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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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an excellent person who was very generous and very unselfish in his attitudes really.

Smith was defeated for Governor in the fall of 1920. I foresaw that come January 1st I would no longer be a member of the Industrial Commission. That was clear. Within a week or two Mr. Woodin and Martin Dodge, the Secretary of the Merchants Association, who has gone far and done awfully good work, came to see me. They were engaged in forming an organization for the aid of immigrants, of which New York was full. The Merchants Association had seen that unless we educated these immigrants - the war had partly taught them that - and brought them into relationship with the rest of the community, we had a hazard on our hands - a hazard of separation of people into racial groups and nationality groups. They didn't use the word “Americanization” - I don't think it had begun then. But they felt that they ought to learn English. We'd become aware of the fact during the war that a great many of these people who were foreign-born and living in New York didn't speak English and that whole communities grew up in which you had to speak a foreign language to get on.

They were interested in forming an organization to help these people. They were in cooperation with two or three other organizations. The Merchants Association was going to





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