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most benign and pleasant person imaginable - shrewd and quick, but modest and quiet. When there was trouble, or when Smith thought there was trouble or that people didn't understand each other, he would often get Johnny Gilchrist to go and talk things over with them. Johnny did it in such a way that they didn't know there was a mediation going on. He would get a good estimate of the situation. He would often do just those things that brought people into harmony with each other, always in the Governor's interest.

Another mediator was George Van Namee, who was the Governor's Secretary and then Attorney General. There was a great florist in New York that was called Fleischman. I think that the Fleischman bakery people down at the old Vienna Bakery down by Grace Church had also branched out into a flower store. The Fleischmans had long been out of the picture and it was owned by this man's wife. He became a very considerable mediator - quite a mediator.

Another was William Pedrick. Rose Pedrick was the Governor's private secretary - stenographer. I don't know where he picked her up originally. It may have been in the Democratic State Committee. It was at some point. I think she worked for the Democratic State Committee at some time. At any rate, she'd been assigned to him in some campaign or other. She was an awfully good stenographer,