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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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this look on his face several times at the convention. He was obviously far gone in the pangs of vanity and pride. When you see a person in that situation you really feel a kind of pity for them, because they think they're enjoying it, but actually they're laying the first steps of a downward path for themselves. I remember hoping at the time that he'd get over it, that it could never lead him anywhere if he kept on that way.

I began to wonder how much sense he had, or whether he was going to get befudlled by politics and lose his concept of himself as a competent labor leader. Already people like Murray, Lewis and even Dubinsky were saying to me privately, “Sidney's stuck on the idea he's a labor statesman.” You would hear that reflected from other people - “That's the labor statesman.” It was too bad. I'm sure he liked that phrase. It had a connotation to him that perhaps wasn't in everybody else's mind. A labor statesman meant to him one who had great political power and great political authority and position.

I think partly his having been raised on the socialist nursing bottle had led him into that way of thinking. The ordinary American workman doesn't even think about politics, except as Republicans and Democrats. He doesn't expect to have any more power, or any workingman to have





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