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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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meant by that, I don't know. I don't suppose that he meant a precise judgment of their advantages and abilities, but never to take advantage of a weaker man, to give the weaker man the breaks, if possible, to deal openly with people. I'm sure he had that as a real personal objective in the development of his own character. He had shrewdness, in spite of not being very sophisticated.

For instance, Mary Dewson was a great puzzle to him. He liked her enormously. She was a New England spinster of the blue blood and was just a total surprise to him. He had never met anybody that was remotely like her. Her impulses were intellectual and humanitarian impulses. Her breeding was very superior. Her manners were very superior. But she was capable of the most informal and friendly relationship with him and with other politicians. So that at the same time that he felt a kind of social superiority about her, he was very pleased by her friendship for him, because it was so democratic. He was the kind of man who would say that a person who treated him right was very democratic. It isn't democratic at all, though.

I like Jim Farley awfully well. He's a tender-hearted person. He wouldn't harm a fly. His vanities are obvious and never mean. You see it's a vanity,





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