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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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have that same kind of look on their faces at times, having to bear it, having to take it in, unable to do anything, or assert anything, or find a clear line of action. The storm was rolling up over him and he had to take it. I don't know to this day whether he had faith that it would roll over him and he'd come out of it.

Of course, I don't know how much it meant to him to win, but this was certainly nothing that he had anticipated. He had not anticipated that if the President said he wanted Henry Wallace, there would a violent and vituperative personal objection of the kind that arose.

I'm told that several people have said that they talked to Wallace during these few hours and all that he could say was, “It'll be all right.” I think he must have said that to me too, but I don't think he said it to me during this period on the platform, which is the period of his most acute suffering. That phrase, I think, is an evasion in the first place. What can you say? He said that to me in the hotel corridor when we knew there was going to be opposition, but before the session actually began. I said something like, “I'm afraid they're going to have a kind of fight on this. It's too bad.” I was thinking. I must say, of





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