When Franklin D. Roosevelt was assembling his Cabinet in 1932, labor leaders had their own ideas about who should be Secretary of Labor.
By the time the President met with them, however, his mind was made up. He, had not only rejected their choices, he had selected a woman: Frances Perkins. Eleanor Roosevelt sympathized with her husband when he had to defend the unprecedented appointment before the labor leaders.
But when she tried to comfort him, the President shrugged it off, allegedly remarking, “Oh, that’s all right. I’d rather have trouble with them for an hour than trouble with you for the rest of my life!”
