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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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this way, he'd think of something else and his mind would be off on that.

Ever so many people had this sympathetic desire to help him, came down and couldn't make any headway because he wasn't systematic. I remember that Henry Bruere came down to help him with finances. Henry was devoted to him. He thought the world of him. The financial situation was in chaos. It was hit or miss, helter-skelter. Henry, having an extremely orderly mind, but also being imaginative and intuitive, and not being conventional and hidebound, was able to understand a great deal of Roosevelt. He never got over his affection and friendship for him, but he couldn't organize for him because Roosevelt couldn't remember what the organization was. While they were just developing the organization, he would go talk to Oliver Sprague, or somebody else and get off on a different track.

Finally, Henry Bruere said to him, “The only thing you need is a Secretary of the Treasury. You get yourself a Secretary of the Treasury and you'll be all right. You cannot work these things out in this chaotic manner. Get a Secretary of the Treasury and put everything under him.”





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