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called them. I got very angry and defended them. They laughed and pooh-poohed. They included Amos and Gifford Pinchot in this. I said, “How do you know he's a scoundrel?”, speaking of Gifford Pinchot.

“Look at his face. Look at his picture. You can tell by looking at him that he's a scoundrel.”

I remember being unimpressed, if I may say so, by the male and elderly logic that I was being treated to.

I had no political conviction with regard to party at that time. I can always remember when I decided that I was a Democrat, though I don't know that I can date it. It was soon after that and probably slightly before women had the vote. I remember saying in a group of people who were in my house and were talking that I believed that I would be a Democrat. We were speculating ahead as to how you could vote. I was much more concerned with New York State politics. It was before Al Smith ran for governor in 1918 that I said to myself and said to my friends, “I think if I had the vote, I believe, I would be a Democrat.”

I remember people laughing at me, jumping on me and saying, “Well, look at the scum of the earth they have.”

I only knew the state. I didn't know really what happened in Washington and in the rest of the country. That mattered very little to me. I was much more aware of locality