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pensions, tenement house. All the beginnings of social legislation went forward with a Democratic administration. I decided it was like Mr. Munchausen - “If you like it, take some more.” I decided that would probably be the direction in which the Democratic party would develop in the USA and it has. I sit here in 1952 and I say, “That's the direction the Democratic party has developed in,” although there were at that time some awful stick-in-the-muds in the Democratic party who had no intentions of its developing in that way, or no thought of it. But for the most part they stood by. You don't think that James W. Gerard was a howling radical or that he was all wrought up about social justice, but he stuck by. When he was all bent and old he said to me at the Chicago convention, “I've seen great changes come about in the Democratic party.”
I said, “I'm sure you have, Mr. Gerard.”
He said, “Long before you remember anything about it the Democratic party was the conservative party of this country. We've just grown with the times.”
I said, “When did that growth begin?”
“Well,” he said, “you know Al Smith of course right in our state of New York had something to do with that. He made an impression all over the country.”
I said, “Do you mean to say you think the Democratic
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