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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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impressed by the distrust of the government, which you found not only among highly placed persons, but in the man on the street, the common man in the little country restaurant. They felt that the government was no good, that they would never fight a war, and many said, “The government will sell out.” It was personal distrust. There had been a great scandal a year or two earlier involving the government and a large number of people who had been government officials in a dirty, dishonest deal of some sort. Many of the men who were later discredited, because they abandoned the government, abandoned Paris, ran for Bordeaux with their own private chattels, possessions and friends, were involved in this scandal. It had something to do with the railroads, but I can't remember the whole thing. The whole matter came to light because somebody was murdered and that brought out a lot of things that hadn't been known by the public before.

At any rate, the people were very much disillusioned about that. There was a general distrust. That was the summer I guess that I had lunch with General Petain and Andre Tardieu and a good many others. I spent a very pleasant afternoon with them. Anne Morgan was a friend of mine and during the First World War





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