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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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things, and put it up to them, sentimentally, “Do your duty--I call on you because I know I can trust you. You care for your country.”

He was very much given to that sort of thing, you know. He always got in some Republicans. And of course, that was all right. This was a bi-partison affair. But it was a part of that complex nature of his whereby he thought in terms of political technique at the same time that he thought in terms of patriotic technique. He didn't distinguish the two. I mean, I don't think he could have drawn the line himself. He utilized politics as a method. He exemplified the Aristotelian view of politics: that it's an essential part of man's nature, and that men is bound to be political and take political action, and that political action leads to partisan action. There are all sorts of ways around a political action. At the same time that you may see your end, your great objective, in mind, you use political means to it without even calling them political. They are political, and he knew it.

You remember that Lewis had refused the President's direction to go back to work, and the President had been very angry about it and very sore about it. This was some other time, not this time. At any rate, the Cabinet and his close advisors were all very angry that Lewis had acted so--all very angry. Lewis was the most unpopular man in the United States at this time.





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