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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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much in my life. Again it was mostly about Robert E. Lee. By the time they had had one drink of corn likker it was Robert E. Lee we were running for President. They'd forgotten about Al Smith.

Then we want to the speakin'. It was a public speakin', and anybody came. Little boys came. There must have been a hundred little boys, sitting in the front rows. It was the first time that I'd ever seen children at such a meeting. Also it was the first time that I realized that in the South you open every political meeting with prayer. I wasn't prepared for that. First of all, we had the Baptist or the Methodist minister pray - a long, extemporaneous prayer. I remember, gathering from the contents of his prayer, that he thought that God would take notice of the fact that Al Smith was a Roman Catholic and that Roman Catholics were not wanted in the USA. It was quite clear to me, although he didn't use those words, that he was taking it for granted that the Lord and the audience would understand these ideas. Both Irene and I were very sensitive to that - this fellow who offered the prayer was not for Al Smith. It was a very long prayer.

After the prayer was over, we managed to make our speeches. We did again pretty well, although we had more inhibitions about using the technique we'd used in Baltimore





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