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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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lot about practical problems. He was the first person who ever called me “Miss Frances.” He started in, almost within the first half hour of our conversation, calling me Miss Frances. “Now, Miss Frances, I want to tell you.” How he picked it up I don't know. I did'nt ask him to, but it was his own idea of something that was both intimate and respectful. I don't know how he got it or where he got it. Perhaps it was something that came one of his own family. He had a very charming, delightful, cultivated wife, I later discovered - a lovely person whom I liked very much. She was someone you were very proud to know. She was a lovely person. At any rate, he told me a lot about the practical facts of political life, about how it is that the organization keeps alive. The organization can't keep alive without jobs. I, of course, was always in a state of protest and saying, “Why is that necessary?”

“Well, it's necessary to keep them interested in politics.” He let go on a very cynical theory that though the whole American way of living and self government is based on the participation of the people in politics, by George they won't participate. I thought at the time that it was cynical. I have wondered since if there wasn't





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