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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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he had been mean to Jim, perhaps he had crowded out this, that, and the other thing.

So there was bad feeling. I felt it and I think most other people felt it. In the meantime, however, the party gathered itself together, and sober people, whether or not they were awfully pleased about renominating Roosevelt, had agreed that it was inevitable. It had to be done. In the meantime, of course, I think the people of the United States, the great, run-of-the-mill people expected that Roosevelt would be renominated, and so he was. But there was a great deal of sourness.

It was during that period of sourness that those of us who were friends of Roosevelt, and of each other, and thought that we believed in the rightmindedness of the Democratic Party, belonged to the wing that was for social justice, would be talking to each other about what could be done, how it could be sweetened. Everybody said, “If only the President would come out here his personality would take all this sourness away. He's always so charming and pleasant, gives people the sense that he knows where he's going. His leadership is strong and this will all fall away.”

But he wouldn't come. He had said before we left Washington that he wouldn't come under any circumstances.





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