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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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people to swallow - for some of these pious Protestants who never did anything wrong themselves, at least not saying so.

The mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa of Catholic training does a great deal to put men in their proper relationship - each individual man in his proper relationship both to God and to his fellow men. It's a very democratizing philosophy. That imposed upon a boy who has nothing else in the way of culture and of opportunity makes a terrific contribution to his character, if he's also got mentality and a desire to behave himself.

Whereas Pat Harrison came from a very different community, a very different background where he really hadn't been exposed to these problems and these hazards, and where everybody was poor. Poverty didn't seem so hard. I don't know much about Pat Harrison's early life, but I don't think he ever suffered the extremes of poverty. He knew and was “poor folks” but I don't think that these extremes of poverty that Al Smith knew as a little boy having to earn the family living when he was eleven quite caught Harrison. However, I don't know much about that.

In this Democratic party there were these aspirations that were very good and very unified. I think they are still there. They are these aspirations which, for want of a better name, we'll call social justice - the welfare of the rest of





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