealot can be good or bad. You can do a lot of harm that way, alienating people.

Mulliner: Oh, yes, and he did. No question about it. He had such a one-track mind and was so persistent, but I think he did a great deal more good than he did harm.

Q: Did he come into the Senator's office now and then?

Mulliner: Yes.

Q: What kind of reception did the Senator give him?

Mulliner: Always courteous and interested and appreciative. Here was a man Epstein who was really devoting his life and at no compensation to himself. Townsend was making money on his movement.

Q: Yes, and a few other people were too--every out-of-work preacher in the country.

Mulliner: Yes, but Abe Epstein never lived well or made any money and wasn't interested in that part of it. Wilbur Cohen would know a lot more about Abe Epstein and his activities.

Q: What did Epstein look like? Can you describe him?

Mulliner: You know, when I start ti try to describe him--and this ridiculous--I think of Congressman Lewis. They were both small men with small features. I don't think I could call up an accurate description of him.

Q: What about Townsend? What kind of figure did he cut?

Mulliner: I thought he was quite an effective witness. I used to go to hearings of the Ways and Means Committee a lot in those days.

Q: Was this at the Senator's behest?

Mulliner: No, he didn't pay any attention to what you were doing, you know, as long as you were there when he wanted you. Well, and then later on, after I was working for the Social Security Board, you see, Townsend would come back and appear on the 1936 amendments and those times. He'd be back.

Q: Why did you go to the Ways and Means Committee hearings then?

Mulliner: Just because I was interested. You know, when there was somebody whom I wanted to hear. In those days you didn't have television. You couldn't come home at night and get the gist of it on television.

Q: You sat in on some of the Ways and Means Committee hearings on the Social Security Act.

Mulliner: Yes. Of course one of the most delightful witnesses was Ed Witte. Ed was always so full of this, you know. If he'd make an especially good point--this was done without him being aware of it at all--and he could realize this was being appreciated by some of his cohorts in the back, he'd turn around and beam at us, you know, as like a child.

Q: Was Witte effective as an explainer?

Mulliner: Yes. I think so. I never really thought of that before. I think he was.

Q: He seemed to be fairly competent. Certainly there was no strong feeling to the contrary, that he wasn't making a good appearance.

Mulliner: I don't remember that there was anything like that.

Q: How about Tom Eliot? Was he pretty active then too?

Mulliner: I don't remember him as a witness before committees. He was active behind the scenes in the drafting and negotiating. Let me digress now because I'll forget later with a delightful story about Tom Eliot. By the time Frank Bane was employed as the executive director of the Social Security Board, the Board, this not being untypical of Mr. Winant as the chairman, had already hired the general counsel, Tom Eliot. He wanted this position having worked on the bill, and Miss Perkins, being his boss, and Mr. Altmeyer, having been Deputy Secretary of Labor, and Mr. Winant having worked with Secretary Perkins in several relationships, including the International Labor Organization, responded to their combined wishes and had told Tom he was going to be general counsel of the Social Security Board. He wasn't just the exact type that Frank Bane would have chosen for his general counsel, so Frank then looked around and employed as associate general counsel Jack Tate from Tennessee. And off the record then, Frank would say that he had his "hot" and "cold" lawyer. And when he did not want to do something he would call Tom Eliot in and ask Tom about it because Tom was so legalistic, you know, and so precise about things. When he did want a way found to do something he'd call in Jack Tate, and Jack would find a way to do it and a legal rationale that was acceptable. So he called them either his "hot" or his "cold lawyer.

Well, now we're back to the Economic Security...

Q: Yes, and the Ways and Means Committee hearings. I wonder if you have any other impressions of the Social Security bill before the Ways and Means Committee. What was your impression of the way the members were reacting to it?

Mulliner: First, I was disappointed that they didn't all come and listen to every word, but that is to be expected.

Q: Did you have a feeling, though, that they understood what was going on and that they understood the bill?

Mulliner: Most of them, no. They didn't. Of course even today members of Congress don't know the difference between disability assistance and disability insurance and old age assistance and old insurance. It's a pretty complex bill and program, if you're not dealing with it and working with it all the time. I wouldn't try now to tell anyone what the old age and survivors' insurance program requirements are because I haven't kept up with the recent amendments; and unless you work with it day in and day out, you just can't.

Q: That's very true. What about Chairman Doughton? Do you have any impressions of how he handled himself up there and the kind of chairman he made?

Mulliner: I really don't. No, I don't think I better develop that now. If I had impressions, they've receded.

Q: In general, though, would you say that your impressions of the Ways and Means Committee hearings there weren't markedly different from other hearings; that they didn't somehow have any unusual aspects?

Mulliner: I think that's true. And as I've been trying to respond to your question or two, I realize that I can no longer separate out which were the hearings on the ‘36 amendments or even the ‘39 amendments. You see, they're running together in my mind. I'm really not clear enough on this to be able to respond.

Q: You mentioned before that Senator Wagner was unhappy about the health care section of the bill being dropped. Could you elaborate on that? Do you recall anything specific in that connection?

Mulliner: No, my recollection is that he felt health care was so important and it might be delayed for a great many years if it weren't in at the time people weren't being so critical of what was in because they really didn't know what was in, and that this was an important Social Security aspect that was appropriate to be in this kind of a bill.

Q: I've also been told that the Senator was rather unhappy about the unemployment insurance provision not being federal.

Mulliner: He'd like it to have been national.

Q: He's reported to have told somebody that the President had assured him that the bill in a couple of years could be amended and it would become a federal system. Do you recall that?

Mulliner: No, not specifically, but I could see that that might have been very likely.

Q: On this basis that the Senator accepted the bill as it was, accepting it on the basis that you said before, his recognition that there had to be some lines...

Mulliner: That you take what you can get at the time and then work ahead with it.

Q: But that Roosevelt had given him his assurances that he wanted to change it when the time was ripe.

Mulliner: I feel strongly that the President felt almost obligated to Frances Perkins with respect to the Social Security program, because in my opinion there would have been no Social Security program at all in the ‘30s if it weren't for Frances Perkins. Now, Wagner picked up at a point and carried on, but the one individual, in my opinion, above all others who was responsible for there being a Social Security program in the early ‘30s was Frances Perkins. She had worked with the President in New York State; she was close enough to him that she could keep at him. I don't think that President Roosevelt had the remotest interest in a Social Security bill or program. He was simply pacifying Frances so that she would quit nagging him about this in moving and setting up the Committee on Economic Security. She was a wise lady; she knew this was important; and she tenaciously kept at it, and I don't think she's ever gotten enough credit for the role she played.

Q: How about Harry Hopkins?

Mulliner: I'm not in a position to know about that. Frank Bane would know about that.

Q: Getting back to Frances Perkins for a little bit, did you have enough dealings with her to have some impressions about her?

Mulliner: Yes. She was not a warm person to deal with. She had
a need to protect herself from people. Several illustrations of this in my personal experiences come to mind. One illustrated her resistance to any encroachment on her privacy, and this was a great handicap for a lady in public life, but she had it extremely strongly. I don't know what all the factors were. One was the health of her husband, I believe. But, at any rate, she had almost a phobia against any invasion of her privacy. I was helping with the mid-century White House Conference on Children and Youth, which was held out at the armory here in Washington, and there was quite tight security. The people who were permitted to go into the conference had to wear an official badge that had to be achieved through proper channels and so on and so forth. She refused to wear an identification badge. She tried to go into the conferences and the policeman on the door didn't know who she was; and even if he did, his orders were nobody goes in without their identification. She just wouldn't have gone in if a top official hadn't come and told the policeman this was Secretary Perkins. She was either going to make a speech that day or she was expected to participate in a panel or something. But she wouldn't wear a label.

Then some years later at the time we were both going up to Concord, New Hampshire for the funeral of John Gilbert Winant, it just happened we were on the same overnight Pullman train to Boston. Our paths had crossed from the time in the early ‘30S when I was with Senator Wagner and again in the Social Security program, so my face at least was familiar to her. I guess I went into the dressing room on the Pullman train in the morning first, and she came in shortly thereafter. When she came in I said, "Good morning, Miss Perkins. I'm Maurine Mulliner. We've met in connection with the Social Security activities through the years. It's a sad trip were on today."

She simply said, "Good morning," period. No other ladies were in that Pullman, and we went ahead and finished our getting ready to get off the train. No conversation at all. She either felt that emotionally she couldn't talk about Mr. Winant and I might be pushing her to do that, or she didn't feel like talking in the morning. But there wasn't even the need to be minimally courteous. She just seemed always to need to protect herself against any encroachment.

There's a delightful incident involving her and Pat Harrison and the secretary she had when she was Secretary of Labor, who was a very unpleasant person. I don't know that anybody ever told Miss Perkins, but the secretary was rude to everybody who came into the outer office; and no matter how kindly disposed they might have felt when they came in, they were irritable as the dickens before they got in to see Madame Secretary because of this secretary out here. About the second day Miss Perkins was on the job as Secretary of Labor, Senator Harrison came down to pay a courtesy call on her. He came into the office and said to the secretary he'd like to see Miss Perkins, and she said, "Do you have an appointment?" And he said, "No, I don't." She said, "What's your name?" And he said, "Senator Harrison." She said, "Well, when it's convenient, I'll let the Secretary know you're here." And he sat in that office for 20 minutes. As far as he could see Miss Jay made no effort to let Miss Perkins know. She did say, "Somebody is in with the Secretary."

So he got up and said, "I won't be able to wait any longer. Will you just tell Miss Perkins when you get around to it that Senator Harrison came in to pay his respects." And out he went.

Well, the secretary was foolish enough to tell Miss Perkins this, and of course Miss Perkins realized what an affront this was. Frank Bane got a call from Mary La Dame, who was an assistant to Miss Perkins, and a woman of wider experience than the Secretary. She said, "Oh, Frank, Miss Perkins wants to speak to you about something."

So he went over, and Miss Perkins told Frank what had happened. She said, "Frank, what can you do about it? This is just awful."

Q: What was Frank Bane's position then?

Mulliner: He was Executive Director of the Social Security Board then, and he was a good friend of Pat Harrison's and everybody practically. Everybody always calls on Frank to fix things up. So when Miss Perkins said, "What can you do Frank?" he said, "I don't know, but I'll do what I can."

So he called up Pat Harrison and went up to see him. They talked around about a lot of things, and Frank said, "The main reason I wanted to talk to you was because Miss Perkins asked me to."

"Hmmph," said Harrison. He really had been affronted.
Frank said, "She's a new secretary in Washington. She didn't know her job," and this, that and the other.

Finally Pat said, "Well, Frank, you can go back and tell Madame Secretary that I understand the situation and that I hope we can work together comfortably in this relationship. Since she put it that way, tell her I forgive her. You don't have to tell her this, but you could add that I ain't ‘agoin' to love her."

That was just illustrative of the odds that were against Miss Perkins as a lady in a job, a Cabinet job that was probably the least desirable from many points of view for a lady, and then to have the handicap of a secretary who would affront the very people on whom Miss Perkins had to depend for cooperation.

Q: It's surprising that after an incident like that that she didn't realize that she had a problem with her secretary.

Mulliner: Yes. But Miss Perkins really made tremendous contributions to government in this country. This business about personal privacy was a great handicap to her. She never got along well with the press because they always felt that she was lecturing them, and the Congressmen did too when she would go before a committee. They felt she was talking down to them.

Q: It's also been said that when she first came to Washington she was a little bit naive about Congressional prerogatives, that she sometimes stepped on a few toes and didn't always understand the need for placating the vanity of a Congressman who wanted his name on a bill or something of that sort.

Mulliner: That could be. Of course she'd been industrial commissioner in New York State, and you'd think she would have learned in that position about the relationships with legislators.

Q: What do you know about her relationship with Arthur Altmeyer?

Mulliner: I think it was a good one. I think it continued to be a good one. Again, this is a digression, and I don't know whether it should go in here or not, but she continued to be in close touch with Arthur. When he was chairman of the Social Security Board--this is after Mr. Winant had left... It was after Mr. Winant was away, after he'd resigned because of the political campaign. It was inauguration day in 1937. That's when the sit-down strikes were on in Michigan in the auto industry. Inauguration day was a lousy day and I thought, "I'm going down to do some work." So I went down, and you had to sign into the buildings then, and I signed in and went up to my office and started to dictate. I used a Dictaphone all the time. And I realized I needed something which was probably in Mr. Altmeyer's office, which was down the hall just a few steps. So I went sailing down the hall, and there was a swinging door from his outer office into his inner office, and I pushed open this door only to see two gentlemen who were standing talking at the window turn and glare at me under four of the bushiest eyebrows I had ever seen in my life, and I realized right away it was Governor Murphy of Michigan and, John L. Lewis. I didn't even stop. I just turned right around in a circle, add went out that door and back to my office. And I knew what had happened. They had wanted to have an off-the-record discussion of the sit-down strikes that the Governor of course was trying to settle in Michigan, and Lewis was head of the CIO them, when they were both in Washington for the inauguration. They didn't want to have it anywhere where the press people would be apt to find out about. So Miss Perkins had called Mr. Altmeyer and said, "Arthur, can you fix it up so these two men can use your office when they're in here for the inauguration?" Arthur had said, "Yes," and there they were in there, and I came bursting in and found them. But, you know, it was so startling because they and Mr. Winant were three men who had the bushiest eyebrows you'd ever seen, and here they were just glaring at me, because they were startled, and I hadn't expected anybody to be in that office.

Well, she continued to keep in touch with Altmeyer, and he continued to be a devoted friend of hers.

Q: One other aspect of the work on the Committee on Economic Security I wanted to talk about is the health issue. There was originally some plan to include health care. I wonder what your impressions are of the AMA's role at that point. Did their efforts to prevent health insurance from being included become visible?

Mulliner: I think so. I think that was the main reason they didn't persevere. They just didn't want to take on that fight in connection with all the other things.

Q: Do you remember press stories and comments at that time? Or do you remember the Senator making any comments about the AMA?

Mulliner: Well, again, I can't remember whether it was at that time or subsequently. He didn't think the AMA was an organization that had any foresight at all as to this country's needs, and they were just so limited in their view of what their role was and should be. But of course at that time, you see, organized labor wasn't for certain provisions in the Social Security bill. They weren't for unemployment insurance for quite a while.

Q: How about the old age insurance bill?

Mulliner: I don't remember what William Green's position on that was.

Q: How about Barbara Armstrong? Did you know her?

Mulliner: Yes, I did, but I didn't know her well enough to recall anything about her. Somebody here in Washington who did know her well and worked with her then is Mrs. Marjorie Willcox, the wife of the general counsel, Alanson Willcox. She's a lawyer too, and she worked with Barbara Armstrong at the University of California as an undergraduate student, and they've had a long association. She could give you some real insights into Barbara Armstrong as a person.

Q: What about Wilbur Cohen? He was involved in this. Do you remember him at that time?

Mulliner: I didn't get to know Wilbur during the committee days. It wasn't until early 1936 that I got to know Wilbur. But of course he was here. He came with Ed Witte right out of college into this program.

Q: Perhaps we should postpone talking about Wilbur until we get you into the Social Security Board. I think that's our next step. How did you come to work with Social Security?

Mulliner: It gives you some insight into Mr. Winant. The Senator had talked to them in October, and along in late November, I guess it was, I got a buzz in the Senate Office Building that I should answer the phone. A call had come in for me. I picked it up and this very gentle voice said, "Miss Mulliner?"

And I said, "Yes."

He said, "This is Mr. Winant."

This was a great shock to me, because we had just been learning during those years how big industry operates in an office. You see, prior to NRA days very few businessmen had been in government. There had been in a few in the RFC. And when these big businessmen came into NRA, they set up a hierarchy system that the simple government had never known. You called so somebody. Maybe you'd want to get General Johnson at the NRA, and first you'd get somebody who answered the telephone, and you'd say Senator Wagner wanted to talk to General Johnson. And then you'd get a third secretary and then you'd get a first secretary and then you'd get Robbie and then she'd tell you whether or not the General could speak with Senator Wagner. So for me, to pick up the telephone and find Mr. Winant, the chairman of the Social Security Board, right there was really quite a surprise. He said, "Miss Mulliner, I would like to talk with you sometime."

I replied, "Well, Governor, I would certainly like to have a chance to talk with you. When did you want to see me?" Well, when would it be convenient for you?" And this is just typical.

"Oh, Governor, I could come anytime. Would you like to see me today?"

"Well, yes, that would be fine."

"Do you want me to come now?" says I.

"Well, yes. Could you do that?" just like you were doing him the biggest favor in the world.

Yes, I could, Governor, I'll come right down."

I hung up the telephone; I didn't even take time to put on my hat. I grabbed a copy of the Social Security Act in my purse and my hat. I bounded down the steps of the Senate Office Building and into a taxicab down to the Department of Labor where the temporary offices of the Social Security Board were.