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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Mrs. Smith came with him. Mrs. Smith had almost the same look except that she almost cried three or four times. She couldn't believe it. She had been terribly, terribly hurt by the anti-Katie propaganda. Smith had been so hurt by that that it almost killed him. He could stand anything but that. I think it was the fact that Katie had been so talked about, degraded, hissed, and that such dreadful things had been said about her, that nearly killed him. That was what made his deep, silent, under-ground anger at the whole situation. It made him irreconcilable. You felt it on his face that night and you felt it on her face and in her behavior. She didn't feel right about a lot of the people who were there. She'd been told lots of stories that should never have been told to her. She had been told that certain of the people among the workers had said, or had assented to the idea, that she was pretty cheap stuff. That hurt her terribly. She was just like pulp. She was shaking.

As they came down one of the halls toward the big room, I was standing just outside of one of the office doors. There were crowds of people in the halls. Katie saw me. She threw her arms around me and she said, “Oh, come with me. Come with me. They're going to mob Al.” She began





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