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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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lot more to be done about that building than just to see that the fire escape wasn't okay.

He talked a great deal about politics, I remember. He was quite young and didn't know much about politics. He was younger than I was, but I was also young. I didn't know much about politics either. He was very cynical about politics, and particularly about Tammany Hall, about the way they linked in with this, and tied in with that. I remember his saying to me as we said goodnight one night at the foot of the stairs to the elevated railroad somewhere around Worth Street - we were saying goodnight after a factory inspection tour and I was going back to the office to write it up - as we talked about politics, “Oh, well, don't bother about them, Miss Perkins. They're all one band of brothers.” I had never heard the expression before, but I've thought of it so many times since - “They're all one band of brothers.” That was his way of summing up the relative values of the different politicians with whom, at that time, I was trying to deal on the Albany level with relation to getting a few bits of legislation through. He was cynical about whether they would ever come through or not. This must have been in 1912 or something like that.

He was a problem child who Uncle Henry told me all





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